Lesson 21
Okay, this morning we’re going to move on to 1 John 2:18. If you’ll look at the handouts, we’ll start that. In the handout I’ve got again the outline for the umteenth time. But I keep doing that because I don’t want us to lose the forest for the trees and to see that John has a coherent way of reasoning. That coherent way of reasoning is important when you start dealing with the minutia in the text. So we’re going to deal with some of the minutia in the text this morning so we want to - our senses about where this all fits. Let’s open with a word of prayer.
(Opening prayer)
In the big picture of things and you see where in chapter 2 in the box, 2:12-27 - that’s the chunk of text that we’re working with. That follows that first chunk of text. The first chunk of text was where John worked at understanding what fellowship with the triune God was like. He was very Trinitarian in how he approached that. He approached our fellowship with the Father, our fellowship with the Son, and fellowship with the Holy Spirit - not mentioning the Holy Spirit there; but mentioning the body of Christ where the Holy Spirit is functioning.
Then he comes to this next section. You’ll see in that box the section title is purpose. That’s why this section is so important. We’re in the last subsection of this larger section. This is the purpose of this epistle.
Something was going on in John’s day. We’re not sure exactly what was going on. We know that false doctrine had come into the church very, very early. This is a lesson in itself. But, something was askew. So John took it upon himself to write this epistle to address whatever this problem was. With the Holy Spirit in charge of writing, He writes it generally enough so that it’s not just pertinent to John’s situation; but pertinent through the twenty centuries of church history. This is often is the way the Holy Spirit works. When He addresses heresy in the Bible, He addresses it as though He’s giving us the general principles to work out subsequent heresies. They won’t be exactly like the first one; but they’re similar enough so if we have the general principles we can handle the situation.
In 2:17 if you’ll look at the text here, that’s the last verse of this second subset where he’s talking about resistance utilizes the strategic envelopment the world system being accomplished by the Father. Those verses (verses 15, 16 and 17) those are the key for mental attitude of endurance. John had to face endurance. After all this guy lived longer than any other apostle. John apparently lived until his 90’s. He knew what endurance was. Remember he had been a teenager in Jesus’ day. So here’s a fellow approaching 90 years of age and he’s writing retrospectively for this. He lived his life with this attitude. So verses 15, 16, and 17 give you the mental tools that John used to cope with life day after day after day.
It ends in verse 17:
NKJ 1 John 2:17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Now if you’ll hold the place there, he probably got that idea from the visions that came in the book of Revelation if revelation in fact happened after the writing of this epistle. If you’ll hold the place there and turn over to the last book of the Bible, (Revelation) and look at chapter 14, in chapter 14 it’s in the middle of all the judgments.
NKJ Revelation 14:13 Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me,
Here is either the Son speaking (the voice of heaven) or in fact it’s an interpreting angel speaking. In verse 17 - verse 13, excuse me, of chapter 14. It says:
NKJ Revelation 14:13 Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, "Write:
So this is the command from God to write this down. Take some notes.
'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' "
"Yes," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors,
Then notice the last clause.
they may rest from their labors
Then what does it say?
and their works follow them."
Very similar thought back here in I John 2.
NKJ 1 John 2:17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever
Now that is a powerful mental tool to think of the fact that when we obey the Lord no matter how chaotic the mess is, no matter what the opposition is; if we obey the Lord now - no one will see that maybe. Maybe it’s a mental attitude battle you’re facing. Your closest personal - know what’s going on in your head. But you do. We do. So we rest in the fact that when we have these mental victories of being able to trust the Lord, able to thank Him the in the middle of all the chaos of life; those things carry over to eternity. Those are victory moments. That’s why John looks upon these conflicts this way. You carry out of the conflict something that endures forever and ever.
What does that do to individual choices and acts? It makes them significant. It makes them eternally significant. Life isn’t boring. Life is the sequence of these opportunities of making these choices. So these things resonate down through the corridors of time forever and ever. That’s the picture of human choices the Bible gives.
What we are doing this Sunday; we’re going to verse 18. Verse 18 starts the section where now we zero in on the specifics. So far it’s been generalized. So far he’s dealt with the world system - the integrated cosmos, the organized way evil is. But now he’s going to zero into the particular situation that these people faced. This is an eye opening expose of church history and the fact of the matter is that sometimes the church is its worst enemy - not the godliness in the church, but the ungodliness that creeps into the church.
So here he says:
NKJ 1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
Now this verse is packed so we want to pick it apart and look at the structure of this verse. Notice the term “the last hour.” It’s used twice. It’s used at the beginning of the verse; it’s used at the end of the verse. That’s symmetrical structure should tip us off that that’s an important term for John. So we want to look a little bit at this. But before we do, you’ll notice how he addresses them – little ones. That’s not the usual term in the Greek for little children like he uses like he usually does. It’s teknia, the usual term. This isn’t. This is peidia. It’s the picture of a little child having to be taught. He has to be taught wisdom.
In the Proverbs, the proverbial section of the Bible, there are three words for fool. Some of these nouns for fool mean bad fools, idiots. The other one is for children. It’s not morally wrong for a child to be a fool. Why the children are called fools in the book of Proverbs is because without wisdom they are fools. The only way they get wisdom is in family units and learning. We all start out life as fools. It’s a very realistic idea. We don’t start with a perfectly developed idea of what life is like. We have to learn that. So this peidia here, he has chosen that word peidia apparently to emphasize the fact as he speaks to the whole church is that in many ways people he’s saying we are like little fools. If he addresses people that way prior to the next thing he says, it makes us realize that we really have to pay attention here because these false teachers can really mislead us. I don’t think it is a literary accident that he starts his sentence with peidia instead of teknia.
Now we want to look at that little last hour. One of the axioms of Bible study and this is why if you are serious about studying the Bible you always want to have a concordance. Concordance is one of the best tools to help Bible study. In looking up a word in a concordance one of the things you want to see is how is this word used by this author in this context because again, different authors of Scripture- they’re individual personalities and they will use vocabulary with slightly different nuances.
So what we want to do is say, “All right Apostle John, how does he use the term “the last hour.” Now in some of your English translations it says we know this is the last time. But that’s not what the Greek says. The Greek says it is the last hour. Why does he use the term hour this way? Does it mean literally an hour? Obviously not. Does he mean that the Second Coming of Christ is close? Not necessarily. Think of our own vocabulary. How many times have we used in our everyday speech something like, “Well, in our day” or “in grandma’s day?” When we use the word day in that kind of a sentence, why do we pick the word day? …using it literally. What are some of the nuances that why when we select that kind of expression - say to our children?
“Well back in grandma’s day,” and we use that term. Why are we using day that way? Anybody?
There you go. It’s a period of time. We use the word day because it started and ended in her day. It’s a chunk of time. So when you see these words like day and hour, they’re chunks, time chunks. So this tells us – okay let’s see a little bit more of how John uses this. So let’s turn to the Gospel of John and watch how Jesus used the term because remember we keep coming back to this over and over that John was so enthralled with the person of Jesus Christ that he appears to be mimicking Jesus very vocabulary.
Here in 2:4 Jesus is in the middle of a wedding. Remember the wedding feast in Canaan. He’s talking to His mother. His mother being a mom, she wants every thing to work out. So she is concerned because they ran out of wine and so forth she wants to deal with this situation, as mothers normally would do. This sounds very abrupt that Jesus does here; but He’s not being disrespectful to Mary. He’s saying something that - John apparently heard this conversation.
NKJ John 2:4 Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come."
There’s the use of the word hour. In that context, what’s He talking about?
(Comment)
His what? His time for His crucifixion. His time for His ministry hasn’t yet come. It’s a time chunk. He’s mentally categorizing that time. It’s not - this isn’t the time for that yet. The time is coming.
All right, let’s go further in the Gospel of John, 4:21. This is the woman at the well. Jesus said to her in verse 21:
NKJ John 4:21 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
22 "You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
By the way that last clause shows you that Jesus was not a universalist. That last verse shows you very well that Jesus refused to have the Word of God absorbed into some general category. He said salvation is not of the Samaritans. It’s not of the Gentiles. It’s of the Jews – historical fact. That’s very offensive in our modern culture. People do not want to hear about the exclusivity of revelation. That’s because they don’t understand history. Why did revelation have to in the first place have to be exclusive? Think back to Abraham.
What was the situation that led to God saying, “I’m only going to reveal myself through one people?”
Well, it was because of the Tower of Babel. Previous to Abraham the world had access to revelation every people group - all the groups. Granted the population was less than it is today, but revelation was not limited to one people group. But with Abraham it started. It’s not because God’s a meanie that’s He’s only revealing Himself through one people’s group. We ought to be glad He picked any people group to reveal Himself at all after what we did corporately to the revelation. We’re suppressing the revelation. We ought to be glad it’s available. So that’s our answer to somebody that’s fussing about the exclusivity of the Scriptures. Just be thankful we got any revelation today.
Before that clause he says that in the next hour, in the coming hour. Now clearly that use of hora, that use of the Greek word for hour, is referring to a long age, isn’t it? Because it’s the age after the crucifixion when the gospel would be available throughout the whole human race. That’s the age we live in. So there’s an obvious case of hour used for a chunk of time; but that chunk of time is a very big chunk of time. We could continue - we won’t have time this morning; but if you look up in a concordance, look up hour and see in the Gospel of John how John uses that.
Okay, back to 1 John 2:18. So we’re proceeding in this verse. What we want to look at is the line of reasoning here all within this one verse. There’s a logical progression of thought here. It’s a lesson to all of us on how we are to interpret out every day experience. This is the way John teaches.
He says, “Little ones – the last hour it is!”
That’s not in the King James. That’s the Clough version of a literal translation of the Greek. I just tried to show you how the sequence of words happens in the original text.
NKJ 1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come,
Now look at the last.
by which we know that it is the last hour.
So he’s saying we know. Here we go again. What was that verb that we said last week occurs 30 times in John? Over and over he’s using it so we know he’s teaching us. He wants His believers, the receivers, of this letter to understand and know because until we know we really have a problem trusting. We have to be sure that what the object of our trust is - is trustworthy. The only way you know something is trustworthy is to have the knowledge about it. So here he says:
we know
Now I’ve underlined the sections in verse 18 that have to do with logical reasoning. Let’s see if we can follow the reasoning process here.
NKJ 1 John 2:18 Little children, it is the last hour; and
Now he has a connective, and. So he says the last hour it is. He just announces that. Now he’s going to explain that in a little bit. But he’s announcing that and then he’s drawing their attention to something that’s happening. So let’s look.
many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.
The word there is ginosko. It’s not ginosko. It’s the other one, the other verb. They’ve come into existence. The word “and” connects that observation with this declaration. So he uses the word antichrist. Now we’re going to have to develop antichrist here in a little bit - what it means. He says there are many of them around. So what does that imply about what these people are seeing? Could he have said this to people who never met an antichrist? Doesn’t it sound like they’re meeting them? Doesn’t it sound like these people to whom he’s addressing this - they have the experience of seeing these antichrists. We’ll show you how they do that in a moment. But right now if we can set aside who these antichrists are, I want to go through the reasoning process; then we’ll come back to the vocabulary.
many antichrists have come
Then he says before he concludes therefore, he says:
and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming,
Now what is he doing to these folks that are having the experience of many of these antichrists? Apparently they know them. They’ve had contact with them. What do you see significant about this next clause? How does he use the next clause to come to the therefore?
Yes, Laura.
(Comment) ..reminding them of the sequence of events that they’re aware of.
Okay he’s reminding them that they’ve already been taught certain truths. So what we would say today is all he’s doing here is he’s saying, “Why don’t you apply the Word of God that you already know?” Isn’t that what he’s saying? Isn’t that the logical flow of this argument?
He says, “You’ve heard about this.” How would they have heard about it? Well, clearly the teachers must have taught them this. So this clause, this third clause, says you have heard that antichrist (singular). Now notice something else here - Antichrist singular is coming. You know that. That’s your eschatology. That’s your prophecy teaching. So you know that. So when you see these antichrists (plural) coming on to the scene, you should catch the fact that these antichrists (whoever they are) are part and parcel of the Antichrist coming. They’re associated with him. This is what you can expect.
What this is saying here is that from the very first Christianity was pessimistic about its success at conquering the world in one sense – socially - in the sense that these people to have heard this would not think of the fact that everything is going to be gradually better and better and better until Christianity triumphs in the world. So when you hear people doing that and when we get to the end of the hour here you’ll see why that’s important. This is a sobering appraisal.
Early Christians were very realistic about the power of evil. It wasn’t that they were afraid of the evil. It wasn’t that they were lying down and being passive to the evil. It’s just that they had an extremely vibrant and real appreciation for the power of evil and that evil would have its hour in world history. This is something that’s foreign completely to our culture today.
The culture today does not take evil seriously. When the culture doesn’t take evil seriously, it always tends to do the same thing. And that is concentrate power into the hands of a few to get the job done. The problem is that if you have a sobering serious thought through view of evil, you will always be suspicious of concentrating power into anyone’s hands - church or out of the church, because all people are corruptible. That’s what mortality is. That’s the sobering appraisal and this is why historically Christianity has always when it’s been thought through, been for limited government. Not because it’s against the government. It’s just saying that people are inherently corrupt so you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Somebody is going to drop it and there go all your eggs. It’s that sober…it’s not cynicism because God’s finally is going to be in charge. We are not cynical. We are realistic – a better word for that
Okay, let’s follow the logic now. So here’s the experience. You are experiencing many antichrists. What are you supposed to do with your experience as a Christian? You’re supposed to interpret your experience in the light of … in the light of Scripture, the Word of God. So that’s all John is doing in this verse 18. He’s saying the last hour is and let me explain it. You’ve got the situation of many antichrists. You heard. You’re teaching that you already have is that antichrist is coming so therefore – and this is not the logical phrase he usually uses. Usually you’ve seen it “by this we know.” By this we know - he uses that expression a lot – by this we know. But apparently here he is so intent on getting through to them the logical reasoning process that he picks up the strong word for inference. Therefore he says, this is why he says, we know it is the last hour.
Now there is something else to observe in this text. Look at the subject of the verbs. Look at the pronouns that are used. When you look at the pronouns or the verbs what do you notice about the person? Pronouns can be first, second or third person - I, second person you; third person he or she. What do you notice? And can be singular or plural – what do you notice about the pronouns that he’s using as a subject? There’s a shift in the verse. What does that shift mean? In the first case, who is doing the hearing? You. The next sentence, who’s doing the knowing? We. What does that show us? Why does he shift the pronoun? Anybody got an idea about that?
(Comment)
Exactly. Michelle said he’s including himself. The logical conclusion applies to everyone. Logic is an evaluative tool. Logic is not subjective. That’s why it’s increasingly being neglected in our public discourse because to use logic implies you’ve got universal logical law and you have universal conclusions. So that’s why our culture tends away from logical reasoning over to the area of propaganda, rhetoric.
But if we’re serious about logic, Johns says, “That applies to me. This is how I know. I use the same rules of inference you guys use. Very simple.”
So this is encouraging for the fact that here you have the apostle saying that I’m showing you how to reason from your experience. You frame your experience with Scripture. The conclusion you draw from that framing and that analysis is universal.
“I’m an apostle. It applies to me too!”
Now what we want to do is look at the terms antichrist and antichrists plural. When you see the word antichrist we tend to think of the Antichrist. In 2 Thessalonians 2 if you’ll hold the place here; go to 2 Thessalonians. This is the man of sin passage. It’s from this passage, one of the powerful passages in the Bible, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. Here’s where the idea of that tradition of the final resistance to Jesus. It says:
NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
Now that’s the picture that we have in the Bible of the Antichrist. You can see by the language of this verse that this is no subtle claim. This is an explicit claim that “I am God.” So it’s almost a perfect counterfeit of deity. Then of course we could go to the book of Revelation in chapter 13. We might go there because there’s something about this antichrist that we need to check before we come to a conclusion about what John means when he uses the word. If you’ll turn to Revelation 13 and look at Revelation 13:1-9.
NKJ Revelation 13:1 Then I stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and on his horns ten crowns, and on his heads a blasphemous name.
2 Now the beast which I saw was like a leopard, his feet were like the feet of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. The dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound…
It goes on.
5 And he was given a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies, and he was given authority to continue for forty-two months.
That’s 3 ½ years.
6 Then he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven.
Now there’s - we don’t- we can’t get into all the details of Revelation. There’s almost a diabolical trinity here. Notice the dragon. That’s the Satan symbol. The dragon is the one that inspires the man of sin. So just as the Holy Spirit indwelt Jesus, you have Satan basically indwelling this man of sin. Up until verse 9 we have all descriptions about this man of sin.
Now here’s the question. When John uses the word antichrist, is he referring to the Antichrist as we do? By the way you’ll notice the word antichrist doesn’t occur in Revelation 13 and the word antichrist does not occur in 2 Thessalonians. The terminology there is man of sin and the beast. But there’s another personality involved. If you look down further in Revelation 13 beginning at verse 11, you’ll see something else. This is the third member of the diabolical trinity.
NKJ Revelation 13:11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon.
12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.
14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived.
Now I suggested this and as I say I apologize we can’t go into the book of Revelation in depth here; but anybody, if you catch the diabolical trinity; what does the second beast remind you of that reminds you of that corresponds to the Trinity? You have the dragon, the first beast, and the second beast. The dragon is Satan. He inspires the man of sin. The man of sin is the one who proclaims himself as god. What does the second beast doing?
(Comment)
Pointing everyone to the first beast.
(Comment)
Yeah. He’s kind of like an evil Holy Spirit. He’s inspiring the earth and he’s deceiving the earth. So there’s the man of sin and there is also this other being which we call the false prophet.
With that background let’s go back to the epistle of John, 1 John. We’re going to look a little ahead in the epistle because what we always want to do is when you are puzzled about what a word means and you check it out in a concordance, you always try to get the same author. You like to get the closest use of that same author of that same word. So here’s the closest use.
In 1 John 4:1-3, look what John says here.
NKJ 1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
Oh! Yes, Joel.
(Comment) Christ means anointed one. There were many Christs over history but then there was the Christ. Is t he same thing true of antichrists?
What Joel is pointing out here is there were many false Christs but only one genuine Christ. There’s a lesson here we’re conclude to. Joel is very good at picking up the logic of the thought because what he just did is going to show the nature of organized evil. Evil can never wholesale create anything. Evil can only mimic the truth. Counterfeiters don’t create their own money. They mimic the true money. One of the lessons to learn is that even Satan with all his creative genius is unable apparently to create anything new. What he has to do is he has to parrot and counterfeit what God does. So what John is saying here is, he’s saying there are many false prophets who are inspired by the spirit of antichrist. Notice several things about this passage. We’ll develop this later; but for our purposes today what is he saying is the ultimately the source of the teaching?
(Comment)
It’s what? Excuse me, I meant the source of the teaching.
Here he’s talking about the spirit.
but test the spirits
... whether it’s of God or of Satan. The sobering anthropological doctrine here is that our minds are not always just our equipment. Our minds can be transmitters for ideas that did not originate in our mind. All the ideas we have in our minds don’t necessarily start with our minds. They can be put there – as for example Peter. What does Jesus say when Peter said, “You’re not going to go to the cross.” Very nasty word to Peter, wasn’t it? What did He say to Peter?
NKJ Matthew 16:23 …"Get behind Me, Satan!
Now how would you like Jesus to say that to you? I don’t I’d appreciate that too much if He looked me in the eye and said, “Get out of here Satan.”
Now what that means is how vulnerable we are and why the Word of God alone is the criteria. You can’t assume that because an idea pops into your head it came from God. You have to critique the idea and the only way your can treat the idea is by referencing the Word of God. You can’t reference the Word of God if you pay 5 minutes a week to the Bible and 85 hours in TV and twitter. It doesn’t happen. It happens only because you spend time seriously studying the Word of God so that you have the tools to evaluate. So what John says here - let’s read verses one to three again and then we’ll go on to the line of logic that Joel’s talking about here.
NKJ 1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit
In other words, don’t be naïve. Now how do you know? Does the spirit creep through your window? I mean is it spooky here in this verse? No, he’s referring to people. But, he’s referring to the spirit behind the person. Who is the source? We often have because of ghost stories and so on - we always think of spirits as some spooky little thing that makes noises, creepy noises. That’s not the biblical view of spirit. The biblical view of spirit is spirits and ideas go together. He says
NKJ 1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits,
So see he says saying evaluate the spirits.
but test the spirits, whether they are of God;
Why?
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
So it’s the false prophets that he means in this verse he’s talking about antichrists. That’s just his label for false prophets. They’re like the False Prophet who’s going to come and convince and seduce the world that this person – whatever this going to be that this person is the antichrist, the man of sin.
“Go worship him. He is of god.”
He’s the PR guy. He’s the media person. He’s the guy that’s putting the spin on the beast. In a small sense, in a micro sense, as Joel pointed out - there are false Christs, there are false antichrists. But, they’re motivated by the same spirit.
Look what it says.
but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
3 and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ
Now he gives you the criteria.
NKJ 1 John 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
We’ll get into the doctrine later. That’s the doctrinal test. Has Jesus Christ come in the flesh, or hasn’t He?
Notice what he says. The next sentence is:
NKJ 1 John 4:3 and every spirit t
He’s not saying that denies, explicitly denies Jesus, but merely...
that does not confess that Jesus Christ
That is the spirit of antichrist too. So any time you see that kind of … it could be in Time Magazine. It could be on the Discovery Channel. It could be a latest book. It could be a movie – whatever. Whenever you see any depiction of Jesus that doesn’t fit the New Testament picture of Jesus, you are seeing the spirit of antichrist right there. There it is.
You say, “Gosh, that’s secularism.”
Ah, but behind secularism there’s a spirit of antichrist which leads us now to the bottom part of the handout. If you’ll notice it says there’s a continuity in things opposition to Christ. Now continuity follows two features. One is there’s continuity in denial of Christ’s God-man nature.
Here’s the typical denial of Christ that you get in college classrooms, that you get the literature, that you get on the Discovery Channel and so forth and so on. Somebody comes out with a book. They have to write about Jesus so they can make money. So they have this historical Jesus and they talk about archeology and they talk about the documents and they go into the first century milieu and what was going on and they try to derive the historical real Jesus, denying of course reliance on the New Testament text which is the most complete document of Jesus.
“We don’t want to touch that one. We want to do it our way. And we want to start by disreputing the Scriptures and then we create our own historical Jesus. Then when we hear all this stuff about Christians talking about Jesus as God or Jesus as Savior, “Well, that’s just propaganda. That’s kerugmatik.”
That means the preached New Testament Christ. That was the church putting a spin on the Jewish carpenter kind of thing. That’s a modern illustration of an antichrist spirit. So you have that come over – Aryanism. There were a lot of heresies in the first century, second century, third century, fourth century. Aryanism was a great heresy almost killed the whole church off by making Jesus less than God. Today the Jehovah Witnesses knock on your door – the modern day Aryans. It’s nothing new. Liberal theology is the same way. You have that sort of thing - the denial of Jesus.
Look at this diagram carefully. If this is the truth – if that’s the truth – then this content of the New Testament is a figment of somebody’s imagination. It is a denial of revelation. That’s why it’s antichrist. It’s the destruction of the claim of religion that God has spoken into history. The arrogance of this particular idea is that we know so much about God that we know that if He did exist He couldn’t talk. So basically what they are saying is God is a dumb God, a dumb being with a speech impediment. He can’t speak. Now that’s theology. That’s not neutrality. That’s a philosophical claim that’s being made. What is the basis of that claim? But it is a claim. It’s not being neutral. You’re not being neutral here. You’re either saying God can speak in history and the Bible is His speech or He can’t speak in history and the Bible is a figment of Jewish imagination.
There’s one further way, another insidious way, that antichrist continuity of evil appears in our time. It’s a positive thing. Joel mentioned the fact that there are false Christs. Why are there false Christs? Why would someone want to mimic Christ? Let’s reverse it. Why is there a motivation to be a Christ? Think about it. Why has the desire to be a Christ persisted in history?
Here’s a quote. I picked a quote. Notice the date – 1922. I’ve mentioned this before. What was going on in America in the 1920’s that you never hear about in your social studies class in public education? But I’ve mentioned it. It’s one of the most powerful movements in American history happened between World War I and 1930; and you’ll never hear about it in any social studies class. What happened? Anybody?
(Comment)
Yeah, the modern fundamentalist debate. The modernists were false Christs. Here’s why. We conclude with this quote and we’ll pick up next week. Walter Rostenbush (last name?) was a liberal Baptist. He was the guy that wrote the books that inspired the social gospel and today the political progressives. The political progressives of our culture today have a millennial vision. Where did their view of progress come from? Got ripped off from the Scriptures. Look at what he says. Just read it!
We need a restoration of the millennial hope, which the Catholic Church dropped out of eschatology.
The Protestants did too.
It was crude in its form but wholly right in its substance. We hope for such an order for humanity as we hope for heaven for ourselves.
There you have it. That’s the core of the liberal political philosophy of our time and it’s taken straight from the Scriptures. The people in the 20’s that were doing it, admitted it and wrote about it.
Today they would be embarrassed if you talked to a progressive liberal about it.
“You’re borrowing that from the Bible.”
“Oh no. No I’m not.”
They are ignorant of their own history. This came out of the Scriptures. Here our great socialist welfare state ideas, all that idea of progress, progress to the grand glorious global peace that we will have – all of the antichrist. And guess who will eventually take advantage of that momentum...
(Closing prayer)