Ep 222 – 1 John 4:1-6 PT 5

We are still looking at 1 John, chapter four, verses 1-6 and this is our fifth episode on this passage. I've entitled it, "True Confessions" because John is going to make a strong distinction between those who confess Jesus and those who confess Him as having come in the flesh. This was a real problem in his day. There were plenty of people who believed that Jesus had been a real-life human being. When John wrote his letter, which was most likely sometime around 67-68 A.D., it had only been three decades since Jesus' death. There were still plenty of people alive who had seen and heard Jesus during His earthly ministry. There were still eyewitnesses to His resurrection around, such as John himself. So, there really wasn't a problem with people saying Jesus never existed. The issue was that there were those who claimed He was not divine. They believed Jesus was just a man – a good man, but a man nonetheless. Their rejection of His deity was a dangerous and rapidly growing problem confronting the church. And John was going to address this problem head-on. Anyone who rejected the idea that Jesus was God, was not speaking on behalf of God.