The Falling Away From The Faith Has Begun

The gospel the apostles preached wasn't mainly about the teachings of Yahusha. At its core, it was about who He truly is. John opens his Gospel with these words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Yahuah, and the Word was Yahuah." Then he adds in verse 14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." Right from the start, the message wasn't pointing to a remarkable prophet or a wise moral teacher. It was announcing the eternal Word who actually became human. Since the Word was Yahuah and then took on flesh, the incarnation sits at the very heart of the good news.

You see this same truth stated plainly elsewhere. 1 Timothy 3:16 says, "Yahuah was manifest in the flesh." That wasn't a later invention by the assembly. It was part of the earliest proclamation among the believers. Colossians 2:9 echoes it: "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." The apostles were clear: the complete nature of Yahuah lived in the Messiah in a real human body. When people remove His deity, they end up proclaiming a different person altogether from the One the apostles knew and preached.

The apostle John treats this question of Yahusha's identity as anything but minor. In 1 John 2:22 he writes, "Who is a liar but he that denieth that Yahusha is the Messiah? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son." John ties the two denials together. Denying the Son means denying the Father too. That only makes sense if the Son uniquely reveals and shares the Father's own identity and authority. If Yahusha is just a created messenger, the whole revelation of the Father through Him falls apart. Verse 23 reinforces it: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father." The two are inseparable. Reject the Son's true divine nature, and you cut yourself off from the Father He came to show us.

John presses the point further in 1 John 4:2-3: "Every spirit that confesseth that Yahusha Messiah is come in the flesh is of Yahuah: And every spirit that confesseth not… is not of Yahuah: and this is that spirit of antichrist." The phrase "come in the flesh" points to pre-existence. You don't just start in the flesh; you come into it from somewhere else. That language links straight back to John 1, where the Word who was Yahuah became flesh. To refuse that the divine Son truly entered human history is to reject the incarnation itself. John doesn't call it a small mistake. He labels it the spirit of antichrist because it opposes the real Messiah revealed in Scripture.

Yahusha Himself said things that settle this. In John 10:30 He declares, "I and my Father are one." In John 14:9 He tells Philip, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." These statements don't erase the difference between Father and Son. They affirm a deep unity of essence and perfect revelation. You can't claim to honor the Father while stripping the Son of deity. That contradicts what the Son said about Himself. He is the visible image of the invisible Yahuah. Deny His divine identity, and you've invented a different Father from the one He reveals. For John, the line is sharp. The true confession among the disciples is that the eternal Son came in the flesh, died, rose again, and is Master. The false one reduces Him to something less and leaves only a diminished figure. Scripture calls that position antichrist, not because it disagrees over a title, but because it stands against the true Messiah the apostles proclaimed. When the Son's deity is denied, the center of the gospel is gone, and the denial touches both the Son and the Father He perfectly makes known. The New Testament warns that people will fall away from the faith by abandoning these core truths. 1 Timothy 4:1 says the Spirit expressly warns that in later times some will depart from the faith. That faith rests on the apostolic testimony that Yahuah was revealed in the flesh. Change who the Messiah is, make Him less than the apostles declared, and you're no longer holding to the same message.

Paul sets the standard in Galatians 1:8: even if he himself or an angel from heaven preached a different gospel, let them be accursed. A gospel that strips away the Messiah's deity presents a different Messiah and therefore a different gospel. At its foundation, the New Testament calls believers to confess that the crucified and risen Yahusha is Master. Romans 10:9 puts it this way: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Master (Lord) Yahusha, and shalt believe in thine heart that Yahuah hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Calling Him Master (Lord) isn't casual. It carries the full weight of divine name and authority. To deny His deity is to deny the One the apostles presented as the Lord of glory.The word translated “Lord” is kyrios. In ordinary Greek, kyrios can mean master, owner, or one in authority. But Paul does not use it in a vacuum. Two verses later, in Romans 10:13, Paul quotes the Old Testament: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That line comes from Joel 2:32, where the Hebrew text reads, “whosoever shall call on the name of Yahuah shall be delivered.” Paul applies that Yahuah text directly to Yahusha.

Paul drives this home in 1 Corinthians 2:8 when he says the rulers of this age crucified "the Lord of glory." In Psalm 24, that exact title "King of glory" belongs to Yahuah alone: "Yahuah of hosts, he is the King of glory." Yet Paul applies it to the crucified Messiah. The rulers thought they were killing a man. Paul says they crucified the Lord of glory.

This doesn't mean the Father was crucified or that Father and Son are the same person. Paul keeps them distinct. But he places Yahusha in a category Scripture reserves for Yahuah alone. Isaiah 42:8 says Yahuah will not give His glory to another, yet Yahusha prays in John 17:5 for the glory He shared with the Father before the world began. Scripture consistently puts Yahusha in divine categories: Creator, Judge, worthy of worship, bearer of eternal glory. All while preserving the distinction between Father and Son. The crucified One bears a title rooted in Yahuah's own glory. That reveals the Son shares in the divine identity without collapsing into the Father. Denying that truth doesn't just tweak the gospel. It removes its heart.

Conclusion

The gospel proclaimed by the apostles stands or falls on the true identity of Yahusha as the divine Son who is fully Yahuah manifest in the flesh. From John's opening declaration that the Word was Yahuah and became flesh, to the plain statements in 1 Timothy and Colossians that Yahuah was revealed in human form and that the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in the Messiah, Scripture repeatedly places Yahusha at the center of divine revelation. Denying His deity doesn't merely adjust a detail; it dismantles the very person the apostles preached. John makes the stakes crystal clear: denying that Yahusha is the Messiah in His full divine sense is the spirit of antichrist, because it severs the inseparable bond between the Father and the Son. You cannot honor the Father while rejecting the Son's true nature as the visible image of the invisible Yahuah. Yahusha's own words, "I and my Father are one" and "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father", seal this unity of essence without erasing distinction. To reduce Him to a created being or mere agent is to invent a different Father and oppose the real Messiah revealed in Scripture.

The warnings are solemn. Paul curses any gospel, even from an apostle or angel, that presents another Messiah. Falling away from the faith begins by abandoning this foundational truth that Yahuah was manifest in the flesh. The true confession is that the crucified and risen Yahusha is Master (Lord), the very one on whose name we call for salvation, as Paul applies Joel's promise about calling on Yahuah directly to Yahusha. Paul's climactic statement that the rulers crucified "the Lord of glory" echoes Psalm 24's title for Yahuah alone as King of glory. The one they executed was no ordinary man; He bore divine glory from eternity, shared with the Father before the world began, even as Isaiah declares Yahuah gives His glory to no other. Yet Scripture holds the distinction: Father and Son remain distinct persons, while Yahusha occupies categories reserved for Yahuah - Creator, Judge, object of worship, eternal glory's possessor. At the end of the day, the heart of the gospel is this: the eternal Son became flesh, died, rose, and reigns as Master. Denying His deity doesn't offer a minor variation or alternative view. It removes the gospel's very heart, presents a different Messiah, and stands against the faith once delivered to the believers. The apostles didn't preach a great teacher or exalted prophet. They preached Yahuah incarnate, the Lord of glory, worthy of full confession and trust for salvation. Anything less is not the gospel at all. It is the message of anti-Christ. The falling away from the faith has begun.