FIRST JOHN

Knowledge and the Antichrist

1 John 2:19-26

INTRODUCTION

The Gnostic heresy is rocking the Christian church of St. John's day. Verse 19 shows you the seriousness of the threat facing the Christian church: "They went out from us, but they were not really of us, for it they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out in order that it might be shown that they are not of us." Twice, actually three times, in this one little verse John relates how many have left the church because of this heresy. It really did threaten the early church.

In addition to its error regarding sin (as seen in session 2) Gnosticism added 2 more errors: one regarding knowledge and the other regarding Christ. Gnostics claimed that they had "secret" knowledge which only they as Gnostics could receive. (They received this knowledge from Gnostic teachers and mentors.) They adopted a superior attitude towards non-Gnostics who did not possess such knowledge.

Naturally this appeal to knowledge would mislead many people. I mean, who doesn't want to have superior knowledge? The bottom line is that the appeal to elitism is what really attracts people to such heresies. These heretics are claiming that they are actually superior to everybody else.

The second error revolves around Christ. Earlier we saw that the Gnostics claimed that whereas the spirit was good, the body was bad. This belief posed a problem for the Gnostics because they claimed that they were "Christians" and that Christ was divine. In order to get around this, they claimed that Christ and Jesus were 2 separate beings: Christ was the divine spirit and Jesus was the human being. Jesus lived for 30 years upon earth. At His baptism the divine Spirit came upon Him and empowered Him for 3 years. As Jesus the Man was dying, the divine Spirit left Him. For this reason they claimed that Jesus cried out: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" What is John's response to this?

CHRISTIANS AND DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

The Gnostics claimed that they (and not Christians who followed the apostles) had superior knowledge. According to John did Christians have knowledge (2:20)?

In fact what % of Christians have knowledge (2:20)?

According to John what do Christians have which gives them knowledge (2:20)?

The anointing here literally refers to the Holy Spirit. The word "anointing" in Greek is chrisma. Christ which means "The Anointed One" christens us with His Spirit. Because Christ's Spirit lives within us, we have communication from Christ Himself. According to Paul 1 Cor. 2:12 why has God given us His Spirit?

According to Jesus how well can we know Him (John 10:14-15)?

The Spirit of God within us is not some mindless blob. He is a thinking person who can communicate to us knowledge of God's will. Since ALL Christians have God's Spirit living within them (Rom. 8:9), each Christian can have this knowledge from God, the wise as well as the least smart of all Christians. C. S. Lewis claims that even a John Bunyan who never had formal schooling was able to achieve greatness; this helps explain why.

The implications of this teaching is that we can know God's will for our lives. If we don't, then either we have not listened to God or else He won't communicate to us because He knows we won't do His will if He does communicate it to us. According to Jesus what is the one thing a person must be willing to do in order to know whether or not a communication is from God (John 7:17)?

The "problem" with Christianity and knowledge is that because the HS dwells in each believer, even the "dumbest" Christian can know the things of God. This hurts our pride which God loves to hurt since it destroys our relationship with Him and with others.

THE HUMAN JESUS IS THE DIVINE CHRIST (2:22-23)

John speaks about 2 persons in 2:22. Who are those 2 persons in 2:22 and what is their chief characteristic?

Notice that twice John uses the definite article "THE" in order to emphasize a particular person in history: THE liar, THE antichrist. Not just any ol' liar, or just any ol' antichrist. Rather he is pointing to a specific unique figure in history.

Notice also that he doesn't go into great depth about this person. The reason is that the people he is speaking to already had a lot of information about this person. His emergence is spoken of in Matthew, Mark, John, 2 Thess., 1 John and Revelation. He just needed here to give them some information about the Antichrist which they did not have. John's opponents were actual embodiments of the spirit of antichrist.

At first John's questions and comments in 2:22 may seem like he is referring to 2 separate persons. They actually aren't. The liar is the antichrist: the antichrist is going to be author of a huge lie. The lie is that Jesus is not the Christ, that is, the historical Jesus is not the divine Christ.

This lie is an attack on the uniqueness of the historical Jesus. Just like so many people today teach today, the Gnostics may have claimed that Jesus was something special, like a great man or great teacher: however, they also denied that the physical historical Jesus was not the divine Son of God.

For example, whenever a presidential candidate entered a polling both with both a small statue of Madonna and child AND a Hindu talisman of the monkey god, then let me tell you that he does not believe in the uniqueness of Christ. When he claimed that he came to God through Jesus but that there are other ways to God, he has denied the uniqueness of Christ and has been influenced by the spirit of antichrist. (This does NOT mean he is antichrist. It is just that he has been swayed by the lie of the antichrist.)

The NT writers are adamant that the divine Christ was the human Jesus. For example in John chapter 20 we see the resurrected Christ. Well, maybe that was just the divine, spiritual Christ and not the historical Jesus. What does Jesus do though to show His disciples that He really is divine Christ (John 20:19)?

What does Jesus do though to show the disciples that He is the historical Jesus (20:20)?

According to John what does the Antichrist deny (1 John 2:22)?

What happens to the person who denies that Jesus is the Son (1 John 2:23)?

We saw this same situation with our last president. He went around saying that Muslims and Christians worship the same God (the same would apply to the Jews). According to John the problem is that if you don't have the Son, you don't have whom?

Many people want to go around claiming that God is love and that He is Father. Well, the only way you know that God is a loving Father is that He has a Son, Jesus, who revealed to us that God was His Father and desires to be our Father too, if only we will enter into a right relationship with His Son, Jesus. All the talk that says we all worship the same God is Hindu belief, not Christian thought. Even worse, it is a lie promulgated by the antichrist.