1 John 4

Translation

Beloved, You must not believe every spirit, but examine the spirits, whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the spirit of God: Every spirit confessing, “Jesus Christ has come in flesh” is from God, and every spirit not confessing Jesus is not from God. And this is the [spirit] of the Antichrist whom you heard is coming. And now it is already in the world. You are from God, children, and have conquered them, because the one in you is greater than the one in the world. They are from the world. Because of this, they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Those who know God listen to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

Beloved, we ought to love one another, because love is from God, and all who love have been born from God and know God. Those not loving do not know God, because God is love. By this the love of God has been revealed in us: that his son, the unique one, God sent into the world in order that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, rather that he loved us and sent his son as atonement for our sins.

Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also are obligated to love one another. No one at any time has seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love has been completed in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and we testify that the father has sent the son as savior of the world. If someone should confess that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. And we have known and have believed the love which God has in us.

God is love, and the one abiding in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this love has been completed among us, so that we might have boldness in the day of judgement, because just as that one is, so are we in this world. Fear is not in love, but complete love casts out fear, because fear has punishment, but those who fear have not been not completed in love. We must love because he first loved us. If someone should say, “I love God”, and should hate his brother, he is a liar. For the one not loving his brother who he has seen is not able to love God who he has not seen. And this is the commandment we have from him, that the one loving God should also love his brother.

All who believe that Jesus is the Christ have been born from God, and all who love the begetter should also love those begotten from him. By this we know that we love the children of God: when We love God and do his commandments. For this is the love of God; that his commandments we ought to keep. And his commandments are not a burden. Because all who have been born from God are conquering the world. And this is the victory we won over the world: Our faith. Moreover, who conquers the world if not the one believing that Jesus is the son of God?

Confessing Christ

Why do we say the Creeds every week?

No Creed but Christ?

Some denominations decry high church liturgy, including things like saying the creeds

Do spirit-filled churches say creeds? Is confessing the creed a spiritual act?

Being lead by the spirit or being “spiritual, not religious” is popular these days, but John warns us strongly that being “spiritual” isn’t always good!

We must test the spirits, and the test John provides for us is this: confession of a creed!

Many spirits lead people, including the spirit of the Antichrist, but those lead by God confess a particular creed

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh

Firstly, that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the anointed one sent by God to save the world.

Secondly, that he came “in the flesh”.

But is this enough?

The New Revised Standard Version Concerning Self-Deception

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven

Many false teachers also confess Jesus, and even that Jesus came in the flesh!

The reality is that Just as Jesus came into the world and his spirit comes to his people, so too have many “false prophets” come into the world, and their spirit, the spirit of the Antichrist, of the Evil one, attempts to lead many astray.

How then can we be assured that the spirit in us is the Holy Spirit of God?

When someone says they believe in Jesus, we must ask, “which Jesus?” “Is your Jesus the real Jesus?”

The Spirit calls us to confess that Jesus is the Christ who came in the flesh, but John notes that those of God will not only confess Jesus, but will listen to the Church!

We don’t believe in any Jesus, but particularly the Jesus revealed to the Church of God.

Thus, we know whether someone has the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of deception by two marks: their confession of belief in Jesus Christ and their response to the preaching of the Church.

And this is why we say the creeds: they contain confession in no savior but Christ and an affirmation of the historic teachings of the Catholic Church

So yes, saying the Creeds is an act of spirit-filled worship. Only those filled with the spirit of God can confess Christ, the real Christ. Because the Holy Spirit’s primary directive is to lead us to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is not self-serving. He does not lead us to focus on him, but always draws our eyes and hearts to the Father and the Son.

This is because God’s Spirit is a Spirit of Love, and thus always draws us towards the Love of God.

St. Augustine “Lover, Beloved, Love”- On the Trinity

Thus those who confess Christ, the true Christ, will necessarily confess Holy Love, because, in fact, God is Love

Completed Love in Us

So part of our confession is not only by the words of our mouth, but by the love in our hearts

Those who are of God will not only confess Christ, but share in the love of Christ

“Completed” love

Love is not made complete or whole until the recipient responds. Thus when we love others, God’s love for us has reached its full effect in creating the same kind of love as his in us.

God’s love, then, is community forming love. When God’s love comes to our hearts it rests there so that our hearts now have the love of God in them, and if the love of God is in us, then just as God loved, we will love. In other words, this love of God in us calls us to love the other, because God loved us. God’s love is contagious.

But God’s love not only binds us closer to one another, but closer to him as well

“Completed love” casts out fear. There is no fear of punishment or the day of Judgement for the one who has God’s love. This is for two reasons: 1) The Love of God in us molds our hearts such that we love as God loved, and therefore have no fear of being punished for sin, and 2) God’s love in us is, obviously, proof that God loves us, and we have no need to fear a judge and King who loves us!

When we love in this way, being bound by love to both our fellow brothers and sisters as well as to the Father, God is made visible among us.

“No one has seen God”, but we catch a glimpse of God through love.

God’s Love

But this raises the question: what do we actually mean by “love”? Is God any kind of love? And is love sufficient to be one of God’s children? Afterall, don’t even non-Christians love?

God’s love is an action. God’s love, as John and the Bible put it, is seen most clearly in the giving of his Son Jesus Christ.

“By this the love of God has been revealed in us: that his son, the unique one, God sent into the world in order that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, rather that he loved us and sent his son as atonement for our sins.”

Error 1: Liberal theology “love is love”

Not all love is the love of God. Even John tells us that love can be misdirected

The New Revised Standard Version A New Commandment

Do not love the world or the things in the world

I, II & III John: A Commentary 1 John 4:7–10—In Celebration of God’s Love

Understanding God in terms of love does not lead to an undifferentiated universalism where none is excluded from the certainty of life, nor does it lead to treating as of secondary importance matters of belief or of faithfulness to the tradition of teaching received and to the community of those shaped by that tradition.

Error 2: Conservative theology “love as abstract”

Love is more than a mere feeling.

Love is an act, it cannot be separated from God’s action in Jesus Christ

We may say, “love the sinner, hate the sin,” but how have we loved the sinner?

Jesus ate with sinners, washed their feet, and even died for them. Can we say the same? Is our love something we do, or merely something we say?

God’s love can only be understood by his act in Jesus Christ.

God sent Jesus as “atonement” for our sins. His love is, then, self sacrificial.

The Epistles of John God’s Love and Our Love (4:7–12)

It is true that some writers have denied that a loving God needs to be propitiated for human sin and have suggested that this makes him less than loving. They have not realized that the depth of God’s love is to be seen precisely in the way in which it bears the wounds inflicted on it by mankind and offers full and free pardon.

Victory in Jesus

It is only by this kind of love that we have Victory over the false prophets, victory over the World, and victory over Sin and Death.

Our victory comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. And this is why it is so important to “test the spirits”. Only the Spirit of God empowers us, through our faith in Christ, to achieve victory.

But we must ask, “Which Jesus?” “Is our Jesus the real Jesus?”

Any Jesus that does not love is not the real Jesus. And any Jesus that allows us not to love is not the real Jesus.