One of the main principles in math is that you have to remember what you learned before when you move onto more advanced topics. You still have to be able to add, subtract, multiply and divide when you are doing calculus. Just because things get more complicated doesn’t mean you abandon the basics. The basics hold the more advanced things together. If you say that multiplication no longer is valid when you do calculus, then the whole system of mathematics falls apart.
The same is true for our faith. If we abandon some of the basic Truth we learned early on in our relationship with the LORD, our faith becomes unglued from reality. Take God’s Omnipresence as an example. The fact that He is everywhere present all the time is a basic characteristic of His nature. No matter where you go, He is already there. You can never get away from Him. Even in the darkest moments of life, He is present. He is not a localized deity with power only in one locality.
This Truth must never be abandoned. Even when much more complicated theological questions arise, we don’t abandon the truth of His presence in order to find an answer to the question. The answer must incorporate the truth of His presence. If He is absent in any particular place, then who is to say He is present in any place? If He is absent in any particular time, then who is to say He is present at this time? He is either eternal or He isn’t!
John’s readers were being pressured by the false teachers to abandon some of the basic truths they had been taught early on in their faith. These truths are fundamental to the faith. If they are abandoned, then the faith loses its essential and fundamental nature. And that is exactly what those who were called antichrists had done. They had left the fundamentals about who Jesus is. They had adopted some other view of His person and nature. And for John, this was a matter of life and death. Eternity was in the balance.
There are those today who would tell us that the fundamental truths we have learned about Jesus are backward, ancient, narrow-minded, bigoted, simplistic, and many other demeaning adjectives. They say those who were closest to the events, even eyewitnesses to the events can’t be trusted as much as people thousands of years withdrawn from them. We are told that their motives were impure, trying to bolster their political ends or some other hidden agenda. But we are supposed to trust these modern day prophets’ motives?
Once we cut the link to the basics of our faith, then the whole is able to be moved at the whisper of convenience. The politically correct crowd blows and people abandon sacred marriage for the new handshake sex where intimacy is nothing special. We give up fullness and end up empty. We lose eternity and gain what? Temporary pleasure, convenience, self-esteem, an inflated sense of self-importance. We put everything at risk with no upside.
What they heard brought them truth about eternal life. And eternal life isn’t something only for the future, eternal life begins now. As we are transformed by His Spirit in this life, eternity becomes present. As the Eternal God makes His presence and power known in us, eternity takes over. Death is just the twinkling of an eye. We pass from death to life.
Don’t give up on the basics of our faith. No matter what the pressures are around us, follow the example of those around the world who are giving their lives even as you read. They are not abandoning their faith. They are standing firm to the end.
The Arnold Journey 