Refuting Cults Using John 1
Most of us can say there has been at least one or more instances that we’ve found ourselves in where someone from a false cult or false church spews out a blatant false doctrine while claiming that their doctrine is what the Bible clearly teaches.
Usually, these doctrinal missiles attempt to attack one of the three most common foundational truths about biblical Christianity and the gospel, including:
- The divinity of Jesus
- The consistency and continuity of salvation throughout scripture
- The eternal existence of Jesus
All three of these components are present throughout the first chapter of the book of John in the New Testament.
Let’s look at ways all three truths are attacked and look at which offshoot groups are launching a charge at the Bible and how to defend them from just using John chapter one.
Defending Attacks on the Divinity of Jesus
First on the list of biblical truths we’ll be looking at the doctrine that defends and contends for the divinity of Jesus Christ, according to the Bible.
Simply put, this is a doctrine that states that Jesus Christ was both man and God at the same time while he was present in a physical body during His earthly ministry. In saying that, this doctrine defends that Jesus did not lose a drop of being divine during His ministry that is recorded in the New Testament.
One of the attacks that you’ll hear hurled towards this doctrine comes from those who hold to Judaism and Islam.
While they disagree on pretty much every other important spiritual issue, these usual enemies unite under the banner of calling Jesus nothing more than just a man — with the Jews taking it further down blasphemy lane than the Muslims.
Islam limits the glory given to Jesus to just being a good prophet, while the Jewish teachers and leaders want to remove or discredit any sign of the divinity of Jesus from scripture because, as the Bible records elsewhere, they went as far as to say that Jesus cast out devils by the power of Beelzebub.
Unfortunately for them, there are multiple elements of John 1 that establish this doctrine and destroy their false belief on this issue.
John 1:1–3 tells us several things in regards to this attack that blow it right out of the water, including the fact that Jesus Christ was not only present with God the Father at the time of creation, but Jesus Christ was the one creating everything.
All things were made by Him: and without Him was not any thing made that was made.
John 1:3
Using this verse to counter this argument, there is nothing ambiguous or vague about what is being said about the same Jesus that came in the flesh and was present with John and eventually to the disciples.
In other books of the Bible, we can see the emphasis on using the phrase “this same Jesus” to distinguish from false versions of Christ and false prophets that will come spreading lies intentionally to try and dilute the truth.
(See Acts 1:10–11 & Hebrews 13:8)
We see this element of Jesus being identified as the one who created everything explicitly mentioned in John 1:10, which reads:
He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.
John 1:10
These are not accurate descriptions if they were just of some man or good teacher. This is only something that can be attributed to Jesus since Him existing before the beginning is just as true as Him physically coming and being present before John in the flesh.
Since it is so clear that Jesus is pointed to as the creator and connected to God the Father by people like John and others throughout scripture, this is one of the major reasons for the hatred that both Jews and Muslims have in their hearts and ultimately leads them down the road to rejecting the gospel.
Additionally, Jesus is described as existing outside of the creation of the world and being present with God the Father from the very beginning.
John 1:14–15 identifies Him yet again as the one that eventually stands before John and gets baptized by him.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of Him, and cried, saying, this was He of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.
John 1:14–15
So why would groups like those who hold to the Jewish and Islamic faiths hate Jesus for something that is so clear just from one book of the Bible, let alone other prophecies and scriptures on this issue?
The easy answer is that both false faiths rely heavily on self-righteousness and obedience instead of forgiveness and grace to get to heaven.
John 1:17 helps us further identify this powerful truth about this same Jesus being described in the book of John, which says this:
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
John 1:17
The Consistency and Continuity of Salvation
We could go a couple of places here with the defense of this biblical truth, but this is written so plainly in John 1:45, so we’ll stick with this verse as the best defense.
In addition to those already adhering to Judaism or Islam, there are self-proclaimed Christians who say that people were saved differently in the Old Testament and that you were only saved prior to Jesus coming on the scene if you kept all of the commandments in the law of God.
The problem with this is that we have a clear verse in John chapter one that tells us the other people living in Israel were aware of biblical prophecy and that Moses, the law itself, and the previous prophets of Israel all bore witness that one day their savior would come in the flesh.
Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, we have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
John 1:45
Prior to verse 45 in verse 29, John also specifically identifies Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God — who “taketh away the sin of the world.”
Because of these two clear statements, there are two important takeaways that matter here.
First, if John was aware that Jesus was the one who alone has the ability to take away the sin of the whole world yet Jesus hadn’t been crucified yet, John was aware that salvation came through faith alone in the One that was promised to come by Moses, the law, and prophets.
Not only is John aware of this truth about Jesus, but Philip as well, with Nathanael taking a little bit of convincing but eventually coming to his senses about who is standing before him.
This shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that there were those who trusted in faith alone like John and Philip and there were those who relied on their own self-righteousness like the Pharisees who did not believe in the truth.
The Eternal Existence of Jesus
Similar to the points we addressed earlier about the divinity of Jesus Christ according to the testimony provided in the book of John, a separate point of contention with false faiths is in regards to the eternal existence of Jesus as God.
The main disputation here comes usually from those connected to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known as the L.D.S. or more by their nickname — the Mormons).
Mormons will try and downplay the eternal existence of Jesus Christ because they want to trick others into this false idea that there will be a rotation of gods eternally created in the afterlife and that Jesus was just the one god of many that was selected and sent to save the humanity that exists on this specific earth.
We know this is not true for several reasons from just John 1, though.
First, since Jesus is identified as being in the beginning and with the Father, we must acknowledge that John is not just making up or referencing a new creation story, but rather referring to the writings of Moses.
In the writings of Moses, which includes the historical book of Genesis, Jesus is being described as the creator of heaven and earth and everything that exists with no mention of other planets, universes, or other multiplicities of gods as the missionaries from the L.D.S. church will try and tell you.
So, with the first rebuttal on this point, you can park it on the fact that Jesus is identified and confirmed to be the creator according to the creation account from Moses — not the one from Joseph Smith.
Without other gods, worlds, and universes outside of earth, the Mormons quickly find themselves in a scramble to try and say that it just wasn’t revealed to us yet and that Jesus still had to become God through obedience to the ordinances of their gospel.
Well, we also can show that this isn’t true either just in John 1:1, which distinctly recognizes that Jesus already existed in the beginning as God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
This proves Jesus had both company with God the Father and divine existence without some sort of steps, method, or process, especially through good works, in another existence — and He has had that since the very beginning.
Ultimately, we can also connect John 1:14 to John 1:1 to define the Word as being the same Jesus for sake of going above and beyond to demonstrate the point.
As a bonus point that ties to this attack on the eternal existence of Jesus as God, the Mormons will also try to sneak in the doctrine that we are all automatically children of God and that at one point we were with Jesus and equal with Jesus in a pre-existence that we don’t remember.
No, this is not a Star Trek spoiler — they actually believe this.
So not only do they attack the fact that Jesus has eternally existed as God but they try to also equate themselves with Jesus to diminish His divinity and make it appear as though it is something we can eventually attain ourselves.
John is clear in verses 12–13 that we are not at all automatically considered children of God, but in fact this is only something that happens after the true Jesus is received through faith.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1:12–13
The emphasis here can be placed on the fact that we need to be given power to become children of God and that it is determined by God himself in response to our faith.
Overall, these attacks on biblical truths fall flat rather quickly and can be refuted by just one chapter of one book of the Bible — John chapter one.
