1 John 2:18-23 Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
As we see in the above scripture, some people were leaving the community of believers because of aberrant ideas, holding the belief that Jesus was not really the Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. The understanding that Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of the church remains necessary to the fellowship of believers. If a person tries to replace this foundational fact with other truths, he or she is moving into the antichrist realm. Yes, religion can be positive, can do good things, but religion alone will not break the bondage of this world. Only the blood of Jesus will bring power to enter the kingdom of God. For the blood appeased the wrath of God on sin. Everything that is not like God has to be covered by the blood, the propitiation for a wayward creation. The sacrifice on the cross for sinful men separates the world and the antichrist spirit from Christianity. People will accept a general belief that there might be a God who started life on Earth. They even might desire to believe in a supernatural designer behind life. Their beliefs may include life on the other planets or in the cosmic ethereal, but they stumble to believe that there was a man called Jesus who was the personification of God who performed many healing and supernatural events. He interrupted the natural processes of diseases and caused the flesh to be restored to health. He even raised the dead. He stopped the natural flow of the environment, interfering with the wind and the waves. His miracles not only affected biological man, but also the environment. This belief goes too far for many who would like to consider him a great teacher or even a spiritual guru, but they do not want to consider him as the Son of God. John says, those people who were once in their midst are liars, for the Holy Spirit within the community of believers has revealed clearly that Jesus was and is the Messiah. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. They are liars, and their need to leave the Christians is for their own fleshly desires. Over the millenniums since Christ dwelt on Earth, many people have come out from the believers, claiming to be the Christ. Others have come out to form religious groups, attacking the divinity of Christ. Some claim that Jesus is just one of the many Christs. Others leave the Christian encampment for their own self-engrandisement, claiming that Jesus is merely a created being, no more exceptional than the creation of any other human that people lift up as important. These self-serving men and women are carrying these claims to counter the teachings of Jesus as the only begotten Son of God. Because the questioning of the divinity of Christ is so damaging to the salvation of people, John has no patience with it. These ideas come from the pit of hell, from the father of lies himself, the devil. (See John 8:44)
Jesus is the only way to God. Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14:6-7) Jesus reveals himself to his disciples and says He will return to his Father. Accepting him as the Son of God will manifest the Father and his likeness to them. Jesus brings hope to their finite lives that they will be with him someday in his Father’s house. John says that any other belief is a lie—not foundational to the body of Christ. The writer of Hebrews reveals the divinity of Christ. Long ago God spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. And now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son he created the universe. The Son radiates God’s own glory and expresses the very character of God, and he sustains everything by the mighty power of his command. When he had cleansed us from our sins, he sat down in the place of honor at the right hand of the majestic God in heaven. (Hebrews 1:1-3) As with John 1, we see God creating everything that is through Jesus, his Son. Jesus comes to Earth to create new creatures through his sacrifice on the cross. His death and resurrection produce eternal life for all who believe by faith in his works. We know Jesus took the name “son of man.” People were made a little lower that angels. We are called collectively the son of man, no higher than the angelic host, possessing no supernatural abilities. Destined to die after a few years, we are unrighteous with lives of trouble and violence. Yet, Jesus called himself the son of man, born as man was born. For in one place the Scriptures say, “What are mere mortals that you should think about them, or a son of man that you should care for him? Yet for a little while you made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them authority over all things.” Now when it says “all things,” it means nothing is left out. But we have not yet seen all things put under their authority. What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. (Hebrews 2:6-10, NLT) Jesus became the leader of all the sons and daughters of men. God planned to bring us to his side, just as the only begotten Son is by his side. The angels are not in his intimate family. Jesus came as the son of man, to raise all men and women to the position of sonship and daughter-ship. As we are, Jesus became a little lower than angels, to suffer life as human’s suffer, so He might be tempted with finiteness. He understands our fear in our place of finiteness, and provided a way we might be redeemed by his blood to a place of honor in God’s household, just as He is honored by the Father. What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” We also are crowned with the glory of Jesus, for we are now known as his brothers and sisters. So now Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father, that is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:11, NLT) Jesus took the name of son of man so that through his exaltation to his rightful place in God’s household, we too, sons of men, could be so honored. By faith, we are IN HIM and He is IN US.
Peter talks at length about the people who claim to be prophets of God, but who are really the messengers of Satan. When people set themselves away from the body of Christ, claiming to have a message that they only are privy to, beware, for you are dealing with false doctrine. These people will set themselves up as having divine insight, special knowledge. Through the years, some even have claimed to be the Christ. Others lead people away with strained interpretation of the scripture or with so-called new revelations given to them by angels. But in all these situations, the flesh, with the desire to be known as special, presides. By claiming to be someone unique, even Christ, or by claiming a new and better interpretation of the scriptures, people manifest themselves as divine, above the the crowd. All of this self-engrandisement denotes foolishness and danger to weak believers. As Peter says, These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. (2 Peter 2:17-18) Most of these wayward doctrines and ideas return people to slavery, following do’s and don’t’s, forgetting salvation is through grace and faith in Christ’s works, not their own. Rather than relying on God’s goodness and his free gift through Christ, they once again become entangled with fleshly ways of trying to earn salvation. Some fall into depravity, thinking good works will free them from their sins. Unfortunately, sin is preeminent in the flesh, preventing people from solving the problems of evil. The devil’s nature is sin. His magnetic field of authority will attract the iron filings of sin in your life as long as you live in the flesh. In your natural state, you will always do the will of his sinful magnetic force. As a new creature in Christ, you are metaphorically made of a heavenly substance: holy, incorruptible, free from the field of Satan’s power. This is what the new creature is, a different composite, made up of God in man by the power of the Holy Spirit. Think of the Israelites. Pharaoh cannot keep you in Egypt, for you have crossed the Red Sea. You are bound for the Promised Land. Do not let your memory go back to Egypt and the old lifestyle under bondage to Pharaoh. Instead, recognize you are free; reckon the old life dead to you, regardless of the wandering of your mind. You have crossed into a new life. Pharaoh’s army has been destroyed. Do not let any person, idea, or dogma bring you back into Egypt, where you worked day and night just to survive. You are a NEW CREATURE. As a son or daughter of man, you have been delivered to God’s side by THE SON OF MAN. He paid the price for all sons and daughters of men to be forever in the household of God as joint-heirs with Christ. He became a little lower than the angels so that He in his resurrection could lift the redeemed to the rightful place that God intended for them from the beginning of time. This is the truth of the Gospel, whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment