“Do you think he lied?”
No. However, and speaking again without knowing you, it is my experience that many people read the Scriptures and misunderstand them.
These are usually people who think, bizarrely, that everybody who reads the Scriptures always understands them correctly.
Jim Morrison said, “You cannot petition the Lord with prayer.” He was wrong about that. But I am not wrong when I say that mere mortals cannot reliably understand the Scriptures without the aid of the Holy Spirit.
The people who think, bizarrely, that everybody who reads the Scriptures always understands them correctly, also seem to believe that the Holy Spirit is there, helping them, every time they open up a Bible.
In the same amplified voice that Jim Morrison used, “The Holy Spirit is not present, guiding you, every time you open up your Bible.” Not, not, not.
What we humans do better than anything else in the world is get things wrong. So frequently that one might even say “all the time.” That goes for understanding what God has told us as much as it does for everything else.
That is why we should pay heed to the exegesis of history’s holiest and wisest men, which is something that many Christians, for reasons bogus and downright stupid, refuse to do.
Yeah, but he was The Lizard King.
With that I concur.
But John's epistle was written plainly, to be read by unbelievers that he desired to lead to seek the Holy Spirit.