Jesus warns us: Children,
it is the last hour (2:18). By children
he means: beloved but ignorant ones, trust me when I speak to you now about
important things you do not know. It is
the last hour: we have reached a decisive moment, perhaps the decisive moment immediately
preceding his coming to judge the living and the dead.
Jesus warns us: many
antichrists have appeared (2:18). Obviously, an antichrist is someone,
unwittingly or not, who sets himself against Christ. Again, to avoid any confusion,
Jesus provides us with three important identifying characteristics of
antichrists. One: They went out from us,
but they were not really of us
(2:19). Two, an antichrist is a liar;
specifically, one who denies that Jesus
is the Christ (2:22). Three: This is
the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son (2:22).
One, antichrists, or antichristians, are Christians who
became Olympians. Some no longer identify themselves as Christian and long ago
stopped going to church. Others continue to identify themselves as Christians
and include churchgoers and even church leaders. Still in church or not, they are persons in whom the self-centered Olympian
personality now dominates their Christian one.
Two, one defining characteristic of Olympians, whether or
not they call themselves Christians, is the denial that Jesus is the Christ. To affirm that Jesus is the Christ is to
think and live in ways that witness to him as our one and only lord and savior
in life and in death. Some Christian Olympians fail to do this by identifying a
political leader, of one party or another, as the one anointed by God to save
us from the challenges we face. All look to technology in this way. Even war. Many
Christian Olympians also see other religions as different paths to the same god
rather than as paths away from him.
Three, Christian Olympians deny the Father and the Son. Christian Olympians deny the Father. They
purge hymnbooks, prayer books, even translations of the Bible into English, of all
references to God as Father and of all uses of masculine pronouns to refer to him. They regard as evil any Christians
who persist in following Jesus in his adoration of Father.
Christian Olympians deny the Son. In truth, Jesus Christ is the source, center, and goal of
all churches. In the reality of Christian Olympian congregations, he grows
increasingly marginal. Mention of his name grows increasingly rare. Even preachers
expounding on a passage from the Bible no longer refer to him. Christian
Olympians also marginalize the Son by ignoring the Bible or attacking its
integrity using a surprising variety of methods.
Copyright © 2019
by Steven Farsaci. All rights reserved.
