A Word from 1 John on False Teachers
- Emily Myers
- Nov 4
- 11 min read
This week, I'm excited to bring you two new posts inspired by my readings from 1 John. There is one central commandment addressed in 1 John. This post addresses the first part of the commandment: "that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another." 1 John 3:23
1 John was written by the apostle John between 80-95 AD. To put it into perspective, this letter was written about 50 or so years after Jesus' crucifixion. Note, the apostle John is the author of the Gospel of John, which details John's time with Jesus and Jesus' teachings, as well as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, which are letters written after Jesus' death to continue to promote His teachings and address relevant church issues.
In this first letter, John addresses believers who've been exposed to heresy (false teachings) and he reveals how a believer can test the spirit to determine if someone is of God or not.
Doctrine of False Teachers
The false teachers promoted doctrine that said: the divine Christ, the Son of God, was not the same Jesus who suffered and died on the cross, and that knowledge of God led to moral perfection and that they were without sin.
Last week, I wrote a post that detailed the many ways the devil lies to us. One of his favorite tactics is to twist the truth just enough that the alternative perspective feels possible. He twists the truth to create doubt and when doubt creeps in, it is a slippery slope to questioning everything and to losing faith completely.
There are many verses that warn against doubt, but none is more straightforward than this: "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth." John 17:17 In the Gospel of John, Jesus prays to the Father, declaring God's Word as truth and reveals that sanctification (or purification) comes from accepting the Word of God as truth.
Today, Christians accept that the Bible is the Word of God. We accept the Bible as truth. During the time that Jesus was alive, He served as the manifested Word of God. He spoke the Word of God and lived by the Word of God. He set the example for us and paves the way for reconciliation with the Father and redemption from sin for us.
False teachers try to make us doubt in who Jesus Christ was, what He did for us, and thus doubt in the truth / Word of God. The devil's deception does not always come as strict opposition, such as to say that Jesus never existed or that God isn't real. Sometimes the devil's deception comes with a slight bending of the truth. The devil gains footholds in our hearts and minds by planting seeds of doubt, and then those seeds grow into weeds that consume us from the inside out.
The false teachers John warned against did not deny that Jesus existed or that the Son of God existed. They simply denied they were the same person. Doubting in the truth of who Jesus is and why He came abolishes Christianity completely. If the man who died on the cross is not the Son of God, then the Son of God has not come, then God's love for us and our salvation is called into question. Furthermore, if we believe there is any other way to accessing God and salvation other than through Jesus Christ or that we are without sin or can be without sin through knowledge rather than faith in our Savior, we are lost.
Is it not ironic that sin entered the world not just due to Adam and Eve's disobedience of God's command, but in pursuit of knowledge? That is not to say that the Lord asks us to follow Him blindly. The Lord loves to grant us wisdom, truth, discernment, understanding, and enlightenment through His Word and direct relationship with Him. But the knowledge we receive from the Lord is received through faith not worldly or self-driven intellect.
The devil or the world views knowledge as things that can be proven, which is the antithesis of faith. The knowledge the Lord provides comes through faith, and the foundation of faith is belief in the unseen.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1
"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29
False teachers threaten the truth--the Word of God and who Jesus Christ was--by twisting it to create doubt and shift the focus from faith-driven pursuit of holiness to self-driven pursuit of perfection. While these are the teachings of the antichrists of this society, false teachers still exist today.
John Refutes False Teachings
"Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also." 1 John 2:22-23
Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He died for the sins of the world on the cross that we may have eternal life through Him with the Father in Heaven.
Jesus Christ is the manifested Word of God. The Word of God / Jesus Christ is the truth, the way, and the life.
Do not be deceived by false teachers and the bending of the truth. The key to overcoming false doctrine is to study the truth--the Word of God--for yourself.
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." 1 John 1:8-10
We are sinners. We are called to confess our sins through prayer.
Our Father in Heaven loves us and desires relationship with us. He forgives us of our sins if we ask.
Those who deny being a sinner are not of God.
"And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world." 1 John 2:1-2
Jesus Christ not only paid the price for our sins but He advocates for us at the right hand of the Father.
Jesus Christ is the intercessor for us believers, relaying our prayers directly to the Father.
Jesus Christ is not only our Savior but our brother in Heaven who still loves us as unconditionally and vehemetly as He did the day He died for us.
Receiving The Implanted Word / Living In Truth
"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:8-9
Cleansing of unrighteousness is separate from forgiveness. The key to cleansing is repentance and obedience to His commands.
If we lack obedience, His Word is not implanted in us.
John and James both speak on the importance of having an active faith and being a doer of the Word not just a hearer.
"...receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your soul. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." James 1:21-22
"Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked." 1 John 2:3-6
We are called to walk as Jesus walked, love as Jesus loved, accept the Word of God as truth, and live out the Word of God daily.
True implantation of the Word of God means the Word has become a part of us, enmeshed in us, attached to us. We are not separate from it and God is not separate from us, but abiding inside us. We are not double-minded nor do we succumb to doubt. We do not have one foot in the world with one hand on the Bible. The Word of God is implanted in us and through His Word, God and His Holy Spirit abides in us--not separate from us.
The Word of the God (the literal Bible and the manifested Word of God, Jesus Christ) is the key to relationship with the Lord, holiness, and salvation.
Testing the Spirit
Much of 1 John is spent on discerning what is of God and what is not of God. What we learn can be used to discern false teachers and the spirit abiding in us--the spirit of truth or the spirit of error.
"Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him." 1 John 3:4-6
Sin is lawlessness. While we are sinners, there is a difference between unintentional, occassional sin due to our imperfection and habitual sin.
Receiving the implanted word and accepting the Holy Spirit into our hearts does not mean we are perfect, however, it does change us. We do not desire to sin. We cease habitual sin, because habitual sin is a consistent choice to oppose God's word, a consistent choice to exist in the world rather than in Him.
Obedience to God's word is the key to overcoming lawlessness / sin.
You cannot claim to know God if you live in habitual sin.
Those who live in habitual sin are not of God.
"He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God." 1 John 3:8-9
I feel this is a time to get personal, a time to address belief versus surrender. When I was eight-years-old, I was baptized, because I believed that Jesus was the Son of God and He died for my sins. That was the basic doctrine I had to accept in order to be baptized. Tomorrow, at thirty-years-old, I'm being re-baptized because I finally know what it means to follow Jesus, make Him Lord of my life, and surrender everything to Him--my desires, my sins, my shame, my guilt, my future plans, my fingers as I type these messages to you, my physical urges, everything.
The transformation that has occured in me through reading the Word of God gives new meaning to the sentiment of being born again. I do feel the seed of God inside me. And while I am still human and imperfect, I have ceased the habitual sin that used to control me. Why? Because I know that the choice to continue sinning will separate me from God. I know what that emptiness feels like and I don't want to feel it again. Not only that, I know that my sin was performance for the devil and a stab to my Savior's heart. He has opened my eyes to the truth He always knew and now that I know it too, I don't want to sin. I fear falling back into my old ways because I don't want anything to separate me from God.
This doesn't mean I'll never sin again, but that I'm doing everything I can through obedience and prayer to abstain from sin. I have changed. Truly being born again through Christ and having the Word of God, the truth, implanted in you, does change you.
So, as you read the verse above, do not view it as condemnation. View it through a hopeful lens that whatever you're struggling with, God can heal. Through Him, you won't be controlled by it anymore. His seed will remain in you and strengthen you against temptation, the devil's tactics, and everything else that may come your way.
God did not send His Son to condem us, but to save us. He did not give us His Word to condemn us, but to save us. He does not desire for anyone to be controlled by sin in this lifetime or experience eternity in Hell. His Word and His Son are given to us as gifts so that we may know the truth and have eternal life with Him. His Word and the sacrifice of His Son are proof of His undying and unconditional love for us.
"He who sins of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning." But let's remember that God did not create us in sin and the devil's corruption was not the beginning of mankind's story nor does it have to be the end. God created us in His image, without sin, without corruption. He created us to have relationship with us and that's exactly what He's trying to re-establish through the gifts of His Word and His Son.
Just as the devil lies to us about who Jesus is, he lies to us about who we are. God loves you. You are His, not the devil's. He's just waiting for you to choose Him, so He can remind you of who you truly are. He's waiting to give you both a new beginning and a new ending.
"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." 1 John 4:7-8
"If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit." 1 John 4:12-13
The Spirit of God is love.
We are called to love each other, not just the ones who look like, pray like, or believe like us.
God loves all of humanity, which is why He sent His Son to die for all of humanity.
The opposite of love is hate. There is no room for hate in the heart of a Christian. The spirit of hate is from the devil.
The Spirit of God overcomes the world, the lies, the devil and his demonic forces.
Let the Spirit of God in to heal what the devil has tried to break, distort, pervert, or bind.
My next post will dig deeper into being the manifestation of God's love for humanity. For now, strengthen yourself against false teachers, false doctrine, and the spirit of error, by accepting the truth from the apostle John.
"Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. 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. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, 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. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." 1 John 3:24 + 1 John 4:1-6
Comments