Bibles
Knowing God
This brings us to that old debate about knowing God (relationship),
versus knowing about God (reasoning).
There is today a myth in circulation that it is necessary to know a lot
about God before we meet Him: that we get to God by reason, or how much we
know, or how smart we are. This is
proved to be false from several perspectives.
Essence
The essence of God is described as infinite, not countable,
not measurable, not locatable, not possible to time or date, not knowable: God
is undefined and undefinable in every way.
This is why Revelation is so essential: for if God did not disclose
Himself to us, we would not know Him or anything about Him at all.
All of the old scholastic arguments
[i]
fail because of this fact: all assume and require Revelation for their
structure.
Man is simply not smart enough
to reason His way to God.
Spirit
The Holy Spirit was sent from the Father, at the Son’s
request to teach us the Scripture.
No substantial
learning takes place until we meet and are indwelled by the Spirit at Baptism
by the Spirit.
Until that moment, we
struggle in vain to fill our heads with facts; but, no real learning takes
place, and we know nothing, understand nothing.
Knowing about God requires a gift of the Spirit, which we receive when we meet
Him.
[ii]
Apostles
The Apostles are our example.
They knew virtually nothing about Jesus; He
was just a stranger walking down the beach.
Then, one day they met Him; He said follow me and I will make you become
fishers of men.
[iii] First they met God; then they followed God:
in the process of following God, they learned about Him, one step at a time.
This was a fairly common method of teaching in
that era: this is where knowing about God begins.
Commission
We might falsely suppose that we are somehow different: we
think we can learn all about God, before meeting Him personally.
But, knowledge flows out of relationship; not
the other way around.
The Great
Commission is our proof for this.
The
imperative of the Great Commission is “make disciples”.
[iv] The process is identical to that for the
Apostles: first we meet Jesus through the power of the Spirit; then we learn about Jesus, one step at a time.
This is what discipleship means: learning by following.
Israelites
The ancient Israelites (circa 1406 BC), were little
different: God saved them at Passover; He met with them at Sinai; He walked
with them in the desert for forty years.
The main difference is that few of them had any gift from the
Spirit. Many turned away from God: from
all earthly appearances, it would seem that they lost their salvation.
Scripture
If we are not yet convinced that we must know God before we
can begin to learn about Him, consider this:
“For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew
not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching[v]
to save them that believe.” — 1 Corinthians 1:21[vi]
John
This is why John begins this passage with the words, “You have
Anointing from the Holy”: for, this is the precedent to all knowledge about God.
We cannot find God simply by being
smart.
God finds us, and after we have
met Him, if we walk with Him, we begin to learn about Him.
[vii] Knowing about God starts with knowing Him.
Harshness
John’s language may seem harsh to the modern reader; but, we
don’t think John intended this. The
terms liar and antichrist are strong pejorative terms today; yet, we doubt that
these terms were understood that way in the first century.
[viii]
“You have Anointing from the Holy.
[ix] You also know all.
[x] I did not write to you, because you do not
know the truth; but, because you know her; and because any lie
[xi]
is not of the truth.
Who is the one lying
[xii],
if not the denier
[xiii]
[who claims] that Jesus is not
[xiv]
the Christ?
This is the one against Christ
[xv],
the denier of the Father and the Son.
Any denier of the Son, neither has
[xvi]
he the Father.
[xvii] You, therefore, let
[xviii]
what you heard from the beginning dwell in you; if what you heard from the
beginning would dwell in you; you will also dwell in the Son and in the Father.
[xix] This is the promise which He promised us, the
life eternal.
I wrote these to you about
your [would be] deceivers.
[xx] The Anointing
[xxi]
which you received from Him, dwells in you;
[xxii]
so, you do not have need that anyone would teach you: but, as the same
Anointing
[xxiii]
teaches you about all; is true; is not a lie; and just as He taught
[xxiv]
you, dwell
[xxv]
in Him.
Now, Dear Children,
[xxvi]
dwell in Him; so, whenever He should be revealed we would have confidence and
might not be ashamed before Him in His Presence.
[xxvii]”
— 1 John 2:20-28
Henotheism
We commonly hear the argument concerning henotheistic or
monotheistic religions that, they’re all the same God. Philosophically, this might appear to be
true. After all, if there is only One
God, it would seem to be a logical contradiction to claim that there is any
essential difference between them: only the names differ from language to
language: it is falsely claimed that the God of Christians, Ein Sof, and Allah
are all the same. There is some credence
to this: how else would we say God of Christians in some languages if we were
not permitted to say Allah of Christians.
Or is it not philosophically true that the God of Christians is Ein Sof
of Christians, The One of Christians.
Mirrors and Smoke
But, these philosophical smoke screens beg the question by
twisting its nature. When we speak of
the God of Christians, we do not speak of a philosophical concept, we speak
theologically of Three Persons, Who desire to establish a relationship with
every member of the human race; and Who have gone to inconceivable lengths to
create such a relationship. So, when we
speak of the God of Christians, we are talking about the Trinity, One in
Essence and Undivided… Father, Son, and Spirit.
These Three are our nearest and dearest friends throughout life and
beyond.
Blunders
The person who claims that these deities are all the same
has committed a philosophical blunder, a falsehood, a lie: it’s not pejorative
or personal, it’s just a fact. Such a
person is, logically, against Christ: which is simply the correct title for the
situation.
Nominal Christians often make such statements; possibly,
casually, without realizing that they have believed or stated a lie… without
realizing that they themselves are antichrists.
Depending on how seriously or deeply such people hold to such false
beliefs, they may not be Christians at all: even though they cling to the name,
Christian.
The Focus
John is not being harsh.
He is simply being honest and accurate; which is how we also should
approach these verses.
Ethics
We also hear a lot about the Judeo-Christian ethic. There is no such Judeo-Christian ethic. Jesus Christ expelled Judaism from His Church
in 33 AD. Individual Jews became
Christians the same way individual Gentiles became Christians: by repentance
and faith. Individual Jews heard the glorious
message of the Gospel of Christ with the Father and the Spirit and willingly,
gladly left Judaism. Judaism, itself, is
a lie, antichrist. Individual Gentiles
happily abandoned their vain Greek philosophies, often burning their books
filled with false reasoning. Most of
ancient Greek philosophy is a lie, antichrist.
Much of modern philosophy, psychology, science so-called, is also a lie,
antichrist. Christianity stands alone as
a bright light shining in a very dark world.
Dilution is no
Solution
Yet, more and more, Christianity is being diluted, filled,
watered down with false Jewish superstitions and Pagan philosophies, lies,
antichrists; until it can no longer be called Christianity.
Many churches have already succumbed to a peripheral
necrosis.
The blood of Christ
[xxviii]
no longer flows unimpeded through the spiritual arteries; because, they are
clogged with lies, antichrists.
False Emphasis
We need not be concerned with the great Antichrist, out
there, lurking somewhere, who will finally overthrow the world with his
lawlessness. We need to be concerned
with the antichrists lurking in our own hearts, diluting our faith, clogging our
spiritual arteries; until, at last, the whole Christian Church on earth has
slowly atrophied away, one soul at a time.
Watchfulness
This is what it means to watch and pray, lest we succumb to
temptation.
Sleeping, spiritually, is
not the failure to stay awake all night in prayer, although that is a great
delight; it is failure to identify the lies, the antichrists, and remove them
from the heart; it is letting the unspiritual plaque buildup until the blood of
Christ ceases to flow freely with in us and among us.
The atrophied limbs become withered, neurosis
sets in, becoming fully necrotic they die; the Vine Dresser has no choice: He
must cut them off and burn them before they poison the whole vine.
That which is now gangrenous, must be
excised, by Him; not by us.
[xxix]
Adversaries
What shall we do with these, our adversaries and
enemies.
We shall love them forthrightly
by telling the truth in love
[xxx],
and with gentleness and respect
[xxxi].
[i]
These arguments are instructive, even though seriously flawed.
Ultimately, they make assumptions that don’t
square with Revelation.
The question is
unresolved: do we learn about God in Revelation, or do we meet Him there?
Anthropological, Cosmological, Ontological, Teleological arguments,
and much, much more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God
https://www.theopedia.com/arguments-for-existence-of-god
[ii]
Luke 11:13; John 7:38-39; 14:16-17; 20:22; Acts 1:8; 2:33, 38; 5:15, 17; and
more
[iii]
Matthew 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; 19:21, 28; Mark 1:17, 20; 2:14; 8:34;
10:21; Luke 5:27; 9:23, 59, 61; 14:27; 18:22; John 1:37-39; 43; 8:12; 10:27;
12:26; 21:19, 22
[v]
The foolishness of the message proclaimed; proclamation is necessary, on the
part of the ambassadors, in order that the audience might meet God through
them, as they were baptized following the proclamation.
Then their learning could begin.
[vi] also 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
[vii]
John 16:13; Psalm 25:5; 43:3
[viii]
We partially break this pejorative tone by employing a different translation to
destroy the buzzword mentality and pattern so common among some; liar becomes
the one lying; antichrist transitions to against Christ: thereby, completely
removing the false antichrist concept from Scripture.
This is much closer to John’s tone of
address.
If you are embarrassed by this,
don’t feel too bad; it has taken me since 1968, fifty years, half a century of
Bible study to arrive at this conviction.
[ix]
Perhaps, “You have a Holy Anointing,” would be smoother in English idiom, if
somewhat less true to Greek idiom.
John
writes of the Holy Spirit who is the sole giver of all knowledge.
Knowledge in the Bible is more relational;
less an assembly of perfect lemmas; less argumentative.
[x]
Not everything; yet, they know all the essential fundamentals of the
Faith.
This is not flattery: these
things are known because the Spirit indwells them and the Church is blessed
with lesser faithful teachers.
Most
importantly, they know Father, Son, and Spirit relationally: this is all
knowledge.
[xi]
ψεῦδος: the neuter noun may mean deception; yet, here it clearly emphasizes
falsehood, or falseness in contrast with the truth.
John is arguing logically, philosophically,
or theologically here.
He applies the
law of contradiction or non-contradiction.
In logic, no contradiction can ever be allowed to stand.
[xii]
ψεύστης: the masculine noun of the same word has almost a participial feel to
it: the one lying, the one committing the philosophical error of falsehood by
contradiction, the one who has erred logically.
The Greek seems to have a Hebrew flavor in that the adjectives and nouns
derive from the verb: which is quite common in Hebrew.
If any doubts remain concerning the
participial feel of this word; note the parallelism with the true participle
denier, the one denying: the parallelism argues for similar construction and
interpretation.
[xiii]
Subjective use of the participle, the one contradicting, declining, denouncing,
denying, disclaiming, disowning, refusing, renouncing.
John may have in mind an act of public voting
that required voters to acknowledge Caesar as God; or a court legal action that
required witnesses to swear.
In any case
the hypothetical denier would be publicly and readily identifiable.
[xiv]
The second negative, in Greek idiom makes the negation emphatic: μὴ in the
world of forms is the perfect conceptual denial; οὐκ in the physical word is
the true outward act of denial.
This
suggests that denial is something demonic that becomes exposed by physical
speech or other actions.
[xv]
John is the exclusive user of this word, by which he describes broad movements,
never individuals.
He is not attacking
other people, he is putting a logically derived name on a dangerous error:
namely, all opposition to Christ in any form (1 John 2:18 (2x), 22; 4:3; 2 John
1:7).
Nor is there justification for
associating any of John’s verses with 2 Thessalonians 2:1–4, where the word
antichrist is not used; the focus is on an individual, the lawless one.
So, John focuses on movements, not a specific
individual; John’s concern is the essence of Christ and of God, not on lawless
behavior.
If we are carried away by a
false eschatology, we will miss John’s main point: the principal antichrists of
John’s day were Judaism and the vain philosophies of the Greeks: this is still
the foundation of the case today, yet, many new twists have been added to the
mix.
John is developing a high
Christology, and a high Pneumatology: that is where we need to keep our
focus.
The denial of the Holy Trinity is
still widespread today.
[xvi]
This play on have and have not, has and has not, is about the Holy Anointing,
which is the Baptism of the Spirit (Matthew 28:19); which, everywhere, shows
forth the Trinity: more specifically, here, the denial that Jesus is God, One
in essence with the Father.
[xvii]
There is little manuscript support for the phrase, “the confessor of the Son
also has the Father”:
אBAC; אBAC are usually considered Alexandrian text, especially outside of the
Gospels. However, this support is from
among stronger manuscripts. The phrase
has every evidence of being an added theological clarification: usually we
would expect to see such additions in the Byzantine text, but not in the
Alexandrian text. This reverses our
usual expectation.
[xix]
Note John’s emphasis on relationship; this knowledge is indwelling, alive
inside the believer: it is not merely a rational grasp of a few basic facts.
[xx]
It seems to us that John deals more with the prevention of a potential danger,
than with the correction of a present fault; heretics are seeking to deceive:
John does not say that these have had success: yet, John may be dealing gently
and tenderly with a harsh reality.
[xxi]
The Holy Spirit is the Anointing.
[xxii]
This completes the Trinitarian indwelling relationship, which works both ways:
God in us; we in God.
[xxiii]
The Holy Spirit is the Anointing.
[xxiv]
As far as mankind is concerned, this appears to be the principal work of the Spirit:
namely, teaching Christians about the Father and the Son.
[xxv]
μένετε: second person plural, present active imperative: a
straightforward command in either English or Greek.
[xxvi]
John may be addressing the newly baptized.
The term used here is one of endearment, not necessarily that of age:
John, their spiritual father, counts them as his spiritual children.
[xxvii]
We do not automatically have assurance as many suggest.
Assurance is the outcome of years of working
at our part of the indwelling relationship: this builds confidence in God.
Dwell is a command: it is something God bids
us to do.
The outcome is not a sure
thing; we still face judgement in His Presence: being ashamed is a true
possibility.
We must watch and pray lest
we enter into temptation (Matthew 26:41).
We must pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
These are not options.
Lord have mercy.
[xxviii]
John 15; Matthew 13:1-9, 13-15, 18-23, 24-30
[xxix]
Yes, Gertrude, the Church on earth is slowly dying.
Many Christians are so lulled to sleep by
lies and antichrists, they don’t even realize that the Church on earth is
dying, slowly, almost imperceptibly.
We
have drunk a deadly poison and we need the antidote, which is “Christ in Us the
Hope of Glory” (Cindy Berry’s hymn title; more especially, John 6:30-71; 15).
