Key Learnings from Wednesdays
April 2025
Wednesday Bible Study
The three Letters of John in content and style resemble the Gospel of John. They address issues of faith, love, and the nature of Jesus, emphasizing the importance of truth and community in the face of false teachings.
⁃ Gnosticism; Secret Knowledge; Everything physical world is evil;
• Docetism claims Christ did not have a physical body but only appeared to be human.
• John emphasizes the physicality of Christ’s body (1John 1:1, John 20:27)
⁃ Faith Alone
• Work of God is faith (John 6:29, Hosea 6:6)
• Good works are those works done in faith (Hebrews 11:6)
• The difference between Cain and Abel’s sacrifice was faith
• The commandment of God is to live a life of faith; The object of faith is Christ
⁃ Absolute truth is true at all times in all places. Jesus came to testify to the truth (John 18:37)
1John 2
⁃ Marks of a Cult (+-*/)
• + Adding to or changing the Word of God
• - Subtract from the Trinity of God
• * Multiplies the works needed for salvation
• / Divide the loyalties of the followers from God to loyalty to the Cult
⁃ Lutherans vs the anti-christ
• “…the pope is the real Antichrist who has raised himself over and set himself against Christ, for the pope will not permit Christians to be saved except by his own power, which amounts to …” (Smal, Article IV, 10)
• The errors of the pope’s kingdom are manifest, and the Scriptures unanimously declare these errors to be doctrines of demons and of the Antichrist. (Treatise, 42)
⁃ The works of the flesh are evil
• Works without faith is evil
• Works done in faith are good
• We can not save ourselves and are whole dependent on Christ
⁃ More Gnostic Heresy
• Matter is Evil; Spirit is Good
• Salvation is the escape from the Body
• Christ either wasn’t human or He showed us how to escape
⁃ Propitiation: Appeasement or satisfaction, toward God. Being reconciled to God - Christ is the propitiation for our sins (1John 2:1)
⁃ Righteousness
• Good, right, true (Ephesians 5:9)
• Sin is a lack of righteousness (1John 1:8)
• The righteousness that we now have is Christ’s righteousness
⁃ Anti-Christ
• Those whose work is to pull us away from God
• Those who would deceive us (concerning salvation)
⁃ Christ is the object of faith. Faith in Christ is what saves
⁃ John heard and saw with his own ears and eyes this message of salvation in Christ alone.
⁃ 1John 1:5-10 is very familiar because of its use in the worship service
⁃ Original Sin and what it has done to us
• No Righteousness (Loss of righteousness)
• No Knowledge (Ignorance of God (Redefining of God))
• No Love (Inability to love God)
• No Trust (Unable to trust God (Rejecting His Church))
• No fear (of God (Contempt of God))
• My Judgement (Hating God’s judgement)
• My Way (Seeking our own way, our own path)
• My Good (Define for ourselves good and evil)
• My Lust (Lusting after any bobble or trinket)
• My Sin (Makes sinning seem reasonable (The desire to sin))
⁃ Heresy of Gnosticism
• Hidden truths to know to be saved; to awaken the divine spark within
• Demiurge subordinate deity who created the material world
• True God is distant and unknowable
⁃ Two (Duel) Covenant Theology (Heresy); The Jews don’t need Christ to be saved