Let us look for a few moments at the question of growth as the apostle puts it before us here. The
spiritual growth of a babe into a man is produced in two ways. First, God in His discipline sets
trials and circumstances before the soul. These trials serve to awaken the heart and mind of the
believer, leading him out of various forms of selfishness and worldliness and into a greater sense
of God’s grace and goodness. Second, God shows us His perfect example of what he would have
us grow up to, and the soul is stimulated and encouraged to imitate this example. God puts Christ
before us that we may grow up into Christ (Eph. 4:15).

The admonition, therefore, of the apostle to the babes and young men_to the fathers he has
none_is to let nothing take away their eyes from Christ. He warns the babes as to antichrist, not
that he may perfect them in prophetical knowledge, but because in their little acquaintance as yet
with the truth of what Christ is, they might be led away into some deceit of the enemy. Satan’s
first snare for souls is some distorting error, which deforms to us the face of Christ in which alone
all the glory of God shines, or which substitutes for His face some counterfeit for the natural eye.
Through the subtlety of Satan, the heart becomes entangled unawares with this substitute,
supposing it to be the true and divine object. This is antichrist, though not yet the full denial of
the Father and the Son. "Even now there are many antichrists" (verse 18). Oh, that Christians
would realize more the immense value of truth! and the terrible and disastrous effect of error!

The apostle therefore warns the babes as to false Christs. The young men are not in the same
danger as to this. They are strong, the Word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the
wicked one. Their danger now lies in the allurements of a world into which their very energy is
carrying them. The word to these is, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world"
(verse 15). It is one thing to have seen by the Word that the world is under judgment, and another
thing to have viewed it in detail, counting it all loss for Christ. This, however, the fathers have
done; therefore he says to them _ and it is all he needs to say _ "Ye have known Him that is
from the beginning" (verses 13,14). There is nothing we gain by examining the world except to
be able to say of it, "How unlike Christ it is!" This the fathers have learned. And what do we do
when we have reached this? Has the "father" nothing more to learn? Oh, yes, he is but at the
beginning. He has only now his lesson book before him for undistracted learning. But he does not
need to be cautioned in the same way against mixing anything with Christ, and taking anything
else for Christ. How much toil to reach, and how slow we are in reaching, so simple a conclusion!
But then the joy of eternity begins. Oh, to have Him ever before us, unfolding His glories, as He
does to one whose eyes and whose heart are all for Him! The knowledge of the new man is,
"Christ is all!"

FRAGMENT
Those who dwell in spirit in the heavenly country take the tone of it, and grow in the things
wherein they find themselves.