1 John 2:22

Who is the liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, even he that denieth the Father and the Son.

A comparison with 1John 4:15,1 John 5:1f suggests that the type of denial was that of refusing to accept the complete union of God with Jesus Christ. Certain Gnostics and Docetists theorized that Jesus was only a man, the natural son of Joseph, and that "Christ" descended upon him and inhabited his body at the time of his baptism, deserted him for the crucifixion, etc. The exalted view of Christ in John's writings, and throughout the New Testament refutes such nonsense fully. The Christian believes and confesses that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, that he is one with the Father, that he, in fact, "was God," that of his own volition he entered our earth life by means of the incarnation, that he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, and that he was born and passed through all the phases of human life without sin, that the power of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily during his ministry enabling the mighty works which were done by him, that he gave his life a ransom for all in his crucifixion, and that he himself arose from the grave, commissioned his apostles, ascended to the Father where he was before, and that he will come again to judge the quick and the dead at the consummation of all things. All the Christians of all the ages have tenaciously held these basic views regarding Jesus Christ our Lord. John was saying in this verse that any denial of such things is falsehood, and that such liars are antichrist. No distinction between the Christ and Jesus is of the truth, but belongs rather to the heresy of the Cerinthians.[58]