2:22
John makes several very powerful statements in his letter, and is very direct about what is true and what is false. We could learn a lot from this today! So here he declares that anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ (ie is the Messiah) is a liar. So anyone who says Jesus is just a good man is a liar, pure and simple. “This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son”. There are numerous books and websites, most of them complete rubbish, on the last days and on the antichrist. Here John focuses on what matters. The spirit of antichrist is to deny the Father and the Son. The Father and Son are one, not in the sense of being one person (they, together with the Holy Spirit are one being), but in the sense of being completely united in purpose. So if you deny or in any way belittle the Son, you are denying the Father, you are denying God.
2:23
This verse states things very clearly and simply. If you deny the Son then you are denying the Father. In the gospels we see the conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of the day. The religious leaders were denying the Son and in so doing they were denying God. Conversely, if we confess the Son then we have the Father as well. In terms of the heresies that John was confronting the gnostics would claim that they needed some special knowledge in order to know God (ie in order to “have the Father”). The truth is that if we have Jesus then we have the Father. As Jesus said, He is the only way to the Father.
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