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Deny Son, Deny Father

[Bible - NT - John | Link | Print]

1 John 2:23 says that whoever denies the Son denies the Father as well, and vice versa - whoever confesses the Son confesses the Father. What's the logic here? Is John assuming that Jesus is the mediator who makes a way to the Father, so that denying him closes off the way to the Father? Perhaps. But John might also, already, be employing a form of argument later found in Athanasius: If you deny the Son, then you deny that the Father is Father, since a Father must have a Son; if you confess the Son, then you confess the Father, since a Son must have a Father. Confession of Son and Father are thus strictly correlative - confession of either entails confession of both.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, July 29, 2006 at 09:45 AM

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