“Dear children, this is the last hour….the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come.”
1 John 2:18
Imagine for a moment being the pilot of a small plane and having a warning light and a loud buzzer come on in the cockpit! Danger! It might be annoying! You might prefer to continue the pleasant conversation you were holding or enjoying the view. But I doubt if you would switch it off and ignore it. The loud noise is needed to get your attention!
John is sounding an alarm, a warning light and a loud buzzer to the Church. “Even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.” 1 John 2:18-19. John is warning against another of Satan’s strategies, and he has many, it’s the corruption of the church from within. In involves the infiltration of false teachers and false doctrines. Jude, a brother of Jesus, wrote of them: “For certain men whose condemnation was written about….have slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign Lord.” Jude 4.
Jesus said before His return, “Many will come in my name, claiming, “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many. Interesting to note the word “anti” means “in place of.” They come into the professing church, in place of Christ and are counterfeits! Like counterfeit money, they are marked! They come in, sing the hymns, listen to the Word, are baptized, partake of the bread and wine. Eventually, they oppose the truth and lead others astray because that’s their goal! They teach another gospel! They deny Jesus is the Christ, His deity, His humanity, the cross, His Person and work. They deny His authority. They preach a gospel of works, the way of Cain!
Freedom in Christ has a price! It’s important to remember that many battles have been fought on our behalf! Today, we would not have the doctrine of the Trinity if Athanasius, an early Church Father had not fought the battle for truth, and sometimes all alone!
In 318 AD, a deacon by the name of Arius taught that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were separate and the Son and the Holy Spirit were created by the Father. He attempted to get wording into documents stating they were not of the “same essence.” It was a subtle difference, but Athanasius spotted the problem! His disagreement with Arius concerned salvation: we are saved because in Christ, God himself became a human being and died a human death. The immortal became mortal to raise mortals to immortality. Arius’s doctrine left Christianity without a divine Savior. Athanasius called for a creed that made clear Jesus Christ’s full deity. And so was drafted the “Nicene Creed.”
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds….I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Give of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified……”
There are other parts to the Nicene Creed. History tells us there were many disagreements and infighting among the early church fathers, but the Nicene Creed of 325 AD has remained. We can thank Athanasius!
Your friend, Jean