Reading: 1 John 2:24–27
The incarnation changes everything. It is not truly the beginning of the execution of God’s plan of redemption (he doesn’t wait long to get it started in Genesis 3), but it is a beginning. With the coming of Jesus, “the true light is already shining.” The promise of the resurrection to glory in Daniel 12, the gloriously bright future in God’s presence promised in Isaiah 66 shine all the brighter when we have come to know the Son of God who makes the Father known.
So when this community faces a doctrinal defection from the mystery of perfect God tabernacling with us as perfect man, John works to help them hold fast to the sound word, or as he says it, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you” (2:24, NIV).
The apostle John has two reasons for us to remain true to sound doctrine. The first reason began in the past and remains in the present. He speaks of the teaching you have heard (2:24) and the anointing you received (2:27). These two combine to form the first reason. When we became Christians, we received the gospel message of Christ, and we received the indwelling Spirit of Christ attesting to the gospel message of Christ. The word and the Spirit go together.
Because we have the Spirit and the word, we have no need for anyone to teach us who comes with any other word or spirit (2:27, see 4:1–6). “The incarnation-deniers, the antichrists,” John is saying, “have nothing to offer you.” You have the teaching from the beginning, and you have the anointing, so abide in Christ. Hold fast to the incarnate Son of the Father. Those who do so have this blessed assurance, “you also will remain in the Son and in the Father” (2:24).
While the first reason moves from the past to the present, the second reason encompasses the present and the future: the promise of eternal life. Life is in the Son; “whoever has the Son has life” (5:12). The Son has the words of eternal life (John 6:68), and indeed he is that life (John 14:6). We enjoy a foretaste of his resurrection life now as we bear the fruit of the Spirit of the Son, but the fulfillment is yet to come.
Advent season likewise celebrates the first advent, the coming of the Light of eternal life, and it also laments our own brokenness and the brokenness of our world. It is a time of pleading with God for the second advent. We hold fast to what we have heard from the beginning in hope of the fulfillment of the promise of eternal life.