Chapter 11
1 John 4:1-6
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
So far in this epistle, John has explained the importance of the Holy Spirit in our lives and emphasized that we really cannot act independent of the Spirit if we are going to live as a Christian. John told us in the last chapter that we can know if God abides in us by perceiving the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. After all, the Father gave us the Spirit right after we accepted His Son Jesus, the difference should be somewhat obvious, if not plainly seen. The Spirit guides us where we need to go, He guides us in what we do, and what we need to say, He even provides us with what we need to know in order to believe in Him. In summary, the Holy Spirit provides us with everything we need for every aspect of a Christian’s life. John will further expand on what having the Holy Spirit means in our life in this chapter but first he gives us a warning.
John says we are not to believe or trust every spirit. This may be a bit confusing to some as this statement begs the question…is there more than one spirit? Technically, yes, however, John is using the term metonymically, a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is substituted for another which it is closely associated. Here John uses the term “spirit” to refer to a person or teacher who falsely professes to act under the divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit or they are unaware that what they teach is not the truth. In either case it is an unfortunate practice that is still being done by supposed Christians in churches today. We should note that Paul identified the ability to “discern spirits” as a Spiritual gift in 1 Corinthians 12:10, suggesting that discernment doesn’t happen easily or at least not without help. With so many competing ideologies and theologies today, we need to pray daily for Spiritual discernment.
This issue of deceiving, or attempting to deceive God’s people, has a long history. As an example, we can explore an often-quoted section of the Bible. In chapter 29 of the Book of Jeremiah many Christians quote verse 11 regarding God’s plans for us, and yes, He does have plans for us, however just a few verses earlier we can read, “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29:8-9, ESV) These words of instruction to God’s people that were being held captive in Babylon, regarding the potential of being lied to by those in positions of authority, are very revealing. We know that discernment in general is important in nearly every aspect of life. For example, if we have chest pains we need to discern heart burn from heart attack, if we hear about any investment advice we need to discern if the source is reliable, if we are going to buy any jewelry can you tell the difference between a diamond and glass, and what about buying a used car or choosing dietary supplements? All these pertain to things we can see, what about those things we cannot see? What about those things that are spiritual? God’s Word provides many warnings about the need for Spiritual discernment (see Deuteronomy 13:1-5; Isaiah 8:19-20; 30:8-11; Matthew 7:15-20; 24:4-14, 23-28; Acts 20;29-30; Romans 16:17-19; 2 Corinthians 11:3-4; 12-15; Ephesians 4:14; 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 6:20-21; 2 Timothy 2:15-17; 2 Peter 2:1-22 and Jude 1:4).
While in Thessalonica, Paul and Silas ran into problems with the local Jews so they were lead to a nearby city named Berea, where they were well received. “The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:10-11, ESV) In what we might think could have been considered an insult by going home and looking in the Scriptures to see what they were just taught was really true, was in reality a great blessing to the teachers. Nearly two-thousand years later we have a lot of conflicting theologies, philosophies, and points of views regarding miracles, healings, mysticism, out-of-body experiences, blessings of prosperity, environmental priorities, alternate states of mind, UFOs, social gospel, communicating with the dead, ghosts, ESP, telekinesis, praying to God and the list goes on! What is true and what is a lie? Are we like that small child on the water that Paul talked about in Ephesians, being tossed around by every deceitful wind or do we know the truth? (See Ephesians 4:11) John has been using stark contrasts in this epistle from the beginning and probably none as stark as the comparison of being either a child of God or a child of the devil (see 1 John 3:1-10). God’s truth is the truth, no song and dance routine required to see the truth and understand, but the devil will use his minions, dark angels, and demons to do whatever is necessary, including masquerading as the truth, to convince or persuade people to accept his lies.
John tells us that we are to test (same word Peter used in 1 Peter 1:7) to see if what we hear is from God, since there are many false teachers and prophets in the world (read 1 Thessalonians 5:20-21; Revelation 2:2). We are not to be “taken in” by these experts of deception. Okay, easier said than done, right? How are we supposed to do that? We are to use the Word of God as our “filter” in life. The Word helps us filter out the impurities of deception but just like water filters on a water line or a virus protection program for our computers, we need to install them! As God’s people we need to know God and His Word and we do that by continually reading the Bible. We need to read and then reread and then reread again. The Word of God is living and dynamic, touching our hearts in a new way every time we read it. It is essential that we know the Bible from cover to cover, as a lie is still a lie even if it contains 99.99 percent truth, we need to learn to discern.
1 John 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
John now focuses on one aspect of God’s Word, the very reason the Word of God exists in the first place, namely to reveal God’s only plan of salvation. John says we can know the Holy Spirit is talking as opposed to some other spirit, by hearing someone profess or clearly state that Jesus Christ was sent by God as a man and died for our sins. It is truly amazing the vast number of alternate religions, theologies, and philosophies that are eliminated with that simple filter. In verse three John states that the inverse is true too, that every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. John once again calls this spirit the antichrist. John uses this term in the same way he did back in chapter two, he is not talking about the end-time character commonly referred to as the “antichrist,” he is referring to those people that are against or seek to replace Jesus as savior (see 1 John 2:18-25).
1 John 4:5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
John reminds us that as Christians we have overcome those would-be imposters, as God is far greater than any power in the world (see John 12:27; 14:30; 1 Corinthians 2:12; Ephesians 2:2; 6:12). John says since those antichrists are from the world (see John 3:31; 8:23), they speak the language of the world (lusts, sinful desires, etc.) and the world listens to them (see John 15:19), even though they really don’t know the truth at all. John further reminds us that since we are from God, whoever knows God listens to God and therefore they listen to us too. John explains that those that do not listen to us do not know the Holy Spirit (in other words those that do not listen and grow in the Word of God are probably not Christians). The Greek word that is translated here as “error” implies a wandering or straying from the truth (see Romans 8:5; 1 Corinthians 2:12; 1 Timothy 4:1).
Perhaps a question we should be asking ourselves is can we ever get enough of God’s Word? Clearly the answer is no! As Christians we should have an insatiable appetite for the Word of God. John tells us that this ‘hunger’ is one way to differentiate and expose false followers from true believers. What are you hungry for?