The following Scriptural Rerun, although not a part of our current Apostolic Faith SERIES, will provide additional context for our look at the Gospel of John written about five years before the Elder's Epistles.
READ any post linked below from our 2020 SERIES from the Gospel of John
Scriptural exposition in the context of A.D. 85-90,
19 March AD2020 Churches ordered closed..while during recent months:
some sought to stream the stage of worship
some sent seeker-friendly scripture into our homes
some church communities disintegrated while others diminished & distanced (like our 2020 remote office meetings complete with slides).
To review the Gospel of John, simply click on any link in the outline below& it will open in a new window.
Roger – author of A.D. 2020 series on the Gospel ‘Good NEWS’ of John
I hope you were blessed by the secure links to reliable sites for further study of Scripture, as well as insight into the 1st century church of John’s Gospel (written ~A.D.- 90).
IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
ALL THINGS came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of
MANKIND.
And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.
14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Book of the Prologue
John’s Prologue [1:1-18], from which the Apostle next proceeds to the testimony of John the Baptist and the Messiah’s calling of the Twelve, states many important theological themes & along with his Epilogue [21:1-25 {linked below}] provides additional depth of purpose of John’s Gospel.
‘My Father’s House – John 2“You must be born again.I am the Messiah – John 4Before Abraham was, I AM John 11“..and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.also love one another-John 13Jesus prays – John 17Jesus answered him – John 19:11 Jesus said:
Gospel of John
“Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! – John 1:29b
As Jesus passed by, He saw a man who had been blind from birth. – John 9:1
Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you claim to be?” – John 8:53
“But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. – John 10:26-28
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise from the dead.”
.. “I am the resurrection and the life; the one who believes in Me will live, even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.
Hear all the unrelenting bad news of yesterday or today or any future year in the Common Era of these last days.
For followers of Jesus, His death diminished life’s hope in eternal life;
that is, until the GOOD NEWS of the Lord’s resurrection reached the eyes and ears and touch of His dearly beloved friends.
John and the Disciples witnessed the Lord Jesus in His Risen Flesh several times after His resurrection, as had hundreds of other disciples also seen their risen Christ!
but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
John 20:20
Their sorrow had turned into joy and so must ours; for in Christ Jesus his disciples of every generation have eternal life through His sacrifice for our sins. This is our Gospel, John’s Good News to those who would believe.
John’s Epilogue
John 20:30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.
But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:21 CSB
Go in Peace and Believe
I pray that the Lord has blessed you through the Gospel of John in A.D. 2020 and now I might add, the Good NEWS of John by God’s grace continuing these last days in 2023 of the Common Era ..
May our Lord Jesus Christ
draw you into His grace,
giving you new hope of Eternal Life in the remaining years of our Common Era of 2023 and beyond if it is God's will,in the Name of the Father and the Son Christ JESUS, Who IS and Was and will judge all things when the Lord returns, and the Holy Spirit who sustains saved sinners in these last days.
AMEN.
The Apostles’ Creed — foundational to our Apostolic Christian faith
I BELIEVE or WE BELIEVE IN:
The Apostles’ Creed
We believe JESUS will JUDGE the living and the dead.
The Quick and the Dead
Death becomes a more serious matter IF WE consider an inevitable after-life of our lifeless flesh and blood and in a prepared place of our created soul.
This failing flesh, weakening sinews, crumbling of bones, flow through our heart and quickness of brain will not endure…
nor will the very breath of our brief mortal life.
And yet.. this created soul will remain…
What then?
Redemption OR Judgment?
Structure of Christian CREEDS
Here’s a brief outline of the fundamental objects of our faith found in The Creed:
God
Jesus Christ
the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin Mary
Jesus was crucified
and was buried
He rose from the dead
He ascended to heaven
Siteth at the right hand of the Father (ye olde English)
Whence He cometh to judge the living and the dead
more…
source: apostles-creed.org
We believe Jesus will judge the living and the dead
During His incarnation as the Son of Man and prior to His crucifixion Jesus had confessed:
The Apostle Paul helps us with this look at the judgment of the quick and the dead:
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you,
he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
We know it and recognize the the Apostles borrow this from the Gospel of what Christ has taught during His incarnation.
from the Greek [ζωοποιέω] it more specifically means:
to produce alive, begat or bear living young
to cause to live, make alive, give life
and as Jesus used it in a parable pointing to death:
of seeds quickened into life, i.e. germinating, springing up, growing
For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
Gospel of John 5:21 KJV
Think of the implication of this to a mortal like us as we look toward the dust.
An the Lord Jesus assures the faithful:
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing:
and you believers with ears to hear, listen to this:
the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Gospel of John 6:63 KJV – the word of Jesus, the son of Man and Son of God
from Christ to the Apostles to Christian Creeds
The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Ephesus — a worldly cosmopolitan city with the temple of the Greek goddess Artemis (the goddess Diana of the Romans) — in about AD 60, quoting the Prophets:
“Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”
See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesisans 5:14b-16 NKJV
And the risen Christ speaks a warning against turning back from sins and heresies leading to hell, which had seduced many of the Ephesian ‘christians‘:
“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
Revelation of Jesus Christ to John 2:5 NKJV
Their great falling from grace in Ephesus having taken place in the AD 90’s, a mere three decades after the Apostle Paul had pastored their church.
The historical record of the Church beyond the first century AD points to both firm doctrine and similar falling away from Christ.
Augustine of Hippo on the Apostles’ Creed
Born: AD 354, Augustine lived an early 'willfully, decadent, pagan life' in Carthage, even taking a mistress who bore him a bastard son.
Source: The Confessions of St. Augustine, Rosalie DeRosset – intro
In Carthage, Augustine’s knowledge.. he admits, made him, “swollen up with vanity” (Bk 3, chap. 6). — probably made him prey for the Manichean religion. The chief characteristic of this sect was Gnosticism, an extreme dualism that claimed evil and good as equal.
ibid. pp 13-14
In just four centuries heresies had encompassed and seeped into the churches. Later after after St. Augustine and the fall of Rome, considerable idolatry and various heresies would invade the Catholic Church and later after Luther, the Protestant Church.
READ what Augustine later taught about THE APOSTLES’ CREED:
“Thence He shall come to judge the quick and dead.”
The quick, who shall be alive and remain;
the dead, who shall have gone before.
It may also be understood thus: The living, the just; the dead, the unjust.
For He judges both, rendering unto each his own.
To the just He will say in the judgment, “Come, ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.” For this prepare yourselves, for these things hope, for this live, and so live, for this believe, for this be baptized, that it may be said to you, “Come ye blessed of My Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”
To them on the left hand, what?
“Go into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Thus will they be judged by Christ, the quick and the dead.
We have spoken of Christ’s first nativity, which is without time;
spoken of the other in the fullness of time,
Christ’s nativity of the Virgin; spoken of the passion of Christ; spoken of the coming of Christ to judgment.
The whole is spoken, that was to be spoken of Christ, God’s Only Son, our Lord. But not yet is the Trinity perfect.
Peter’s second epistle to the church mirrors what the Lord had prayed prior to His crucifixion:
“But I have prayed earnestly for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, once you have returned, strengthenG4741 your brothers.”
Gospel of Luke 22:32
The Apostle had recently written to these same believers:
For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?
that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets
A single greek word for ‘that you may be mindful’ is the same word of remembering used frequently in the gospels.
And Peter remembered the word of Jesus who had said to him, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” So he went out and wept bitterly.
Matthew 16:75 NKJV
Peter emphasizes the subject matter spoken before by the ‘holy prophets,’ referring to the major and minor prophets of Old Testament Scripture from Isaiah to Malachi—pointing to them as Holy [ἅγιος – hagios – (an awful thing)] and certainly in contrast to the misleading false prophets and teachers against whom the Apostle has already warned.
Secondly, Peter equates Apostolic authority in this reminder mentioning the Holy Prophets speaking God’s word even before Jesus instructed them in Person.
and of the commandment of us,the apostles of the Lord and Savior..
commandment of the apostles of your Lord and Savior
or commandment of your apostles of the Lord and Savior.
The end was neither — the incarnation of JESUS the Son of God nor — resurrection of JESUS the Son of David hoped for by some of the Jews.
And don't Common Era scoffers also want a conquering King — bringing victory without cost and proclaimation without persecution, also saying:
… all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”
2 Peter 3:4c NKJV
And so they do, Peter suggests, but these [scoffers and doubters of Christ] are without excuse.
For this they willfully forget: that
by the word of God the heavens were of old,
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
and the earth standing out of water and in the water,
by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water.
A clear reference to Noah, who Peter has just mentioned.
2 Peter 3:5-6 NKJV
But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word,
are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition [apōleia– the destruction which consists of eternal misery in hell]
of ungodly [ἀσεβής – asebēs – destitute of reverential awe towards God]
men [anthrōpos – men or women].
2 Peter 3:7 NKJV
Has your Common Era Pastor preached this Apostolic caution?
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: …
And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
Genesis 7:21, 9;11 KJV
The Apostle’s Timeless Response
agapētos HEAR THIS:
But, beloved, do not forget this one thing,
that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us [or you]
not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
In the year of the Lord 2025 — dismissed by scoffers as: 2025 of the Common Era [2025 CE] — Do you fear the wrath to come when Christ returns?
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise,
and the elements will melt with fervent heat;
both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
[literally, utterly burned up and consumed by fire!]
2 Peter 3: 10 NJKV
Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along.
On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
2 Peter 3:11-13 New Living Translation
The Apostle’s command to look ahead may not appeal to you anymore than considering your inevitable death of the flesh.
Ah, but what of your spirit, the resurrection of our familiar flesh and the judgment to come?
Peter assures Christ’s true followers — the saints of the Chruch which may include you:
And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen,
make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved.
2 Peter 3:14-15a NLT
Might the Apostle actually be calling YOU, beloved member of Christ — in need of repentance for your impure fruit, to reject those easy false teachings which oppose the Lord Jesus Christ?
The APOSTLES, including Paul
NEXT, we will briefly study just one Epistle or Letter of the Apostle to the Gentiles [or Hellenists or Greeks], Paul.
Here Peter now mentions the Apostle Paul, due to an already developing false teaching in the early church broadly known as gnosticism [a Greek word meaning “knowledge.”]
Gnosticism
Such ‘knowledge‘ often accelerates into a down-hill slope into the pit of error. Therefore a brief summary here from BibleHub.com
Dualism: Gnosticism is marked by a strong dualistic worldview,
The material world is often seen as the creation of a lesser deity,
sometimes identified with the God of the Old Testament,
who is distinct from the true, transcendent God.
This, of course, is NOT SCRIPTURAL from either Jewish Scripture OR the Gospel of the New Testament.
Gnostics believe that.. salvation involves awakening this divine spark through gnosis.
Some Gnostic texts depict Christ as a purely spiritual being .who did not truly suffer or die.
Gnosticism generally views the physical world as corrupt or illusory.
This belief often leads to ascetic practices or,
conversely, to libertine behavior, as the material is deemed irrelevant to spiritual salvation.
Peter confirming Paul
So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters.
There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, beware lest you be carried away with the error of lawless men and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
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![“He who loves his [fn]life loses it, and he who hates his [fn]life in this world will keep it to life eternal.](https://talkofjesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/triumphal-entry.jpg)
