Anyone who denies that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh denies that He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, anyone who rejects Jesus Christ coming in the flesh rejects His humanity and His human living. Such a one also rejects Christ’s redemption. If Christ had not become a man, He could not have had human blood to shed for the redemption of human beings. If He had not become flesh through the conception of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, He never could have been our substitute to be crucified to bear our judgment before God. Therefore, to deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is to deny His holy conception, His incarnation, His birth, His humanity, His human living, and also His redemption. The New Testament makes it emphatically clear that Christ’s redemption was accomplished in His human body and by the shedding of His blood.

Anyone who rejects Christ’s incarnation and thereby rejects His redemption also denies Christ’s resurrection. If Christ had never passed through death, it would not have been possible for Him to enter into resurrection.

Denying that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is a great heresy. This heretical teaching makes it impossible to have the enjoyment of the Trinity. According to the revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament, the Son came in the flesh with the Father and in the name of the Father. The Son was crucified, and in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). Therefore, we have the Spirit as the reality of the Son with the Father. This includes incarnation, human living, redemption by the shedding of human blood, death in a human body, burial, and resurrection. All these are components, constituents, of our enjoyment of the Triune God. If anyone denies Christ’s incarnation, that one denies Christ’s holy birth, humanity, human living, redemption through crucifixion, and resurrection. This utterly annuls the enjoyment of the genuine Trinity.

In 2 John 7 the Apostle John again speaks concerning the antichrist. “Because many deceivers went out into the world, who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” These deceivers are the liars, the false prophets, who deny that Jesus is God incarnate and in this way deny the deity of Christ. John clearly says that these deceivers are antichrists.

In verse 9 John continues, “Everyone who goes beyond and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; he who abides in the teaching, this one has both the Father and the Son.” The teaching here is the teaching concerning Christ, in particular the teaching concerning the deity of Christ and His incarnation by divine conception. Today’s modernists do not have this teaching. They deny the deity of Christ and claim that His death was simply a kind of martyrdom and that it is not redemptive. This kind of teaching insults Christ’s person and annuls His work, leaving us no gospel to preach.

In 1 Corinthians 15:12-17 Paul deals with those who deny the resurrection. In verse 12 he says, “If Christ is preached that He has been raised from among the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” Some of the Corinthians said heretically that there is no resurrection of the dead. In this matter they were like the Sadducees (Matt. 22:23; Acts 23:8). Denying the resurrection is most damaging and destructive to God’s New Testament economy; it is worse than the heresy of Hymenaeus and Philetus concerning resurrection in 2 Timothy 2:17 and 18. Resurrection is the life pulse and lifeline of the divine economy. If there were no resurrection, God would be the God of the dead, not the God of the living (Matt. 22:32). If there were no resurrection, Christ would not have been raised from the dead. He would be a dead Savior, not the One who lives forever (Rev. 1:18) and is able to save to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25). If there were no resurrection, there would be no living proof of justification by Christ’s death (Rom. 4:25), no imparting of life (John 12:24), no regeneration (John 3:5), no renewing (Titus 3:5), no transformation (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18), and no conformity to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). If there were no resurrection, there would be no members of Christ (Rom. 12:5), no Body of Christ as His fullness (Eph. 1:20-23), and no church as Christ’s bride (John 3:29) and the new man (Eph. 2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10-11). If there were no resurrection, God’s New Testament economy would altogether collapse and God’s eternal purpose would be nullified.
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