This section is perhaps the most disturbing portion of the entire book. Here, Farley begins by saying believers
can “live
guilt free, knowing that a perfect lamb has done away with their sins
once and for all” (p. 133, emphasis added). This appears to be the primary theme
and purpose of the book—to “live guilt free” (p. 133), “more comfortable in the
possession of” one’s Christian religion (p. 12), being “content with our
choices” (p. 157), to “do away with all
of the religious guilt” (p. 36), going “through life being ourselves” (p. 36), escaping
“the misery of today’s hybrid religiosity” (p. 36), “…(there being a)
distinction between what Jesus taught to the Jews and what God wanted (us) to
enjoy under the New” (p. 87), and “to enjoy life free from guilt” (p 156)—in
short, to basically feel good about ourselves.
1 John 1 Was NOT Written to Unbelievers
Sadly, Farley offers an assertion in the fifth section of his book that
is full of serious errors in Biblical analysis. He argues that the first chapter of John’s first letter was
to an audience made up, not of true believers, but “…Gnostics who had
infiltrated the early church and (who) were teaching false doctrines” (p. 151).
Any good student of Scripture
recognizes that none of the
letters authored by any of
the apostles were written to unbelievers.
None of those letters had unbelievers as the audience. All of the letters were written to
believers in churches or to individual believers, and many of those letters
were shared among the various churches.
1 John is no exception. Authored
by the Apostle John,
