Wednesday, February 3, 2016

How to Spot an Antichrist -- I John 2: 18-29

John, at the beginning of this letter writes, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”  Light shines from the throne of God. All living things face that light and bask in that light. As we behold His face, we shine that light out to others. As long as we face Him, we continually transmit that light to the world.
When we look away from Christ and look to the world, we are poor transmitters of that light. We become spotty, dirty reflectors of that light. Our sins prevent people from seeing Jesus through us.
In our country there has been a great falling away from the church. This is not because the church hasn’t been trying. It’s largely because we haven’t been reflectors of Jesus. We’ve not shown the real Jesus to the world. Our leaders have been caught in scandal, we’ve pursued political power and social prestige instead of godliness. People have had a taste something that they presume to be Christianity, but is really a watered down version of it.
When people don’t transmit God’s light, but they get in the way of it, John calls them “antichrist.”   The word “antichrist” in Greek doesn’t mean “against Christ” or “opposed to Christ” but someone who takes the place of Christ, and obscures who He really is. An antichrist is someone who stands in the way of Christ, like a big person in a crowd who obscures our view. An antichrist is a false interpreter of Christ, who claims to be interpreting Christ to the world, but is really just speaking his or her own words. A false leader or false interpreter of the Word is antichrist. Anyone who wants people to follow them, instead of following Christ is what John calls antichrist.
Such people are all around us, but how do we know them? There are so many people demanding our attention and allegiance that it’s hard for us to know who really deserves to be followed. So in this passage John gives instructions to help us make such a determination. Specifically, he gives us four signs to watch for to spot a teacher who will lead us astray.
  
1.  False teachers deny the people of Christ. 

 John writes in verses 19 and 20,
 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.
Christians do not have to always agree. Disagreement is a sign of a healthy church. It means that people are not just taking what is said at face value, but are using their brains to search for God’s truth. There are issues on which the church must agree, but there are many more issues on which we disagree.
False teachers seek more than disagreement though, because they desire separation. We may agree to disagree, but false teachers use minor disagreements to tear the church apart. 
The Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that Jesus was crucified on a pole not a cross. The Way International, another cult, argues that there were five crosses on Calvary, not three. Seventh Day Adventists argue that Saturday, not Sunday, is the real Sabbath. Some Churches of Christ believe that churches should only be named the Church of Christ.  Jesus Only Pentecostals believe that baptism must be done in the name of Jesus Only, and not in the Father Son and Holy Spirit. If all of these people were right, (and I don’t believe any of them are) what difference would it make before God?  These are minor, frivolous issues. Far more serious in God’s eyes is whether or not we deny God’s people and separate from those we love. To denounce the rest of the church over minor issues is like seeking a divorce, because we can’t agree on the design of the wallpaper in the kitchen!
John says we have an anointing from the Holy One—the Holy Spirit.  The church, the Body of Christ, is the abode of the Spirit. To deny the reality of the Church on earth is to deny the reality of God on earth.
In one of my classes I gave an assignment to trace the roots of their local church. One girl wrote that Jesus Christ started the church, but it was lost for two thousand years until twenty years ago when her pastor restarted the true church, and Christ’s church was reborn. I marveled at the arrogance of this--that Jesus would allow His church to disappear so that people would be deceived into thinking they were following Him when they were only going to hell, even though Jesus declared that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which denies the Body of Christ and the Spirit of Christ.

2.       False teachers deny the person of Christ.  

Verses 21-25:
I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us — eternal life.
The great truth that unites the church is that Jesus is God, the Son, and not just the Son of God. For the Jehovah’s Witnesses, he is a lesser god, the same as the archangel Michael. For the Mormons, he is the physical son of God, and Satan was his brother. For the liberal church, Jesus is just an enlightened man. For the Christian Science practitioner, he is a disembodied Spirit. Yet Jesus made in John 8 when He said, “Before there was Abraham, I am.”  I AM is the literal translation of Jehovah. He accepted worship, He told his Disciples to pray to Him. He said, “I and the Father are One.”  For hundreds of years, the church debated this, struggled with this, but came to a unanimous decision that this in fact was what Jesus is.
Christians disagree about many issues, but we all agree on the basics. Those basics center on Jesus, His person, life, death, and resurrection. False teachers become false in one of two ways.  Either they deny the basics of the faith, or they add to those basics with their own rules or doctrines.
Getting close to Jesus means study. There is no way around this. If you want to understand Jesus, you have to read the Bible, and not only the Bible, but what people have thought about the Bible. You should read this critically, but you must become involved in seeking to understand just who Jesus is.  Any sermon, any teaching that does not include Jesus Christ is not Christian teaching. Any message which may be preached by a Muslim or Jew is not Christian. Christ is the center of all we teach and all we do.

3.  False teachers deny the presence of Christ. 

John continues in 25-27:
And this is the promise that he made to us — eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything—and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you—abide in him.
Knowing Christ is not enough. We must also live in Christ. This means spending our time, energy, and power seeking to be united with Him.
In school, students often come to class not realizing what they are doing in higher education. They assume all they need to do is “learn stuff.”  By that they mean there is a body of knowledge they need to memorize. That’s fine for elementary education, but not for higher education. Higher education is all about applying stuff, analyzing stuff, synthesizing stuff with other stuff, and being able to restate and refine stuff, so that it becomes part of us.  They swallow information the way we would swallow a rock—we don’t digest it; it just goes right through. 
Jesus is a living person with whom we have a relationship. We have to come to know him with our heart as well as our head. We must talk to Him in prayer, seek Him as our friend and companion, and imitate His Lifestyle.
False teachers see Jesus as a packet of information that they alone possess. They have no concern whether Jesus lives in his followers, but they seek to have people depend on their knowledge. But Jesus wants us all to abide in Him. A preacher is not someone who goes up on a mountaintop to discover God, so that He can come down and lead the people. He lives among the people, constantly training them to go up on the mountaintop, and discover God for themselves. We are all children of God and responsible for discovering the Father for ourselves. 

4. False Teachers deny the practice of Christ. 

John ends the chapter in 28-29:
And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
Antichrists put their will above God’s will.  They do not look to God, but to themselves for guidance. They may say Jesus is Lord, but they practice something else.
Language leads us to hypocrisy. We are comfortable saying, “Jesus is Lord” because “Lord” is an archaic word we no longer use in common language. Can we say, “Jesus is Boss”, or “I must do whatever Jesus tells me to do”?  Making Jesus Lord means doing what He says---all of what He says, and not just a part.
False teachers lift one part of Christ’s commands and lift them above the others. They may lift up personal holiness and deny love, or else do it the other way around. They may lift up the life of personal prayer, and deny the commands to go out among people. They may lift up the commands to be faithful to the church, but deny the need to constantly renew and reform it. There are antichrists who are innovators and traditionalists, activists, and separatists, emotionalists, and intellectualists. When really Jesus is commanding us to do all. 

Let’s summarize like this. A true reflector of the Light is one who love Jesus with all his heart, mind soul and strength, and loves God’s people the same way. He follows Jesus, but not alone. He knows he needs the others, and he loves the others as well. In all ways, he bows his knee to the Christ, and worships Him alone. 

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