Exploring 1 John Session 11 1 John 2:18
Exploring 1 John Session 11 1 John 2:18
We are in our 11th session in our
exploration of 1 John. All previous
sessions are available online at www.hbcc.life
or YouTube channel hbcc life.
In this session, we will consider what the Apostle
means by time being “just about up” and what he means by antichrists. What you can walk away with is that believers
are to live in the day, one day at a time.
The truth that Jesus is fully God and fully human will again be considered
as we discover how a person earns the title of anti-Christ.
1 John 2:18 (MSG)
Children, time is just about up. You heard that
Antichrist is coming. Well, they're all over the place, antichrists everywhere
you look. That's how we know that we're close to the end.
John calls the members of the congregation “children”;
again it is a term of endearment that speaks of the loving attitude of an old
man towards those who
have accepted the gospel under his
mentorship. The heart of a good pastor sees
the congregation he or she serves as a family. Have you ever been a part of a functional
family? Most of us are acquainted with the
dysfunctional family. Hopefully, yours
was able to keep the fun in it. As
disciples of Jesus, we are to be building functional families, we call them
congregations, where being loved and loving others is the norm, where
acceptance and belonging are to be found, where safety and comradery form
mutually beneficial supportive relationships.
Disciples are to create an environment of trust. Is that the kind of Christ-follower you
are? One who creates community?
“Time is just about up.” Such controversy surrounds a discussion of
“the Last Days,” “the Last Hour.” It has
been two millennia since John wrote this.
Either he was mistaken or he means something else than what those words
literally mean. The clue to a reasonable interpretation is to see how the
phrase was used in John’s day. “In
biblical thought, the last time is the end of one age and the beginning of
another. It is last in the sense that things as they are pass away; but it
leads not to world obliteration but world re-creation” (Barclay's Daily Study
Bible). In the old-time, salvation was
found under the Old Covenant. In this
new time, the last time, salvation is found in the gospel, the New Covenant. The last time is this time.
A covenant is a contract. In ancient days the deal wasn’t sealed with
signatures, it was sealed in blood.
Jesus lifted a cup of wine during what we term the last supper and said
to those gathered around the table.
1 Corinthians 11:25 (NIV)
"This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do
this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
The new covenant is that by acknowledging your
sins, believing that Jesus can forgive your sins and reconcile you to God, you
commit yourself to be Jesus’ disciple and you ask the Father to accept your
faith. That’s the gospel.
Have you entered into the fellowship of
Christ? Have you confessed your
allegiance to the community, to the congregation? Acknowledge your sins committed while you
lived in the darkness. Believe Jesus can
forgive you of your sins, reconcile your relationship with the Father, and
deliver you into the light. Commit
yourself to walk in the light God gives you.
Ask God to accept your faith. You
will be granted entrance into the light.
It’s in the light that we await the second coming
of our savior. The Kingdom is Blazing, it
is overcoming the darkness. Disciples
live with the expectation that today, this day, a total victory of the Kingdom
of Light over the Kingdom of Darkness will be revealed. VE Day, Victory on Earth day:
Revelation 11:15 (MSG)
A crescendo of voices in Heaven sang out, The
kingdom of the world is now the Kingdom of our God and his Messiah! He will
rule forever and ever!
The follower of Jesus carries the expectation and
hope that VE day is upon us. Today is
the day to walk in the light. This is
the last hour. Get into the light, I want you in the light.
In this letter, the anti-Christ doesn’t refer to
one single person but rather an attitude, a disposition, an intention. Before God accepted our faith in Christ we
were all caught up in an anti-Christ spirit which means we did what we thought
was best, we set ourselves up as the arbitrators of morality, no one could tell
us what was right or wrong, truth or lie, morality is what we decided it to
be. In Hawaii, they have a term for
this: deaf ear. “Dat bruddah got deaf
ear, he never like listen.” Oh, was that
cultural appropriation? Email me let me know if I need to make a retraction and
apology. “Deaf Ear” is heedless, obstinate, and often self-deceived. The result
is walking in darkness.
Orchestrating the darkness is the spirit of
disobedience. That spirit is identified
as the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the dragon, the father of lies, the
murder from the beginning, the thief, the accuser of God’s children, the one
opposed to the Kingdom of God. This pied piper’s tune is “please yourself.” Please yourself is exactly what we are always
tempted to do. “Am I going to bend my
knee to God by choosing to love or am I going to please myself?”
One of my high school classmates has written a
book titled 2084. In his Orwellian book
the powers behind all the craziness in the world, the ones who are pulling all
the strings, the real power brokers are a group called the Syndicate. They are the ones who destabilize
governments, use social media to spread propaganda, convince the people to
sacrifice liberty for safety. It’s a
pessimistic read about what could happen in the future. As I read it I couldn’t help but think that
there is no evil cabal controlling the world, darkness occurs with every
refusal to love God and love others. As
the numbers of the refusers grow, the darkness grows. The darkness is the realm of Satan. Don’t lose heart, the Life-Light is blazing,
it shines brightest in the darkness ushering the darkness out. Are you walking
in the light? Are you shinning with the life of Christ? If so where ever you
are the darkness flees. You usher it
out.
The folks who choose to walk in darkness are
anti-Christs. Anti means against or opposed.
Christ means “anointed one” and we can understand anointed or anointed
as a reference to Jesus and the power to walk in the light. So anti-Christ can refer to anyone or
anything that is opposed to the gospel. Where there is a refusal to love God
and love others, there is darkness.
Specifically in this letter, those walking in
darkness have ideas about Jesus that undermine the gospel. If Jesus isn’t fully God and fully human
there is no salvation to be found in Him.
At Christmas we set aside a time to celebrate the incarnation, God
entering His creation as one of His creations. Only God could make things right
with God. Only God could atone for the sins of His creation. On our behalf, God
in Christ does exactly that. In the
Revelation of Jesus Christ, John will again write of the anti-Christ in more
definitive terms. Here in the letter,
John addresses the problem of many anti-Christs being currently at work and he
has this specific group which was formerly part of the congregation but were led
astray with the wrong Christology. Christology is a theological term that means
the study of Christ. This group John has identified as anti-Christs were part
of the fellowship that ceded from the congregation. They left because they claimed that they had
superior knowledge, a better salvation, which was such a major deviation from
John’s teachings about Jesus that made salvation impossible.
There can be no salvation if Jesus is not fully
God and fully human. Jesus has to be
fully human to have absolute identification with humanity. Jesus must experience what it means to be
human and the only way to do so is to be human.
Jesus accomplishes what Adam did not. [Recapitulation Theory] Jesus lives a righteous life and reverses
humanity's course of disobedience to one of obedience. “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ, all
will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Think of this in terms of reconciling a relationship. Suppose a close friend accuses you of doing
something that you didn’t. You get
offended, and rightly so. Who can make
things right with you? Can a mutual
friend make amends for what the other person did? No, of course not, only the offending party
can make reconciliation for their offense.
Jesus had to be truly human: a human who like Adam represents all
humanity to the One who created humanity. This is one side of the of the
equation.
Hebrews 4:14-16 (MSG)
Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to
God—let's not let it slip through our fingers. We don't have a priest who is
out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing,
experienced it all—all but the sin. So let's walk right up to him and get what
he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.
The other side of the equation is that Jesus has
to be truly divine because only God can forgive sin. Let’s say that close friend sins against you,
but instead of estrangement, you allow love to overcome the situation. God is
the offended party. Humanity’s disobedience
is the offense. In Jesus, offense and
forgiveness collide; guilt and acquittal integrate; justice and mercy bond; estrangement
and the reconciliation meet; only God can do this. To set things right, the Creator had to take
responsibility for His Creation. Only God saves, redeems, and reconciles.
Jesus is fully God and fully human. Remove divinity or humanity and salvation is
an impossibility. It is faith in the
atonement made by the God-Man that opens the door for you to be reconciled, to
walk in the light, to thrive in the light. I want you in the light.
John 3:19-21 (NIV)
This is the verdict: Light has come into the
world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for
fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into
the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done
through God."
Our dear ones who refuse to enter into the light default
into anti-Christ behaviors. All who
refuse to love God and all who refuse to love others are behaving like anti-Christs. Those who once fellowshipped with us, and did
not overcome offense with love and instead forsook the congregation are
behaving like anti-Christs. Those within
the congregation who refuse to love causing disruption within the community of
faith are behaving like anti-Christs.
Anti-Christs do not know right from wrong, they do what pleases
themselves, they stumble along in darkness perpetuating evil, while blaming
others for the very deeds they do, accusing the righteous of the very evil that
they do.
Look around, open your eyes, there are many
anti-Christs, those who are blatantly opposed to God, those who manifestly
disregard and hate others. Time is almost up.
The clock keeps ticking and the clock seems to pick up speed. Live fully today. Get into the light and stay in the
light. Think right. What’s right?
Right is loving God and loving others.
Let your light shine, expose the lies that captivate people’s
thoughts. Do right. What’s right? Right is actions that demonstrate love for
God and love for others. Be like Jesus, be a light in your world. Shine, don’t put it off, do it now. The clock is ticking.
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