1 John 2:21-24 I have not written to you because you know not the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.… I. ALL ERROR IS DEADLY. 1. It were a ludicrous absurdity to say that a wrong faith can save a man. Either, then, a right faith is necessary, or no faith at all is (John 3:15, 16; John 6:40; John 11:25, etc.; Acts 20:21; Romans 1:17; Romans 3:30; Galatians 5:6; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 11:6). 2. A wrong faith must necessarily produce a wrong practice. We may see this in the affairs of this world. 3. Tendencies do not always produce their full results. A wrong faith on some points has been in some degree compensated for by a right faith on others. 4. It is a matter of importance to believe the truth. All the misery and distress in the world is due to wrong beliefs. 5. How is a right faith to be attained? In answer to this we must (a) dismiss the idea that any man, while in the flesh, can possibly attain to infallible certainty on all points whatsoever. For (b) our condition here is progressive. II. ALL ERROR IS BASED UPON THE DENIAL THAT JESUS IS THE CHRIST. 1. Revelation is necessary. For otherwise we do not know (1) whether there be a God, (2) whether man is immortal or not, (3) in what the foundation of morals consists. 2. The only revelation is that made by Jesus Christ. 3. The essential feature of revelation is that it was made by one Anointed, i.e., commissioned to declare God's will. Thus we are forbidden, on any point on which God's will is clearly declared, to question it. 4. How, then, do unbelievers in Christ lead moral and admirable lives? They can do so only so far as they believe what Christ tells them. 5. Continuance in the Son and in the Father the only possible means of salvation. The denial of this truth leads directly to the destruction of all moral principle whatever. The moral lives of unbelievers are due to their acceptance of the moral principles of their age. These moral principles are Christian principles. But Christian moral law without its Lawgiver is a superstructure without a foundation. Thus continuance in the Son and in the Father is the only means whereby(1) error, the source of all evil, can be gradually dispelled, and(2) truth, the source of all holiness and goodness, enabled to take full possession of the heart. (J. J. Lias, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth. |
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