There has been a reoccurring and pressing need to reaffirm God’s truth to a people that does not know Him. Whether it was the snake in the garden asking, “Has God really said?” or early century teachings that pondered, “Has Christ really come in the flesh?”, there has always been a need for God’s people to raise up the flag of truth when the light of His Word is encroached upon by the shroud of falsehood.

In the book of 1 John, we have the last living apostle writing to a people precious to him. We see this in how he chooses to regard them; using “teknia” (the diminutive form of “children”) to address this body. He spoke as a father looking to build his dear little ones up in the midst of adversity and used the means he had to call to mind truths that they knew. The word “know” shows up 40 times in this small epistle with the second half of chapter five containing seven uses of the word. His heart in penning this letter is evident in 1 John 5:13: “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”

This church sat in the time of a rising tide of falsehood known as Gnosticism (derived from the Greek word for “knowledge”). This heresy, influenced by the dualistic philosophy of those like Plato, held that spirit was good and flesh was evil, so Christ could not have come in the flesh. They further professed a special “secret knowledge” that went beyond Scripture. The church that John wrote to would have stood face to face with two branches of this tree: Docetism and the “Cerinthus error.” Both attacked the person of Christ, with Docetism claiming Christ only “appeared” to have come in the flesh and the “Cerinthus error” asserting that Jesus was not divine until the “Christ spirit” descended upon Him at the baptism and left Him at His crucifixion. Such false beliefs inevitably led to false practices. 

Because they held the flesh to be evil, some leaned towards asceticism in which the body is treated as an object to be abused (a teaching directly opposed by the apostle Paul in Colossians 2:21-23), while others found this to be a license to self-indulgence as the flesh did not matter and therefore sin was of no consequence. The letter of 1 John refuted these perversions as well as clarified what it means to be a Christian in what John MacArthur refers to as “spirals”: faith, love, and obedience that constantly cycle through what true faith means, what love is, and what right obedience looks like. We see his refutations of the false teachings in 1 John 1:1-4 and 4:2-3. where the Apostle John affirmed Christ’s coming in real flesh, and in 1 John 3:4 and 3:8-10 where he clearly castigated the idea of sin being of no consequence. He left no room for ambiguity for his thoughts on those who attested to such false beliefs, casting them as “antichrists” (2:18), and “false prophets” (4:1), going as far as to say, “they went out, that it might become plain that they are not of us” (2:19). 

This church was likely greatly affected by the false teachings that required the intercession of John with this letter. He spoke in chapter two of those “small a” antichrists who showed themselves to be false by departing from the church, denying the Son, and trying to deceive those in the church into their heresy (2:18-27). Those of this number had likely been a part of the church for long enough to make themselves fixtures. They had possibly eaten at other churchgoers’ houses, shared times of prayer, and potentially cried over losses with them. They would have seemed to have been a part of the body. This would have been such a blow to the church to whom John was writing. They may have been hurt or uneasy because those they thought were brothers were leaving. and the truths that saved their souls were being directly attacked. John’s response was to deliver clarity to confusion, comfort to loss, and truth to error. John spoke as a father to those in the church, binding up wounds and warning of further dangers, and acted as a sheepdog to wolves that had infiltrated the fold, seeking to ravage the elect of God. 

John brings his letter to its great climax as he assures and edifies with what the believer knows in 1 John 5:13-20, ending with a dear reminder that we know that the “Son of God has come, and has given us understanding” so that we “may know Him who is true and that we are in Him,” adding that Jesus is the “true God and eternal life.” This is followed by 1 John 5:21 where he wrote, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” This almost seems to come out of nowhere following on the heels of such a glorious certainty. However, John knew what his “little children” needed.

When we see the word “idol” we ought read it as “false image.” Westcott explains it well that idolatry is defined as “anything which occupies the place due to God.” John spent this letter explaining what the believer knows while condemning what is false. He reminded the church who it is that they believe in, the love that this faith results in, and ultimately the obedience that necessarily exemplifies that love. He did this because they could still be hurt when a false image was raised up among their number. John called them to “guard”, the same word used to describe the soldier given the task of being chained to Paul during His imprisonment in Acts 28, and gives a sense of active awareness and constant vigilance. 

In Exodus 32, we see what happens when idolatry leads to comprise. Debauchery is not far off. When a leader surrenders to the pressure and allows room for it, the anger of the Lord is kindled and suffering is not far off. We need leaders like Moses and we need a people like the Levites who will answer the call of fidelity to the Lord and be willing to go to war against idols, even when the idol worshipers include those who call themselves the people of God. In Jude 3-4, the brother of Jesus exhorts the people of God to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” And the reason why? Because “certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

When the true gospel of justification by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone had seemingly been lost in the cacophony of ritual and self-righteous posturing, it took men like Hus, Wycliffe, and Luther to stand up and say, “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.” And in response to the yeast of the Judaizers infecting how Peter treated those in the church, the apostle Paul opposed Peter to his face in Galatians 2:11-14. The apostle Paul himself recognized the need of having a people who would not simply take his word without first going to the Scriptures (Acts 17:11). We need to know what is true and be willing to shine it, and then what is false can be exposed by its light. D.L. Moody was quoted as saying, “The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or to spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick alongside it.” The truth is a precious gift of God to defend against error and provide a safe guard for His sheep.

This blog series is not meant to be a screed against the church or even specific persons. We do not battle against flesh and blood, but we may need to mark and avoid, as we are called to do in Romans 16:17, for the sake of the name of the One whom we love as well as for the soul of those who need their idolatry laid bare. It wasn’t until Nathan cried out “You are the man” that David came to repent. If any name is mentioned in calling out what comes against the church today, it is for edification of the saints and the mercy of awareness to the one named. John, the apostle of love, wrote his letter to a people he loved and laid truth to bear in the face of falsehood. This blog is meant to be a call to love God and His people. We hold the Shepherd and His flock dear so we contend for His name and the souls of those in and around His church as the true saints have throughout history.

In the spirit of the apostle John in his first epistle, we will begin the series by looking into what we know, starting off with the “what” and “why” of contending.  Our goal in these first few blogs will focus on crystallizing what contending is, what it is not, when we ought do it, and why it is needed. After this foundation is laid, we will begin touching on particular matters that have been secretly brought in “among the people” (2 Peter 2:1) in our day. We will look to address the enemy and his work among the saints while gently calling the Lord’s dear ones back to the truths they have known and will cling to on the day we all stand before Him in glory.