Matthew 16:13-16
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
1 John 2:21-23
21 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. 22 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. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
I’ve been spending some time with the existential philosophers lately, with Kierkegaard topping the list. One of the things that Kierkegaard argues is that true despair can only come from rejection of eternity, and rejection can only come through knowledge of eternity. By eternity he means the infinite, or god, or that which the finite/mortal challenges.
In many ways, I think this same idea is present when it comes to Jesus. One cannot escape the fact that all four gospels are shaped by the question, who is Jesus. This question drives the narratives, frames the tension, and informs their proclamation (good news).
The implication is this. The greatest praise comes when who Jesus is finds its proper confession. The greatest warnings come when those who know this confession set out to convince Jesus followers that He is someone else. Why? Scholar Colan Kruse does a great job in his commentary on 1 John detailing the warning of 2:21-23- by convincing people that Jesus was not who He said He was and did not do what He said He did they are being stripped of their hope. And as Kierkegaard suggests, this is the truest and most tragic form of despair. This is precisely what the dissenters who had broken away from the church and who were now infiltrating the church were doing to the readers of 1 John.
For Peter to declare that jesus was the messiah, the son of the living God, was to locate Jesus not as the prophet that the others were citing, but within the expectation of Gods promised work. In the story of Israel this identity couldn’t have been more clear, and yet in the person and work of Jesus it also does something quite unexpected- it announces that God has in fact broken into the middle of history and done a new thing. And when we get to 1 John, it makes these bold statements:
(1:2) He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1:1 That which was from the beginning (the Gospel of the person and work of Jesus the Christ), which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life
1:3 Our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ
3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters… This is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us
4: I have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world
4:2-3 Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.
4:9 He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him
Now, there can be some disagreement on this front regarding how this knowledge is known and whether it needs to be known in order for one to be in the kingdom of God. But I don’t think one can deny that in the scriptures we find the harshest words saved for those who know this to be true and who strip this hope from those for whom this truth is very real. It is to say that this reality that we know; this world enslaved to Sin and Death, our suffering and exile, enslavement and poverty, is more true than the proclamation that God has at long last done something about it. It is to say that our faithfulness, our conviction to live in allegiance to God and in the way of His character by way of obedience to His Word, is all in vain and meaningless.
1 John is probably the best place to go to hear what God thinks of such dissension. But it’s also readily apparent through the whole of the Gospels. Who am I, or who are you, is the most vital question concerning Christianity. That’s what made it so scandalous.
The Stories of my Life 