“Some tricky business”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation - Thursday, February 17, 2022
1 John 2:18-29 (Forward, p. 19) CEV p. 1287
In today’s passage, John treads on some very uncertain, unstable ground. He speaks of the ‘enemies of Christ’ and describes them in two ways. Firstly, he says that they are the ‘seeming’ Christians who were once part of the local church (‘our own group’ is the way the CEV puts it) but who have now left it. This description has, at times, been greatly misused by some local church bodies. They have decided that anyone leaving their body--for any reason—is therefore apostate. The problem here is that John’s words are left decidedly vague, herein causes us problems in its interpretation and application. So, for instance, someone may have left a particular church because its leadership was corrupt or heretical or ineffective, or because the church was in turmoil. But that is not at all to say that the person is an unbeliever and therefore apostate; perhaps, maybe just the opposite. However, the matter is possibly cleared up a bit if we look at other translations. In the Authorized Version (KJV), for instance, the rendering is far more threatening and ominous than ‘enemies’ but ‘antichrists’. That translation is also followed in the NIV, NASB and NRSV Bibles. And so the use of this verse to expel or disfellowship or shun dissident members is entirely out of line. The verse clearly refers to a very ominous and destructive person or persons, not the run-of-the-mill unhappy church member.
With John’s second assertion we are on much firmer ground. He labels certain people as ‘liars’ because they refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God. Other parts of this letter elaborate on this idea. 1 John 4:15 talks about our openly declaring that Jesus is the Son of God, and elsewhere in the New Testament it is clearly stated that believers much acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. So what John says is that anyone who refuses to acknowledge that Jesus is the Messiah is an enemy of Christ and has rejected both the Father and Jesus. Here, then, we are able to be a lot more definite, but the question still remains: just how are we to deal with persons who refuse to acknowledge this or are unable to believe it? And, perhaps even more to the point, what about any of us who acknowledge it in words, but fail to carry it out in practice? I would suggest that this probably applies to pretty well all of us at some time or other. To me, then, this passage sets out a challenge, not to how we view or treat other people, but how we live our own lives. Let us pray for God’s help in order to do this more faithfully and consistently. Amen
Forward notes: “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who does right has been born of him” (verse 29).
“George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), famously counseled his followers to ‘walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone.’ It’s a lovely thought. But what exactly does it mean? What does it look like to ‘walk cheerfully over the world’? And how do we find ‘that of God’ and answer it in each person we meet?
“This verse from 1 John begins to capture the answer. If we trust in Jesus and know that he alone is the source of all that is righteous, we can better recognize that all the good in the world is ultimately found in him, through an outpouring of his grace. Any time we meet a person—from any belief or tradition—who tries to do what is right and true, we can hear and answer ‘that of God’ reflected in them. If this becomes our way of moving through life, we will discover that we see the goodness of God everywhere…and maybe even find ourselves walking more cheerfully over the world.”
MOVING FORWARD: “Walk cheerfully today.”
A concluding note: today’s author, in quoting George Fox, raises an interesting and perhaps unsolvable issue, one that has many angles or side topics to it. First off, is whether God truly is in everyone or not. Some authors would argue that the ‘imagio dei’ persists, even in some form, even in spite of the Fall. Others would assert that all of human nature is fallen, deprived, and so only the grace of God makes any difference and only the grace of God makes any good deeds possible. One ‘possible’ resolution to this comes in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who believed that God has written ‘a natural law’ in the heart of everyone, no matter who he or she might be. What that meant to Aquinas, and to the church of his time, was that we could work profitably with all sorts of people, regardless of their background or belief namely because we share this ‘natural law.’
The other related question is whether having this law, or the goodness of God, or the righteousness of God, within a person is sufficient for that person to be saved. Here the Scriptures are more than definite: they say most explicitly that we need Jesus, and that there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12).
