Death Mask

And I said to them, Cast away the detestable things your eyes feast on, every one of you, and do not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.  But they rebelled against me and were not willing to listen to me.  None of them cast away the detestable things their eyes feasted on, nor did they forsake the idols of Egypt … -- Ezekiel 20:7-8

I suppose this is a continuation of yesterday’s post about pretense.  An idol is something we create and empower.  An icon, on the other hand, is genuine – a window to heaven, as Rick put it.  Christ could never be an idol, but we can create a false version -- literally, an antichrist, that is.

So much that we see around us is mask and pretense, posturing and posing.  The poor homosexuals, transvestites, lesbians, and all the other confused groups are all pretending to be something they are not.  Giving birth in a doghouse does not mean your child is a Saint Bernard.  Cosmetic surgery cannot change DNA.        

It is tempting to say that external conformity to behavioral cues also does not correlate with internal transformation.  However, that is not entirely true.  “Mere” conformity, as under social pressure or other duress, does not change our nature, but willing adherence to forms – e.g., kneeling, reciting prayers, raising our hands, etc., is beneficial in enabling us to access God’s transforming power.  Practicing humility, even with gritted teeth, in an effort be humble makes us humble.  So, too, with patience, kindness, meekness, and other virtues, we do it in faith even when we feel more like busting heads.  That’s not pretense.  That’s practice in acknowledging and conforming to God’s truth and reality. 

Still, pretense is, indeed, ascendant in the world.  It always, or most always, has been.  To paraphrase Reagan, the world knows so much that isn’t so.  Our tolerance for all these false images seems to have grown, though, as the even the Church embraces appearance over essence.  Congregations are presented with what amount to stage shows in place of worship services.  Apparently, theatrics are the new alchemy, transmuting leaden sinners into golden saints through a sprinkling of emotion.  I don’t know.  I’m an old fogey.  Maybe it is good for some people.  In my way of thinking emotions follow rather than lead.  An emotion is an effect rather than a cause, evidence not act.  Truth and its revelation are the cause.  If cool lighting, synthesizers, and sequins reveal truth, that’s good.  If they obscure it, that’s bad. 

As there is a true metamorphosis in which we are conformed to Christ, so there is a counterfeit in which a person is conformed to the image to which they cling.  A man may become like the faux and detestable thing he feeds to his senses.  Since it is lifeless, so is he.  The world mocks and fakes and imitates.  It puts on, makes up, imagines and feigns.  The death it dies is the only reality left to it.  The nihilist is the only realist in a satanic system. 

Because You Know

Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard, "Antichrist is coming," even now many antichrists have come. We know from this that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I have not written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth. Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah? He is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son can have the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.

What you have heard from the beginning must remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He Himself made to us: eternal life. I have written these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.

The anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you don't need anyone to teach you. Instead, His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, remain in Him. --1 John 2:18-27

This is a rather long passage compared to what we usually do, but it is tied together by the words “anointing” and “knowledge”.

Even as John speaks of the antichrist, he is speaking of anointing, for not only is an antichrist one opposed to Christ, but it is often one who functions as a false Christ – that is a false “anointed one”. We’re not talking politics today, but we’re all certainly more familiar with that idea after the last couple of years worth of saturation obama-ing.

When this passage first grabbed my attention many years ago I saw it strictly in a religious context of false teachers and charismatic cult leaders drawing people away from Jesus as Messiah. Only later did it occur to me that it was applicable in other areas of life. What is pop culture except the fascination with a celebrity’s false anointing? I’m sure one of the reasons Oprah left Reverend Wright’s church before Obama is that the false anointing of Wright was stepping on Winfrey’s antichrist tendencies.

I suppose there is a question as to whether Oprah really sees herself as anointed or whether she is seen as an anointed one by her fans. It is clearer in the case of one of Gagdad Bob’s favorite targets, Deepak, who, if he is capable of understanding at all, thinks that he is anointed. Consider, too, someone like Jim Jones who may well have started off as an anointed person, but abandoned the true for the false.

Jesus is the Lord’s Anointed One, the Messiah or Christ. John says, though, we have an anointing from the Holy One as well. Our anointing is a function of the presence of the Spirit in our lives. Just as oil was poured on the priest or king, the Holy Spirit is poured out on us. And, just as with the king or priest, the purpose of the anointing is to set us apart to carry out the Lord’s will. We cannot anoint ourselves, nor can we use the anointing to gratify or glorify self. With the anointing comes knowledge that enables us to reject the false and deceptive. As the song says, “I was blind but now I see.” It truly remains amazing to us how such eye-opening grace is given.

I know when the subject of Antichrist comes up it can get a little freaky. The Lord seems to be saying here that, though there may be an ultimate Antichrist, there are many who operate in opposition to the Christ of God on a lesser scale -- lesser only in terms of quantity, for the eternal destiny of a soul is often at stake in the battle. This led, in John’s day, to an apostasy, a falling away of those who were not truly of Christ, indicating it was the time of the last hour.

The warning remains for us. We must hang onto truth and thus remain in the Son. There is a falling away from truth right now, a phenomenon that seems to be accelerating. The antichrists among us will claim this is because the truth is not true, or that it might have been at one time but it is no longer applicable. The lies will have an appealing sound for they offer us ease – not peace but ease. Yet there is no reason for us to be deceived. We all have understanding and discernment through the anointing we have been given. We can trust the Spirit who teaches us and leads us into all truth. Sometimes He uses human teachers to instruct, but even then we do not trust in the person. We trust His anointing upon the person.

Finally, we all know there is no point to explaining to those who don’t know. We only know because we know already. I suppose it seems unfair to some, but I don’t believe anyone who wants to know will be lacking. It’s not just the militant atheists that don’t want to know, either. From my experience I’d say the majority of Christ-deniers might even be church members, who, having a form of godliness, deny the power thereof.