Faith may go beyond the available evidence, but if it contradicts it, it is at best wishful thinking and at worst a delusion or a lie.

One of the big problems with modern Christianity is that our faith has gone beyond the available evidence, without option for reevaluation once new evidence is found.

image by Kiel Latham

Few things are more fun for a teenage boy than sneaking into the girl’s cabins at camp. I remember indulging in a little covert operation once with a friend of mine. We had dodged security and made our way in to the so-called holy of holies. After hanging out for a while, we heard the sound of footsteps closing in. I frantically slid underneath the bottom of the bunk bed on one side of the cabin. My friend was slightly larger than I, so he kicked a girl out of her bed. She hid underneath it, while he climbed in and quickly threw the covers over his head. The door opened quickly, accompanied by a flashlight and a voice:

“Is everything alright in there?”

As the flashlight started checking the bunk beds, I was sure we were going to be found out. Everyone was holding their breath, on the verge of giggling.

Fortunately, we escaped that time. I suppose this is sort of a confession.

My point in revealing that deep-dark secret is this: what will you be found doing when the flashlight hits you?

. . .

This verse is the major turning point in the letter. From here on, what has already been taught is applied and expanded upon. Bultmann conjectured that this part of the epistle may even be notes taken from a seminar, or a collection and expansion of John’s original text by his followers. I tend to believe it’s just the natural tendency of an old preacher to cover the same ground a few more times before calling it a night.

John uses the word abide/remain to connect what’s been taught with what’s to come. We are to remain in Jesus—now we’re given a reason: so when he is revealed we will have confidence (and not be ashamed) when he comes.

The idea of Jesus’ appearing or revealing is important in this section of the letter. Between here and 3:10, the word is used twice to refer to Jesus’ first coming (his incarnation in Bethlehem), and twice for his second coming (yet to happen). The second usage is in mind here.

. . .

John uses the word “light” to describe Jesus quite often. Here are a few examples:

[John] came as a witness to testify to the light. . . . He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (John 1:7-9 NRSV)

The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19 NRSV)

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life. (John 8:12)

I should add that famous verse from Revelation:

There will be no more night; they need no light or lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light. (Revelation 22:5 NRSV)

Jesus is light, and when that light is revealed, it exposes everything dark. Like a 5 million candle-power floodlight in a dark forest, Jesus’ appearance will illuminate this world.

John’s point is simple, profound, and very direct: when he is revealed—when he does come again—will you be ashamed, or confident? If you remain “in him”, there’s nothing to fear.

. . .

I love how John uses the second coming of Jesus in such a pastoral way. Rather than trying to calculate dates (which we’re told is futile, yet we still try), he states the fact and uses it to motivate us. The second coming of Jesus should encourage us to become who we are. If we claim to follow Jesus, then our conduct should reflect the new sort of creatures we have become.

< 1 John 2:26-27 | Remedy for Deception

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• Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession © 2008
• Alfred A. Knopf
• 245 pages

What does it take for an atheist who authored the famous Vampire novels to return to the faith of her childhood—and to live out that faith in her publishing commitments? Nothing but the love of Jesus.

This book will move you. There’s an honest simplicity to it that many spiritual works lack. In her words:

If this path to God is an illusion, then the story is worthless. If the path is real, then we have something here that may matter to you as well as to me.

It’s nowhere near as freakin’ cool as Scotteriology, though. Maybe I should slip in a pic of of Charlie the Unicorn behind one of those trees.

He is Himself the Word of God Almighty, Who in His invisible form pervades us universally in the whole world, and encompasses both its length and breadth and height and depth—for by God’s Word everything is disposed and administered—the Son of God was cruficifed in these, imprinted in the form of a cross on the universe.

image by negatendo

There are two verses in the New Testament that just drive me crazy when people misinterpret them. The second one is part our text today. Here they are:

Do not worry about . . . what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say. (Luke 12:11-12 NRSV)

You do not need anyone to  teach you. . . . his anointing teaches you about all things. (1 John 2:27 NRSV)

These verses have been used to excuse exegetical sloth many times. I’ve heard of preachers who don’t prepare at all—they just walk up to the pulpit and engage in small talk until they feel moved to speak on something.

That’s clearly not the intent of these verses. If it were true, the irony would be unbearable: John would be teaching his people that they don’t need anyone to teach them!

These two verses teach different things, although they have been twisted into a unity. The first text from Luke says that God will give his followers divine wisdom to know what to say when they’re being persecuted. It’s certainly not an excuse to avoid studying scripture. The second verse is the subject of this devotion.

. . .

John is still concerned about the antichrists that came out of his congregation to deceive them. These antichrists were deceiving the believers into thinking that they needed extra revelation that only they, the antichrists, could provide. The content of that knowledge, as we looked at last week, was that the Christ descended upon Jesus at baptism, and left him sometime before the cross.

Earlier, in verse 24, John gave the first antidote to this kind of deception: what you heard from the beginning must abide in you, so you will abide in the Son and in the Father. This week, we find a second antidote to the deception (also mentioned earlier in verse 20, but given more emphasis now).

The second antidote is the anointing: the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life.

Let’s look at the elements of that anointing:

1. It abides/remains in us. The Spirit’s anointing is not something that comes and goes. As William Griffin once suggested to me, it’s not like Curtis Joseph on a hot streak (of course this dates the conversation—go Toskala). We don’t need to pray to receive an anointing any more than we need to pray to be saved again. Once was enough: God’s strength to hold us is far more powerful than our ability to run. Jesus made this clear in John 14:16: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever” (NRSV).
2. The anointing teaches you, in lieu of the antichrists. I must stress: John is not suggesting that we ignore wise teaching and just listen to our hearts.  He is urging us, when we hear something that doesn’t line up with what we’ve been taught in the past, to allow the Spirit of Christ to confirm whether or not it’s true.
3. The anointing is always true, and is not a lie. Teachers are a mixed bag. Some are good, some are bad. Even the best miss the truth sometimes. The Holy Spirit will always, and only, witness to the truth.
4. The anointing urges us to remain in Christ’s teaching. Semantically, there are two options here. This verse could be urging us to remain in the anointing, or to remain in Christ. Theologically, the Spirit of Christ always points back to him.  In fact, Jesus told his disciples that “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26 NRSV).

So we have a one–two punch against antichrists and false teachers: the word we’ve heard from the beginning, and the witness of the Spirit of Christ.

. . .

The trick is learning to listen to the anointing. I don’t have any short cuts or easy methods to offer for this. Even the most mature saints fail at times. However, the key to listening is right in the text: remain in Christ. As we continue daily to pray, to listen, and to do what he tells us, his voice will grow more and more familiar.

< 1 John 2:22-25 | Scandalous Incarnation

1 John 2:28 | Put to Shame >

• God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? Insights from the Bible and the Early Church © 2007
• InterVarsity Press
• 181 pages

This book promised more than it delivered. McDermott never gets around to suggesting an answer to the question of why God allowed different religions.

He starts with a chapter on “The Scandal of Particularity”, which only heightened my desire to delve into this conundrum. Why does God only speak to some people and cultures? Is the rest of his creation doomed to hell because of it?

Over all, the book is interesting and easy to read. The highlight of the book are the chapters on Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, and Origen. McDermott’s knack for story-telling makes these old church fathers come alive. It’s good to learn their views on the question as well.

Unfortunately, when you get to the last chapter, all you’ll find is a summary of the preceding ones.

The fear of works righteousness is far too exaggerated in most churches. Would that there were an equal fear of being found inactive!

image by free sample

We’re approaching Christmas. Picture Jesus, the newborn infant, lying in a manger. Now answer these questions:

• Did the newborn Jesus cry like any other newborn or was he supernaturally peaceful?
• Would the newborn Jesus be recognizable as something different from the rest of humanity by a stranger, or would he look just like any other crying baby?
• Hebrews tells us that the world was created and is sustained through Jesus. In his infant mind, was he holding and spinning the galaxies around in space, or do you think he only cared about pooping, eating, and sleeping?

How you answer those questions reveals a lot about your Christology. The ancient church discerned that Jesus was fully God and fully man. That’s fine in the abstract, but difficult to figure out in reality.

The false teachers (let’s call them by John’s term, now: antichrists) had shifted their Christological views. They would have assumed that they were just a different, more enlightened variety of Christian. John knew otherwise—their views led to a denial of the Father as well as the Son, which removed them from the promise of eternal life.

. . .

Let’s catch up with the antichrists. John’s told us a lot about what they claim for themselves indirectly:

• fellowship with God (1:6)
• committed no sins (1:8, 10)
• know God (2:4)
• abide in God (2:6)
• in the light (2:9)

Here John makes a direct accusation: they deny that Jesus was the Christ. Later in 4:2, John will clarify this: “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” (NRSV, emphasis mine)

Although it’s difficult to figure out exactly what the opposite side of an argument is, John Stott provides a good summary of what these antichrists likely believed:

The antichrists probably taught (as some later Gnostics certainly taught) that Jesus was born and died a man, and that ‘the Christ’, by which they meant a divine emanation, was within him only during his public ministry, descending upon him at his baptism and leaving him before the cross. They thus denied that Jesus was or is (estin, 22) the Christ or the Son.

These views were infiltrating John’s church, so he had to provide his people with a method for discerning truth from error.  That method is confession.

. . .

Bultmann says it well:

God is always to be perceived in his revelation in Jesus, just as, according to Jn 17:3, the knowledge of God and Jesus belong together.

In the footnotes to this passage, Bultmann offers a collection of texts from the Gospel of John that elaborate on the relationship between the Father and the Son. It’s a fascinating collection:

• Whoever honours the Son also honours the Father (John 5:23)
• Whoever knows the Son also knows the Father (John 8:19; 14:7)
• Whoever hates the Son also hates the Father (John 15:23)
• Whoever does not know the Son also does not know the Father (John 16:3)
• Whoever has seen the Son also has seen the Father (John 14:9)

I grew up picturing God as an old man who was slightly angry with me for all my sins. In contrast to that, his son was full of love for me and took the blame for my sins so the Father would begrudgingly allow me into heaven. Scripture says very plainly that the Son and the Father are one God, and share many attributes. If you want to figure out what God the Father is like, just look at his Son.  If you know one, you’ll know the other. It’s a much happier picture than what I used to think!

The antichrists in John’s congregation denied Jesus was the Christ. That means, for John, that they denied the Father as well. In contrast to that, we’re invited to confess the Son, and we’ll wind up with the Father as well. Confession is a public act.  It’s throwing your cards on the table and revealing to everyone what you believe.

The promises continue.

Next John reuses one of his favourite words: abide or remain (menō). If the teaching you heard from the beginning abides/remains in you, then you will abide/remain in the Son and in the Father. This takes the promise of the last verse one step further. If we confess the Son, then we have the Father.  Furthermore, if original teaching abides in us, than we will abide in the Son and in the Father.

Wait, there’s more.

Verse 25 goes on to remind us of eternal life. When solid teaching remains in us, and we are not swayed by the false teaching of the antichrists, then we are heirs to the promise of eternal life.

When we hear the word “eternal” today, most of us think of a really, really, really long time. While there is a time aspect to it, Dallas Willard has done a great job of showing how eternal life is more than just a duration of time: it is a quality of time (The Divine Conspiracy). When we became believers, we received eternal life—a God-filled life—that we participate in now. It’s not just for the dead.

. . .

Let’s return to the issue of Christology. I’m not suggesting that the modern church is falling for the old idea that Christ’s spirit inhabited Jesus for a time, and left him before the cross. That battle’s been fought. However, could there be ways that we distort Jesus’ life today?

Do we ever over-spiritualize him at the expense of his humanity? Do we just assume he knew everything all the time because he was fully God?  Do we secretly assume that his temptation in the desert ultimately wasn’t too bad, because he knew that he was God anyway? Will we picture him this Christmas as a little infant spinning the galaxies in space?

A good remedy for the is to return to the gospels. Read them again. Read them with fresh eyes. Allow yourself to see how Jesus struggled, cried, and got angry. Allow the Spirit of Christ, who inspired the words of the gospels, to teach you the truth.

< 1 John 2:20-21 | Already Anointed

1 John 2:26-27 | Remedy for Deception >

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo © 2005
• Translation by Reg Keeland © 2008
• Knopf
• 465 pages

I bought this because I felt like reading something different. I don’t often read murder mysteries, but Barnes & Noble had a stack of these books at the front of the store alongside a very persuasive write-up.

The book was so compelling, I read the last half of it in four hours straight, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

The characters are all quite flawed, which gives them a harsh realistic quality. The last few paragraphs made me grieve at the pain fallen humanity can cause by its own selfishness. (I’m not sure that this was Larsson’s intent—it was likely my Christocentric worldview coming into play.)

This book is not for the faint of heart, but if you’re looking for somthing to keep you awake at night this will do the trick.