24As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. 26These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.
Sometimes Christians are tempted to move away from the simplicity of the gospel message and layer their thinking about salvation with nuance and user-friendly terminology. John brings us back to the first things, the simple foundational truths on which our faith rests. The apostle Paul did the same thing when he wrote:
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:1–4)
Yet there is a constant pull to water down the gospel, adapt it to prevailing cultural sensitivities. To be sure, we must do all we can to frame the gospel message in language that people understand. But the truth must still be clear. The truth that saved us is the truth that must be preserved, guarded (see Acts 20:28), and propagated without any change, minimizing, or undermining. The apostles were all willing to die in order to teach and spread this truth, and it is the same truth that saves people today, that saved you and me.
Our text tells us that embracing the truth of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ is inherent in abiding in Christ, that is, living genuinely in relationship with God. And this truth of eternal life includes a relationship with both the Father and the Son. The deity of Christ is crystal clear here, for our text puts the Son and the Father on the same level. Our eternal destiny depends on our relationship with God, as He has revealed Himself in both the Father and Son.
Even today, there are religious scholars and theologians who call themselves Christians yet deny the gospel message as the apostles taught it. They teach that Jesus was a godly person, a spiritual teacher, a moral and social revolutionary, but that “the Christ” notion is part of the antiquated fables and mythology about Jesus that arose in later centuries. But John the apostle says such teachers are deceivers. We need to listen to this and guard ourselves against any so-called instructors about religion who teach such lies.
PRAYER: Lord, I commit to guarding the truth of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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