<p>1:9 <em>Whoever goes ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. He that continues in the teaching, the same has both the Father and the Son</em>- &quot;Goes ahead&quot; is a challenging term to translate. The idea is to step <em>pros</em>, beyond or around. The idea could be that the Judaist false teachers were suggesting that they had a new, more advanced teaching about the Lord; what is called the supposed 'depths' of the Jewish satan (Rev. 2:24). But I prefer the sense of stepping around, in that they were ignoring, sidestepping, the fundamental teaching of Christ that He would be their teacher through the Spirit; in this sense they were not left orphaned, without a teaching Rabbi after His departure. He was just as really with them, actively teaching them and guiding them into all truth through the Spirit (see on Jn. 14:18). This would read &quot;the teaching of Christ&quot; as a verb rather than a noun; they sidestepped the whole idea of Christ as our teacher, teaching us. Grammatically, the reference is to the teaching which He taught (as in Jn. 18:19; Rev. 2:14,15), rather than the doctrine which teaches about Him. John is writing to Jews as a Jew, and he is using a popular Jewish phrase, &quot;the doctrine of the King Messiah&quot;, or the Messiah's Talmud (<em>Bereshit Rabba</em>, sect. 98. fol. 85. 3), the teaching by Messiah.</p><p>Those who abide in Him are those in whom His Spirit abides, as John has emphasized throughout all his letters. The Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of truth which teaches us in the place of His personal presence as Rabbi of the early disciples during His ministry. Those who abide in Him have Him, and thereby His Father. So the idea is not so much that we receive a body of theology, of doctrine, at baptism- are to hold on to it until our deathbeds. Instead we are to abide in Him, whereby His Spirit shall be our teacher, ever opening new truths to us as we are guided by this &quot;spirit of truth&quot; into &quot;all truth&quot;. This is a subtle but fundamental difference, and the usage of the word &quot;doctrine&quot; in the AV has confused it.</p><p>And yet the more traditional reading of the passage still has some merit. John writes that to confess Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh, to acknowledge His true humanity, is related to walking after His commandments (2 Jn. 6,7). And this perhaps is why John can say that it is a 'going ahead', a sin, a &ldquo;transgression&rdquo; according to some translations, to not abide in the doctrine of a human Jesus (2 Jn. 9). Why should it be &lsquo;sinful&rsquo; to hold a theological misunderstanding? Surely God cannot hold people morally culpable for genuine misinterpretation? Perhaps the answer lies in looking at it from a different angle. The purpose of doctrine is to elicit a Godly way of life. To refuse to believe in the real, human Jesus is actually a way of justifying our wrong behaviour, of hiding away from the challenge that <em>His </em>humanity is to <em>us</em> as His fellow human beings- to transform our personalities after the pattern of His. To believe the doctrine of a human Jesus who was nonetheless God manifest in human flesh empowers us not to sin; through this real and human Christ we have forgiveness and inspiration in the life that is in Him. This is why doctrine about Him matters- because if believed properly, it empowers a Christ-like life. This perspective helps us likewise understand what is fundamental doctrine, and what isn&rsquo;t. Any idea or theory or interpretation that doesn&rsquo;t have the potential to change our lives in practice just&hellip; isn&rsquo;t worth arguing about. See on 1 Jn. 5:5.</p>