A young adult textbook on the history of American advertising has chapter titles with the familiar phrases - Satisfaction Guaranteed, Ask For It By Name, and New & Improved. In fact, the title of the book is the classic exhortation of manufacturers to "Accept No Substitutes!" However, the variety of choices one faces within a single product category let's you know that people did NOT just stick with the 'genuine article,' the original. People DID accept substitutes. And they did for myriad reasons. They got bored with the original. They had a bad experience with an original. They couldn't afford the original. The newer version was better than the original.
Our text today is the final chapter of 1 John, and it ends in a quirky, abrupt manner. There is no farewell, no greetings sent by John from his partners in ministry, no benediction. There is just that one short sentence, detached from the previous paragraph. One brief exhortation that stands alone; the parting shot meant to ring and linger in the readers' ears.
"Keep yourselves from idols."
Considering that John has made so much of the necessity to believe in and trust Jesus as the Son of God and our only hope of eternal life, this final salvo from the pen of the apostle resonates as an ancient
"Accept No Substitutes."
Southern Seminary President Al Mohler, Jr. expressed in an interview with Newsweek's Jon Meacham that "The post-Christian narrative is radically different; it offers spirituality, however defined, without binding authority. It is based on an understanding of history that presumes a less tolerant past and a more tolerant future, with the present as an important transitional step." To this Meacham responds, "The present, in this sense, is less about the death of God and more about the birth of many gods." Mohler is observing happening in the 21st century what John warned against in the First! People are not keeping themselves from idols.
Mohler's interview is part of an article Meacham wrote entitled, "The End of Christian America." The subtlety here is that self-identified Christians are already idolaters because they are devoted to a religious culture that they understand to be Christianity, but have very little devotion to Jesus Himself. Others call themselves Christian because they have mined some values and principles out of the text of Scripture and are living by them. They are devoted to ideas but not devoted to Jesus Christ. This is the de-personifying of God and the mythologizing of the Biblical narrative. These are forms of idolatry.
And John gave us a twenty century head start on recognizing and resisting these idols. Thus, his heavy emphasis on the reality of God incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. 'We saw Him, we heard Him, we touched Him!' John emphasizes Jesus' person and His work and the outcomes of that divine life. He came by water - He was born of Mary as an actual human being. He came by blood - born to die the atoning death for the remission of sin for all mankind. He came by the Spirit - who led Him and raised Him victorious from the grave, and resides in each believer to assure us of these truths.
Do you want to know truth? Do you want peace and joy and hope? Do you want freedom from the burden of evil and strength to walk in a new way of life? Do you desire eternal life?
It is all to be found in Jesus and Jesus alone. He is the 'genuine article.'
Accept no substitutes.
Pray: Jesus, engage me and place Your Spirit in me that I may know for certain that you are not fiction or force, but a living personal God who loves me beyond measure. Help me when my faith wanes and I begin to entertain the idolatrous substitutes of the world. Testify with water, blood and Spirit; take me to the manger, the cross, and the empty tomb.
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