Prayer: Spirit of God provide us this day with the strength to follow your will, the understanding that directs our steps, the love that will draw us to others, and the light that will interpret God’s word. Help us apply God’s word to our lives that we might be a witness with our lives and our words for Him. Amen.
Main Scripture:
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also (1John 2:19-23).
Associated Scriptures:
Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist (2 John 7-8).
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44-45).
Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18 God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:17-19).
Correlative Quotes:
These heretics had belonged to our Christian assemblies, they professed Christianity, and do so still; but we apostles did not commission them to preach to you, for they have disgraced the Divine doctrine with the most pernicious opinions; they have given up or explained away its most essential principles; they have mingled the rest with heathenish rites and Jewish glosses. While, therefore, we acknowledge that they once belonged to us, we assert that they are not of us. They are not Christians; we abhor their conduct and their creed. We never sent them to teach. They were not expelled from the Christian Church; they were not sent out by us; but they separated from it and us. None of them had been inspired as we apostles were, though they pretended to a very high teaching; but their separating from us manifested that they were not taught, as we were, by the Spirit of God. These false teachers probably drew many sincere souls away with them; and to this it is probable the apostle alludes when he says, they were not ALL of us. Some were; others were not.[1] – Adam Clarke
And seeing that the Son hath all which. the Father hath, the Father is said to send forth the Spirit of His Son into the hearts of His children (Galatians 4:6 : compare Ephesians 3:16, Philippians 1:19, 2 Corinthians 3:17 ff.), and this, at the prayer, in the name, through the mediation, of the Son (John 14:16, 16:7 f.): the Father anoints believers by giving them His Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:21 f.), as He has anointed the Son with the Holy Ghost. And hence the Spirit, which we have received, is the token that we are in the Father (chapter 3:24), and in the Son (2:27), that we are children of God (Romans 8:14 a: Galatians 4:6). The Holy Ghost teaches the faithful the truth and keeps them in it: that truth, in the knowledge of which they have eternal life, having thereby the Father and the Son."[2] – Henry Alford
“they would…have continued” implying the indefectibility of grace in the elect. "Where God's call is effectual, there will be sure perseverance" [Calvin]. Still, it is no fatal necessity, but a "voluntary necessity" [Didymus], which causes men to remain, or else go from the body of Christ. "We are either among the members, or else among the bad humors. It is of his own will that each is either an Antichrist, or in Christ" [Augustine]. Still God's acting in eternal election harmonizes in a way inexplicable to us, with man's free agency and responsibility. It is men's own evil will that chooses the way to hell; it is God's free and sovereign grace that draws any to Himself and to heaven. To God the latter shall ascribe wholly their salvation from first to last: the former shall reproach themselves alone, and not God's decree, with their condemnation (1Job 3:9; 5:18).[3] – Jamieson, Fausset, Brown
Study:
Introduction
In Acts 19:2, Paul takes the road to the interior of Asia Minor to travel from Corinth to Ephesus. In doing so, he met some disciples of John the Baptist. He asked them “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed.” He did not ask them for an explanation of their conversion experience or anything about the change in their lives or works since their conversion. He didn’t ask them to recite the prayer that they spoke when they accepted Jesus. He asked the most important, defining question that all Christian’s should be asked, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed.”
In some respects, it is a vital question. I shall not be playing about the outskirts of religion now but plunging into its very center. This question has nothing to do with the sect to which you belong, nor with the particular condition in which your mind may happen to be for the present hour, it is an inquiry which touches the heart of the man and the inmost life of his spirit. “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” For, remember, the Holy Ghost is the author of all spiritual life. Life does not lie latent in natural men for themselves to stir up, but until the Holy Ghost visits them, they are dead in trespasses and sins. If, when you believed, you had not a life imparted by the Holy Spirit, your believing was a dead believing, the mere counterfeit of living faith, and not the faith of God’s elect.[4] – Charles Spurgeon
The darkness cannot coexist with the light. Where the light shines continually the darkness disappears. If God’s people, true believers, live in the light they will eventually drive the darkness away. The light of God is the truth of God (1John 1:5).
The light of God comes to us in the presence of the Spirit of God. His Spirit provides us with the essentials needed to be His children and to learn and grow through His light.
The True Believer
The natural man can’t understand the things of God. It is only the Holy Spirit, acting as a tutor and mentor through the Word of God that we can even begin to understand the mind of God (John 14:25-26).
Summary Statement:
Those who might feel that they are Christians by some misunderstanding of an apostate preacher or uninformed friend join into the fellowship and even experience the power of the Holy Spirit in community. However, they never profess Jesus as Lord of their lives nor do they practice it (2 Timothy 3:5).
The assurance of our redemption is the internal presence of the light of Jesus. The essence of the light is found in the indwelling of the Spirit of God. The test of the light is its external radiance. Does your light shine so that others might see it (Matthew 5:16)?
Lesson within the Lesson:
Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?
What has the Holy Spirit done for us that would allow us to recognize those who teach false doctrines?
How do we tap into the power of the Holy Spirit to use it for interpretation of God’s word?
Why are nonbelievers so confused about what God’s word says? What is our responsibility to them as a result of their lack of understanding?
[1] Adam Clark, The Adam Clarke Commentary on Revelation, Ibid, P. 874.
[2] Henry Alford, The New Testament for English Readers, Ibid, P. 875.
[3] Jamieson, Robert, D. D.; Fausset, A. R.; Brown, David, "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible," Ibid, P. 3076
[4] Charles Spurgeon, Receiving the Holy Ghost, Public Domain, 1884, spurgeongems.org/vols28-30/chs1790.pdf, P. 3.
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