Duality of the Godhead
The early Church at first recognized the distinct and separate Persons of the Father and the Son. It was later in the first century that this understanding began to be undermined, partly due to the misconception that was emerging, as mentioned in the paragraph above, posing that the God of the Old Testament was, instead, the Person of the Father, overlaid upon the more prevalent Jewish belief in the numerical singularity of God, rather than their unity [8] so clearly expressed by even Jesus Himself. (John 17:11) As early as the middle years of when the New Testament was being written, this problem issue was emerging. A concept that the elderly Apostle John identified as the spirit of Antichrist! “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son.” (1st John 2:22) These two contrasting phrases define each other! The perception that the Old Testament LORD God was God the Father, and that He is the Only God there is, left doubts as to who Jesus was. Thus the challenge to His true and full Divinity and to His being God’s Anointed (Christ) is raised. The elder John wrote of that developing misconception and the dangers associated with it with pointed clarity! But Jude also identifies it as one of the basic elements of faith that we must earnestly contend for!
