For or Against
1 John 2:18-27
“For or Against”
1 John 2:18-27
Parenting is an art form. Tone, topic, and timing are crucial for parents when communicating to their children. There are times parents must come alongside and comfort their children when they make a mistake. What does a parent say when a child breaks a valuable family item? Was it on purpose? Does the child feel remorse? Is there a pattern of behavior that led the child to be careless and flippant? Was it merely an accident? When does a parent give a hard word of warning to their child? When do they give a consequence, and what should that consequence be? The heart of parenting may stay the same, but the art of parenting changes as a child moves from being a toddler to the elementary years, from being a preteen to being a teenager. It most certainly changes as the child eventually moves out on their own. The art of parenting evolves as the needs and environment of the child continue to grow and change. Parenting is an art form.
Pastoring is also an art form. The tone, topic, and timing of a pastor are crucial when communicating to their congregation. There are times we come along and give words of comfort and assurance, while there are other times when a stern word of rebuke and warning better fits the occasion. The church is not uniform. There are things that corporately face the body, yet within the body there are individuals who need comfort, while others need warning. The challenge, like parenting, is knowing the right word for the right occasion. And as in parenting, pastors may say the right word at the right time for the right occasion, but their people may not rightly receive that word. And yet, as in parenting, pastors speak not for the short-term happiness of their children but rather for the eternal wellbeing of their souls.
What we want to hear as children is not always what we need to hear as children. Beloved, you are God’s children. You are precious in his sight, and he has entrusted your souls to my care and the care of the other elders. Hebrews 13:17-19 says, “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.”
One day we will have to stand before God and give an account for how we kept watch over your souls. Did we give the right words at the right time for the right occasion? Did we warn you of the dangers for your souls and comfort you with the truths of the gospel?
The weight of shepherding your souls is a glorious honor and a joyful burden. As a parent, you sometimes feel the immense weight of your responsibility, yet you would not exchange your position because of your love for your children. You are loved. I am so grateful for how so many of you have responded to this challenging season by praying more fervently for our elders while encouraging us to press on in Christ. I would encourage you, as the author of Hebrews exhorted the believers in his day, to “pray for us…that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things.” We want to shepherd wisely, for our aim could not be greater. We long to see the salvation of your souls in the eternal rest that comes with persevering the faith of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ once for all delivered to us by the apostles.
Two simple questions will frame our time this morning: are you against Christ, or are you anointed by Christ?
Are you Against the Christ?
Parents always have to make sure their children are aware of the dangers in society. John looks at his congregation as his children and wants to prepare them for those who may want to deceive them. 1 John 2:18–19 states, “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 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.” John begins by emphasizing that it is the last hour. The time between the inauguration of the kingdom of God by Jesus Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension has been referred to as the last days. John heightens even that language to refer to the last hour. It is meant to focus our attention on his words.
John reminds the church that they have heard that the antichrist is coming. In Matthew twenty-four and Mark thirteen, Jesus spoke about the abomination of desolation and the great tribulation and end of days. Paul speaks about the Antichrist in 2 Thessalonians two, and John writes of the Antichrist in Revelation twelve through fourteen. As there have been forerunners and types that foreshadowed the coming of the Messiah, there are also types and forerunners that foreshadow the coming of the antichrist. The antichrist is an individual, but he also represents a ruler of a nation. The reference to Daniel implies that the beast will be a leader of a kingdom or nation. That makes sense not only in the context of Daniel and Revelation but also in contrast to the Lord, who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. The antichrist sets himself up in the place of God, deceiving the nations to worship him over the Lord.
We can see this imitation in Revelation 13:4 when his followers say, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” A common refrain in the Old Testament is “Who is like the Lord?” “You have done great things, O God, who is like you?” (Psalm 71:19) “Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God?” (Psalm 77:13) “Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks down on the heavens and the earth?” (Psalm 113:5) This beast is an imposter. He is claiming supreme authority and allegiance. For John in Revelation, the beast is most likely Rome. Caesar demanded supreme allegiance and worship from all the people. And Caesar is only a preview of another beast that will demand allegiance from and exercise authority over those who dwell on the earth. John is not primarily concerned with the antichrist but with antichrists who threaten the church’s allegiance to Jesus Christ. He is warning of the danger before exhorting us to hold fast to Christ. He does this by comforting us with what we know of Christ.
The danger to the church was a group of “believers” who had left the community and denied that Jesus was the Christ. Verse nineteen says, “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.” They were part of the church. They were in the community. They were looked at as brothers and sisters in Christ. But they did not persevere. They did not continue or remain or abide with Jesus or with the people of Jesus. Before I make some pastoral applications, let us look at who these antichrists were. John has already alluded to this group in the following texts:
“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6).
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).
“If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10).
“Whoever says, ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4).
John has already spoken of this group as liars and those who do not keep God’s commandments. He also spoke of them as a group where the truth and the word were absent. He could not be more clear in 1 John 2:22: “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.” To be an antichrist is to be against Christ. To be against Christ is to be against who Christ claims to be: the Messiah. Jesus Christ claimed to be God incarnate. He claimed to be truly man in the flesh as he came to die for man. He claimed to be truly God as he was one with the Father. Jesus is not merely a good teacher or a social revolutionary. Jesus Christ is the eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity, the Savior of the World, the propitiation of our sins, the Redeemer of the world.
The antichrist is not of God but of the Devil. John records a dialogue between the Jews and Jesus in John eight after claiming to be the light of the world. Listen to the words and themes that John uses. They mirror the ones he has already used in this letter and will continue to use throughout.
They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:39-47)
You are either a child of God, born of Him, with his truth, and hearing and obeying his word, or you are a child of the devil, born of him, with no truth, and one who does not hear and obey the word of God. Are you against Christ, or are you for Christ?
John is deeply concerned with the souls of the people in the church. “I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you” (1 John 2:26). If they are trying to deceive, they are acting like their father, the Devil, who does not stand in the truth but is a liar. He has been lying from the beginning and is the very father of lies. These people that John is warning about are deceivers. They are liars trying to convince people that Jesus is not the Christ and that it is fine to walk in darkness and not the light.
Notice that the antichrists who are of the devil and not of the truth are deceivers and not part of the body of Christ. “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.” It is a lie against Christ to leave the body of Christ. We clearly see in Romans 12:4-5 that the church is the body of Christ: “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” 1 Corinthians twelve is an entire chapter that unpacks who we are as members of a body. We are eyes and ears and hands and feet, and we make up the one body. To be severed from the body is to no longer be part of the body. Are you against Christ? Are you an antichrist?
The risen Christ confronted Paul on the road to Damascus. Saul had been breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, going from town to town to arrest Christians. On the road, Saul fell to the ground, and he heard a voice from heaven. The voice said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.’ ” Paul was persecuting the church, and because Jesus is so intimately connected to the church, to persecute the church is to persecute Jesus. Are you against Christ, or are you against Christ's people? Are you for Christ and for Christ's people?
A Christian in the Bible is connected to God’s people. A Christian submits to the elders as they watch over their souls. A Christian uses their gifts to build up the body of Christ. A Christian walks in the truth of God’s word and keeps his commandments. A Christian is part of the church. One of my convictions, that I’m convinced is clearly found in the New Testament, is that a faithful Christian regularly gathers to be part of a covenant community rooted in the common bond of the Lord Jesus Christ known as the local church. I could speak of many caveats such as being in transition and still learning about a community and trying to figure things out, but I also want to ask you this question: are you against Christ? If God’s word wants you to submit to a group of elders to care for your soul, to use your gifts to serve the body, to regularly take the Lord’s supper as a member of that body, and if obedience to God’s word is a sign of belonging to him, to not obey God’s word and be a member of the body of Christ may reveal that you are not really for Christ. I am not claiming to know everyone’s eternal destiny or claiming to have supernatural eyes to know if someone is saved, but I am willing, as a servant of the Lord Jesus, to warn you that those who choose not to be part of the body are spoken of as those who are against Christ or as an antichrist. This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. One way you deny the Father and the Son is by not being a member of one body.
“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:6-26)
The last thing on Jesus’ mind before he went to the cross was that those who belonged to him would not be deceived by the devil but would be one as the Father and the Son are one. The church is the ecclesia, the “called out ones,” those who belong to the Father and the Son. And it’s not merely that we show ourselves to belong to God, but that we would know in our own hearts that we belong to God and that the world would see our love and know that Jesus Christ was sent from the Father.
There is much more I could say, but I do not want you to be against Christ. I do not want you to be against Christ's people. I do not want you to be deceived. Please hear that this is not given in a tone of condemnation, but one of concern. As a father before his children, John warned that it is the last hour. Continue with the body. Be one with the body. Don’t be a hand or a foot that is cut off or separated, but united. Those of you who are at home due to the virus, I would plead with you to continue to lean into the body. Send texts, emails, and cards to one another. Tell the elders and the deacons how you are doing spiritually.
Are you Anointed by Christ?
John speaks to those who have left the body and who have not continued to abide in Christ, but he then reminds the church that they belong to Jesus.
But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 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. 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. (1 John 2:20-27)
John refers to Jesus as the Holy One of God in John 6:69. The word anointing is only found twice in the New Testament, and every other time a variation of the root word “chrio” is used, it is a reference to the Holy Spirit. [1] John is reminding the church that they have been anointed by the Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit. They have been born again by the Spirit and transferred into the kingdom of the Son.
John says that they have all the knowledge they need. The Gnostics, who are believed to be those who left the community and referred to above as antichrist, claimed one needed special knowledge outside of the gospel. John says the opposite. Believers in Christ have been anointed by the Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit to know that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father, meaning that whoever believes that Jesus lived a perfect life, died as an atoning sacrifice for sinners and was raised from the dead also has been united to the Father. To have the Son is to have the Father. If you have never confessed faith in the Son, may I encourage you to do that today. Jesus died to save sinners. We are all sinners, but all can be saved through faith in Him. Confess Christ today by repenting of your sins and believing in his death and resurrection.
Notice how one confesses Christ. It begins with hearing the gospel and believing the gospel. If you are a believer in Christ, and you believe the gospel of salvation in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, then continue in that truth. Abide in it. Remain with Jesus. Not everyone who is in the church belongs to Christ. John just showed us that in the beginning of this section, but if you are walking with Jesus today and trusting in him today, you can have confidence that you belong to him. If you continue with the Son, then you have the Father. And if you have the Father and the Son, you have the promise made to you in the Father and the Son, eternal life. If you are not walking in the truth, repent and believe. If you have never confessed Christ, repent and believe. If you are walking in the truth, live in repentance and belief.
Eternal life belongs to the Son. Everyone who has the Son has eternal life. John is extremely concerned with people bringing in false teaching and false doctrine into the church. He knows that is at stake. Eternity is at stake. Heaven and hell are at stake. Being a child of God or of the devil is at stake. Being with Christ or against him is at stake. Are you for Christ?
If you are for Christ, then you are for everything of Christ. You are for his Word. You are for his people. You are for obedience. You are for truth. You are for forgiveness, humility, and grace. You are for loving one another. If you are for Christ, you are for Christ in everything. And sometimes being for Christ means you are against yourself and your desires. For the world and its desires are passing away, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.
John masterfully does two things in this epistle: he warns, and he comforts. Let us all be warned of the spirit of the antichrist. Let us all be comforted that we know Christ, the Messiah, our Savior. You can ask these two questions about everything: are you for Christ or against Christ? Are you for Christ in your view of politics or against him? Are you for Christ in how you are treating your spouse or your children or against him? Are you for Christ in how you are loving one another or against him? To know Christ is to love Christ. Jesus is so kind and so holy. He is strong and able. He is patient and merciful. He is powerful and demands full allegiance. He is gracious and compassionate. He is our Savior, our Lord, our Master. He died and rose again. He offers you eternal life. He offers you himself. The devil comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Jesus comes to offer you life and life to the fullest. Are you for Christ? If you are, then you shall not fear. For if God is for us, then who can be against us. As the great reformation hymn reminds us:
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
Be for Christ, for Christ is for you.
[1] The word ‘anointing’ is found only here and in 2:27 (2×) in the entire NT. The cognate verb ‘to anoint’ (chriō) is found in several other places, where it refers mostly to Jesus being anointed by God with the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18; Acts 4:27; 10:38), once to Jesus being anointed by God with ‘the oil of gladness’ (Heb 1:9), and once to Paul being anointed by God, who put his Spirit upon him (2 Cor 1:21–22). [1]