Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you.
John taught us the the identity of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and the word of the Father is the fundamental truth of our faith. Through Jesus we come to understand the Triune nature of God as well as his plan to save the human race. He started his Gospel by stating that "[i]n the beginning was the Word" (see John 1:1). This beginning was the beginning before time began or anything was created. But John also used it to begin his own account of the good news about Jesus so that what was from the beginning is also what we heard from him from the beginning. And again, this is because it is so absolutely central and fundamental to our faith.
Who is the liar?
Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ.
Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.
Anyone who denies the Son does not have the Father
In the history of theology the more impressive and dangerous mistakes are the ones that become famous as heresies, typically named after the person most associated with the particular error in question. Most of these are, in one way or another, about Jesus himself. The most well known of these heretics was probably Arius who said that Jesus, while being something more than merely human, could not be God. The reason the Church vigorously defended herself against such heresies is that when we get Jesus wrong we tend to get everything else wrong as well. Arius thought he was honoring the Father by attempting to lower the Son. But in fact, the Son is able to manifest the Father precisely because of their union. Without this union the Father would remain unrevealed and the mission of the Son unfinished. But in fact they were united, so much so that Jesus was able to say to Philip, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (see John 14:9).
but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.
Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you.
We tend to get bored with fundamentals and desire novelty. It is difficult to hear the same thing time and again and yet attend to it with fresh attention. But no matter how many times we hear the voice in the desert we still need to listen when it tells us "Make straight the way of the Lord". If we do not set about responding to the invitation of the word every time it comes we risk becoming skeptics like those priests, Levites, and Pharisees, that questioned John. Our beliefs may not change immediately. But in practice we will come to regard them as less important parts of our lives. We will interrogate these beliefs only as those unprepared to learn or be changed by them. Instead what we want to do is to allow our beliefs to interrogate us, to see where we have not yet converted or conformed to what we profess.
there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
the one who is coming after me,
whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.
We don't always recognize the presence of Jesus in our world. Some of the reason for this is because we don't give due attention to the fundamentals and to what we have heard from the beginning. We assume we have fully exhausted the depths of the basics, having heard them so often. But really, they are inexhaustible. The more faithfully we return to mine them for more treasure the more we will find the world replete with opportunities to recognize Jesus, in others, in prayer, and in the Sacraments. The end game of this emphasis on the basics is not trivial because "this is the promise that he made us: eternal life".
As for you,
the anointing that you received from him remains in you,
so that you do not need anyone to teach you.
Since we have been filled with the Spirit we need not approach these fundamentals in a merely cold and academic way. Instead we must let the Spirit reveal them to us, as it were, from the inside out. He is the one who teaches us to confess that Jesus is Lord (see First Corinthians 12:3). And the same Spirit makes us call out "Abba, Father!" (see Romans 8:15). The Spirit is the Spirit of the Father (see Matthew 10:20) and the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6). We can't have any of the members of the Triune God when we actively exclude or dismiss any of the others precisely because their union of love is what defines them. But the more we approach any of them in fidelity to what we have heard from the beginning the more we will in fact find ourselves receiving them all.
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (see John 14:23).
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