A mighty important caution. But I'm afraid we read it with the same attention we give to the average preflight safety demonstration: "In the event of a water landing . . ." So, let's take it piece by piece. John says there is a Spirit of truth (that would be the Holy Spirit) and a spirit of falsehood (which he calls the spirit of the antichrist). He laments that many deceivers have infiltrated our world, animated by this spirit of falsehood. A sobering picture. He urges us to pay close attention, because that spirit works by presenting distorted images of Jesus.
Now—if John didn't think you could fall prey to it, he wouldn't have warned you about it. Before the ink was dry on the Gospels, the young church was swimming in this stuff.
Let me make this perfectly clear—the spirit of falsehood is often a very religious spirit. How else would it sell its deceptions? Over the past two thousand years, it has flooded the church with counterfeit currency. I'm not talking about only the blatant stuff—the Inquisition, witch trials, televangelists. Such repugnance does cause the world to turn away in disgust. A very effective technique. But while those forgeries have become obvious to us, consider—they were very convincing at the time.
For the religious spirit is like the flu—it is constantly adapting to the environment. It would be hard to hold a witch trial in our day. So what might it be in our time? Last week a friend heard his pastor say, "You can't know Jesus like you know your friends. He is altogether different from us." Blasphemy. You can know Jesus just as intimately as his first disciples did. Maybe more so. Jesus came to be known, for heaven's sake, came to make God known to us:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. . . . The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. (Hebrews 1:1-3)
Jesus came to reveal God to us. He is the defining word on God—on what the heart of God is truly like, on what God is up to in the world, and on what God is up to in your life. An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience of human existence. To know him as he is, is to come home. To have his life, joy, love, and presence cannot be compared. A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest happiness. To be mistaken about him is the saddest mistake of all.
Now—he didn't go to the lengths of the incarnation to then hide from us for the next two thousand years.
There is a popular "Let's get real and authentic" teaching that hopes to help us with our struggles by making it all right that God is distant, that we must struggle on with only a few whispers from him. And while that is comforting—sort of—does it really bring people to a regular experience of Jesus? That's what Christianity is supposed to do.
From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we're telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of
God himself took shape before us. We saw it, we heard it, and now we're telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1-3 The Message)
The records of Christ are written so you can experience him as they did, this intimate connection with the Father and the Son. John says that you can enjoy the same friendship with Jesus that he knew. For this Jesus came.
So, if you do not know Jesus as a person, know his remarkable personality—playful, cunning, fierce, impatient with all that is religious, kind, creative, irreverent, funny—you have been cheated.
If you do not experience Jesus intimately, daily, in these very ways, if you do not know the comfort of his actual presence, do not hear his voice speaking to you personally—you have been robbed.
If you do not know the power of his indwelling life in you, shaping your personality, healing your brokenness, enabling you to live as he did—you have been plundered.
This is why we pray,
Jesus, show me who you really are. I pray for the true you. I want the real you. I ask you for you. Spirit of God, free me in every way to know Jesus as he really is. Open my eyes to see him. Deliver me from everything false about Jesus and bring me what is true.
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