1 John 2:22,23

1 John 2:22-23. Who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? If every lie comes from another source than the truth, what is that source? Our Saviour said of one:' He is a liar, and the father of it' (John 8:44). And this was preceded by, ‘Ye are of your father the devil,' who ‘abode not in truth.' Hence here we have first the great error viewed in respect to its author, the representative of the central lie: that lie being the denial that the Jesus of the Gospels was or is identical with the Christ. To this formula might be reduced most of the heresies of the age; but especially that of the Jews, and that of Gnosticism which made Christ an AEon who joined the man Jesus for a season. This last was in the apostle's mind, and he thought of the exceeding plausibleness of many arguments adduced in its favour; hence the earnestness with which he changes the abstract lie into the concrete liar, and reminds the anointed Christians that they must remember the fatherhood of every form of error on this subject. Denying the Christ, This is the antichrist: he deserves that name, though his error in this respect is only a branch of the great lie. He deserves it well, for he is really a member of the family that denieth the Father and the Son. This last is the essence of antichrist: the sum of all possible error, denying and renouncing conjointly the Godhead and the Revealer of the Godhead. It is the heaviest charge brought against the false teachers in the Epistle, and therefore the apostle solemnly explains and substantiates it.

Whosoever denieth the Son, neither hath he the Father: he that confesseth the Son hath the Father also. The liar and the antichrist is now reduced and yet extended to ‘whosoever.' The denial that Jesus is the Christ is identified with denying the Son in His eternal relation to the Father, in His incarnation which made Him the Christ, and in His sole supremacy as the revealer of the Godhead. He ‘hath not' the Father; for ‘no man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him' (Matthew 11:30). He that ‘confesseth' the Son, in the creed of his heart and lips and life, ‘hath' in loving fellowship ‘the Father also' as well as the Son. Such being the great issue at stake, the anointing from the Holy One cannot fail to keep you from error, at least on this vital question.