“Test the spirits,” says the Apostle John. “Do not believe every Spirit.” Some, he says, are “from God.” Others are not. There are true prophets and “false prophets” (v 1). There is the “spirit of truth” as well as the “spirit of error” (v 6). Nowhere is the distance between the outlook of the Apostles and our outlook today greater than when we deal with their insistence that truth and error, right and wrong, can be identified and distinguished. The average person today, the proverbial man on the streets, sees religion and ethics as matters of personal preference only, and not things anchored in reality and, therefore, worth being concerned about. He sees no problem with differences of “opinion,” especially as regards religious doctrines. Theological and ethical views can be argued with a certain detachment because, in the end, there is no objectivity to religion, just preference and opinion. Religious debates are like arguing if Bach is a better composer than Beethoven. It may be an interesting discussion, but who cares? Nothing can be proven, and so the critical thing is sincerity. As Dear Abby, that ultimate source on how Americans ought to think, once said, “In my view, the height of arrogance is to attempt to show people the ‘error’ contained in the religion of their choice.” That’s it. Religious statements are not matters of truth and error, just preference. Just so a person is sincere, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. Truth and error are unimportant, even unknowable.  

Consequently for the average person the church is irrelevant. Business is relevant. Politics are relevant. Football is relevant. He is intensely interested in these things. But religion? It is like the ballet for him. He’s glad it is there, happy to have his wife send the kids, even willing to go himself on occasion, but largely unimportant to him. He cannot see its relevance. He can see that it matters what the doctor believes about doctoring, and what the pilot believes about piloting, and the investor about investing. But religion is just opinion and preference. It really has nothing certain and therefore nothing important to say at all. 

All religious expression must be tolerated and understood as equally viable. A few years ago there was a spate of letters to the editor in the local paper on the issue of abortion. A so-called “Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights” addressed the biblical issue by saying it was “all a matter of interpretation.” You have yours, and I have mine, and the one is as good as the other. So, they concluded, we can’t appeal to Scripture at all. After all, there are “millions of people of religion – God-fearing, Bible-believing, church- and synagogue-attending people – (who) believe that a woman . . . should have the right to choose what she shall do.” However, this is to make “religion” irrelevant to the whole discussion, which, in the end, may be their goal. That the pilot’s manual also must be interpreted, and is therefore a “matter of interpretation,” as is the doctor’s, seems not to be noticed. The Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker, commenting on the disinviting of Franklin Graham to pray at the Pentagon for the National Day of Prayer in May of 2010 (of which he was the honorary chairman), said, “[we need to] transcend the notion that only some prayers are the right ones, . . . [this idea] might get us closer to the enlightenment we seek.” The irony, that she was judging and disqualifying Graham’s prayer, and by the way, imposing her own civil religious orthodoxy, seems to have escaped her. We might call America’s new state religion “amoral interfaith polytheism.” That is, except orthodox Christianity. Dale McAlpine, preaching in May 2010 at Hyde’s Corner, an international symbol of free speech, denounces homosexuality as a sin, and is arrested for “abusive words and behavior” and spends 7 hours in jail. The tolerant are intolerant of those whom they perceive as intolerant of their religious relativism.  

In our passage the Apostle John applies the Christian doctrinal test (previously applied in 2:18-29) to those who claim to be “born of God,” having already applied the moral test (3:1-10) and the social test (3:11-24). He takes the biblical distinction between truth and error several steps further. He says there is a “spirit” behind every teacher and every doctrine. Supernatural powers animate the prophets. God is one source, the source of truth. The devil is the source of all the rest. From him proceed the false prophets and the spirit of error. There are these two, and only these two, and they are the antitheses of one another. What is not of God is from the devil, is false, is deception. Once again, there is no area of gray. The Apostle teaches that, “Behind every prophet there is a spirit, and behind each spirit either God or the devil,” says Stott.¹ 

We are not to believe everything we hear. Apparently there were “false prophets” who were eloquent and impressive. The commentators suspect that there was a tendency in the early church to accept anything unusual or “supernatural” as being from God. There is a tendency for some today to accept anything said by a clergyman. Some tend to accept anything said by a moral and nice person. There is great reluctance to resist anything that people in general are saying. Christian people can be incredibly gullible. Some people will believe anything they hear, especially if the religious source is “successful,” if crowds are attracted to the teacher. Don’t be naïve. Test the “spirits.” Of what spirit does this person or that movement speak? From which source does it draw its inspiration? How are we to know? John gives to us two criteria. First, what does it say about Jesus Christ? Second, by whom is it received? 

Confessing Christ

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 Jn 4:1) 

The world is full of false prophets. “Many . . . have gone out into the world,” he says, perhaps indicating that they have “gone out” from the church into the world.² Perhaps he has in mind those who have apostatized. Yet there are “many” of them, and they still identify themselves as Christians. “Test” them. They may be moral. They may be religious. They may be eloquent and charming. They may say positive things that boost one’s self-esteem. They may gather great crowds, filling arenas and stadiums. They may claim that miracles occur by their hands. These things prove nothing at all (1 Cor 13:1-3). We still have the ability and obligation to “test” them.  

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; (1 Jn 4:2) 

The ultimate test of all religious spokesmen, whether they speak from God, is whether they confess Jesus Christ. 

The Apostle Paul laid down the same test decades before (1 Cor 12:3), as did John earlier (2:22,23). By “confess,” the Apostle means an open and bold confession. “Has come” points to Christ’s pre-existence. What he says must be confessed is that the human Jesus is the divine Christ. The sense is, “Jesus who is the Christ has come in the flesh.” Stress is being laid upon the human nature of Jesus, “and indeed on his continuing human state.” The point, Marshall continues, is that “there was a union of the earthly and the heavenly from the moment of incarnation.”³ “The fundamental Christian doctrine which can never be compromised,” says Stott, “is the eternal divine-human Person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;”⁴ Those who affirm this are from God. Those who do not affirm this are not from God. 

and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 Jn 4:3) 

Deny this, fail to confess Jesus in these terms, and one is “not from God.” This is the “spirit of antichrist,” of those who are opposed to Christ that “now . . . is already in the world” (cf. 2:15), and “is coming,” culminating in a final manifestation of opposition (see our comments on 2:18-24).  

The gnostics believed that the human Jesus was anointed by the divine Christ at His baptism. Christ then left Jesus just prior to the crucifixion. They denied the permanent union of the human and divine in Jesus Christ. The spirit of antichrist “dissolves the divine-human unity of Christ,” says the ancient commentator Bede (c.672/673–735).⁵ This anti-Christian spirit is “already in the world.” Antichrist is not merely a future threat, but a present reality. The viewpoint of the gnostics is not merely opinion or preference. It is destructive error. Marshall points out that,  

John is in no doubt that denial of the apostolic confession about Jesus Christ is not merely intellectual error, still less “advanced theology;” it represents the very spirit of rebellion against God and can only be condemned.⁶ 

This error takes various forms. It is expressed in the cults, such as the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Unitarians. It may be seen among the humanists who want to understand Jesus to be a great moral teacher, or merely a prophet, just a religious leader. This is the voice of the false prophet, of the antichrist. It is “the spirit of error.” It is the thinking of “He who is in the world,” the devil (v. 4). 

The “dual nature” of Christ, as the theologians call it, His true humanity and divinity, is a non-negotiable doctrine of the Christian faith. If its deniers come knocking at the door, witness if possible, but then close the door. If a denier is preaching from a “Christian pulpit,” have him removed, or leave. This is serious business. It is not just “religion” in the sloppy, unworthy sense used by our contemporaries. This is truth and error, in the eternal sense, the final sense, the ultimate sense. 

We recognize that people and organizations may preach a defective Christ and yet do much good, at one level. No one denies this. They may feed the hungry. They may clothe the poor. But their teachings are from the pit and endanger souls. This is why the Apostle expresses himself categorically. Again, we moderns want to believe that we just have different religious opinions. John says they are not just views, they are spirits. The spirits have only two sources, God and the devil.  

Audience

In verses 4-6 focus shifts from the teachers and their message to the audience which listens to them. Each verse begins with an emphatic personal pronoun – you, they, we. The Apostle contrasts those who are “from God” (you, we) from those who are “from the world” (they). 

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. (1 Jn 4:4) 

Those who are ‘from God,” literally “of God,” shorthand for “born of God,” discern the truth. We “have overcome them,” that is, the false prophets who are inspired by the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of error. How are we able to do this? Because “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” God the Holy Spirit is greater than Antichrist the false spirit. He is in us. He gives us understanding and discernment. The Apostle Paul’s great New Testament prayers show this (Eph 1; Col 1; Phil 1). There is an inevitability of orthodoxy for the people of God. The Holy Spirit indwells us (4:13) and He is greater than the devil. “God’s power to save is always greater than the devil’s power to do harm,” says Hilary of Arles (c.401–449), another of the ancient Christian commentators.⁷ The devil is in the world. He inspires the false prophets, but the Holy Spirit is in the believer leading him or her into “all truth” (Jn 16:13). We have His “anointing” (2:20). We will come to the truth. It is inevitable. The perfect tense, “have overcome,” suggests “not only a decisive victory already accomplished, but also one which has continuing effects in the present,” says Smalley.⁸ Our victory is “decisive and continuing.”⁹ In coming to Christ we come to the truth. In growing in Christ we continue to overcome error and remain in the truth. We continue to hear the voice of the Apostles over the voices of the false prophets of today and yesterday. 

We need not fear the devil or his minions. Why? Because greater is He who is in us. Resist him, says James, and he will flee from us (Jas 4:7). The Flip Wilson excuse, often heard at “the Church of What’s Happenin’ Now,” never applies to us: “the devil made me do it.” We are not in bondage to Satan. Once we were. Indeed the Apostle John will say, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19; cf. 2 Cor 4:4). But no more. His power has been broken. We are no longer his slave (Gal 4:8; Rom 6:16ff). We are no longer his captive, forced to do his will (2 Tim 2:26). We have been liberated from this bondage and cannot be enslaved again. We have overcome him in Christ. 

It’s a different story with the false prophets: 

They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. (1 Jn 4:5) 

“They are from the world,” not from God. That is why they teach as they do. “They speak as (those do who are) from the world.” They mimic the world. Consequently, “the world listens to them.”  

It is easy, in one sense, to be a very popular preacher. This always has been the case. Nearly a thousand years ago Theophylact of Ohrid (c.1050–c.1108), writing in what is now Bulgaria, said, “those who teach what the world wants to hear will always find followers.”¹⁰ Fast-forward to the twenty-first century and it’s still true. The media has its favorite preachers, as do our elite opinion-makers. Sing the right notes and one will be thought of as “balanced,” as “thoughtful,” as “sensitive,” and, of course, as “open.” Just say that Jesus was a prophet who taught us to love one another, and say no more. Don’t mention His divinity. Keep quiet about His power and authority. Never mind His teachings on marriage and divorce. Please don’t mention all he had to say about hell. Bury the bit about the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). “They come from the world” and The world will listen to a multi-faith, morally neutral version of the gospel. It will receive these prophets because “they speak as from the world.” Their message “is shaped, not by the original gospel message, but by worldly (albeit religious and philosophical) categories,” says Kruse.¹¹ The world loves its own (Jn 15:19). 

But those who are from God will be received not by the world but by the church, by the true church. 

We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 Jn 4:6) 

“We,” the Apostles and the churches of the Apostles, are “from God.” Therefore, the godly listen to them. The ungodly do not. The one who “knows God,” the present tense suggesting “a relationship with God which is continuous and growing” will receive the Apostolic teaching.¹² The people of God know the voice of God. They also know the voice of the devil. “My sheep know my voice,” said Jesus, but “a stranger they simply will not follow” (Jn 10:27; cf. vv 4,8,16,26). False prophets, however, because they are not “from God,” do not listen to the Apostles. We know “the spirit of truth” and are able to distinguish it from “the spirit of error” by this criteria: truth is found in the Apostles, error in the anti-apostles, the anti-Christ.  

Beware, then, of anyone who adds to or takes away from the apostolic, that is, biblical witness. Anyone. Beware whether they come in the name of antiquity, or in the name of the latest throng. The Apostle John beautifully balances the objective and the subjective. We know the truth. How? By the content of the teaching and the powers of discernment given to us by the Holy Spirit.  

Test them. Apostles assumed “that even the humblest of Christians possessed the ‘right of private judgment,’ as the Reformers properly insisted,” Stott points out.¹³ We have the responsibility of testing the source of the ideologies and religions and philosophies we encounter. What do they say about Christ? How do the people of God respond? What is the Holy Spirit showing us? 

In Christ Jesus we have certainty. Do you want to have confidence in the face of the competing voices, all claiming to be right? Come to Jesus and He will give you the gift of discernment. He will banish confusion. He gives us both the truth, and the capacity to identify it.