Testing the Spirits

1 John 3:24–4:6 NKJV

Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Prayer

Last week we looked at the comfort that God brings to the conscience of the believer through the fact that He is greater than our hearts.

We saw how our own consciences can and will condemn us, and the wonderful truths to we must speak to ourselves.

But this week, we are turning from addressing ourselves inwardly to discerning those outside of us.

If I told you that you have an enemy of the soul that rages against you night and day.

What would you think about that?

For some, it wouldn’t be shocking.

You probably would be pretty normalized to the idea.

For others, it would be a new thought to consider.

But I think for both sides, it is common to slip in and out of recognizing this.

Since this world is filled with false prophets, we must test the spirits to determine if they are from God.

By testing their message, and audience; we will increase our love for the Truth and so walk in the way of obedience.

1 John 3:24 NKJV

Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

Abiding in God

“You in Him, and Him in You”

1 John 3:24 (NKJV)

Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him.

Like we saw in the previous section, to keep the commandments is to believe in the Son Jesus Christ, and to love the brothers and sisters.

John’s claim here is a bit staggering, he says that the person who keeps these commandments abides in Him.

He goes a step further and says that God abides in Him.

John’s answer here is similar to what Paul says when he talks about the life of the believer being “in Christ”

I find it interesting that John does NOT say...

He doesn’t say that the believer knows God abides in him because he is perfect.

He doesn’t say that the believer knows God abides in Him because he speaks in tongues.

No, it’s none of these other things, rather it is obedience which shows if God abides in us and we in God.

1 John 3:24 NKJV

Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

The Presence of the Spirit

John says that it is “by this” which is referring back to what was just said which is keeping his commandments.

The Spirit is the test of Christ’s abiding in us, because even Paul says..

Romans 8:9 (ESV)

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But the way the Spirit is manifested in the life of the believer is objectively in his life and conduct.

It is the Spirit’s working in the life of the believer which allow them to confess Jesus.

Again notice, what John doesn’t say about The work of the Spirit in the life of the believer is

NOT just an inner light within a person.

NOT just an inner feeling.

He doesn’t say that the believer knows God abides in Him because of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

John doesn’t say we know God abides in us because His Spirit abides in us.

I think too often, we make abiding in the Spirit an activity which is based upon feelings.

We feel as though the Spirit is abiding in us, but John is more concrete than that.

When this happens, we waffle between knowing God loves us and unsure of God’s love for us.

He says that we know the Spirit abides in us, when we keep the commandments.

It is keeping God’s commandments as the evidence that we are abiding in Him!

Picture with me a person who is sitting in Bible study and they pipe up…

They say, “I know God loves me because he tells me all the time.”

You ask, “How does he tell you that?”

They respond, “He tells me all the time when I am alone with him. Sometimes I even skip out on gathering with God’s people because they just distract me from God telling me he loves me.”

How should we think about this person?

300 Quotations for Preachers The Devil Can Counterfeit the Spirit

The devil can counterfeit all the saving operations and graces of the Spirit of God.

We need to recognize that the supernatural realm is real, and that is true.

But at the same time, we need to recognize that it does not always mean it is from God.

What John is about to say reveals something that was likely happening in this church.

They were receiving and tended to be uncritical of all teaching which claimed to be inspired.

They were embracing anyone who stood up and said, “God said to me...”

It’s in this kind of a context that John gives the exhortation to us...

1 John 4:1 NKJV

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Testing the Spirits

“The Need for Discernment”

John now turn his attention to those things outside of the believer which are a threat to him.

And he gives two overarching commands for us.

1 John 4:1 (NKJV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God

Don’t believe Every Spirit

I want you to notice something too as you’re looking at this passage…

Notice the way your translations capitalize or lower case the word “spirit” to help the reader understand who John is talking about.

If you pay attention to your Bible’s the translators are helping us see the intended meaning here from John.

What does John mean by a spirit?

You may be thinking, “I don’t remember the last time I interacted with a spirit...”

Calvin along with others have understood the term to be metaphorically speaking.

Spirit for John here is a person claiming to be speaking under the prompting of the Spirit of God.

Anyone standing up amidst our gathering and saying, “God told me __________”

Which means it refers to a person and the spirit is what is operating behind the person.

John’s warning is, “Don’t believe every spirit!”

Believing for John here means to deem worthy of a person’s trust.

The first step is to NOT entrust yourself to the spirit.

When he says, “Don’t believe every spirit”, he is essentially saying don’t place your trust that every spirit is actually from God.

When we hear the word discernment, we should also hear the word testing.

The testing comes in the second part…

1 John 4:1 (NKJV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God;

What does John mean by testing?

The word for proving something to be genuine by means of testing.

We are making a critical examination of something to determine authenticity or not.

The same word which is used for testing is used for testing of metals in the first century.

In the first century, testing of metals happened in an extremely hot oven.

Take gold for instance.

You would take the gold and melt it down, and something called dross would come to the surface.

This dross was the impurity from the metal and was to be scrapped off and removed.

John is impressing that this is the kind of testing that needs to be done.

This means that we should not be quick to believe a person because they were told that God said something to them.

At the same time, we are not to be so suspicious that we reject every spirit.

1 Thessalonians 5:19–22 ESV

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

John is calling us to hold up and examine every teaching.

A Call for Discernment: Distinguishing Truth from Error in Today’s Church The Word of Righteousness

There is no direction to consult your feelings about these persons or to expect any subjective promptings or checks. It is their teaching that must be examined.

A call to hold up and examine every teaching.

To not simply give ourselves to every spirit that may come to us.

So John is urging us to not simply trust every spirit, but to examine them to see if they are worth trusting.

Implication

This means for us that when we hear people expressing that God has told them something, we need to test it.

We need to test if it holds up against the Word of God.

We live in a generation that hates criticism and questioning.

So to hold up a person’s message against the Word, they may want to buck against this.

John now gives the reason for this testing and it should be sobering to us...

1 John 4:1 (NKJV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

A Cause for Testing (1 John 4:1b)

The reason John gives us for the need to test every spirit is that many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Testing and discernment are necessary because many false prophets have gone out.

Many people will claim the inspiration of the Spirit.

Many people will claim to be having a word from God.

And John is stressing, don’t believe them but test them.

We don’t ever believe someone because they claimed God told them to say something.

They could be sincerely misled or intentionally deceitful.

Notice to that John doesn’t say to try and figure out their motives…

1 John 4:1 NKJV

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

And these false prophets do not come with a sign on their head that says, “False Prophet”.

They come as Paul says, disguised as an angel of light.

2 Corinthians 11:13–15 ESV

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

There are many false prophets, those who are deceived themselves and those who are trying to deceive others.

The problem is that these two look the same.

Even if a person is not willfully trying to deceive you, if they themselves are deceived, then they will vicariously deceive you.

John now gives the test for how we know the Spirit of God from the Spirit of this world.

If you look down to verse 6, you can see John divide up this section nicely…

1 John 4:6 (NKJV)

By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

The Spirit of Truth

“Passing the Test”

Their identity is known by three main things; their message, their identity, and their audience.

Their Message

Now I want to clarify something which I have often seen, people will want to say, I think they had the best of intentions.

In this situation…

We are NOT to judge a person’s intentions.

We are NOT to judge a person’s motives.

We are supposed to judge if the message is TRUE or FALSE.

1 John 4:2 NKJV

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,

Now we need to remember something which is important for understanding what John is saying here.

Gnosticism taught that the Christ came on Jesus at his baptism and left him at his crucifixion.

John is pushing back against the gnostic idea that the Christ came on Jesus at His baptism and then left him at his crucifixion.

He very clearly is defending Jesus as both God and Man.

He is the ONE who came down and took on flesh and became like us.

1 John 4:2 NKJV

By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,

The Incarnation & Resurrection

It is possible that John’s readers were confessing Jesus as Lord without accepting that He came in the flesh, and John is saying this cannot be.

John is likely pushing back against the gnostic idea that the Christ came on Jesus at His baptism and then left him at his crucifixion.

Jesus taking on flesh was not a temporary reality but one that will last forever.

What has been called the hypostatic union, or the unity of God and man in Jesus Christ will last forever.

In the new heaven’s and earth, Jesus will still be both God and man.

What John doesn’t mean is that everyone who says, “Yes, I believe Jesus came in the flesh” we should believe.

Now I want to be clear here, John is applying the spirit of

Jonathan Edwards gave six different marks for the work of the Spirit of truth in a person

Mark #1

If it raises people’s “esteem” of the historic Jesus as both God and man, and the only Savior

Mark #1 - Love for Christ

This is important, because it guard against many doctrinal heresies..

Implication

Anytime we hear a sermon, or listen to a talk, read a book, we should not automatically believe everything that person says.

To just wholly accept what a person says is unwise and goes against John’s warning.

One time, my friend and I were on a trip to Nepal.

We were out to eat and everyone order fish.

Now fish in Nepal is not exactly like fish in America because there they serve the whole fish, head and all.

The man who we were with cautioned me, you need to be careful of the bones.

Then John goes on to remind his readers of their identity...

1 John 4:4 NKJV

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Identity - “Child of God”

1 John 4:4 (NKJV)

You are of God, little children

You are of God

The comfort for those who remain in the truth is the fact that they are the ones who are of God.

They are the ONE’s who like John has said are of God.

Now we need to remember how terrifying it is that in this moment that is a war going on all around us.

We are fighting not against flesh and blood, but principalities and darknesses.

John wants to remind these believers that they have nothing to fear.

As long as they don’t believe every spirit and test the spirits, they have nothing to be afraid of.

They don’t have to fear those who disguise themselves as angels of light.

They don’t have to fear those who seek to bring them to ruin.

They don’t have to fear those who seek to destroy them.

Which is why John goes on to say what he is about to…

1 John 4:4 NKJV

You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Overcoming the Spirits

The word carries with it the idea of conquering, overcoming, and prevailing against!

Now the word John uses here for overcoming is the same word he has used earlier for overcoming...

1 John 2:14 (ESV)

I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

Now the young men who earlier overcame, did so because of the powerful word within them.

In the same way, the believers now have already overcome because of the ONE who abides in them.

Notice too in verse 4 how John refers to “in you” in the plural referring to the Christian community.

1–3 John—Fellowship in God’s Family Do They Possess the Divine Life? (v. 4)

“Christ is not present in the individual to any greater extent than the individual participates in the presence of Christ amid the apostolic fellowship as a whole.”

There is a supremacy that resides in these believers, and it has nothing to do with them.

These believer can remain steadfast in their confidence because God is greater than their adversaries.

John grounds the fact that these believers have overcome the evil spirits in the fact of the greatness of the Spirit in their own lives.

The Christian can be confident in the face of a dangerous world because God resides in Him.

Mark #2 from Jonathan Edwards

If it “operates against the interests of Satan’s kingdom,” e.g., by convicting people of sin

Mark #2 - Hatred of Sin

1 John 4:6 NKJV

We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Audience

This is the crux of this section for John.

It is the place he has been leading toward in discernment.

He is saying that you can tell the spirits by seeing the audience around them.

Another way to say it would be the audience that the person follows.

The Apostolic Witness

“Who do you follow?”

The bigger issue that John is driving home is that these believers would listen to the apostolic authority.

Mark #3

If it causes “a greater regard to the Holy Scriptures”. For the devil hates the Bible, since “every text is a dart to torment the old serpent”

Mark #3 - Greater Conformity to Scripture

1 John 4:3 NKJV

and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

The Spirit of Error

“Failing the Test”

1 John 4:3 NKJV

and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.

As we have seen, the antichrist is the one who stands in place of Christ.

One day there will come one ultimate figure that stands opposed to the Lord Jesus.

But the same spirit which empowers the antichrist is active today…

We know them by their message, and their audience.

1 John 4:3 (NKJV)

and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.

Message

“Worldly”

Now John moves to give the negative side of the test… the person who does not confess Jesus is from God.

This is a liquid thing because it does not mean one specific false teaching, but many different things you can replace Christ with.

A person is claiming, “I acknowledge Jesus!” but the question at hand is, “Is your Jesus the real Jesus?”

In a day when, everyone likes to think about Jesus in their own, this is critical.

Rejects the Incarnation

Any teaching that fails to affirm or undermines Jesus as Messiah and Him come in the flesh cannot be from God.

Now I would argue this is only part of the argument, because John’s greater point is that these false teachers are rejecting the apostolic witness.

This may look different in our day, but they’re rejecting the apostolic authority.

Ultimately this is seen in the fourth mark...

Mark #4 from Jonathan Edwards

If it “operates as a Spirit of love for God and man”. This is “the highest kind of evidence” available.

Mark #4 - Love for God and Man

1 John 4:5 ESV

They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

Audience

“The World Listens to Them”

The believer should not be surprised that the spirits of the antichrist speak from the world.

Even if they are a leader in the church, if it sounds like the world, it will attract the world.

And when the spirits of this world speaks, the world around listen to them.

This should be a warning to us to never assess a ministry by it’s numbers.

Numbers often only reveal that