10 Nov. Believers have eternal life and understand the truth
"You have the gift [of the Holy Spirit] that the Holy One gave you, so you all know the truth."
"I do not write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know the truth. And you know that no lie comes from the truth."
"Who is the liar? It is the person who does not accept Jesus as the Christ [the promised Messiah]. This is the enemy of Christ: the person who does not accept the Father and his Son."
"Whoever does not accept the Son does not have the Father. But whoever confesses the Son [as Lord] has the Father, too."
"Be sure you continue to follow the teaching you heard from the beginning. If you continue to follow what you heard from the beginning, you will stay in the Son and in the Father. And this is what the Son promised to us - life for ever."
"I am writing this letter about those people who are trying to lead you the wrong way. Christ gave you a special gift that is still in you, so you do not need any other teacher. His gift [of the Holy Spirit] teaches you about everything, and it is true, not false. So continue to live in Christ, as his gift taught you."
"Yes, my dear children, live in him so that when Christ comes back, we can be without fear and not be ashamed in his presence. If you know that Christ is all that is right, you know that all who do right are God's children."
(1 John 2:20-29)
In this section of his First Letter, John explains that believers who have been filled with the Holy Spirit have eternal life and understand the truth. Furthermore, they know that those who deny that Jesus is the promised Messiah (the ‘Christ’) are lying. "This is the enemy of Christ: the person who does not accept the Father and his Son." (1 John 2:22)
So who was John writing about? Who were these 'enemies of Christ' who were perverting the truth?
John wrote his letter to warn believers of the dangerous heresy of 'Gnosticism' that was starting to engulf the churches in the Roman province of Asia. Those spreading this heresy – known today as ‘Gnostics’ – believed that Jesus was truly divine, but argued that he could not also be fully human.
John set out to convince the readers of his letter that Jesus was indeed both fully human and fully divine. So the logic of his argument is that those who cannot accept Jesus as God's 'Messiah' (or 'Christ') and do not recognise Jesus as the only begotten Son of God are not true Christians.
The same argument - that Jesus is both fully God and fully Man - is still relevant today when confronting a number of religious sects who sometimes claim to be Christian, but deny that Jesus was both a human being and God. Unitarians, Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians, for example, claim to follow Biblical truth, but all deny John's assertion that Jesus "has always existed" and was not created by God (see 1 John 1:1). They deny that Jesus was the 'logos' - the very force of order who created the world from chaos and gave life to all (see 1 John 1:1). And they do not accept that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ himself living in believers (1 John 2:27-28).
John finishes this section of his First Letter by assuring his readers that, as long as the Holy Spirit remains in them, they will not be deceived by false teachers.
The photo shows Spirit-filled believers at the New Wine Christian Festival.
You can read more from John's First Letter @ https://www.thebiblejourney.org/…/filled-with-the-holy-spi…/