I John 4:2

"Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God;" What does it leave out? The cross! Nothing concerning His resurrection. Only -- Who He was. All right, then, you come down into verse 3 - and like we showed in the first half-hour that's the negative side, if you have someone that,


I John 4:3b

"...confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (then) is not of God:...."


All right, now let's just jump ahead a little bit to show you what I'm talking about - in this same chapter, go over to verse 15. Chapter 4 verse 15. Now you've got to look at this with an open mind. Now I think I'm more patient than most people in my situation - but when people just refuse and refuse and refuse to open their eyes and read what the Book says, I get a little bit uptight. Because, after all, what's wrong with reading what the Bible says? But they don't want to do it because they want to follow tradition, and then they're out there on thin ice.


I John 4:15

"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God." What's missing? Well, the work of the cross. Jump on over to chapter 5 verse 1. I can remember years ago before I had the understanding of Scripture that I have now, that already the Lord must have been working on my brain cells because way back, and the guy's gone on to be with the Lord (and some of my past pastors are still living so they'll know I'm not talking about them), but I'll never forget he preached a Sunday morning sermon on this verse. And I said afterwards, "Preacher we can't be saved on this verse." He said, "Oh yes we can, this is the Gospel." Well it is the Gospel of the Kingdom, but not the Gospel of Grace. Look what it says.


I John 5:1

"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him." Not a word about the cross. So is John out in left field? No. John is exactly where he belongs because who is he writing to? Jews, who as yet have not been exposed to Paul's Gospel of Grace. He's on Jewish ground, as I've been saying for the last umpteen months since we started - actually Hebrews, but especially James and Peter and John, this is all written to Jewish believers who are saved simply by believing that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel.