Announcement

Collapse

Christianity 201 Guidelines

orthodox Christians only.

Discussion on matters of general mainstream evangelical Christian theology that do not fit within Theology 201. Have some spiritual gifts ceased today? Is the KJV the only viable translation for the church today? In what sense are the books of the bible inspired and what are those books? Church government? Modern day prophets and apostles?

This forum is primarily for Christians to discuss matters of Christian doctrine, and is not the area for debate between atheists (or those opposing orthodox Christianity) and Christians. Inquiring atheists (or sincere seekers/doubters/unorthodox) seeking only Christian participation and having demonstrated a manner that does not seek to undermine the orthodox Christian faith of others are also welcome, but must seek Moderator permission first. When defining “Christian” or "orthodox" for purposes of this section, we mean persons holding to the core essentials of the historic Christian faith such as the Trinity, the Creatorship of God, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection of Christ, the atonement, the future bodily return of Christ, the future bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, and the final judgment. Persons not holding to these core doctrines are welcome to participate in the Comparative Religions section without restriction, in Theology 201 as regards to the nature of God and salvation with limited restrictions, and in Christology for issues surrounding the person of Christ and the Trinity. Atheists are welcome to discuss and debate these issues in the Apologetics 301 forum without such restrictions.

Additionally and rarely, there may be some topics or lines of discussion that within the Moderator's discretion fall so outside the bounds of mainstream orthodox doctrine (in general Christian circles or in the TheologyWeb community) or that deny certain core values that are the Christian convictions of forum leadership that may be more appropriately placed within Unorthodox Theology 201. NO personal offense should be taken by such discretionary decision for none is intended. While inerrancy is NOT considered a requirement for posting in this section, a general respect for the Bible text and a respect for the inerrantist position of others is requested.

The Tweb rules apply here like they do everywhere at Tweb, if you haven't read them, now would be a good time.

Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less

"They were not of us" verse

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • "They were not of us" verse

    I've been Googling for hours now. It's the verse from 1 John 2:19. I've always thought that it was about those who fell away from the faith. But upon reading it again, it looks like it's about antichrists... isn't there a verse about general people?? I feel like I've got the wrong interpretation all this time!

  • #2
    They're definitely antichrists who had been counted as among John's immediate group, and possibly the Jerusalem Church. Except for passages which refer to falling away as a possibility, I can't think of anything that refers to a specific person or group apostasising.
    1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
    .
    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
    Scripture before Tradition:
    but that won't prevent others from
    taking it upon themselves to deprive you
    of the right to call yourself Christian.

    ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

    Comment


    • #3
      The theology of 1 John seems to have a theme of "you're either in Christ or you're not", and polemically, those who are not are antichrists.

      Arminians (of which I consider myself one) understandably find this to be an inconvenient verse as at face value, it seems to indicate that apostasy is inherently impossible, and the general Arminian explanation that this only refers to a specific group of defectors strikes me as special pleading. I think the tack of considering it polemically is more promising, but there is still exegetical work to do here, and I haven't made my mind up.
      "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
        The theology of 1 John seems to have a theme of "you're either in Christ or you're not", and polemically, those who are not are antichrists.

        Arminians (of which I consider myself one) understandably find this to be an inconvenient verse as at face value, it seems to indicate that apostasy is inherently impossible, and the general Arminian explanation that this only refers to a specific group of defectors strikes me as special pleading. I think the tack of considering it polemically is more promising, but there is still exegetical work to do here, and I haven't made my mind up.
        I think his primary aim is directed at identification of true and false teachers, rather than a general overview of believers. Even so,
        1 John 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
        is fairly solidly contra the "you either are or are not" idea. The Koine Greek makes it clear that neither sinning nor not sinning is a foregone conclusion. To over translate a tad:
        that ye sin not = to make it possible that you do not sin
        if any man sin = in the event that any-one might sin
        1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
        .
        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
        Scripture before Tradition:
        but that won't prevent others from
        taking it upon themselves to deprive you
        of the right to call yourself Christian.

        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

        Comment


        • #5
          1 John 4:3 defines antichrists as those who deny that Jesus had come in the flesh. Possibly connected with the Docetae, or groups which later became the agnostics, who believe, among other things, that the flesh is sinful, therefore Jesus could not have come in the flesh. This heresy tried to associate itself with the early church, as is seen in Paul's letter to Colossians. Even John's Gospel, chapter 1, stresses, "The Word was made flesh...."
          When I Survey....

          Comment


          • #6
            In possibly siding with Tabibito, the passage speaks about false teachers who had been among the Jewish followers of Christ (in Judea). There were great pressures upon Jewish Christians to back off from the Messianic message.

            Comment


            • #7
              I don’t think verse 19 is really dealing with the idea of preservation or predestination. It’s using a play on words to emphasize that false teachers and false doctrines may have originated from within the church and gone out from the church, but that does not make them any part of the church. It’s more about these false teachers as representative of their false doctrine, a doctrine which was never a part of the true church.

              Antichrists (anti can mean “opposed to Christ,” but it more normally would have meant “in place of Christ,” those who substituted another gospel that was really no gospel at all and another Christ, by denying that he was the Son, so that they ended up not only with a substitute Christ but a substitute Father) went out into the world, claiming to come from and represent the church.

              The wordplay involves the “ex”. It can mean “from” or “out of,” but when no direction is implied it means “a part of.” They may have gone out from our churches as their origin, but that doesn’t imply that they or their teaching are or ever were a part of or representative of the true church.

              To paraphrase: They went out from our midst, but even when they were in our midst they were not a part of us (not saying that they had never had faith in the first place, but saying that even while they were physically within the church, they were outside the church; by their teachings they had no real part there). If they had been truly part of the church, then no matter where they went when they left, they would have remained with us, both in spirit and in teaching; they could have remained a part of us anywhere they went, but they didn’t.

              The key is the last, incomplete phrase: “But ... in order that they might be made manifest, that (or because) not all (who went out from us) are (present tense) a part of us.” John skips something, but what? It could be, “But it was God’s intention to bring to light the fact that these antichrists never had any part with us,” or it could be “But the reason I’m telling you this is to expose these antichrists.” I take it as the latter: My purpose here is to expose these false teachers and make clear the fact that not everyone (who goes out from us) is a part of us.

              Verses 24-27 imply that a fall from faith is possible; it’s the reason he’s warning them about the antichrists. John is writing to believers. They have the truth. They have the anointing of the Spirit. But they could be led astray. “If (what you have heard from the beginning) remains in you, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—even eternal life.” Implies that if you do not remain, neither the Father nor the Son nor the eternal life he promised us will remain in you.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Faber View Post
                1 John 4:3 defines antichrists as those who deny that Jesus had come in the flesh. Possibly connected with the Docetae, or groups which later became the agnostics, who believe, among other things, that the flesh is sinful, therefore Jesus could not have come in the flesh. This heresy tried to associate itself with the early church, as is seen in Paul's letter to Colossians. Even John's Gospel, chapter 1, stresses, "The Word was made flesh...."
                Small typo there, but they would later go on to develop into Gnostics, not Agnostics . It seems to me that this is one of the more widely held views among NT scholars, but Ben Withering III offers another suggestion,

                Source: Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, Volume 1: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 1-2 Timothy and 1-3 John by Ben Witherington, InterVarsity Press, 2006, pp. 488-9

                We are told at 1 John 2:19 that these antichrists once were members of this community but "went out from us." This does not suggest their expulsion or excommunication, but simply that they left. The author says that "they were not of us," and the clearest proof of this seems to be that they were schismatic, thus violating the love ethic, which is paramount in the Johannine community. "Secession proves a want of fundamental union from the first."191 Whatever else one might make of this admission, it appears clear that the church is viewed as a corpus mixtum, as both wheat and chaff at the time. It also suggests that the evidence of the antichrists' true spiritual character was not clear until they left, or at least until they denied that Jesus is the Christ and then split off.

                But what exactly were they denying about Jesus? Were they docetics who denied his humanity and affirmed only his divinity?192 Or did they agree there was such a thing as the Son of God, the Messiah, but denied that the man Jesus was the one, denying that he was anything more than an ordinary human being? It is unnecessary to posit two schismatic groups with different errant Christologies.193 The Jewish and the Jewish Christian expectation was for a human messiah, yet he would be one uniquely empowered by God and could even be called the Son of God. Perhaps the nub of the denial was that the schismatics were suggesting that the human being Jesus was not the Messiah, and thereby they denied that the Messiah had come in the flesh, at least not yet. If this is the thrust of the false teaching, then likely these are Jewish schismatics—a far more likely scenario than seeing them as Cerinthian docetists or gnostics before the second century and before Cerinthus's time.194 In any case, "the old man" believed that Jesus had anointed all true Christians with the Spirit. The antichrists were not the only ones who could claim spiritual inspirations and insight.





                191Plummer, Epistles of St. John, p. 58. Plummer makes the interesting suggestion that our author is not denying the possibility of apostasy here, but that apostasy "is possible, but only for those who have never really made Christ their own, never fully given themselves to Him" (p. 59).

                192The Greek verb dokeō means "to seem" or "to appear." Smith (First, Second, and Third John, p. 74) thinks that Docetism is at issue here.

                193Contra Smalley, 1, 2, 3, John, pp. 111-13.

                194We might compare what is said about the synagogue in Revelation 2—3, where clearly there is tension between the synagogue and the Johannine churches at a somewhat later period. Did the schismatics begin to turn Christians in to the governing authorities, saying that they were not really Jews but rather belonged to some illicit sect or superstition? This might account for the "synagogue of Satan" polemic.

                © Copyright Original Source

                Last edited by Adrift; 06-22-2019, 01:30 PM.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                  Small typo there, but they would later go on to develop into Gnostics, not Agnostics .
                  Oops, sorry.

                  Long time ago I was doing research on ionized meteor trails in the upper limits of the mesosphere. I wrote to some college professors, and they replied that they got a kick out of the way I misspelled mesopause.
                  When I Survey....

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Faber View Post
                    1 John 4:3 defines antichrists as those who deny that Jesus had come in the flesh. "
                    Wouldn't this by definition include all non-Christians (other than members of certain cults considered so aberrant that they are grouped as such but who do nonetheless not deny the incarnation)? This seems like further evidence for my theory that all outside the faith are in mind.

                    This would seem consistent with the view of Plummer (per one of Adrift's footnotes). Craig Blomberg has expressed a similar view on his personal non-academic blog.
                    Last edited by KingsGambit; 06-22-2019, 10:18 PM.
                    "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                      Wouldn't this by definition include all non-Christians (other than members of certain cults considered so aberrant that they are grouped as such but who do nonetheless not deny the incarnation)? This seems like further evidence for my theory that all outside the faith are in mind.

                      This would seem consistent with the view of Plummer (per one of Adrift's footnotes). Craig Blomberg has expressed a similar view on his personal non-academic blog.
                      Perhaps ... I'm inclined to think, though, that the perimeter for "every" is established at "prophets."
                      1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                      .
                      ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                      Scripture before Tradition:
                      but that won't prevent others from
                      taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                      of the right to call yourself Christian.

                      ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                        Perhaps ... I'm inclined to think, though, that the perimeter for "every" is established at "prophets."
                        Upon re-reading, contextually, I think you are right at least in the case of the usage of the term in chapter 4.

                        I forgot that I have I.H. Marshall's commentary on the Epistles of John on my bookshelf. I was curious how he would deal with 2:19, since although he wrote an influential book arguing for the possibility of apostasy (Kept by the Power of God), he was known for his dislike of systematic theology. It turns out he sees it as somewhat ambiguous:

                        John, however, believes that if they had truly been members of the church they would have remained within it. If they ever had made a confession of faith, it had been an empty one. But a person who makes a genuine confession can be expected to persevere in his faith, although elsewhere John warns his readers against the danger of failure to persevere. It is when a person departs from the church that the falsity of his faith becomes apparent. The last clause is ambiguous in expression, and it is not clear whether John is thinking of the antichrists in particular (NIV) or making the more general point that not all who appear to belong to the church truly belong to it; perhaps he is combining both thoughts.
                        (Marshall, The Epistles of John, p 152)
                        "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                          Wouldn't this by definition include all non-Christians (other than members of certain cults considered so aberrant that they are grouped as such but who do nonetheless not deny the incarnation)? This seems like further evidence for my theory that all outside the faith are in mind.

                          This would seem consistent with the view of Plummer (per one of Adrift's footnotes). Craig Blomberg has expressed a similar view on his personal non-academic blog.
                          It doesn't seem to me that John has absolutely everyone outside of the faith in mind, but more directly those who were once in the faith, or claimed to be in the faith and then never returned. If you're referring to the blog post here by Blomberg, If I'm reading him correctly, I don't take him to be saying that it refers to everyone outside of the faith (whether they were ever in it or not), to the contrary, he seems to be warning Christians from using this passage on those who were in the the faith, but may, indeed, eventually return. And the Plummer note I took to mean that he is referring to those who put on the motions of the Christian faith, but who had "never fully given themselves to Him." That, to me, does not suggest your average unbeliever who never heard the Gospel or who never declared they were a Christian at all. Rather, he seems to be referring to those who claimed to be Christians, or who dabbled in Christianity, but were never born again, who never really made Jesus Lord.

                          Blomberg, I think clarifies his view in his work, From Pentecost to Patmos: An Introduction to Acts through Revelation

                          Source: From Pentecost to Patmos: An Introduction to Acts through Revelation by Craig L. Blomberg

                          The third test of life involves correct Christology. The false teachers Jon is opposing are actually "antichrists," foreshadowing the antichrist of end times (v. 18). These teachers, like some of their followers, have seceded from the Christian community, thereby demonstrating that they did not truly belong to it (v. 19). Calvinists regularly see this as one of the clearest verses in Scripture to resolve the questions of how to "diagnose" what happens when someone commits apostasy. These teachers, however, are claiming a unique anointing of the Spirit that John disputes. Such an anointing is the prerogative of all Christians and occurs whenever someone trusts in Jesus (vv. 20—21). The secessionists' fundamental doctrinal error is in denying Jesus as the Christ (v. 22), a denial that may point to Jewish and not just Hellenistic influence in the heresy. Second-century sectarian Jewish-Christians known as Ebionites denied that Jesus was the divine Messiah, but maintained that one could still be Christian by worshiping the Father. If this mentality had already appeared in Ephesus by the end of the first century, John's reply makes perfect sense—one cannot have the Father without a correct understanding of the Son (v. 23).

                          © Copyright Original Source

                          Last edited by Adrift; 06-23-2019, 12:08 AM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            "Us" refers to the apostles, not Christians as a whole. (See 1 John 1:1-3). It isn't saying necessarily that these heretics never had faith. It is just saying that they hung out with the apostles, but they left in order to teach something different.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Obsidian View Post
                              "Us" refers to the apostles, not Christians as a whole. (See 1 John 1:1-3). ...
                              Interesting. I never really noticed before, but sorting out the uses of "we," "us," "I," and "you" in 1 John could be a bit of a challenge.
                              Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.

                              Beige Federalist.

                              Nationalist Christian.

                              "Everybody is somebody's heretic."

                              Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.

                              Proud member of the this space left blank community.

                              Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.

                              Justice for Ashli Babbitt!

                              Justice for Matthew Perna!

                              Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!

                              Comment

                              Related Threads

                              Collapse

                              Topics Statistics Last Post
                              Started by Thoughtful Monk, 03-15-2024, 06:19 PM
                              35 responses
                              166 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Cow Poke  
                              Started by KingsGambit, 03-15-2024, 02:12 PM
                              4 responses
                              49 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Thoughtful Monk  
                              Started by Chaotic Void, 03-08-2024, 07:36 AM
                              10 responses
                              119 views
                              1 like
                              Last Post mikewhitney  
                              Started by Cow Poke, 02-29-2024, 07:55 AM
                              14 responses
                              71 views
                              3 likes
                              Last Post Cow Poke  
                              Started by Cow Poke, 02-28-2024, 11:56 AM
                              13 responses
                              58 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Cow Poke  
                              Working...
                              X