Letters of John, First John 2:21-23 Truth and Falsehoods pt. 1

We're on 1 John chapter 2, 21 through 23, which is entitled Truth and Falsehoods. We're gonna look at truth and lies this morning. Reviewing from last week, the verses, starting from verse 18 in 1 John chapter 2, children, it is the last hour. Just as you've heard that the Antichrist, or the Antichrist is coming, no definite article there, even now many Antichrists have appeared.

From this we know that this is the last hour. They went out from us. But they were really not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us. But they went out, so that it would be shown that they are all not of us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. And here's our verses for today, 21 through 23. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is a 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 also the father.

Let's review a bit from last week, going back to verse 20. Verse 20 said, but you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. And I think it was Roy who after class we were chatting, and I think he brought up a good point, and I didn't properly highlight this verse 20, but you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know that, but you is very important, and I just sort of glossed right over that this last week, so I want to highlight this, that this week. It's an emphatic pronoun and a conjunction, And what it does is it highlights the stark contrast between the you believers, and that's us, who have Christ's anointing of the Holy Spirit, or the anointment of the Holy Spirit, contrast them to the they, the non-anointed ones. who are in opposition to Christ's deity and his humanity and his atoning work. And that's the definition of antichrist. So it's you versus they, and that's a very emphatic contrast in verse 20, but you, we have the anointing, the antichrist, the people who are of the antichrist spirit do not have the anointing. So let me review and paraphrase from last week's 18 through 19. The Antichrist, John said, are here and there are more to come.

They won out from us, meaning John's company, or the apostolic circle, but they were not sourced from John's company or the apostolic circle. And they separated themselves from from John and his company, and their false Unitarian doctrine was made manifest by God. Or in other words, God let it be shown that they were not doctrinally of the same cloth as John and the disciples or the apostles and their company.

In reading some of the commentaries this last week, a lot of them mentioned this Unitarianism, modern day Unitarianism, and that's a belief in God. They believe in God, Jehovah, one God, but Unitarians deny the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. So they believe in, they believe not in Trinity, but unity. So that's why, that I say that false Unitarian doctrine, meaning they deny the Lord Jesus Christ and his deity.

Okay, let's review who the Antichrist is, or John's Antichrist, because he's the only one who defines this spirit in that way, or the spirit of the age in that way, or these false teachers. Whoever departs from the truth, And you see that in verse 19, those men departed from John's company. Whoever denies Jesus Christ's Messiahship, his kingship, and his atoning work on the cross, whoever denies the Father, whoever denies the Sonship of Jesus, whoever denies the deity and the divine origin of Christ.

That's in 1 John 4, 3. And then they also deny that Jesus, his humanity, that he came and he's a real human, he's a real person. They deny that as well. And that's from 1 John 4, 2. So there's our review of the spirit of the antichrist. So onto our new verse for this morning, verse 21.

I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie is of the truth. Well, first I wanna say, you see that I have not written to you because you do not know it. You see how he's saying he's writing to them? which refutes what I talked about probably last month. And I was like, I don't think this first John is in a letter. I don't think it's an epistle because I think it's an address. I think it... It was something that he gave as an address, like the Gettysburg Address. But now, here, my observation from a few weeks ago has been proven wrong, because he's fighting to them, you know?

So that's, I guess, that's how Bible study goes. think of one thing and you say, oh, this is interesting. But it's just true. It doesn't have any earmarks or hallmarks of second John and third John when he's writing to when he's writing to specific people. So there's, there you go. So I've corrected myself there. Macaulay's rewrite, Macaulay rewrote this verse to make out the, to make the Greek more plain. And the rewrite, he didn't rewrite it to change its meaning, but he just, so he amplified it.

And it's because of that word because, and because can either be causal or declarative. So, Wiest also mentions this, and they think that the because is declarative. So, Macaulay said, I have not written to you, quote, you do not know the truth, but I have written to you, quote, you do know, and because no lie is of the truth. So you see how he's just, he's making that you do not know the truth as a declarative statement, instead of a causal thing, you know, because puts in this, In English, you do not know the truth because of something.

And that's not what he's getting at. It's a fact. Or you could rewrite verse 21 as, I've not written to you that you do not know the truth, but that you do know it. And that's another way to state it from that declarative side. So the, it's, he, Macaulay is, or John Macaulay, John is repeating information from verse 20 from last week, but you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. So he's repeating that and he's, you can see in verse 21, he's stating it in the negative and he's stating it declaratively for maximum effect. So I think, and this is me saying this and not any commentator, but I think it's a, he's saying, let me restate it for you once again, so it's perfectly clear to you. Andrew? Yeah. It's Bob. Oh, hi, Bob. A couple of things. One is just a triple negative.

I mean, verse 21, not the way you write an English sentence. Anyway, all that aside, that's fine. But I was just going to point out the word no here is actually factual knowledge. This is Ido in the green, which is just, you know, again, the traffic lights green or red. I mean, this is kind of, you guys know this because you know it. I mean, you know it as fact. This is not kind of Gnosko, which is really kind of an experiential knowledge. This is kind of ABCs of Christianity, right?

Right, right. Yeah, Ido knowledge, or Oida, somehow, It's also Oida in some... I think Ida and Oida are the same thing, but yeah, we... Did we... Actually, he didn't hear that message, I don't think. I probably did. Give his message, yeah. Yeah, we kind of brought that out a lot last week. So I was sort of glossing over that this week.

But you're right. Yeah, it's an intuitive knowledge that God places in you, the Holy Spirit, because of the anointing. You're anointed so that this knowledge is placed in you. And yeah, you don't have to, it's a gift of the Holy Spirit is what it is. But it's not, let me, it's not, it's not written, oh, let me go back to verse 20 here. It's not written, but you have an anointing from the Holy One. And you know all, so you don't know everything. It's written as, but you all and all of you, all of us in the class, all of us know. I think the King James writes it as you know all.

So just, I wanna highlight that too this morning. Okay, so John Macaulay states that John often repeats himself, but with each new repetition, I like this what Macaulay says, he advances some more information, like a wave on the seashore, one wave will come in and go up, the beach, and then this other wave comes up a little stronger, goes further up the beach, a little more information. And then finally the big breaker comes in and it tumbles over and it goes way, way up the beach. So he, I like that analogy about how John does this. He presents something and then he repeats it, but he adds a little more, a little more each time.

Did anyone have a comment there? I don't know, can you hear me? Yeah, yeah. The form here at the end of verse 20 is nominative. The all is not the accusative receiving the action, that you know all, but it is you all know, it's nominative. All of you know this, that you have this anointing. Yeah.

And that's sort of the antithesis of what man wants to hear. The natural man says, I know everything. And I don't need anybody to teach me. I'm better than anybody. Or I have an idea, therefore it must be true or whatever. No, the contrast here is you have the anointing from the Holy One. You all know this. Yeah, and isn't it true that some Christians in the past have misinterpreted that to mean that the Holy Spirit gives you the anointing, and you know everything, so you don't need to be taught anymore? Some of that. It's just the opposite, because the Holy Spirit only reveals Christ. He only reveals the truth.

Yeah, right. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, thanks for bringing that out, Roy. Yeah. I got a comment from my book by Zane Hodges. He says about, and that no lie is of the truth. The Holman Christian Standard Bible is the only Bible that's translated as that no lie comes from the truth. Oh, okay. Hold that thought. Hold that thought.

Well, Hodges' comment says, doctrinal error is not to be treated as simply a flawed conception of the truth from which we can possibly learn something. On the contrary, a lie is just that, a lie. It is contrary to the truth and thus does not have its source in, nor is it of the truth. John would have been most impatient with Christian academics who always managed to praise a false idea as somehow insightful, no matter how far it is from the truth.

Yeah, that's a good comment. Yeah. But yeah, comes from the truth. No lie comes from the truth, is what the Homosexual Interpretation translates it as. OK, I'll try and highlight that more, I think, in the next slide. So John advances a statement you all know. And as I said, it's not you know all. With new information, and that is what Jim just said, because no lie is of the truth. So that's our new information, no lie is of the truth. And let me just, Charles Clough had a interesting comment on just, this is just a sidelight, on John's writing style.

He said that Jesus, you know, was probably pretty young when he met Jesus and Jesus called him in to the ministry so that he was a young mentee of this great mentor, Jesus Christ. And so I think he so admired the Lord that he developed in his writing the speaking pattern that the Lord had. So if you go, if you look at the gospel of John, the Lord speaks sort of the way John writes is what he was getting at. And maybe John absorbed that way of the Jesus Christ way of speaking into his writing. And if you think about how close John was to the Lord Jesus Christ, well, first he didn't deny him like Peter did, no denials. He was with him at the foot of the cross when he died. And then he had this great fiduciary duty. Jesus entrusted the care of his mother to John, and then he's referred to as the disciple whom Jesus loved.

But that's just a sidelight, and I just thought that was interesting that Charles Clough brought out here. Okay. Back to the verse, because no lie is of the truth. And that's the new information that we have for this morning. And I'm just gonna support this with scripture. And it's from John chapters 14, 15 and chapter four. John 14, 15 through 17, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter.

There's the Holy Spirit coming in the anointing there, that he may abide with you forever. That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he abides in you and will be in you. And then John 14, 16, or 26, I'm sorry.

But the Comforter, who is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatever I have said to you. 1526, but when the Comforters come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.

And then back to gospel of John chapter 4, 23 through 24, but the hour is coming. And now is when true worshipers worship the father in spirit and truth. And skipping onto verse 24 there, God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. So there I'm establishing that, The Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth, stated many times in scripture.

And I have that little note, if you wanna listen to it, very nice musical setting of John chapter 14, 15 through 17, if you love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father. It's right there on YouTube, if you wanna. Very nice, very nice to it from Thomas Tallis. So after the class, if you want to do that, you're welcome to it.

Christ has sent the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, as we now know him to be, and he did that by the anointing from verse 20. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. The anointing, and this is a review from last week, is chrisma, that's the Greek word. And this week I thought, oh, it's interesting that the name Jesus Christ, the Christ, is derived from chrisma, and Christ means the anointed one. And I didn't really catch that in my earlier study, but how interesting that is, very name kind of propagates that anointing.

Here in John 14, six, Jesus establishes himself as the truth. I am the way, the truth and the life. So he's the truth and the Holy Spirit conveys that truth in our hearts. Now let's look at this, the concept of this lie. There is no lie in Jesus Christ, because he's absolutely righteous, and his infinite character demands that there is no lie in him. So, as the verse says, no lie is of the truth, because it's the very character of Jesus Christ at stake here. Of the truth is, you see the Greek there, echolithia, and that's out of the truth. So no lie can come out of the truth because it has that Greek word, ek, ek. And I think that kind of dovetails into just what Jim was saying there. So on to verse 22, we get the exact opposite from the truth.

And this is this concept of the lie and the source of the lie, the sources of the antichrist lie is, before I go to, before I bring it up, anyone wanna take a guess for extra credit? You all know it. The Liar, John 8, 44, brings that out really well. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. How about that? really corresponds to these verses in John this morning. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature. Isn't that interesting? For he is a liar and the father of lies. So the source of these lies is the devil himself. And it's interesting, again, that you are of the father of the devil, that's ek, or out of the devil, there.

Verse 22. reveals of who this Antichrist is definitively. You know, back last week in verse 19, it first mentioned this Antichrist and it didn't really define him. Well, here he defines him. It's one that denies Jesus Christ. Then John adds to that. He not only denies Jesus Christ, he denies the Father as well.

If the Antichrist spirit is this question, which comes from out of its father, the devil, the father of lies, and that produces lies, so it has the result of producing lies, then what is the antithesis to Satan and his lies? So that's a question we're gonna answer in the next verse, but it's Jesus Christ, he's the truth. Out of him comes all truth and no lies. And let's look at some scriptural proofs of that. So we're looking at the antithesis to or the opposite of this verse 22, the liar and the antichrist and the one denying the father and the son.

John 1.14, we see that Jesus Christ is full of grace and truth.

In John 1.17, grace and truth are realized through Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 4.21, if indeed you have heard him and have been taught in him, just as the truth is in Jesus, 1 John 5, 6, which we'll get to in a few weeks. It is the spirit who testifies because the spirit is the truth. And then some couple of verses out of Revelation, you see that Jesus Christ is called, he who sat on the white horse is called faithful and true, that's his title.

In Revelation 3.17, he who is holy, who is true, and Revelation 3.14, to the angel of the church of Laodicea, write the amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

And again, Revelation 6.10, oh Lord, holy and true. So there we have who the source of the truth is, and that's Christ himself. We contrast that to the lie and the antichrist and the devil in these verses.

This concept of denying the son and denying the father and then confessing. Whoever denies the son, we states it, is one denying continually or in a habitual manner. The one who goes on denying is how that reads out in the Greek. The word confess, we all know what that means. It's to say the same thing as someone else says, say the same thing as another. We're expressing agreement.

So if you confess, if you confess the son, you also have the father in this verse 23. More scriptural proofs for this, for verse 23 in 1 John chapter two, Christ says in Matthew 10, 32 and 33, therefore, everyone who confesses me before men, I will confess him before my father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my father who is in heaven. So, Look how those two verses line up. You can see how John, in his very close relationship with Jesus Christ on earth, he heard those very words, didn't he?

And he remembered these words, and now he's restating Christ's very words here in John 2.23. And It's pretty amazing how those things line up. Andrew? Yeah. Just a thought.

It says if you deny the son, you deny the father. How many people do you know believe there's a God? that don't believe there's Jesus Christ or that he was the son of God. So is this denying the father, denying the eternal relationship between the two, or is it saying that they don't even believe in God, even though they say they do? Well, actually, let me just jump in here that we have relatives who are Jehovah's Witnesses, and that's exactly the stumbling point. We visited with a mother of some relatives and she She's convinced, you know, Jesus Christ is not, you know, she gives him honor, but he's not God's son.

He's a son. They have a warped view of all that. So that's a critical point. But so they believe in God. So here, the description is the father, meaning the relationship between God and his son, right? So you could have people believe in God, but deny that he's the father of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I just thought maybe a little clarification. Thanks for that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was such a sensitive point.

Yeah, and look what he says in John 17 here, point number 3b, you know, the glory you have given me, shared with me, I have given them, shared with them, that they may be one just as we are one. And that's Jesus Christ and the Father are one. I in them and you in me, so that it may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know, to Bob's point, that you have sent me, or the Jehovah's Witness, that the world may know that you sent me. And he states that so much in the Lord Jesus Christ states that so much in John, I couldn't write them all down. It'd be a terribly long lesson about how he said he was from the father to the Pharisees, just all over the place. So I have a few verses, but not the totality of how many times he said that.

So, and so you have to believe him because he's God. And look at this Hebrews 1, 3, and he is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his nature and upholds all things by the word of his power. When he made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. How's that for a statement of deity?

Now that word nature is hupostasis, and it means substance, reality, it's reality. And so Jesus Christ is of the exact same substance as God the Father, comes out from that same substance, the hupostasis. Early theologians, when they were trying to come up with another word for hupostasis in this verse, they came up with Trinity. And that's how the word Trinity came to define this word hupostasis, hupostasis. So, you can see just the oneness and the sameness between God the Father and God the Son one. And we just know different persons of the Godhead. Anyone wanna comment on the Trinity or any of those things?

Andrew, one of the things that has helped me tremendously in understanding what you guys have been saying here is that When the word truth occurs in the English language, we tend to think of against the lie or a statement. But in the Greek, it actually has the idea of reality versus unreality. The encompassing of everything that is real. It really magnifies it, doesn't it? If you think of it that way. because that includes all three persons of the Trinity being real, but it also includes everything that we say is the radiance of his glory, everything about it. I just, it blows me away to think that Moses gave us the law, but grace and reality came by Jesus Christ.

Oh, right, yeah. Oh, yeah, good, good point. Yeah, and I see how you often state that now. Now it's becoming really clear from what John says here, how you come to that statement, you know, the reality. So I like that. But that word for upastaya, it's substance and it's reality. Okay, final thoughts, my version.

We have this anointing from the Holy One in the King James, it's unction. We have an anointing from the Holy One and Christ who gives us the Holy Spirit. We are anointed as royal priests in a living vital union with our High Priest, King, Savior, and Life, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The very name Jesus Christ refutes these antichrists because If you take the word Jesus, that's Jehovah saves, is how that translates out into English. And then Christ is the anointed one. So his very name is the anointed one from God the Father who saves. Before it was condensed, I think, Maybe Macaulay mentioned this, but they used to say Yeshua, which is Jehovah saves, Yeshua is the Christ. That's how they stated it. But eventually they dropped the is the, so it's just Yeshua comma Christ. That's who he is.

From Riddell that they're studying in the class, not across the street, but down the hall from you. He says that, he says, but we haven't received an anointing from God. We need no human teachings, only divine. Someone comes up to you and claims to have discovered, and this is like Roy was saying, and Bob, some wondrous truth, philosophy, spiritism, Christian science. I added, this is my addition, Unitarianism.

But you are not to be tempted to inquire. The unction or anointing you have already received teaches you. There's nothing beyond that. Notice too, it is the babe who has this anointing. It is no question of attainment or even experience. It is the divine instinct enabling us to detect and refuse error. We recognize it not as, we recognize it as not truth, for it does not give us the Christ of God, therefore we reject it. The anointing abides in us and teaches us to abide in Christ our Lord.

So the greater subject of John in these verses is if you go back, way back in the Wayback Machine, to maybe a couple months ago, the greater subject we're talking about is walking in the light and appropriating and enjoying fellowship with God and the Son, and then with each other. So walking in the light and fellowship is kind of our overarching themes here in 1 John. We can boldly claim Jesus Christ as our own possession, And you have here in Galatians 4, 3, because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of his son, who are hearts, crying, Abba, Father. And so that's a very close family relationship indeed. So there you go.

Verses 21 and 22. And I'll pause. Good job, Andrew. No, that's great. That's great. A lot of good things to think about. It's amazing. Just the depth of it and the breadth of what he's talking about here, John. It's just incredible. You know, I was thinking, Zane Hodges in his book, verse 23, the last part of it, And he says, the words, he who acknowledges his son has the father also, while found in the Bible, are not found in the majority of the surviving manuscripts of 1 John. And yet every translation that I check has those words in it, because it's actually true. You've proven from other scriptures that those words are true.

Yeah, yeah, good point. Well, should I, I'll close? Sure, unless there's other questions. Yeah, our Heavenly Father, we just thank you for your words in John this morning. And we thank you that we have this anointing and that we have salvation through the name of Jesus Christ. And we treasure that. And may we tell others about the joy that is in us. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.