Do not be deceived
Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well. 1 John 2:22-23 CSB
Closing up this small section, John reiterates the fact that those that deny Jesus as the Christ, the divine Son of God, are the antichrists, the false teachers that were among John’s readers. The antichrists are the perpetrators of the lie denying Jesus as the Christ. But those who believe Christ and have trusted Him as their Lord and Savior will live their lives by the truth of God’s word. “Whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him” (1 John 2:5). The whole purpose of John’s gospel account was to show that Jesus Christ was indeed the promised Messiah and Son of God, seen in John 20:31, “But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John reveals the heart of the gospel: God the Father has sent His Son Jesus Christ to redeem the sinners. To deny Jesus’ divinity is to deny Him, which then leads to rejection of the Father, rejecting the promised life of salvation. We can also see this in John 17:3, from the words of Jesus Himself, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent —Jesus Christ.” The Father and the Son go hand in hand. To reject one is to reject the other. John makes it very clear, because the message of salvation is at stake. The only way to be saved isn’t through mystical means, as per the belief of the Gnostics, but through confessing Jesus’ name as the Son of God, which leads to a restored relationship with the Father. In Matthew 10:32, “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.”
Blessings,
Isaac De Guzman
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