THE REAL CHRISTMAS DOCTRINE When Christianity was barely 50 years old, already false doctrines were being taught concerning Jesus. One of those false doctrines was that Jesus didn’t have a “real body,” but only a spiritual one. They denied the true doctrine that Jesus, the Son of God, had come in the flesh. The apostle
KNOWING THAT CHRIST HAS COME In his first epistle, the apostle John wrote of what we can know because of Christ’s coming. For as John wrote in his gospel, Christ is the Word made flesh (John 1:14). If you want to know God, look to Jesus. He is God revealed to us in the flesh.
THIS IS REAL LOVE If we have any claim to love, it originates with God, who first loved us. This love is most fully demonstrated in the sending of His Son, Jesus, as the “sacrifice” for our sins, dying on the cross for us. For in the cross we see the intersection of God’s love
ABIDING WE NO LONGER MAKE A PRACTICE OF SINNING John here describes the fruit of being born again, namely, that those with God’s life in them, no longer make a practice of sin. Sin is no longer their habit. This is not the precondition of salvation. For salvation is by grace alone through faith alone
HOW TO PREPARE FOR CHRIST’S RETURN Determine to finish well. How? “Remain in fellowship with Christ.” Stay close. If you wander, come back. If you stray, return. If you sin, repent. Keep short accounts. “Remain.” Which is to abide, to stay, to live and walk in constant “fellowship” with Jesus. This is not working or
CHRIST IS BOTH THE MEDIATOR AND MEANS OF SALVATION The Greek word translated here in the NLT as “the sacrifice that atones” is the word “hilasmos.” This word is often translated as “atonement” or “propitiation.” It points back to Israel’s sacrificial system, whereby a lamb without spot or blemish was offered as an atonement for
BELIEVING THE EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY CONCERNING JESUS The apostle John opened his first letter as he did his gospel, and as Moses did the Torah, with the phrase: “the beginning.” Also, similar to his gospel, John referred to Christ as the “Word” (Greek: “λόγος, logos”). In John’s gospel, he spoke of the Word’s divine preexistence and
REMEMBER WHAT THE PROPHETS AND APOSTLES SAID In the apostle Peter’s second letter, he shared his intent to stimulate their thinking by urging them to always remember the words of the holy prophets and of the commands of Jesus given through the apostles. In this way, Peter put the writings of the apostles on equal
THE WRITING ON THE WALL King Belshazzar of Babylon gave orders to bring the gold and silver vessels from the treasury that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar, had taken from the Temple in Jerusalem. He and his nobles partied, praising the gods of silver and gold as they drank from Jerusalem’s Temple goblets. It was at that
DID GOD REALLY SAY? The apostle Peter viewed holy Scripture as God’s very Word. He described its authorship simply as God spoke and men wrote. He said that their pens were not moved by their own wisdom nor initiative, but by the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul agreed with Peter’s high view of Scripture writing,