Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Dec 8

8 December 2020

Text: 1 John 2:15-29

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

The last of the apostles warns us, as his “children,” that it is the “last hour.”  He tells us that the promised antichrist is actually plural, and indeed these “antichrists have come” in his own day, and indeed, they are still around today. 

This malevolent force “went out from us.”  In other words, antichrist is a heresy spun of rebellion from the Christian Church itself, a breakaway sect that teaches contrary to Jesus, against the apostles, and in contradiction to the Word of God.  Of course, antichrist is indeed plural, or perhaps another way to think of it is like a multi-headed hydra, whose mission from Satan is to beguile and confuse individual believers into leaving the one true faith.

Satan is the father of lies, as our Lord told us.  And the Lord’s beloved apostle adds; “Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?  This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”  This antichrist severs the “one substance” that the Son shares with the Father, as we confess in our biblical Nicene Creed – which exposes such heresies.  Those who teach that Jesus is some kind of “spirit” rather than the man Jesus in the flesh, is antichrist.  Those who teach “Christ consciousness” and the “cosmic Christ” and the “quest for the historic Jesus” – common themes among some Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant theologians – are antichrist.  The Gnostic heresy that teaches that Jesus started a secret society of which only a few get to learn the “secret knowledge” are antichrist.  And in fact, John takes direct aim at Gnosticism here: “But you [Christians] have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.” 

Today’s Gnostics are the pompous blowhards whom we run into in our daily lives and on the flashing idiot box who claim to know the “real” name of Jesus, or have some kind of esoteric knowledge based on the great pyramid or some equally absurd idolatrous touchstone, or some ginned-up emotional experience with fake “tongues,” or some Oprahistic “I’m Not Religious, I’m Spiritual” New Age nonsense.  St. John has no patience for such wicked fairy tales, and nor should we, dear friends.  Don’t listen to these antichrists, but call them out – not by your own judgment, but by the apostle John’s.  For God’s Word is truth.  God does not lie to us.  Those who contradict God’s Word are liars and antichrists.

The holy apostle is writing to us, concerning “those who are trying to deceive you.”  And he bolsters our faith, saying: “And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame at His coming.”  And so, little children, let us embrace Father John’s Spirit-inspired biblical testimony: “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.