More Thought on 1 John, Chapters 4 and 5, and Cults

In my “Preparing for Worship” this week, I mention that there are false teachers who deny that Jesus really suffered and died on the cross (Gnostics, Marcion, Islam, and others). You have to throw out large portions of the Scriptures to say such a thing, but some do. If you have a Lutheran Study Bible, you can look at a short discussion of this on page 1561 and false writings (pseudepigrapha) written after the time of the New Testament, described there.

Martin Luther and others quote from an early church father, Irenaeus, who wrote of Gnostic heresies, including that of Cerinthus, which may, in an early form, have caused John to write what he wrote in 1 John 5:6-8. Cerinthus taught that Jesus was a superior man, but only a man. At his baptism, “the heavenly Christ” came upon him for a time but left him so that only the man Jesus died on the cross, Cerinthus said. That meant, according to Cerinthus, that the man dying on the cross was not Jesus, the Son of God, dying to pay for our sins. Gnostics then emphasized secret knowledge (gnosis) that people needed instead of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

In clear contrast, John speaks in his Gospel and letters, and 1 John 5:6-8 of Jesus being the Son of God and Savior all of His life. That is clearly shown in His public ministry when, at His baptism with water and the Spirit, He is identified as the "Beloved Son” of God the Father, with Whom the Father is “well-pleased.” He continued to be God the Son and true man, even as He shed His blood on the cross as payment for all of our sins. “Father, forgive them,” He said from the cross, and as He died, said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, also testifies throughout the Scriptures He inspired that “Jesus is the Son of God” all through His life and ministry and in His mighty resurrection from the dead. “These three agree,” John says - “the Spirit and the water and the blood.”

This may seem a little obscure to us today, but it is clearly answering some false ideas that existed. The Lutheran Study Bible indicates Marcion is another example of the false gnostic teaching. Marcion rejected most of the Scriptures and “denied the Christ of Scripture, and taught that Jesus was a middle-level spirit being who came to teach his disciples a body of secret knowledge. Marcion’s false teachings helped cause the early church to define and defend the books of the Bible” even more than before (LSB, p.1561). (See also Martin Franzmann’s comments in his Concordia Bible with Notes, CPH, (c) 1971, p. 490-491.)

This is also important to note because a number of liberal “religious” scholars in recent times have referred to gnostic writings as superior to the writings of the Scriptures even though they were written much later and reflect ideas about special, secret knowledge and other ideas that Christians rejected, again and again, in the early church and as time went on. The popularity of The DaVinci Code and other radical religious ideas came out of that period. Instead, the Scriptures we know as the Holy Bible, Old and New Testaments, the Word of God, are the foundation on which we still stand.

Some are surprised that Islam also says that Jesus did not die on the cross. There are different ideas, but most Muslims say that Jesus was only a prophet and was taken directly to heaven, and God or someone made a different person who may have looked like Jesus die instead of him. Such ideas are found in their holy book, the Koran (Quran), and other traditions of Islam. God would not, in their view, allow one of his prophets to suffer such a terrible death. That then means that Islam also has no Savior, and they reject most of our other Biblical Scriptures and teachings. People are responsible for doing enough of what Allah wants them to do and then hope that he will be merciful to them. That is why some Islamic people are willing to be martyrs, dying for the cause of Islam, since that is one of the few ways to guarantee that you will reach paradise.

Non-Biblical ideas continue to appear up to our own time. John also warned in 1 John 4:1-6 “to test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” John calls this “the spirit of the antichrist” since these false teachers so often attack Christ Himself and His saving work. I was thinking about all this
and considering whether to write this study when, on Saturday, someone was at the door. It turned out to be two small boys. They didn’t look to be more than 7 or 8 years old. They were offering a free book if I wanted it. (I could see a car on the street, so gladly, a parent or someone was watching over them.) I recognized the book, and have a copy of it, given to me free, years ago. It is called The Great Controversy by Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. I asked the boys what church they went to, but they didn’t seem to know or know what this book was about.

This encounter reminded me that we still need to hear articles like this, as wrong religious ideas are still being pushed by many. The Seventh-Day Adventists do talk about Jesus and call Him Savior but confuse the issue with a number of wrong ideas. They insist that the only proper day for worship is Saturday and that we must follow this Old Testament commandment in the Old Testament way, with all sorts of dietary rules and no work of any kind on Saturday, and they reject that we are freed from many commands and ceremonies by the New Covenant in the New Testament. They say that they follow the Bible alone, yet give out Ellen White books, not the Bible. Their unique, non-Biblical ideas come largely from her and her writings. I can’t go into this in detail, but such misleading churches and groups are still around us. I have seen ads in recent weeks in local papers offering “Jesus Christ: The Real Story” from another group, The United Church of God, which denies the Triune God and insists on people following not only worship on Saturday but all of the other Old Testament festivals and has very different ideas about Jesus and the future.

In other words, be cautious about what you read and hear. Follow Scripture alone and watch out for false teachers and ideas, not only from clearly non-Christian groups but also from those who claim to be Christians but are not in many of their teachings. If you have questions or are confused, ask a pastor or raise a question in a Bible study. Keep worshiping and studying Scripture and focusing upon Christ alone as your Savior.