1 John
On Docetism and Resurrection
L. Daniel Cantey Jr.
1 John
On Docetism and Resurrection
Copyright © 2016 L. Daniel Cantey Jr. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Wipf & Stock
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-0418-8
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-0420-1
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-0419-5
Manufactured in the U.S.A. March 10, 2017
Lay Introduction
To the Devout Christians in the West
To Western Christians who have sought the Lord to the best of their ability, who have yearned to know and to be known by God, who have labored to live in a manner pleasing to him, who have sought him in suffering, prayed to him and beseeched him in trials, and who have trusted him in adversity and temptation: greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. My heart goes out to you devoted ones, who include friends whom I respect as well as the family that I cherish. To those who are not my acquaintances I offer my hope and concern that God will look upon you with compassion here and at the judgment.
Do not be fooled, for many deceivers have gone out into the world. Men now proclaim that there is no God and no judgment, they accuse and impugn God as unjust and a tyrant, they declare that they are without sin and they announce that God has left the world. They decry the notion that nature has a meaning other than what men deign to give it while they burst the bonds that hold men together, so that all that makes a claim to truth they brand as propaganda, agendas, and falsehood. Men today wander in a sea of lies and do not know which way to turn, with believers often overlooking their participation in the deception. For there is another falsehood, one not as obvious, one to which Christians turn a blind eye as they sing their songs, as they—we, you and I—pray our prayers and perform our worship. This falsehood ensnares and spoils us, driving us away from Christ while speaking in his name.
The ancient church faced a heresy called Docetism. As a premise, the Docetists believed that the spirit is good and that matter is evil, and that the two cannot mix. They then affirmed that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, but with the attendant claim that Christ had no physical body. Shall God, who is all goodness, light, and truth, combine with depraved matter? According to Docetism, certainly not! Christ therefore comes as the Son of God but without a body, and all that he did, the walking on water, the teachings and healings, the feedings of thousands, the Last Supper, he did without a body. He appeared as if he had a body to those around him, but in fact he did not have one. He even climbed the cross not in the flesh but as a seeming. This Christ without a body did not die in the body nor did he raise the body from the dead. Thus in Docetism there is no resurrection, no life, and no salvation, and those who believe in Christ in the docetic way are deceived.
In like manner we also are deceived, for Western Christians also believe that Christ has no body. I speak not of the body of the man Jesus, but of the body of Christ, the church. “But,” you say, “I go to church every week and have for years! How could I not believe in the body of Christ?” Listen: when a man’s body dies it does not vanish into air, but over time it decomposes, disintegrating and scattering into dust. This has happened to Christ’s body in the West. Over many centuries it has decomposed, breaking through schism upon schism until today it is all but lifeless. To say “I accept these multiplied and multiplying Western denominations,” to regard their collective existence as a matter of indifference or personal choice, to consider each sect as justified according to its own rationale, and to participate in one or another of them—or worse, to say “It does not matter how or whether one worships, it only matters what one believes in the heart”—to say any one of these things is effectively to accept the disintegration and scattering of the body of Christ. To accept the scattering of the body of Christ, however, is to accept its death, and to worship a Christ with a dead body is to worship a Christ without a body. That one says “I believe in Jesus Christ” makes little difference here, as even demons acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ. What matters is that one worships the Christ correctly, according to the way he has given,1 as a Lord not only of spirit but also of the flesh, who came to redeem both the body and the soul. How can Christ redeem the bodies of men when his own body, the church, is torn into pieces? Western Christians, inasmuch as we worship a Christ without a body, are Docetists, all; we have been deceived, despite our devotion, to the last one of us.
“Every kingdom divided against itself becomes a desert, and house falls on house . . . whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Luke 11:17, 23). These are the words of our Lord and they are true. He is the great gatherer, who aims to bring all things together in his body the church. But Western Christendom is the great scattering, the intensifying division of the body of Christ. Juxtapose Christ’s assertion that “he who does not gather with me scatters” beside his admonition that “you will know them by their fruits” (Matt 7:15–20), so that the fruit that witnesses to the Holy Spirit is gathering and its opposite is scattering.2 Then examine the history of Western Christendom, which amounts to scattering after scattering. You will see that throughout Western history the Bible, and the Christ whose name we hope to exalt, indicts that history’s witness.
Can one find a page in the Scripture where God does not affirm the unity of the church? “I am the good shepherd,” says the Christ. “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them” (John 10:11–12). The false leader cannot stand against forces that threaten and divide Christ’s body, while Christ, seeing the wolf coming, lays down his life for the sheep. “I have other sheep,” he continues, “that do not belong to this fold [referring to the Gentiles who are added, in the church, to the flock of the Jews]. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice.” Of these two peoples Christ makes “one flock” under one shepherd, joined in the witness to resurrection and life in Jesus (10:15–16).
Hear also the prayer of Christ before his passion, when in the Garden awaiting his betrayer (John 17). Concerning his disciples he asks, “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may become one, as we are one . . . I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one.” These are the words of Christ to his Father, his last testament and the prelude to his death, and in them he petitions for the unity of the faithful. Above all they must be one, united in Spirit and in truth, lest they do not accomplish the earthly purpose for which he calls them. The Christ seeks their unity so that “the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” The unity of the body of Christ witnesses to its truth, and to the truth of God who enlivens and maintains it through his Spirit. When the body divides unto incoherence, what is left of its witness except that Christianity, rather than engendering peace, is a seed of faction and conflict?
The unity of men in the church stands at the center of God’s cosmic plan. “With all wisdom and insight God has made known to us the mystery of his will,”