Podcast: 1 John: Testing the Spirits

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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. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 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. 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. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 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.
-1 John 4:1-6

I have to say, I’ve been frustrated lately. My wife and I are trying to a find a church home near us, so I’ve been going through these websites to get a feel for the different churches before we go and visit. After all, there are hundreds of churches around us, and it would take us a few years to actually visit all of them. We’re trying to narrow things down a little before actually going to visit.

Now, we’ve been able to veto a lot of these churches just based on stuff on their website. So many churches just don’t have the focus that I would like in a church. Either they disagree with us on major doctrine or they are more interested in talking about finances and relationships than in the sovereign God of the universe. They may use the Bible, but their focus is off. They’re more concerned with you, while I want to learn about Him.

A lot of the ones we vetoed right away were churches we would probably say were Christian churches, just with different priorities than we have. I expect to see those pastors and leaders in eternal life. We disagree on major issues, but not foundational issues. Other churches give me a totally different feel. They call themselves Christian, but I look at their doctrine, and I can’t imagine that they actually are Christian.

This passage made me stop and think about this whole debate over doctrines. We have disagreements within Christianity, but when would those disagreement actually rise to the level where we would have to say that a certain personality or church is heretical? In this passage, John refers to this as having the “spirit of the antichrist.” That’s a pretty heavy level to lay, just like it is when we say someone is a heretic. But when would that charge be appropriate?

This passage distinguishes these things rather well. We have two criteria that an orthodox view must have. First, a spirit “that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.” Second, “Whoever knows God listens to us,” meaning the Apostles.

Okay, there’s a little more to this than just believing that there was this dude named Jesus once. That’s not what John is saying. There’s a lot here. First of all, John uses Jesus’ title, which is the Christ, which is Greek for Messiah. What this is is a confession that Jesus is the Messiah.

Now we’ve opened this up a bit, because the Messiah is something much more important than a mere person. The Old Testament has many messianic prophecies, prophecies that tell us that the Messiah will carry our sin upon Himself. Isaiah writes of this man, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).

When we confess Him as Christ, we are confessing that He did what we failed to do – lived a life without sin, worthy of eternal life. He alone does not deserve death, because there is no lust, pride, hatred, or ambition in Him. And yet He died anyway, and in that death took our sins upon Himself. He died so that we do not have to.

Confessing Him as Christ cannot be done without confessing ourselves as unworthy, for if we do not believe that we need a Savior, we will not confess that we have one. Confessing Him as Christ cannot be done without resting our entire hope upon Him, for we will have realized that we have no hope without Him.

The second test is whether we believe the Apostles. Now, we as Christians sometimes have honest disagreements about what the Apostles meant. Our disagreements do not usually rise to the level of heresy. But when the Apostles are dismissed, their writings ignored or brushed away, then that is part of the spirit of the antichrist.

I am sympathetic to those “Red Letter Christians” who believe that only Jesus’ words are infallible, and the words of the Apostles could be flawed. I sympathize, but I must call them to repentance. John, James, Jude, Paul, Peter, Mark, Luke, Matthew, and the writer of Hebrews were inspired by the Holy Spirit. All Scripture is God breathed, and we must look to it as the Word of God.

If you come across a teacher who denies the plain words of Paul, then we may be dealing with heresy. Again, I may disagree with an Arminian on predestination, but that does not mean the Arminian is ignoring the Scripture. We have a disagreement, and I would say he is wrong, but I would not call him a heretic. I do not believe in paedobaptism (infant baptism), but I call many Lutherans and Presbyterians my close brothers. We are both studying the Word, and we disagree on this point. It is the rejection of the Word that we must guard against, for that is part of the spirit of the antichrist.

Which means those supposedly Christian leaders who want to call Paul into question. Those who read what the Bible says on homosexuality or fornication and ignore it, teaching others that these activities are okay. Guard against these people.

But above all else, trust God. If you have the Spirit, then you are secured by that Spirit for eternity. You need not fear for your soul. God uses even false teachers for His greater glory and for our good. We may not understand how He does it, but as the sovereign God of the universe, He is more than able.

This is where our security lies. Look, if it were up to me, I may wake up a Buddhist tomorrow, or a Muslim. I have no confidence in my own strength to keep my faith intact. So why should I not worry about the spirit of the antichrist? Tomorrow, that may be something that entices me! But John tells us that we have already overcome these things. How is that so?

“For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Listen to that answer. It is God who secures me for eternity, not myself. My faith will stand if that faith is from God. Those who leave the church for heresy prove in their leaving that they were never part of the true Church. They never had a faith that is from God. That is what we learned in 1 John 2:19.

We worship a sovereign God, a God that is not tossed about by the winds of history, but the God who causes them to blow, and in what direction. He is the hand that guides our every moment. And so we have overcome the world because HE has overcome the world, and we are in Him.

So test the teachings of every new fad that comes along. Learn of Jesus through the testimony of the Word so you can hold up every spirit against the truth of Him. Read the writings of the Apostles and have confidence that they are from the Father. If there is teaching that outright denies these words, then they are of the spirit of the antichrist. They are heresies. Beware of them.

But also have confidence in your sovereign Father in heaven. It is He who secures His children for eternity. It is He who will draw all of those He will to Himself. When we have faith – true faith – and repentance of our sins, we prove ourselves to be part of that family, forgiven because of the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross, and held for eternity by the power of the Spirit. Have confidence not in yourself, but in the Cross.