We cannot have the Father without the Son.

1 John 2.22-25.

In my previous article, about antichrists, I pointed out not every antichrist is a radical atheist. Plenty of people totally believe in God… yet deny Jesus is Christ, or Lord, or in any way like Christians describe him. Sometimes they insist he’s not even real.

Jews fr’instance.

And let me preface this with a rebuke against antisemitism, ’cause there’s still a ton of racism out there. Racists want to hassle and exclude anybody they consider different, for stupid and nonsensical reasons. They wanna hassle Jews, and any excuse will do for them. Historically they’ve used “antichrists” as an excuse, and it is not a valid reason.

In John’s definition of antichrist, anybody who actively rejects Jesus the Nazarene as the Christ is an antichrist; plain and simple.

1 John 2.22 KWL

Who’s the liar, if not the one denying this?—

the one saying “Jesus isn’t Christ”?

This is an antichrist:

One who denies the Father and the Son.

So if you worship the LORD God of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and the biblical prophets—same as Christians—yet reject the son of God, reject Jesus as Christ our Lord, you’d be what John means by “antichrist.” Cut ’n dried, plain ’n simple. Jews, unless they’ve become Christian, unequivocally fit this definition.

Jews don’t believe Jesus is YHWH; they don’t recognize Jesus is their Messiah. If they did they’d be Christian. (Or “Messianic Jews,” if they prefer to call themselves that; still Christian.) If we try to tell ’em otherwise, they’ll blow it off as the ramblings of silly gentiles; if they’re zealous or young or somewhere in the “cage stage,” they’ll even fight us over it. And fighting the idea that Jesus is Christ, means they most definitely fall under the definition of antichrist.

Obviously it’s unwise to accept religious instruction from people who reject Jesus as Christ, same as we’d reject the teachings of any heretic Christian. (And since spouses instruct one another, it’s unwise to marry a non-Christian Jew for the very same reason we ought not marry any non-Christian gentile.) Unwise to worship God with Jews either, since they’re not gonna pray in Jesus’s name. But in every other way, we have no valid reason to discriminate against Jews, and it’s sin to do so.

Yes, antisemitism is sin. Not to mention dumb: Our Lord is a Jew. He chose to be born a Jew, the biological son of a Jewish mother, the adoptive son of a Jewish father. His title “Christ” comes from the Jews. It makes no sense for any Christian to be an antisemite. But as you’re no doubt aware, there’s no shortage of stupid out there.

Odd thing, though: There are a number of Evangelicals who treat Jews as co-religionists—as slightly wayward brothers. Usually for political reasons. Their particular stripe of Christian nationalism teaches them a distorted idea of the End Times which treats the present-day state of Israel as if it’s the ancient kingdom of Israel, and claims all the prophecies of ancient Israel will be fulfilled by a new country less than a century old, which elects irreligious hypocrites to be their leaders, same as we do. These very same Evangelicals also tend to fear and distrust Muslims. But like I said (even though we’d consider both these religions heretic), religious Jews are antichrists, and religious Muslims aren’t. Just goes to show how partisanship can do mighty weird things to one’s theology.

’Cause no proper “co-religionist” of a Christian is gonna deny Jesus is the Christ. No proper “co-religionist” of a Christian is gonna deny Jesus comes from God, and is one with the Father, and is God. And no proper “co-religionist” of a Christian is gonna claim we can have a relationship with the Father but not the Son: God’s a trinity, Jesus is a person of this trinity, and you simply can’t have the Father apart from Jesus. They’re inseperable.

1 John 2.23-25 KWL

23Everyone who denies the Son,

doesn’t have the Father.

One who confesses the Son

has the Father as well.

24What you² heard from the beginning:

Keep it in you!²

When what you² heard from the beginning

remains in you,²

you’ll² remain in the Father and in the Son.

25This is the promise God promises us:

Life in the age to come.

Properly, believing Jesus is Lord recognizes there’s no other lord. We can’t serve two lords, as Jesus pointed out when he talked about God and mammon. Mt 6.24, Lk 16.13 Muslims teach Prophet Isa ibn Maryam (blessings upon him), as they call Jesus, is superseded by Prophet Muhammad (even more blessings upon him). But Jesus can’t be superseded by anyone or anything; that’s idolatry.

Nor can Jesus be one master of many. He’s not one guru out of a collection we’ve cobbled together. Not an avatar of God, same as the others before him. Not one of seven major prophets. Not a son of God in the very same way you’re a child of God. Jesus is unique, and uniquely Lord. He’s to be followed and worshiped the same way God is. It’s because of this uniqueness, Christians came to recognize he is God.

If you imagine you can challenge, reject, or oppose the Son—meaning Jesus—and think you’re still good with God, you’re in for a significant surprise. You can’t oppose the Son without opposing the Father who sent him.

One God. Turns out Jesus is this one God.

If you think of God as your heavenly Father, as many a religion does, I again remind you God’s a trinity. The Father is a person of this trinity, same as the Son. And he is always, indivisibly, on the Son’s side. You can’t divide one being and fight one of the divisions, without fighting the entire being.

Sigh… y’realize every analogy of the trinity is gonna misrepresent God to some degree. But I’m gonna tackle it anyway: If you have a problem with my leg, and would be perfectly happy dealing with me if only I’d first get that leg removed, so you take a machete and start hacking it off, you now have a huge problem with me. I’m rather fond of that leg. It gets me places.

How much significantly more, then, does the Father not want the Son removed from him?—and separately ignored, belittled, hated, rejected. The Son is part of the Father. They’re one, y’know; they’re both the one God.

Second, fighting Jesus opposes the Father’s will. The Son is an instrument of the Father’s will. Who d’you think sent us the Son in the first place? The Son does everything he sees the Father do.

• The Father wants humanity saved… and so does the Son, who died for humanity and got us saved.
• The Father wants his will for the world revealed. The Son did that.
• The Father wants us to be his people so he can be our God. The Son’s preparing a place for us where this very thing will be done.
• The Father wants to give us his kingdom. Guess who’s gonna be its king? Yep, the Son.

Again with an inadequate analogy about body parts: My hands, unless broken, do what I want ’em to. When you cut off my hands because you don’t like what they’re doing, it’s really because you don’t like what I’m doing. Same with the Father and Son: If you object to Jesus, you’re really objecting to the Father. You’re not as tight with the Father as you imagine.

Third, you’re hobbling your own spiritual growth when you dismiss the Son. No fooling, I’ve heard various Christians claim they wanna study and understand the Father apart from Jesus. They think there are insights to be gained if you divide the persons of the trinity from one another, and analyze them independently.

But that’s like trying to understand me by asking me questions… yet not watching anything I do, listening to anything I say, nor reading anything I write. Instead you’re trying to read between the lines: What am I really “trying to say”? And in the absence of any useful information, you’re gonna invariably fill in the blanks with yourself: You presume I must think like you do. (Or the opposite of you, if for whatever reason you think I’m your rival or opponent.)

Same with God. We can detect plenty of things about God apart from the revelation of Jesus… but we won’t understand why, how, or even the answer. So we’ll project the rest. Deists claim they can deduce through nature that God exists and he’s good… though I don’t know how they got that through nature, which is chaotic and Darwinian, and in so very many ways unlike God. So how’d they conclude God is good? Filled in the blanks with themselves. They want God to be good, so they began from that premise, regarldess of anything nature shows ’em. Nontheists, in contrast, start with the premise of no God at all… and looked at nature same as the deists, and no surprise, came to all the answers they liked best.

We’re all wrong, and it’s usually because we try to understand the Father without the Son. In the end we know nothing. And we Christians need to make sure we understand this. Jesus is central, vital, to everything we do. He must remain that way. He isn’t just a conduit to the Father: His mind and the Father’s mind are one. Knowing him is knowing the Father. Knowing Jesus is knowing God. Jesus isn’t the means to an end: He is the end. He’s the point. Don’t miss the point!