21. . . no lie is of the truth. 22Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.
What about people who have never heard of Jesus Christ? Are they lying? Or people of different religions—are they purposefully deceiving themselves about Jesus? These are questions that have perplexed Christians over the years. What do we make of them?
We must recognize that one cannot accept or deny something about which they do not know. People who have never heard of Jesus Christ can’t deny Him, for they have no content of knowledge to deny. However, even apart from the knowledge of Jesus Christ, all people everywhere have a general understanding of God (Rom. 1:18–20). Therefore, all are accountable for accepting or rejecting the knowledge that they do have. On that basis, all are condemned for rejecting God (Rom. 3:23). So even if some people never hear about Christ, their judgment is not based on rejecting or denying Him, but they are still under God’s condemnation.
However, the truth of Jesus Christ has gone out and is going out into the world, which needs the solution to God’s judgment. The message in Jesus Christ is the purpose of God in redeeming the world. This is the truth on which John focuses. Jesus is God’s answer to man’s sin problem of rejecting God.
Therefore, having once heard the gospel message, to reject or deny God’s purpose in Him as the Christ (or Messiah) is synonymous with rejecting God Himself. Where God reveals Himself in general revelation, He reveals Himself more explicitly in the person of Jesus Christ. This is truth in the greatest sense of the word. There is no in-between. Jesus is the Christ, and to oppose or undermine this truth in any way is to embrace the lie that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who propagates that untruth is a liar—that person is an anti-Christ, one who opposes all that Jesus Christ stands for.
The historical Jesus is the Christ, the appointed Messiah of God sent to redeem not only God’s people but also all who accept Him as the Christ. The apostle Peter spoke on behalf of all the apostles when he confessed to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). One simply cannot have a right relationship with God apart from trusting in Jesus the Son of God, who is the solution to our sin problem. Anyone who says or teaches any differently has bought into a lie. And that’s the truth.
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, I confess that You the Christ, the Son of the living God.
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