The Sacrifice, the Temple, and the Kingdom

'My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.' (1 John 2.1-2, NKJV.)

Chapter Two of John’s letter begins with a sense of danger, John is troubled: “My little children, I WRITE TO YOU THAT YOU SIN NOT.” He’s possibly writing even as much as 100 years after the birth of Christ, so he’s an old man – which entitles him to address his readers as ‘little children’… But maybe here he’s also addressing some who are still ‘spiritually children’. What he says relates to anyone of us today, but in this case I am sensing John is writing particularly to Jewish people who had become followers of Christ; Jews, who when they believed, had accepted something that had been ‘hidden’ from them in their Jewish Law/Scriptures, something so completely new to them, they are now finding it hard to fully accept, and that is: JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, HIS SACRIFICIAL DEATH HAS PAID THE FULL PRICE OF SIN!

Now we come to v15, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” John is referring, not to the world God created in Genesis 1, but to the world as it became after the fall, when mankind was corrupted with the knowledge of good and evil and the way to the ‘Tree of Life’ was closed, lest we might live forever in this fallen state.

The danger with these Jews who had lived under the Old Covenant, is that they were in danger of loving the ‘things of the world’, of ‘going back’. After the miraculous escape from Egypt, when Moses was alone with God on the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, the Jewish people in the valley below longed to go back to what they had known in Egypt! To their old life. They didn’t look at the suffering in Egypt, but at the ‘leeks and onions’ they were given to eat! In the long 40-year journey from Egypt into the Promised Land, so often they wanted to go back! It is said that when the Jews came out of Egypt, Egypt was still in them! And that it was harder to get Egypt out of them, than to get them out of Egypt!

The same is true of Christians today. Don’t love ‘Egypt’. Don’t go back to your old life! “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.” If you ‘love the world’, your old life, the love of the Father is not in you. This is what John is saying, v16, “For all that’s in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.” John is emphasising so strongly that what these Jewish converts had under the Old Covenant was ‘of this world’, completely different to the new life. They must not go back to the old, it’s ‘not of the Father’ – He has sent Christ. We must not go back on our faith.

“But,” John writes in v20ff, “you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” The Holy Spirit, whom we receive after being born again, reveals the Truth to us. John says, “I have not written this to you because you do not know the Truth, but because you know it, and no lie is of the Truth. Who is a liar, but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ?!! He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whosoever denies the Son, does not have the Father.” John is very, very clear. The one who denies that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, believes a lie and is ‘antichrist’ and can have no relationship with God the Father.

John says, in vv20-28, “You have an unction from the Holy One and you know the Truth, you do not need anyone to teach you. The Anointing – the Holy Spirit – teaches you all things, and as He has taught you, abide in Him, so that when Christ appears, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His Coming.” Keep in that relationship of listening to the Holy Spirit. If we are guided and led by the Him, we can have confidence when Christ comes!

I want to encourage you: Father, let Your Holy Spirit so guide those who have read these words, that they would not be led astray by false prophets or false teachings, but inherit the Kingdom when Christ comes. O God grant it, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.