Jesus Exposed the Enemy

What Did Jesus Do?

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.
1 John 2.21

The most dangerous enemy is not the one we can spot a mile away, but the one who we believe to be a friend, a brother; one who can walk right up to us, even embrace us, and then destroy us. One of the reasons John wrote to his beloved little children (2:1, 2:12, 13, 18), was to make sure that they could recognize the enemy. Interestingly, the way to know our deadliest enemy is to know our very best friend—Jesus. Knowing the truth about Jesus reveals the enemy and his lies. To put it simply: Christ=Friend; Antichrist=Enemy. Actually, I should have written Antichrists=Enemy, for, in fact, many antichrists have come (1 John 2.18) So we had better know how to recognize the enemy!

The first thing John tells us (the Church) is that at one time they (the antichrists) were one of us, or, more accurately, were among us. But along the way “they went out from us.” (1 John 2:19) At one time they were with us, among us, in the midst of the fellowship of believers, but then, something happened, and they split. I know that in most congregations people are coming and going all the time, but what John is saying is that the antichrists reveal themselves, not by moving from one congregation to another, but rather by effectively cutting themselves off from the rest of the Body of Christ. True believers remain forever in the Body, antichrists remove and isolate themselves from the Body. While some may argue that you don’t have to be part of a church to be a Christian, without question Christians must be part of the Church, and that means we must be in fellowship with all who hold to the essential and orthodox doctrines of the faith, the very core of which has to do with the person and work of Jesus. What John is telling the Church is, “Watch out for those who reject the fellowship of biblical believers in favor of a more select fellowship of those who claim to know better!” And this brings us to the second identifying mark of the enemy—faulty belief. In particular, faulty belief regarding Jesus.

If Jesus is the Christ, and he most assuredly is, then right belief regarding him is absolutely essential. And here is where the antichrist, or antichrists, expose the truth about himself/themselves—he/they are grounded in lies, in sharp and utter contrast to Jesus who is the Truth. (John 14.6) There is a very simple test, which Jesus himself used, to reveal whether or not one has received from the Father, via the Holy Spirit, the truth about the Christ. One question alone determines the whole issue, and it is this: Who do we say Jesus is? (See Matthew 16:13-19) Only by the Holy Spirit can we know and believe that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of the living God, fully divine and fully human. Antichrist/antichrists is/are exposed by rejecting and refuting the truth about Jesus, to believe and propagate lies about him.

John could not have put it more plainly,

“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.” 1 John 2:22-23

What moved John to send this warning to his little children was the very real and present danger within the Church of his day of those who rejected the truth about Jesus, and who sought to spread and gain acceptance of lies about him. The sad truth about the Church in our day is that antichrist/antichrists are still in her midst, still seeking to proclaim and gain acceptance of lies about Jesus. Were John here to write to us, his little children, in the 21st Century, he would still exclaim, “Watch out for those who reject any part of what the Bible reveals about Jesus, or who would add to what the Bible says. The Bible is true, and the truths of the Bible are revealed to the Church by Father through the Holy Spirit, who alone teaches us who Jesus is.”

The strategy and tactics of the enemy, of the antichrist, are all darkness and deceit. To know the enemy and overcome him we must know Jesus. Light and truth dispel all darkness and expose all lies. Jesus is the Light and the Truth who exposed the enemy.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4