The Liar Denies God the Father and Son

[0:00] Let's turn back now to 1 John 2, and we'll fix our thoughts around verses 21-23.

[0:16] I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

[0:30] Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? He is the Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.

[0:44] He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. I want to entitle this simply, The Liar Denies God the Father and Son.

[1:00] The Liar Denies God the Father and Son. Now I have to confess that in looking at this, I'm tying the subject of lies and lying in with our study in the evening.

[1:15] Just as we did last time, last Lord's Day morning, we were looking at the love of the world, and the love of possessions, and covetousness, and so on.

[1:27] Because we were looking at Ahab coveting Naboth's vineyard, and so on. So it's with that in mind that we're looking at the subject this morning, because we'll be looking, God willing, in the evening at how Ahab and Jezebel conspired to get rid of Naboth.

[1:50] And we look at their lying schemes. Let's return to our subject here. I want just to remind you that we are thinking here about the truth in the Bible, and we're reminding ourselves that the God whose Bible it is created the heavens and the earth and sustains the same.

[2:14] And he has chosen to make himself known to us by his word and spirit. And there's an emphasis in the Bible again and again that God's word is truth.

[2:29] God himself is the God of truth. God has therefore the great interest that people know the difference between the truth about him and our need of him, and the falsehoods that men invent.

[2:46] Although the spirit of God is not quite so obvious in this passage, he is certainly not absent. If you go back just a little to verse 20, the anointing that is spoken about is the Holy Spirit.

[3:03] The word is charisma, and it is a reference to the person and the work of the spirit. The spirit guides us in the truth of the Bible.

[3:15] And what therefore we want to be thinking about is that it is the spirit of God who enables us to distinguish between what is true teaching and what is false.

[3:29] And that is especially on the great core matters of knowing God, of being his people, and of living for him here, and of anticipating being with him forever.

[3:47] And so true doctrine therefore has to be known by us, and it has to be received into our hearts. We have to rest on it, and we have to live it.

[4:00] You may have noticed in the reading in 2 Thessalonians that one of the marks, as Paul saw it speaking by the spirit, one of the marks of those who will perish eternally is that they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved.

[4:20] So it is important to know it, to receive it, and to live it from the heart. And what John talks about here is that we can know.

[4:37] It is God's business to give us understanding, to enlighten us. And that's simply nicely put, because that's the truth.

[5:13] It's the business of the Bible. God has it in his heart that we should understand the things that make for our peace with him. That we should know what it is to be his, to live for him in this world, and so on.

[5:30] And what is clear is there's a big problem here. And it's a problem not only with our natural lack of understanding, our spiritual switched-offness, if you like, as we come into this world, but the problem of error being peddled.

[5:49] The problem of false teachers pushing their stuff at us, that we might be hooped. Maybe like a fisherman is trying to catch the salmon in the pool, or something like that.

[6:02] There are people out there who make it their business to pull us away after them. Indeed, we read in verse 18 of this passage that John said, Antichrist is coming.

[6:18] And even now, many Antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. In other words, the last age of this world's history as we know it.

[6:32] And although a couple of thousand years have rolled on, it's still, in that sense, the last hour, viewed from God's perspective. Antichrists deny.

[6:46] Antichrists lie against the truth as it is in Jesus. Antichrists deny. Antichrists deny certain truths about God's identity is to lie against the truth, and therefore to be a liar.

[7:06] And therefore, you see, it's important for us that we understand what is true about God from his word, and that we distinguish between that and false teaching.

[7:19] and so I want us to spend a wee while here on thinking first of all about the question what does the liar deny what does the liar deny the first thing I want to suggest about that is that he denies the divine messiahship of Jesus we are so used to the word Christ that we forget that that means messiah which is a word that is there in the Old Testament it was applied to the prophets and the priests and the kings and even the people of God they were anointed by God the word basically means anointed and there is a special reference to the great king messiah who was to come so when we think and hear the word Christ we need in our minds to remember messiah we are about messiah here and when John looks at this subject of the liar and the antichrist he sees that the liar denies something to Jesus the messiah and so whether he is talking about liar or antichrist he is really talking about the same class they oppose the truth as it is in messiah Jesus now of course when John was writing this there were those known as the Gnostics they were what we might call know-it-alls they claimed a special light and special knowledge and they taught their doctrines and one of the things they taught was that Jesus was a very special man that he was a perfect man but he wasn't God and of course later on in the post-abistolic era you had the Arians doing the same thing just as the modern

[9:39] Jehovah Witnesses giving their modified version of that accrediting to Jesus so much but denying him his godhood denying that he is the divine messiah and sometimes of course it's done with a wee bit of a dash of truth about it too they say that being a perfect man he is our model we are to model our lives on him well you see that's a dash of truth because we're told to be imitators of him but when you take the whole of their teaching you see that mixed with the truth is grave error they deny to Jesus full godhood some have developed their view and they've of course said well we can say certainly he had a spark of deity more of a spark than other human beings but they in doing so simply lie against the truth they refuse to go the whole way and embrace the truth that he is fully divine as he is fully human and so they're called liars well we know that nobody likes to be called a liar but we have to in that sense call a spade a spade we're talking about serious things we're talking about the issues of life and death we're talking about God seeking through his word to make known to us the truth that really matters and there is such a thing as lying against the truth and we therefore have to take great care that we know what the truth about Jesus is in the old testament we've referred to it a little there

[11:48] Jesus though his name Jesus is not mentioned explicitly as applying to the king messiah there are references to the great king messiah who would come whether it is psalm 2 or psalm 45 or psalm 110 whether it is the great servant king the suffering servant king of isaiah 53 as an example well 52 13 right through to the end of 53 whether it is Zechariah talking about the servant king coming meek and lowly riding on the donkey what is clear about these references that we've given just in the passing is that that glorious king messiah is divine psalm 45 talks about him in the most exalted language your throne oh god is forever and ever psalm 110 verse 1 the lord said to my lord sit at my right hand you remember how jesus used that very reference to confound those who were not believing on him that's why what was given to the prophets in the old testament period is confirmed by the new testament by jesus and the apostles indeed even before the apostles were on the scene some of the godly who were waiting for messiah to appear were receiving instruction from god you remember how how gabriel the angel the archangel came to mary and joseph and told them mary was to have a child because the holy spirit would come upon her and she would conceive and that child would be the son of the most high there was supernatural work going on they were told and it was through the secret operations of the spirit of god that the son of god the eternal son became man and in those early references you remember how john the baptist father had that vision of the rising son coming they were told the angels were told on bethlehem's hillside weren't they luke 2 11 a saviour is born who is messiah the lord so the new testament underscores that that we have in jesus in the man messiah jesus we have one who is divine sinless holy harmless and yet he has come among us and he has come among us as one who is qualified of god to be our substitute to die in our room instead on the cross to be the one who would bear our liabilities his death is in the

[15:48] place of you and me if we have him and when we do have him we want to explore all the lines of truth concerning him getting more and more insight into the wonders of redeeming love his death the death of the divine messiah that alone satisfied divine justice that alone was a valid atonement for us an at one meant for our offenses his death was an ending of and an exhausting of the wrath of God the penalty of the law for all who receive him and you see it's important therefore to be settled in our minds that we recognize what it is to believe the report to receive this truth that

[16:59] Jesus is a divine messiah nothing less that God's lamb came and suffered according to God's plan there's an interesting reference in Acts 20 28 when the Ephesian elders were being told to shepherd the flock of God over which the Holy Spirit made them overseers and then it says that they were redeemed by the blood of God Acts 20 28 it is they were redeemed by the blood of God and now clearly there's a message there it's about the divine the fully divine messiah and the liars therefore deny that no matter how close they'll come they'll not come and embrace that in and of themselves but the second thing under this heading is that they deny therefore his person they refuse to accept that this person we've talked about is the real

[18:24] Jesus in ordinary in the ordinary things of life and just ordinary examples a person's identity can be denied quite easily when folks simply won't believe that certain things are true of this one or that one I remember years ago I belong for those who don't know it to Helmstail in Sutherland and one of the best salmon rivers in Scotland is Helmstail and Prince Charles often always came annually for his fish on the Helmstail now of course that was kept a secret so to speak the locals knew it but you see if you had been told that Prince Charles came along you say you were on the riverbank and well that's Prince Charles and I know this has happened the folk didn't believe it they wouldn't believe it they refused to to to credit that person with the identity that here is Prince

[19:32] Charles they weren't prepared to look and see that the evidence was quite straightforward it was obvious they denied to him what was true of him and denying to someone what is true of him is really to deny that person what is rightfully theirs and that my friends you see is the problem with liars with the antichrist the spirit of antichrist denies to the son of god that he is the son of god he is the son of the father sometimes in witnessing to jewish people or to muslims you've got to really make sure you know that you're talking the same language when you're talking about the sonship of jesus because to a muslim or a jew the sonship the sonship they will credit him with is that somehow or another there was something that happened between mary and joseph that equaled a son of god or maybe they put it a little more crudely but you see the son there is son with a small s it's merely a human being and they will simply not accept that he is son of god with a capital s that he is eternal son and they think that his beginning began in mary when he was conceived whereas the truth is what was happening was the eternal son of god was taking something he hadn't got before he was becoming he wasn't ceasing to be the eternal son he was becoming man he was taking into union with himself our human nature and all its parts and when we think about the son of god we must think about him in that sense that he is the eternal son in the flesh and when we talk about the father and the son we must think about when we're talking about god i mean we must think about the eternal son of the eternal father and if we think like that we'll keep clear in our minds what we're about and what we're trying to present to people because what we're presenting is the true doctrine of the faith and the eternal father's eternal son is the one whom the father declared in him i am well pleased in fact long before his coming it was referred to deuteronomy 32 43 in the septuagant version has a helpful translation let all the angels of god worship him if you spin up to your bible to hebrews 1 and verse 6 you will see that the apostle there uses that translation and applies it specifically to jesus the messiah the son of god we must credit to the person what is rightfully his what makes him that person and not another and not less than that person you see it is the son the everlasting son of the everlasting father who agreed

[23:33] who volunteered to come into this world to purchase for himself from the fallen race all that the father has given countless millions who have believed and will yet believe and it is he that person and not another not a modified version we are to have as our savior the liar denies to him his divine messiahship and his true person and if he had not come from the bosom of the father to do the work we needed done for us he would have remained forever in light inaccessible but bless me god he came and let us affirm in our hearts that whether the liar or the antichrist will refuse him we will have him and no other my dear friends this is not meant to be complicated this is meant to give us encouragement that this is the

[24:51] Jesus we believe on whom we love who died in our room instead who took his life again on our behalf and we are to be rooted and grounded in these things and love them and desire when we witness to people that they would come to love them too we are not to let this be something mechanical and to be trot off but something that burns in our own hearts because we have come to know him and love him and want others to come with us in the way we have one last point which will have to be short and to the point the second thing then and finally is what the liar is without or shall I frame it in a question what is the liar without well the truth is he's without true spiritual light saving light he has not the son and he has not the father who is a liar verse 22 but he who denies that

[26:14] Jesus is the Messiah that is the divine Messiah he is that antichrist and see what John says there he who he is antichrist who denies not the sin so that's true who denies the father and the son the two are together here verse 23 whoever denies the son what is rightfully his his divine messiahship his eternal sonship denies the father also and doesn't have the father if you've ever witnessed to JWs you'll know that they make much of Jehovah God the father but what John is saying here is if you haven't got the true Jesus if you don't believe the things that are true about him that makes him what he is you haven't got him and you haven't got the father either and that should concern us we should be concerned as

[27:38] John is concerned that to really have the father the heavenly father the everlasting father as our father through faith we must have his son the eternal son who became man there is no other way we will not have the half Christ of the liberal theologian or of the false religion will have the truth as it is in him because that is him in truth will not reduce him to something other than he is if we are to have a living relationship with him with his father in the holy spirit and you see once we come to settle that business in our hearts and minds then we will want to model ourselves on him then what he taught will matter to us then we will want to be imitators of him in truth we will not only try to patiently and gently help others to come to know him but we will want to live more and more for him we will endeavor to love our enemies and those who despitefully use us why because that's what our

[29:17] Savior was about and that's what he is about when we have those who oppose the truth about him we will endeavor to put them right patiently prayerfully livingly that's what he would have us do we will not say they're liars their apostates their antichrists have nothing to do with them we will endeavor as much as lies in us in the opportunities given to seek to help them to come to the knowledge of the truth in Jesus and you see and we'll just try and round this off now because we know that no matter what they say they haven't got the father if they haven't got the son

[30:19] I don't know I can't remember what's in the in the pew bible but in the version I've got the pulpit bible here both the father and the son have capitals because that emphasizes what we're dealing with here and to be adopted into the family of the father the eternal father is to become children of god and heirs with the son of god to come into the family and to have the entitlements of the children of god because we have received the son of the father of the father who in love sent him that we might have deliverance from the wrath to come and so it matters that we have the son in truth that we know whom it is we have believed and believing we can say that we have the father and the son and the holy spirit one god and that reminds us about and with this we finish that reminds us about the importance of not only believing this in our hearts but of confessing it with our mouths

[32:00] I like Paul in Romans 10 addressing the whole problem of the Jewish people and their unbelief he says Romans 10 10 with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation the two go together shame to make that known Amen