“Everybody who goes on forward and doesn’t abide within the instructing of Christ, doesn’t have God. Whoever abides within the instructing has each the Father and the Son” (2 John 9).
THE GNOSTICS IN THE FIRST CENTURY, WHO DENIED THAT JESUS WAS GOD IN THE FLESH, PRESENTED THEIR TEACHING AS BEING MORE ADVANCED. However John was emphatic: if we go away the instructing of Christ, we don’t go ahead; we go backward. The truth is, we separate ourselves from God. As John worded it, we do “not have God.”
The “instructing of Christ” is a instructing we should “abide in” if we hope to be saved from our sins. And no matter else the instructing of Christ might embody, it definitely contains the truth that He was God within the flesh. This was the principal level of dispute between the Gnostics and the apostles of Christ. The apostles had been the authoritative bearers of Christ’s instructing (John 14:25,26; 15:26,27; 16:12–15), and as a type of apostles, John didn’t again down. Both we adhere to the instructing of Christ and His apostles in regards to the miracle of His Incarnation or we have now departed from God.
If there’s one fixed in human historical past it’s that human beings at all times make issues extra complicated as time goes alongside. So with regard to the gospel, it ought to be no shock that very quickly after it started to be preached, it started to be corrupted by those that needed to make it extra superior — supplementing it with layers of elevated complexity and making it extra interesting to those that could be turned off by its authentic message. On this world, nothing stays in its authentic situation for very lengthy. The tendency to “transcend” appears virtually irresistible. However to return to our level, John, together with the entire apostles, warned that to transcend the instructing of Christ is to not enhance the gospel; it’s to degrade it.
“Everybody who goes on forward and doesn’t abide within the instructing of Christ, doesn’t have God.” That is likely one of the starkest warnings within the Scriptures. Elsewhere, John wrote, “If we reject the Son, we reject the Father” (1 John 2:23 CEV). However on the opposite facet of this warning is a hope that’s the very coronary heart of the gospel. If we have now Christ, and maintain on to the reality about Him, then God shouldn’t be solely His Father however ours as effectively. It’s wonderful what doorways reality opens.
Whoever stumbles upon Christ (who’s a granite stone)
Lies shattered; however grasp him and be led securely house.
(Angelus Silesius)
Gary Henry — WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
