And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an antichrist. Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father, either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father.
1 John 2:22-24 NLT
This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophetacknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.
1 John 4:2-3 NLT
It is reported that a recently elected bishop of a prominent mainline denomination has said that it does not matter what one believes about Christ. This would be like a Communist leader saying it does not matter who owns the means of production. But the founding document of the communist movement: The Communist Manifesto, makes it a fundamental and unchangeable principle that the state must own the means of production. Whatever that leader might call himself or herself, he or she is no Communist.
The same is true with this bishop. If she indeed said this, she is no Christian. John, traditionally held to be the apostle, makes it inescapably clear that anyone rightly called “Christian” stakes their life and their eternal destiny on certain truths about Jesus. And he says that anyone who does not so believe is “an antichrist.” Whew! Tell us how you really feel, John!
In the two passages above John identifies three propositions about Jesus that are essential to true Christian faith. They are: 1) Jesus of Nazareth is the Anointed One, the Messiah, whom the Old Testament foretells; 2) Jesus is divine, the Son of God; 3) Jesus was fully human. All three of these are equally necessary to genuine Christian faith.
Let us be as forthright as John was in the face of outright apostasy in the church. And let us be even more rigorous with ourselves than with others. Are you a true believer? Am I?
Called To Be Transformed 