Scripture tells us “God is love,” and that God’s love was most profoundly shown through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross (1 John 4:16; John 3:16; 1 John 3:16).  At one point in my walk I wondered: Is Jesus the historical person important?  Or is it just the spirit of love He demonstrated that matters?  There was something appealing about this thought.  It felt revelatory, like Jesus the person was a curtain being drawn aside.  Behind this curtain was the real truth—not Jesus but a universal love that Jesus represented.

Was I on to something? I prayed.  As I prayed, the Spirit impressed these verses on my mind: “Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.  But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:2-3).  Here was a defining idea: Love…