Why The 1st John Website Exists
Many claim to follow Christ, yet few know the full truth of salvation. 1st John exists to make that truth known.
The Fatal Flaw in Popular Christian Theology
The Church Drifted From True Doctrine
In our 2025 article, The Art of Deception, we gave a brief overview describing the deception Satan achieved with mankind in the Garden. Through Satan’s treachery, Adam and Eve were duped into learning the knowledge of good and evil. We saw how Satan made his lie more attractive to Eve than the truth, and how she chose to do what she wanted, not what was right, and disobeyed God.
Adam followed Eve into sin, and humanity has followed this same behavior ever since. The temptation pattern that worked then, still does. Let us not over-complicate our separation from God. The doom that hangs over mankind, the eternal punishment for disobedience, Matthew 25:46, is only there because man disobeyed God in the Garden–and still does. God hates disobedience and after man’s first sin, He cursed the entire creation because of it.
We make a dreadful mistake if we think that most Chrisitan teaching throughout the world is sufficient to lead believers in Christ to salvation. The yeast of Satan has spread throughout the lump. This will seem an outlandish claim to most Christians, even heresy for some. We understand. Our intent is not to be unkind regarding the faith and convictions of the many brothers and sisters in the multitude of churches, knowing they are sincere in their beliefs. But we have found through careful study that misleading errors have made their way into the entire system of Christian faith and worship, from the very beginnings of the Christian church, 2 Peter 3:15-16.
Doctrines, beginning in the first century of the church, have been under intense pressure to accept false ideas that Paul referred to as “fables” 2 Timothy 4:3-4. False teachers were an immediate threat to the church, well documented, Matthew 7:14-15, Matthew 24:11, Matthew 24:24, Mark 13:22, 2 Peter 2:1, 1 John 4:1, hard at work to undermine the victory of the cross.
In 2025, we launched the 1st John website. The vision was to bring awareness of false doctrines to light, found in mainstream Christian theology. Looking back over the articles we published, we see it is time to be more specific. Jesus really is coming soon; we know this and sense a very real need for urgency. What Jesus has spoken to us in our quiet studies, Matthew 10:27, we are now faithfully preaching from a high place where we can be seen and heard, the internet.
Understanding the Enemy of God and Man
Satan hates God! And his hatred is a blinding hatred, one that consumes him totally. Satan cannot destroy God, but he can destroy man, made in the image of God Genesis 1:27, and this is his goal. Humanity is caught in the middle of a war between God and Satan that began in heaven. God, being holy, did not permit the conflict to remain in His holy realm. The conflict was quarantined here, to our planet, where it is being resolved. The characters and natures of both God and Satan are on full display, and humanity must choose and form an allegiance to one side or the other.
We found online an article titled Satan and His Purpose from the website faithfilledstudy.com, and we quote the following from the third paragraph:
“Satan’s more than just a rebellious former angel. He’s described in some pretty harsh terms—murderer, deceiver, and the father of lies (John 8:42-45). Deception is his game, crafting half-truths and feeding misinformation to blind folks from seeing what’s real. He revels in leading people astray, hoping to see them destroyed. That’s his endgame, and he’s pulling out all the stops.”
Our common adversary is a wholly evil being, highly intelligent and bent on our destruction. We cannot be overly warrying of him. He is without conscience or principle, truly the opposite of our loving Father. God offers us eternal life; all Satan can offer is more disobedience, and in the end, for us to share some of his own fate, eternal damnation. Just as God is purely holy, Satan is purely evil, and we should have nothing to do with his cunning advice, full of lies and treachery.
What It Means to be Caught in the Middle
Because of the fall of Adam and Eve, humanity has always existed in “enemy territory,” here on planet Earth, under the dominion of Satan. All creation fell under the curse of sin. Can you imagine a malevolent being, so consumed with hate, continuing his assault against God the only way he can, by attacking us? If so, you can understand that Satan knows by causing us pain he is causing God pain, as we are God’s creation and He loves us. Satan delights in being a thorn to God.
We cannot imagine how twisted his thinking is, but surely, Satan knows he cannot win. Still, he presses onward to consume and destroy what he can 1 Peter 5:8. In what seems unlimited ways to us, Satan presents worldliness as a gift to humanity just as he tempted Christ with worldly things Matthew 4:8-9. We eagerly accept this gift because people are fallen in nature and we find in the world those things, by our nature, that we crave. Until we escape this “need and fulfillment cycle” we are trapped.
Satan has access to our minds and tempts us, but so does God. As Christians, we know right from wrong and swing back and forth in cycles of sin and repentance. Many Christians are caught between these two warring principalities, displaying some loyalties to both.
This is not where we who hope in Christ belong, 1 John 3:3, and no Christian should feel comfortable being in this state. So why would any of us remain so? It is because we have been deceived and are unaware of our continuing peril. Few Christians understand the true nature of being caught in the middle. The theology most Christians have been taught is to believe they have been delivered from all concerns regarding their salvation, because they believe in Christ and are covered by grace.
But you cannot be “delivered from sin” and caught in the middle at the same time. Do not be deceived, deliverance means exactly that–delivered from sin, not merely the penalty. The slavery of sin is like being attacked by cancer. Satan, through his false doctrines, tells us we have been cured while we continue to die from our slow disease.
The Bible Teaches Us How to Escape from the Middle
We at 1st John believe the problem of being caught in the middle cannot be resolved without a departure from disobedience John 14:15 which is the source of our continuing guilt. The Bible tells us that it was our disobedience that caused the rift between us and God in the first place and if we continue in disobedience that rift remains, Jesus or no Jesus.
Many of you will slam on the brakes right here!
We just crossed a line you likely will not accept. But please, hear us out. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If we fail to make our case, you have lost nothing that you choose to keep. But if we do make our case, you will gain something you don’t have.
This is where the trap gets exposed. As we consider its true nature, we see the cunning of the enemy and how he has used our fallen nature to prevent us from escaping his grip. You see, Satan cannot make us sin, we must want to do that. Yet, in our pre-redemptive state, our fallen nature already wants to sin James 1:14-15, and Satan knows this very well. It serves his purpose. He can’t stop us from also wanting salvation, but he knows we still want the worldliness he provides, like a drug dealer making his drug supply always available. The reason we want sin is because our very nature is addicted to it.
Becoming sin-free is like becoming drug-free. The addicted person must want to be free, or the cycle cannot be broken. The Bible teaches us that a true relationship with Christ creates in us “something we want more,” and that is the key! What we have been hooked on in the world is: selfishness, anger, greed, pride, lust, envy, revenge, unforgiveness, hostilities of every kind. They lose their appeal when we consider the greater acquisition, what Jesus is offering us, eternal life through Him. First, we must see this “greater value.”
- There is never a pitched battle between two mutually exclusive alternatives that have unequal appeal, as we will always choose the one with the greatest appeal, limited only by our opportunity–and made evident by our choice.
This is what knowing Christ does to our mind and spirit. We find in Him the ultimate source of everything worthwhile. He wants to give us eternal life!
We see the terrible cost of keeping what is clearly worthless in comparison to Him. It requires the help of the Holy Spirit to enable this transition because without help we will never really see the truth of it, 2 Timothy 3:7. This aligns with being biblically born-again John 3:3. As a new creation in Christ, Satan has nothing left to offer us that we could possibly want more than Christ. The redeemed know they cannot have both as they are mutually exclusive–yet Satan wants us to believe we can. When we understand this reality and make the intelligent choice, Satan cannot touch us 1 John 5:18. When we are preparing for eternity with Christ, the glitter of the world loses all its appeal.
Why It Is So Hard to See the Problem or Solution
Perhaps it is hard to see our problem or solution if we have eyes that do not see, or we have ears that do not hear Matthew 13:13. This phrase is familiar to most of us. Why does God speak to us in this way? Perhaps the problem is that most people do not understand what the Bible really teaches about the born-again life. Our first-birth nature tends to give us high scores when we lack merit, and that is confusing. First, our blindness must be revealed from outside ourselves through the Holy Spirit. Change will not come about without a heartfelt pursuit of it – again, we must want to change.
We know that faith comes from hearing Romans 10:17–but hearing what? This alone does not guarantee our faith is set upon truth. We can have faith, an impressive faith, in the wrong things. Satan can deceive us. That is why we are warned repeatedly “not to be deceived.” In a mathematical equation, a single alteration disables the equation. In chemistry, an alteration of a single chemical element can prevent a formula from producing the desired results.
When it comes to God’s plan of salvation, it cannot be modified at all and still produce salvation.
Satan lies to us saying “one size fits all,” when Jesus clearly says one size fits few Matthew 7:14. Satan has substituted his own plan for our salvation that looks amazingly like God’s plan in many ways, but with flaws in it that are pernicious to its core. It is the broad path Matthew 7:13 and looks very inviting and most people choose it. We must be reminded; the broad path is so popular because it promises salvation while we remain in our sins, caught in the middle, and this is not God’s plan.
Please carefully read 1 John 3:4-10. John tells us plainly, to abide in Christ is to stop sinning. He says if we keep sinning, we do not know Jesus, and continuing in sin is of the devil. John says this is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are – those who are born of God cannot sin because His Spirit remains in them.
Most of us have been deceived from the very beginning of our Christian faith. We believed doctrines that do not produce a “saving faith” in Christ. In one form or another we accepted a gospel that leaves us caught in the middle, stuck in worldliness and sin, while believing we have been saved. Such versions of the gospel are deliberately flawed. If mainstream Christian teaching says we are saved without overcoming the world 1 John 5:4 and overcoming sin, we remain caught in the middle. We have not been transformed Romans 12:1-2.
Saying No to Satan’s False Doctrines Is Not Intuitive
False doctrines have high appeal to people if we are still in the flesh because we are still trapped in sin Romans 8:8. They actually make a lot of sense to us. If we continue to believe false doctrines we will not be set free from sin. Herd-instinct works against us. We think the right way to live our lives before God is to conform to societal norms we observe in mainstream Christianity.
We make a wrong assumption that most people who claim a faith in Christ follow a common and adequate path to salvation. If such a path were faithfully grounded in biblical theology, that would be true. However, knowing what the bible teaches, we know this is not typical. Most Christian denominations include in their teaching some elements of false doctrines.
The Bible teaches us not lean on our own understanding Proverbs 3:5-7. If we should not lean on our own understanding, why would we want to lean on someone else’s understanding? We do this when we place our trust in a denominational creed, or a ministry or pastor or writer of impressive books, rather than our own knowledge of God’s word. That seems very risky to us. With so much at stake, should we not learn for ourselves what God requires of us directly from the Bible, and follow His instructions faithfully?
If we really do have eyes that see and ears that hear, we must use them! When it comes to knowing the heart of God, ignorance is not an acceptable excuse, only a sign of laziness. If we don’t love God enough to hunger and thirst after righteousness, Matthew 5:6, if our hope in Christ is not enough to seek purity, 1 John 3:3, if we go about our pursuit of salvation without fear and trembling, Philippians 2:12, we will not be worthy of Christ Matthew 10:38. Unworthy people are not saved, and there is no biblically sound reason to believe otherwise, Matthew 7:23.
We Have Been Called to Holiness
If we have a hope for salvation, we see the word of God telling us we must acclimate to the atmosphere of heaven. That atmosphere is not described by temperature or humidity, but by the very nature of God, “the atmosphere of holiness.” If we want to be there and live, we too must be holy, for no unholiness can be permitted in the presence of God. We now see that Jesus Christ, our Savior, is our role model and blueprint for a new life, and we must become like Him. The question is “Are we zapped into holiness through the holiness of Jesus, or are we required to pursue it by our own effort with the help of the Spirit?”
There is much discussion in the Christian universe concerning the imputed and imparted righteousness of Christ regarding our salvation, and we have posted one source for you to consider found in the article titled: Imparted Righteousness (first paragraph) (Wikipedia). Our use of this source material is not an endorsement of this source or the theologies that come from any specific denomination. We only seek clarity with this issue because much false doctrine is woven into many interpretations concerning the righteousness of Jesus with where and how it applies to us.
We believe:
Imputed righteousness is the righteousness of Christ that allows us to be justified (forgiven), and it cannot be earned by us. It is His righteousness that qualifies to forgive us.
Imparted righteousness is the example of righteousness that Jesus sets for us to follow. Using our free-will and infusion of the Holy Spirit, we fully obey God and attain sanctification.
We are not, in this article, trying to develop in-depth analysis of these two terms, viewing the whole concept of righteousness through the lens of where and how the word is used in Scripture.
We believe we must have both facets of “righteousness,” based on the definitions we stated, to be saved. The first is done solely by the effort of Jesus Christ. The second is done in tandem by us and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
It is a spiritual pursuit and can be done no other way. It is our rebirth, and Jesus requires it John 3:3. In our research to date, we see a deliberate effort has been made to overly complicate the discussion, leaving an investigator frustrated as if overcome by a sandstorm. We reject this, and instead choose a simple summary:
Justification: Jesus, providing for us: He has done for us that which we cannot do, He died in our place, satisfying the holy requirement of the Father for a blood sacrifice for disobedience, so we can live. For us to atone for our sins without Christ, we would face an assignment to hell as forgiveness cannot be earned by our efforts, even the pursuit of righteousness. Jesus, by taking the hit for us, allows Him to pronounce us forgiven, and the Father accepts this – He is our advocate before the Father, the worthy Lamb of God.
Sanctification: Us, looking to Jesus: We evidence (known by our fruit) to Him we have a reformed mind and heart by imitating Him in every respect. We embrace the prerequisites for the born-again life He has set: the cessation of sin, the death of the “old” man of sin, and re-birth as a “new” man of righteousness, which confirms God’s authority over us by obeying Him. We see this in stark black and white, and we must be “hot” Revelation 3:15-16 in the scenario Jesus gave for our understanding. Anything that creates a shade of grey amounts to “lukewarm,” the worst state to be in when Jesus is the one who judges us.
When we interpret the scripture in this manner, truly we display “fear and trembling,” a proper humility and sobriety before our Holy God. Let us come together to pursue holiness, godliness, righteousness, purity, the very nature of Christ. Let our faith in Him be a “saving faith” evidenced by allowing Him to be our Shepherd, leading us to the kingdom. Please join us in forsaking this world.
There are brothers and sisters who declare there are NO people who stop sinning! This is TRUE, if you remain in the flesh. But the Bible teaches us we can, and do, stop sinning with the indwelling of God’s Spirit 1 John 3:9. This makes perfect sense because we know that God, being holy, cannot partner with unholiness. We either believe God or not, it’s just that simple.
Future Articles for 2026
There are many false doctrines. We hope throughout 2026 to publish new articles that identify specific false doctrines and show why they are false. We may even identify churches that preach them. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we appreciate your prayers.
We earnestly invite your comments.
Our desire is to faithfully share the truth we find in the Bible. If we are in error with any of our assumptions, please respectfully voice your counter-position. Please use only the Bible as a proof-source, as we place no weight on arguments found elsewhere. We only want to advance the Kingdom of God, and our eternal destiny in Christ. As a guide in how we study scripture, to “rightly divide the word of truth”, see 2 Timothy 2:15, and please read our article titled: Inclusive Continuity: Our Firewall Against Error.
***Additional source material we found useful (with discretion), given below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_preservation_of_the_saints
Note: This is a lengthy article. We agree with the beginning of this article where it defends the doctrine of free will and conditional preservation of the saints. We are not voicing agreement with other things this article teaches, for or against. We do not agree with the doctrine “once saved-always saved” as God never takes away our free will, and we can choose to backslide (very bad idea) Hebrews 10:26-27, or to abandon the faith altogether, which is spiritual suicide.
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