{"id":8716,"date":"2017-02-10T15:50:31","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T15:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=8716"},"modified":"2017-02-10T15:50:31","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T15:50:31","slug":"the-instead-of-christ-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/8716\/the-instead-of-christ-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u201cInstead-of-Christ\u201d Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is so good bro John. To understand this message, one must understand who is\u00a0<\/em>in\u00a0the body of Christ, and then, who is not.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, to understand or discern the “anti-Christ” (instead of Christ) spirit, one must first know the actual “Christ” spirit; the Spirit that the father poured out on believers, on the day of Pentecost.<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything else hinges on that initial understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry<\/span><\/p>\n

=========<\/span><\/p>\n

John, and the \u201cInstead-of-Christ\u201d Movement*<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In John\u2019s first epistle, he warned that an \u201canti-Christ\u201d movement had become very strong (2:18; 4:3), but to perceive his meaning, we must understand that in first century Greek,\u00a0anti<\/em>\u00a0did not mean \u201cagainst\u201d as it does today; rather, it meant \u201cinstead of\u00a0\u201d.\u00a0 For example, Jesus said, \u201cWhat father among you, when a son asks for bread, will give him a stone?\u00a0 Or also a fish, he won\u2019t give him a snake instead of [anti] a fish, will he?<\/em>\u201d (Lk.11:11).\u00a0 So, what John meant by \u201canti-Christ\u201d is \u201cinstead of<\/em>\u00a0Christ\u201d, not \u201cagainst<\/em>\u00a0Christ\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This agrees with Paul\u2019s description of false teachers who, he said, considered themselves to be apostles of Christ (2Cor.\u00a011:13).\u00a0 Those men did not present themselves as enemies of Christ, nor did they speak evil of him.\u00a0 If they had done so, no believers would have followed them.\u00a0 What those men did was to proclaim \u2013 in Jesus\u2019 name \u2013 a gospel different from the true one, and by doing that, they persuaded God\u2019s people of a way of worship different from the right way.\u00a0 And by doing that, they were, in fact, teaching a Jesus that was different from the real Jesus, and a spirit that was different from the real Spirit of God, just as Paul said (2Cor. 11:4; cp. Gal. 1:6\u20137).\u00a0 They were not opposed to the name, \u201cJesus\u201d, or to the word, \u201cGod\u201d; they just offered a different Christ than the true one.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John called such men \u201cdeceivers\u201d, adding that they had \u201cgone out [from the faithful saints] into the world<\/em>\u201d (2Jn. 1:7).\u00a0 It is important to note that John did not say that the deceivers had\u00a0come in <\/em>from the world.\u00a0 Sinners of the world would not come into the Assemblies of God to proclaim any kind of gospel at all.\u00a0 These \u201cinstead-of-Christ\u201d ministers were\u00a0believers<\/em>\u00a0who \u201cwent out from us, but they were not of us, for if they were of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out that they might be exposed<\/em>\u201d (1Jn.\u00a02:19).\u00a0 John\u2019s point was that those men did not stay among \u201cus\u201d; that is, the believing Jews.\u00a0 James referred to brothers who had gone out from the Assembly in Jerusalem to teach believing Gentiles not to trust in Christ alone, but to trust also in the law: \u201cWe have heard that certain men among us, to whom we gave no charge, went out from here and troubled you with words, saying you must be circumcised and keep the law. . . .<\/em>\u201d (Acts\u00a015:24).\u00a0 These were some of the men who, as John said, \u201cwent out from us,\u201d but \u201cwere not of us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, it should be noted that the word \u201canti-Christ\u201d does not appear in the book of Revelation.\u00a0 And it does not appear in that book of prophecy because Revelation concerns the future, and the \u201cinstead-of-Christ\u201d movement was already going strong in John\u2019s day.\u00a0 John had no need to prophesy of a future enemy of God named \u201cthe Anti-Christ\u201d, for he said, \u201ceven now, many have become anti-Christs<\/em>\u201d (1Jn.\u00a02:18).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You need not look for the anti-Christ to come in the future.\u00a0 As my father, \u201cPreacher Clark\u201d, once said, \u201cThe anti-Christ has been here so long, God\u2019s people have forgotten about him.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

*Pastor John’s House Blog: February 9, 2107<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is so good bro John. To understand this message, one must understand who is\u00a0in\u00a0the body of Christ, and then, who is not. In other words, to understand or discern the “anti-Christ” (instead of Christ) spirit, one must first know the actual “Christ” spirit; the Spirit that the father poured out on believers, on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}