1 JOHN, #67 - Satan easily deceives weak believers, living in the Cosmic system. (11-6-25)

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What is it that they are to have abiding in them? “That which you heard from the beginning.” There we have a relative pronoun plus an aorist active indicative verb which expresses the object of the command. The relative clause plus the verb indicates something they have heard in the past. The aorist tense is culminative and it indicates a complete message that they have previously heard and understood, i.e. the message about the person and work of Jesus Christ: that He is the Messiah, that the second person of the Trinity was incarnate through the virgin conception and virgin birth, that because of that He had no imputed sin, He committed no personal sins, and all of that qualified Him to go to the cross where He would die and pay the penalty for every sin. That is the ultimate issue because if sin isn’t really taken care of through the Hypostatic Union, then there is no certainty of eternal life and no certainty of forgiveness for sin. So John says they are to let that abide in them, continue to believe the message they heard from the beginning. Then he uses a third-class condition to express the believer’s options: he doesn’t have to do this. This emphasizes the potential of failure in the believer’s life if he rejects sound doctrine and if he gets involved in carnality.
The basic claim that John is making related to salvation is that rejection of the unity of Father and Son is really implicit in the gospel. When we receive Jesus Christ as savior, John is saying, that is the same as accepting the truth about God the Father. If God the Father is rejected then Jesus Christ is rejected, because in essence they are the same. Other passages that emphasize this are found in:

John 12:44-45 “And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.”

It is not just belief in Christ but belief in the fact that if He is the Son of God then there is truth to the concept of God.

John 14:10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. 11) Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”

1 John 2:23 “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.”
Some may ask if that means they’re not saved if they don’t have the Father. The answer is yes, because the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. They are One and they cannot be separated.

1 John 2:26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.

deceive – PLANAO, πλανάω. ① to cause to go astray from a specific way, ⓐ lead astray, cause to wander from someone. ⓑ mislead, deceive someone

Believers must overcome the various distractions -- people testing, thought testing, system testing. So to avoid involvement in the Cosmic System, the believer must continue inside the Divine Dynasphere from his own self-motivation. You cannot stay inside the Divine Dynasphere as long as your motivation is based on inspiration from someone else.

“I have written to you these things about those who are trying to seduce you.” Some Bibles use the word “seduce” instead of “deceive” but both words will suffice. There are many people who seek to lure the positive believer away from the Divine Dynasphere.

There is always someone who is ready to come into center stage and try to lure you away from Bible doctrine. The active voice: both believers and unbelievers involved in the Cosmic System are constantly trying to lead astray or seduce those positive believers residing and functioning inside of the Divine Dynasphere. Therefore people inside the Cosmic System become the devil’s evangelists to lure you away from God’s Principle plan for your life.