God in the flesh: why John's letters made the incarnation the test
John's Gospel opens with the Word made flesh, and 1 John and 2 John treat confessing that Jesus came in the flesh as the line between true and false teaching. Bishop Robert Barron places the incarnation at the center of Christian faith, and Joe Eszterhas describes coming to faith in a flesh-and-blood Jesus. The early insistence on a real, bodily Jesus explains why Christianity resists purely spiritual or symbolic versions of him.
Why did John's letters make confessing Jesus "come in the flesh" the test? Show answer
Scholars read them as answering early teachers who held that Jesus only seemed to have a body, a view called docetism.
What does 2 John call someone who will not confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh? Show answer
A deceiver and an antichrist.
What are 1 John's three tests for telling the real thing from the false? Show answer
Right living, a true confession of Jesus come in the flesh, and love shown in deed and in truth.
What practical rule does 2 John give about teachers who deny the flesh? Show answer
Do not receive them into your house or bid them God speed, because welcoming them makes you a partaker of their evil deeds.
Why was 2 John's hospitality rule a real boundary? Show answer
The church relied on hospitality to house its travelling preachers, so a preacher's belief about Jesus's flesh decided whether he got a roof for the night.
How does 1 John open, and what does it stress? Show answer
With testimony about what was heard, seen with the eyes and handled with the hands; the emphasis is on the senses.
What does Thomas say when invited to touch the risen Jesus's wounds? Show answer
"My LORD and my God," the Gospel's highest confession, spoken to a body that still bears its wounds.
According to Barron, why can God come close without destroying the creature? Show answer
Because God is non-competitive with creatures; when God comes close, the creature becomes more radiant rather than being burned up.
Why does Barron reject Jordan Peterson's reading of Jesus as incomplete? Show answer
Peterson treats Jesus as an archetype of the moral life, while Barron holds that Christianity concerns a historical person who really rose from the dead.
What did Eszterhas tell a priest who wanted more incense in his scripts? Show answer
That he doesn't write incense; he writes flesh and blood.
Which scholarly questions about John's books remain open? Show answer
Authorship of all three books is disputed, and identifying the letters' opponents as docetists is a reconstruction.