I John, 2:21-23

You, because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also.

Notice there's no PowerPoint today again. Just because last time we did this round table thing I thought it was a lot of fun. So feel free to break in and add observations, thoughts, contradictions, whatever you think is on your heart to say, because there's enough knowledge around this table to make it interesting. I just wanted to shortly recap where we've been.

John just told his readers not to worry about those that went out to them because they that went out were not of the truth, nor did they belong to the truth. The previous verses clearly display the difference between the invisible and the visible church.

John lets his readers know that any church gathering that will be among them, those who are saved and of the faith and those who are not. there are those who are not will display themselves as time passes and will in the end be weeded out by God. So, not that we should go around our church gathering saying, I don't think he's saved, I don't think she's saved, I don't think, but at the same time there is this kind of underlying principle that even there are those even in the church that are not truly believers or who have not, maybe not been exposed to the truth of the gospel or in a lot of churches, people never hear the gospel in truth. And so a lot of churches have such faulty doctrine about who Jesus is that they never get a chance to rely on him or trust in him because they think they're on their own for their salvation and maybe Jesus helps. Anyway, there will always be a discrepancy between the visible and the invisible church, and I think what John is getting at, and where he brings us to this point, is saying that it's really not for us to worry about. Someone goes out from us, someone comes back, someone comes in, and we're not to necessarily sit around and spend all our time wondering, you know, having our salvation test, or our do you understand test, or anything to that effect. Anyway, that's where we had us, and then we go to verse 21.

Does someone want to read that? This is the New American Standard text that I used here. Does someone want to read that in a different translation? I have the King James.

Great. I have not written unto you because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. Good. And I just thought this was fun. John has these purpose statements throughout the book. We write, I am writing, and then this is just one of them. So, I just thought I'd read these off.

John 1, 4. We write this to make our joy complete. 1 John 2, 1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. 1 John 2, 12 to 14. I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I write to you, and so on, and so on.

1 John 2.21, I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth.

And the last one is 1 John 5.13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. So those are just a few, or actually those are the ones of this, where he says why I've written on all this, and Josiah, for those of us who were here in the introduction, pointed that out really well in the first class. Alright, so then he says, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth.

And the question that comes to mind here for me is, what is meant by the truth? In fact, didn't we talk about that a little bit last week? Like, is it Jesus? Yeah, and I think actually it would have been hard to figure out outside of this verse because of what happens later on. But anyway, is it the truth about Christ? Is it the truth about the Antichrist that have already come? Is it Jesus himself? Does he claim to be the way, the truth, and the life? What exactly is being spoken about here? The interpretation of the text is not really at stake here, which is my belief. If you take the truth to mean Jesus himself, the interpretation is still sound. You don't come up with anything strange or weird. However, or let's see, where was I?

Verse 20 tells us, and as verse 21 reaffirms, a believer knows Jesus. This is true of the person who knows him through faith, as well as John, who knew Jesus personally. It is equally true that the people who went out from them did not know Jesus. So those who claim, as the Gnostics did, that Jesus was not the Christ could not have really known him. So there's not a huge negative consequence that comes out of that. However, if you turn over to the next page, which is on the back, we have front and back pages today, how cool is that?

It also seems, however, that they interpret the truth as being the truth about Jesus, or the truth of the gospel that they already know. The reason for that, and actually I was meaning to, I am Josiah Roger and ask about this just because this was, my Greek is so basic right now, but one distinct argument for this is the fact that translators have traditionally chosen to translate the pronoun here, it, instead of him, that is to say, but because you do know it. And the Greek there is autein, which I took to mean a neuter or feminine Okay, there he goes.

Which would not be in relation to Christ, at least, because that would be in the masculine. So, in all likelihood, when it says the truth here, it would be my interpretation that it's talking about the truth about Jesus as a general concept, or the truth of the gospel. So he's saying, although as part of knowing the truth is knowing Jesus, John is saying here, I'm not writing it because you did not know the truth as more of a general concept, the whole truth, as it were. So, it seems more in keeping with the Greek autēn, which is not a masculine third person pronoun, it would make the most sense then to interpret the truth in verses 20 to 22 to mean the truth about Jesus Christ, as opposed to the lie of the Antichrist.

No, and then, it's hard to look back, but it's the same word in, you do not know the truth? No, no. Clarify. No. Clarify for all of us. Clarify in which one it is true. Okay. It's good. Good. So, no, when you see, I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it.

Same word, same verb tense, same all that business, just one is not no and the other one is no. So, we'll kind of cover both of those in one fell swoop right here. We've already encountered this word to know in our study program, and we'll yet encounter it more as we continue to study. The word is used by John in 1 John, all these passages. So it kind of becomes a pretty important key word that we see, that John is writing either to tell them that they know, or that they know, but somehow knowledge is involved. Do you have a question? Okay. I wasn't sure you looked like you had something on the tip of your tongue. I didn't want to get in the way.

So, 2.11, 2.20, 2.21, 2.29, 3.1. I mean, I just feel like you see every other verse or something when you line them up like that. But anyway, so it's a major word in conveying John's message to the churches. John is confirming them. in them what they should already know and what they've been told before. So we'll re-examine this important word just because it can't be overdone, I suppose to say.

Edo, to see, is different from the other word to see, which is, I should have put quotes around that, sorry, which is blepo, whereas blepo means merely to see. Edo, am I saying that wrong? means to perceive something and therefore know it by having seen, or witnessed it personally, or to know it intuitively, was also different from gnosko, which means to know experientially. The Complete Word Study Dictionary clearly lays out the difference. I'll just read the whole quote to you.

It's Kind of tough to follow if you're not actually looking at the paper because there's lots of brackets and lots of Greek, so I'll try to go over it. Contrasted with Oida, Gnosko, to know experientially, frequently suggests the inception or progress in knowledge, while Oida suggests fullness of knowledge.

The contrast is shown in John 8.55. Yet ye have not known him, ignos kate, perfect, active, indicative of gnosko. You have never had the experience of knowing him, is their interpretation of that word, ignos kate. You've never had the experience of knowing him.

But I know him, Jesus is saying, I know him, oida, I intuitively know him. because I am God as the Father is God. If I should say, I know him not, uk oida, that I did not intuitively know him, I should be a liar like unto you, but I know him, oida, I know him intuitively, and keep his sayings. It's also important to note that Edo is the perfect tense for oida, is I believe what my commentary said.

So that this is something that is done in the past and does not need to be repeated. They know the truth and they will not change under any circumstances. John is saying it's a done deal. It's just saying that everyone has equal knowledge, so to speak, so you are new.

I don't really know more than you because I'm an older Christian, but I have this intuitive knowledge of Jesus which is equal to anybody else. Hmm. I'd be more of the, I mean, feel free to jump in, I'd be more of the train of thinking that this is saying that since what he's talking about here and what he's talked about in previous verses is about the Antichrist and about what the Antichrist says or the spirit of the Antichrist, the people who act on his behalf are saying, that Jesus is not the Christ, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later. So he's saying that we all intuitively know this as saved people. Intuitively all know that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Son of God.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that as we move on. Is that the same no when it says, I know my sheep and my sheep know me? I didn't memorize the Greek text, I'm sorry. I don't know any Greek. That's a good question. I felt a lot of comfort from that verse, you know, how I know that I'm not fooled by the Antichrist, but from that verse I always felt like, okay, I'll know because he says that I'll know because I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Absolutely.

What is it, John 10.10? I'm going to be embarrassed to say that I don't know either. Move on from this maybe. It's fantastic. I will find out for you. I'll call your house and I'll tell you. Oh cool, so we'll find out before the end of this class period. This is exciting. Research in action.

Alright, so then we move on to no lies of the truth. This is about the source of the lie. It says that there can be no lie coming from the truth, or coming out of the truth. I believe the word is echolathia, so out of the truth. No lie can be coming out of the truth. In this case, in the case of this verse, the Holy Spirit is telling us that what we know, we know with finality and certainty from the Holy Spirit illuminating the Word of God.

And no liar will find its basis in that. This is an exhortation to us to have good doctrine. For what is bad doctrine but a lie? Those bad doctrines may claim to have scriptural support, but they do so by twisting or misusing scripture. We are called to read scriptures responsibly, study, and be able to tell the lie from the truth.

So this is in special reference to our doctrine of Christ. We are, as Christians, and especially as Christians in America right now, who all have a Bible. I mean, most non-Christian households have a Bible around. So we really don't have any excuse not to know the basic truth of what's in this book, the basic truth of what it says about Jesus and the fact that he's the Son of God, the fact that he's the Christ.

And I think that concept is readily extendable to say that we also are responsible to be reading the Word and becoming more educated in the faith, so that when bad doctrines come our way, whether it's through the form of a popular Christianity movement, or through just the world telling us what we should think, or say, or believe. It's our job to be on guard, or part of our duty to be on guard. Not that we should be nervous. necessarily overly argumentative or, you know, fighters about it, but just to say at the same time, in our own hearts and amongst our own families, we need to be protecting and guarding and keeping up on that. So, before we move on to verse 22, are there any questions? Any comments, observations? Did I get anything wrong? It's happened before. Okay, good. Verse 22. April, would you please read verse 22 for us? And could you say the bold parts louder than the other parts? Who is the liar? The one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. The one who denies the Father and the Son. Thank you. That was fantastic. You're a rock star. Okay.

Who is the liar? So John's about to get specific and tell us who the liar is of the lie that he talked about earlier. So who's the liar? We learned that no lie is the truth and now John is going to tell us one surefire way to tell if someone is a liar.

It is not to say that there cannot be bad doctrine outside of this particular qualification, only that this is a surefire way to know if someone is connected to the truth or not. And it's also not to say that people who aren't connected to the truth can't have good ideas or good thoughts. but simply to say that this person, if someone denies that Jesus is the Christ, we can pretty much just count on the fact that anything they say is subject or suspect to either their controlling sinful nature or any level of false motive, and obviously will lead us, or may lead us, away from Christ. So, it's asking, who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, The one that denies Jesus is the Christ is a liar. Any teacher who denies this fact is a false teacher, and it is what we need to be on the lookout for. The word denies here is in the present tense, so someone who denied in the past that Jesus is the Christ before they were a believer is not being called the Antichrist here, or an Antichrist here. This is referring to the person who is right now and continuing to deny that Jesus is the Christ in the Greek tense. essentially to say that the person who is denying that Jesus is the Christ is the false teacher, he or she is the liar.

And the reality that this is going on in churches every day is really sad. I mean, there's churches that call themselves Christian churches that today that deny that Jesus was God, the Son of God, or deny that Jesus was man, like in John's day.

And we'll get into those a little bit more. So, I guess we'll move on to the Antichrist, unless there's any questions? This topic was well covered last week. You weren't here last week. I apologize. We'll get you the notes. And Josiah, honestly, knows a lot more about the Antichrist and the eschatological stuff than I do.

So I didn't want to get into it too in-depth. find in one of the word search studies and I wanted to actually get your opinion on it just to see what see if it was in keeping because I heard there was some disrupt like some people thought one way some people thought the other so I'd love to get your thoughts on it as well.

But the English version of the Antichrist gives the sense of against Christ, which is absolutely true in both lowercase a, Antichrist, that is those who are living in the spirit of the Antichrist, as well as the capital A, or uppercase A, Antichrist, the man of perdition, are against the Christ. The Greek has another sense. The Greek could also be rendered as the instead of Christ, or the replacement Christ. So the word Antichrist is not only in reference to one who will deny that Jesus is the Christ, but also present himself, in the case of the capital Antichrist, or something else in the case of the people who are living in the spirit of the Antichrist, as the replacement Christ.

So this is saying that Satan, in the spirit of the Antichrist today, and in the actual man of the Antichrist somewhere in the future that will be revealed, he's seeking to replace Christ in our lives. or in the lives of the world, or in the world. So, we learn here that the people who are partaking of the attitude of the Antichrist, who is yet to come forth and be named. Okay. So, first of all, does that make sense? Yeah? Is that? Yeah, that's right. It's balanced. You're right.

There's the one anti, basically in Greek anti can mean two things. It can mean against and it can mean instead of. So some Bible scholars when they talk about the Antichrist, they just say, well, he's just one against Christ and they emphasize that. And other guys say, no, no, no, it's somebody who's instead of Christ and they emphasize that.

But really, they're really related and they kind of go together. So that was balanced. Cool. Great, great. So, and then we'll move on to the last phrase of this verse, which is, denies the Father and the Son. And I think this is kind of a, this phrase is what he elaborates on in the next, he defends this statement in his next verse. So it says, here we see what the next verse will cover in detail.

The person who denies Christ also denies the Father, or denies also the Father. The Antichrist himself will deny both very clearly. However, there are many who would try to make convincing arguments that they are of the Father, even though they deny the Son. This is an impossibility. It would be akin to saying, I believe in tea, but I don't believe in water. You can have no tea without water, and you simply cannot know the Father if you deny the Son. So that's what John is saying here.

I mean, is that in keeping with your personal experiences, or is that, does anyone else have anything to offer? I have a friend who, we talk about spiritual things, and she's getting ready to retire, and she said, you know, I'd like to get more into my spiritual life, and I asked her straight out, does she believe that Jesus is God, and she said no. Really? And sees nothing wrong with that, and continues to. talk and I think that is a you're right there are churches that have that I don't know if they come right out and say it but they just don't. Is she someone that considers herself a Christian? No. Oh really? No. Is she a good standard of church?

Occasionally. I'm shocked just downright shocked. I don't think that's an uncommon belief. Yeah, I think you're right. I think a lot of churches do it by omission. They just don't teach that Jesus is the Son of God. So all the information that people get about Jesus, doctrinal information, they get from the History Channel, or, what is it, the PBS special, or whatever it is. And I've not seen a single one of those that, I mean, they all have some interesting information, but they all, in the end, in the end, are going to say something to the effect of, Jesus was a really great guy and a nice teacher who thought he was God. You know, I mean, they all are going to have that liberal bent or that liberal twist at the end. Some of them will kind of leave it up to mystery or leave it up to chance, and I love the History Channel, and I watch the History Channel, and I especially love the specials that are on the Bible or on faith or on the truth of the Bible.

But, the reality of the matter is that if that's all you're watching, if that's all the information that you're getting on Jesus, you're going to be wondering, well, was he really? And if you don't look at this every day, if you're not really studying and checking this out, then someone tells you, oh, the Bible says, in the Bible Jesus never says this, or Jesus always says this. And your whole picture of Jesus can be formed just from what the culture has said about him already. I mean, nice guy, felt-bored Jesus could be the Jesus that you believe in, even if that has nothing to do with what he actually said, even if your picture is completely disconnected to how the Bible presents him. Well, if you can get Jesus out of the way too, then you can make God into whatever you want him to be.

Absolutely. And I think that's intimately tied to exactly what John's saying here. Does anybody else have anything to add on this before we move on? Because this is what we're going to just elaborate on this for the rest of the time. And then the bell will ring. And then we'll go get more coffee. Okay? Great. Verse 23. Josiah, could you read it for us in whatever translation you prefer?

Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. So, whoever denies, whoever here means in the Greek, whoever. Regardless of position or power or how good a teacher they are, so often we're impressed with a great teacher or a learned person. who seems to know about science, the Bible, or life in general, regardless of whoever this person is, what they have or do, or even how nice or spiritual they may seem, this applies. Denies here is in the present tense, so it would be better rendered whoever is continually denying the Son.

And that's really important, I think, for us, because We've become such a culture of respecting people who have lots of letters after their names, or lots of degrees. Like, oh, well, how could she be wrong? She has five doctorates in psychology and science and da-da-da-da. So, of course, he or she knows exactly what they're talking about. The reality is that someone who has an IQ of 8 with Christ knows more about the reality of the universe just by their simple faith than this person with 8, 10, 9, 12, 14 degrees.

So anyway, not to trash on education or trash on people who are financially stable, but at the same time, it's always important, and it's always difficult for us to differentiate as people, but it's always important to realize that When people are speaking outside of their area of expertise, just because they're experts somewhere else doesn't mean they're experts here.

I don't want to take cooking lessons from Stephen Hawking. I'm sure he's a terrible cook. Or maybe he's a great cook, but it doesn't really matter. The point is that his expertise is in astrophysics or something to that effect. Something smart people do. I don't know.

I've been thinking a bit about biblical archaeology in the past few weeks. A lot of the biblical archaeologists are not Christians. They they in fact, it seems to be one of the. principles of archaeology that if you want to be a biblical archaeologist, you cannot look at the Bible. Because that's a document and these guys had an agenda when they wrote it. So all we're going to look at is archaeology, archaeological evidence, period.

So David, Solomon, It seems now they've found David's temple, but they're not sure. Right now David's still a myth. Where's the sign that says Jesus' name? Therefore we don't know where Jesus is really at. And these are biblical archaeologists. would have faith in the Bible. I know some do, and I'm not throwing them all in non-Christian's hands at all, because there are conservative archaeologists like Bible and Spade or whatever, but a lot of them are just liberal. Wow. Of course. That's kind of ironic. Yeah, it is, isn't it? It's good insight. Absolutely. Okay. Should we move forward to the back of the page?

Okay, so, does not have the Father. The Spirit, by which I mean the Holy Spirit, is showing us here, through the Word, that it is logically impossible to deny the Son and yet have the Father. This specifically applies to the modernists or the countless cults that claim to believe in the God of the Bible, but do not accept Jesus as the special and unique Son of God. Without acknowledging Jesus for who He truly is, We cannot have a saving relationship with the Father. In Christ alone can we approach the Father, because in Christ alone are we forgiven and identified with Him. There is no alternative route available for mankind.

So anyway, just we'll talk a little bit more when we get to the short little longest paragraph there, but the application paragraph. But just to say that John is making a pretty, which is not John's thing. It's right. It's more Paul's thing to make these great exacting arguments that say, This, and this, and therefore this.

But, in this case, John is trying to be, I think, as legally straightforward and clear as he can in saying, look, know Jesus, know God. If you don't believe in Jesus, if you don't know Jesus, you don't know the Father. And, I mean, just for the repetition alone in these last few verses, says that it's something that's 1. very important to him, 2. should be very important to us, but 3. also is in no one clarity in terms of how it's being presented. And for me personally, it's a little bit troubling because I always... and I know that with God's sovereign will and he will decide who will come to him and who won't, who will call and all that. But even still, I placate my conscience by saying, oh, you know, he goes to church or oh, you know, she... these people in my life that I know aren't... really believers. I placate my conscience so I don't have to talk to them or make a personal risk to kind of reach out to them or challenge their... I work with a lot of late teen, early twenties guys and they're just crass, horrible, you know, but I placate my conscience in saying, oh, well, they're all nice guys, and you know, I bet one of them even read the Bible once, and so I never say anything, and I never challenge them, and I never do this and that, so I think that's where, that's troubling to me, is that John is just so clear, and so distinct, there's no chance that they have the father without the son, so.

There's a verse in John that says something about, if you know me, you know the Father. Absolutely. Was it Philip or Thomas that said, just show us the Father. Lord, just show us the Father. Absolutely. So, yeah, and we'll actually even cover, not that specific verse, but we'll get... John also says it that way. If you know the Son, Then, okay, let's go back to confess.

The word confess is the same word that we encountered in 1 John 1.9. This is a word homologo, which is a compound word. combines the words for same and the word for word, logos. So, when combined, they mean the same word, or to agree with what is being said.

This is the passage could also be translated, the one who agrees with the truth about the Son of God, or the one who, same words, who speaks the same word as John or as the teacher in this case. is not about confessing in front of a crowd or an auditorium.

It does not mean that you have to go find a group of people in front of which to confess. This is saying that the person who agrees that Jesus is the unique Son of God, he has the Father as well. I think people will cite this verse occasionally to say, Once you're saved, you're not really finally saved until you stand up in front of at least 10 or 50 people and say, I believe that Jesus is the Christ. And that's that kind of, let the redeemed of the Lord stand up and say so, as some sort of prerequisite for salvation, and it's just not a biblical truth. So anyway, that's not what this is saying.

This confesses And as we talked about last time in 1 John 1.9, confess is not necessarily the word that we think of, because we've been so indoctrinated with Catholic culture over the years, that when we think confess, we think, okay, I go to the priest, I sit in the box, and I say, even Protestants have this image of confess. You know what I mean? Even if it's not confessing to the priest, we think of confessing that same way, but to God instead. And really, confession is not saying, I'm sorry.

Confession is saying, God, I agree with you, as we learned in John 1.9. I agree with you, God.

I say the same thing. Those things that I did, they're sinful. I did them. You said they're sinful, and I agree. I same-word with you. This is the person who same-words about the doctrine of Jesus Christ, about the teaching that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus is the Son of God. So, the person who same-words, the person who agrees with, and here it's translated confess, Which, I guess, is a fair translation, but I think they could come up with something a little bit better. I think it agrees with us.

Acknowledges. Acknowledges is fantastic. Who did your Bible? That's great. Wonderful. Acknowledges works out much better. That word itself flies in the face of post-modernism. You say one thing, you know, not many things, and that's okay. It's one thing. Oh, absolutely.

I went to a diversity of doctrine church most of my life. We celebrate diversity of doctrine. He believed Jesus was actually named Paul and Bob and this and that, you know, and we celebrate that, so everyone come on in. Yeah, just like you said, there's very little merit. And then the passage that really came to mind is in Ephesians, in the first number escapes me, where he says, one spirit, one faith, one, one, one. It's like one doctrine, one teaching. Now, it's not to say that we're not going to make mistakes as we interpret this book, and we need to lovingly deal with each other as we do, and I think a lot, most, many, many Christians have their doctrinal mistakes, doctrinal errors, in completely best intentions.

They just haven't looked carefully enough, or haven't looked at all the passages, which I think we'll all get to heaven and find our doctrine, our understanding of scriptural things, of spiritual things, is going to need to be straightened out in some places.

I mean, as Vern pointed out the other week when I talked to him, he said, John, John, in Revelation, he's in heaven, he's looking at heavenly things, and the guy cannot seem to act in a way that is proprietary to heaven. He just can't do it. This is John. He wrote, you know, quite a bit of scripture. And yet, when he gets to heaven, people are constantly telling him, two times, angels had to turn around and say, he fell down and worshipped him. No, no, don't worship me. One time, the scroll's out and no one can open it and he starts crying and crying and crying. And this is John. And he can't seem to act in line with, because he's still got the presence of his sinful flesh with him. He's still not perfectly conformed to the image of Christ.

So, I think we'll all have a ways to go in that. And yet, We need to be striving to be together in our doctrine, not just together physically, in spite of our doctrine. It's so hard to walk that line and say, we don't need to be going around with our Bibles hitting people and trying to destroy people's faith or make people embittered or angry. And yet at the same time, lovingly, we need to be instructing people in the truth as far as we can take it out of the Word because we love them.

If someone believes that they might wake up tomorrow and not be saved, that's going to completely disable them from Christian growth. They may never come to a full level of maturity because they're always afraid they're going to lose their salvation tomorrow.

That security where Jesus says, you know, my sheep, no one will take them from my hand. You are saved, and just the Greek tenses alone, you're saved once and for all. It's done. Without that security, How can you reach maturity? So anyway, things like that need to be done in love, of course.

So anyway, has the Father also? This is a positive portrayal of the negative given in the previous statement. The person who denies the Son does not have the Father. However, he who agrees about Jesus has the Father. This is an airtight argument. It groups all of humanity into those who acknowledge the Son and have their Father as a result, and those who do not. So here, once again, we see our position being displayed. As we believe in Jesus Christ, so also are we given access to the Father in Him who is seated at the right hand of God.

So before we move on to the application, are there any more comments? Or we can have comments after the application as well, but just about the text itself or about... So when you say it says here, once again we see our position being displayed, are you saying then that John is telling us this is what we believe, this is what you should believe? Let's just say it out loud, this is what we should be believing.

Yeah, I mean, he's saying, anyone who agrees that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God has also the Father. So, I mean, there's kind of this implied, the fact that once you believe in Jesus, your position, you're in Christ. Galatians 2.20 and Romans chapter 6 and Ephesians chapter 2 kind of talk about this. When Christ was crucified, you were put, God put you in Him, and you were crucified. And when Christ was dead and buried, you were in Him, you were buried. Resurrected, you're in Him, and now that He's ascended, in heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father, you're right now in Him, like Ephesians 1 says.

So, you have access to the Father through Jesus, all the time, simply by believing in Jesus. And, I also think this is kind of a, kind of a, it's almost like an axiom, if you believe in Jesus as the Son of God, Obviously, he's got to be the son of someone, right? Son of God. So your doctrine about God is already pretty right on, if you understand who Jesus is, without any extra-biblical evidence about the Father. Just the realization that Jesus is the Son of God, implicit that there is a Father, implicit that he is displaying the characteristics and the traits of the Father.

It's really just true. It's not like it's spiritually revealed. The Father is spiritually revealed to you. But if you know Jesus, then you know the Father. And just like you said, Doris, when Philip asked Jesus, can we just show us the Father once, and that'll be enough for us. He said, Philip, I've been here the whole time.

Did you not see that I'm the father in one? So anyway, as it were, as it were, should we move on to application? Or did I just muddy the waters? Because he's writing a letter of instruction to these people, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Any other observations? Let's close through the application, and then hopefully have a few more discussions, because I know you guys are holding back. I know you're holding out on me.

There are so many different ways that Jesus is denied today. There are some extremists to go so far as to say he never even existed, which, by the way, the most historically foolish and ignorant thing in the world that anyone can say. But I've worked with people who say, I just don't believe he ever was a real person named Jesus. who was crucified. Okay, don't believe in the resurrection because it's beyond your ability to believe or whatever, but to say that Jesus didn't exist is like...

Okay, I'm sorry. Get off topic. Not the time for soap boxing, I suppose. But there are extremists who go so far as to say they're resistant. We need to replace that with a real bell. Others try to separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of faith. There are a thousand other variations in our own day and back through history that tried to take something away from Jesus that was His. Some tried to take His deity, others His humanity. There are some that would take away the power of His death on the cross or our identification with Him upon belief. These are people who would call themselves Christians, or I should say some of these people are people who would call themselves Christians. They'll say, we just have slightly differing beliefs about Jesus.

Can't we still have fellowship together? The answer to that question John gives us is no. We cannot share in the one true faith with those who would deny what Jesus was. It is so easy to make compromises, so easy to try to just get along, but the reality is no lie is of the truth. we need to be in stark contrast with those who would deny Jesus His rightful place. And once again to say, when we see someone, if we were to meet someone and they were to deny that, we're not to punch them in the face, but just to say that churches that are in the church meeting will say, it doesn't matter what you believe, it's just completely opposing to the Word.

With that said, we still have five minutes to discuss. Can anyone think of any other applications or ways that this should kind of affect or change our thinking, or affect or change the way we go through this week, or any other points that are brought out? Because I know I didn't get to the bottom of scripture, because you can't do that. So, any other thoughts or observations?

I think it says in the application how you can't have fellowship with others who don't believe that Jesus is the Christ and believe differently. It just points out how important fellowship is. I think the fellowship, lots of times we take it lightly, like, oh, you're just getting together with people. But fellowship is being with others who believe in Christ and sharing Him together. You can't do that with someone. So, just how important fellowship is. Yeah, it's like Brad says, if you listen to PBS or those stations all the time, that's all you hear. You can get distracted and go away from what you really foundationally believe in. You need that fellowship so that you know that there's others that know the truth.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I started a new job last week. They're a big company, national company. It looks like it'll be a great place to work. But they have this newsletter that comes out every month or five months. It's called Diversity in the Workplace.

And I was looking at it, and of course the Muslim feast of Ramadan was going on there. And so it was given a little background, one of the feasts where they celebrate Abraham, the moment when Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac and God provided the substitute. No, I think they said it. I think they said Isaac. Oh, really? Wow. Am I wrong? Did they say... I think they said Ishmael or someone. I thought they said Isaac, but my...

So, we should look at that. My point was, you know, here they're, you know, celebrating diversity, but yet they're going back to maybe one thing that the Jews, the Muslims, and the Christians would all agree on. And I don't know, it's kind of ironic. They're just trying to celebrate diversity, but yet they know that they're trying to... It seems like they're trying to find one thing that everybody could agree on.

It's true. I don't know, we had some friends that went to the School of Mines and they went from Oman and they think that they are the lineage of Isaac. Wow. That's what they say. Spiritually or? Well, Isaac, yeah. Wow. Spiritually or physically? I don't think that they're from Ishmael. Well, there you go. And they're probably not. Yeah, yeah, they definitely are. Oh, wow, wow, wow. That's amazing. Yeah, it's such, oh wow. Yeah, it's such a bizarre. Talk to them and they, you know, they're from Isis, they're not from Ishmael.

And the most massively bizarre thing about it is that it was all written like 600 AD. So it's not like they were looking at, you know, Moses wrote fairly close to that time and then, but there we go. And yet Muhammad, who didn't actually write, but the people who wrote on his behalf after he died and were drawing all these conclusions, what were they reading? They were reading the Torah.

And then it's like, well, the Jews, the people of God? No, we'll be the people of God for this time. Why not? But ultimately, it's not like it was something that was going on for years and years and millennia and millennia. Really, Islam, prior to the foundation of Mohammed coming and establishing it, and really the people after him. It was a moon cult, more than anything else. That's why you see the crescent moon on all of their biggest things. So anyway, this is probably not the appropriate time for...

But what you said is absolutely true. They want to find something that we all agree on. To celebrate their diversity. Yeah, to celebrate their diversity. Everyone believes that God is love, or that peace is good, which is not true. Everyone does not believe that peace is good. But anyway, you're absolutely right. Can I close us in prayer, or do we all really need coffee that bad?

Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you for this time that we could spend learning from your Word and gazing upon you, Lord, and gazing upon what you have told us about life and about spirituality and about I pray that these truths and this word would continue to affect us and unfold in our lives, that we would intellectually understand it and believe it in our hearts and apply it to our lives. Praise you for this fellowship.

Lift up again those who are not with us. I pray that Vani and Raj have safe travel. They pick up their daughter and pick up or drop off their daughter. Lord, just please be with them and their family time. Once again, we praise you and thank you for the wonderful gift of this place to come and worship you and hear your word. In Jesus' holy name, Amen.