A sermon preached at Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas on October 22, 2023.
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).[1]
At the beginning of his first epistle, the apostle John explains his purpose for writing: “that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:4 KJV). John writes for our joy. And who wouldn’t want to have joy fully? But to be clear, the joy John describes is not joy as the world understands it, since John says, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). No, the joy John describes is rooted in Christ, who is “from the beginning,” whom John and the other apostles heard, and saw with their eyes, whom they looked upon and touched with their hands, the living “word of life,” Jesus Christ himself (1 John 1:1). Just as they enjoyed in-person fellowship with Jesus, John desires for us, that all who are “of God” would enjoy a fellowship of obedience to Christ, love for the body of Christ, and discernment in living for Christ, all of which gives us Christ-exalting joy (1 John 1:3-4).
Only the one who has savingly believed on the Lord Jesus Christ can know such joy. And yet, how many of us know joyless Christians? How many of us are joyless? How many of us long to be a joyful Christian? We want to be joyful, but the world, the flesh, and the devil seem to undermine our joy, leading some to wonder if it is merely an admirable ideal or a contrived attitude but certainly not a reality. John begs to differ.
Joy is an attribute of the Christian life, but so often we allow hindrances or barriers that keep us from it, which John describes throughout his epistle. In summary, they are: sin, including an unwillingness to acknowledge and confess it; a lack of love for fellow-Christians, notably in the local church; and worldliness, often manifested in seeking worldly pleasures. None of these are compatible with the Christian life.
But in our passage today we see that the full Christian joy John desires for us is directly connected to the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit is our Helper (John 14:26). He is the one who helps us in our weakness (Rom. 8:26), as he is the one who indwells us, and intercedes for us according to the will of God (Rom. 8:27). We should not grieve him but obey, allowing him to produce in us his fruit (Gal. 5:22). And in obedience to him, he helps us discern the truth.
Discern the Truth
In this fourth chapter, John begins with his characteristic address, “Beloved,” a term of endearment repeated throughout his epistle and used primarily to address significant matters in the church. Here, he uses it to introduce a command: “Beloved, do not believe … but test …” (4:1). It is a command given in love, a command for discernment. So great is the apostle’s love for Christ’s church that he would keep us from deception.
John’s concern is not about a loss of saving faith but the perils of unorthodoxy, and he is likely alluding to the Gnostics who believed that Jesus had not truly come “in the flesh.” The Gnostics plagued the early church and sought to lead the gullible astray, just as many false teachers do today. John warns us about false teaching, because it is a spiritual matter, as the apostle Paul explains, “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).
John uses the term “spirit,” singular, or “spirits,” plural, to describe this spiritual reality: “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits,” “the Spirit of God,” “every spirit that confesses,” “every spirit that does not confess,” “the spirit of antichrist,” “the Spirit of truth,” and “the spirit of error” (4:1-3, 6, italics added). The same Greek word, pneuma, is used throughout the text, referring to the spiritual realm, both good and evil. Behind falsehood are evil spirits and behind truth is the Spirit of truth. And so, John commands us, the church whom he loves, not to “believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (4:1a).
What does John mean by “test the spirits”? The word translated “test” here means “to make a critical examination of something, to determine genuineness, put to the test, examine.”[2] He’s not advocating some kind of ethereal warfare from the pages of fiction but something quite practical, critical thinking, discernment. But what specifically are we discerning? What is to be examined? In other words, if there are evil spirits who wish to deceive us, as flesh and blood believers, how do we practically identify their works as distinct from the Spirit of truth?
John explains that evil spirits aren’t hiding out in haunted houses but work through the means of men, “false prophets,” who “have gone out into the world” (4:1b). To say that they “have gone out into the world” probably is John’s veiled reference to the Gnostics departing the church and moving outward to deceive others. But false prophets are prevalent today too. As the gospel has advanced throughout the world, and as churches have assembled, so false prophets seek to infiltrate the church. Jesus says that they “come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15). They appear to be as genuine as you and me, at least initially, but in secret, the apostle Peter says, they sow “destructive heresies,” appealing to our fleshly desires (1 Pet. 2:1). And they are not without success, leading many astray, deceiving not with force but “false words” (2 Pet. 2:2).
Confess the Truth
As influential as false prophets can be, they are identifiable through what they say, or rather don’t say. Their confession is void of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They do not preach or teach the gospel, because they do not believe the truth of the gospel, nor do they have the Spirit of truth. It is the Holy Spirit in us who “confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh … and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God” (4:2-3a). Confessing Jesus Christ is not merely acknowledgement or intellectual assent. It’s not simply reciting a creed or a canned prayer. Anyone can say they believe in Jesus.
But listen carefully to how John describes a credible confession: “that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (4:2). It is in essence a confession of identity: “Jesus,” a confession of incarnation, “Christ,” a confession of Messianic fulfillment; “has come in the flesh,” a confession of reality in time and space. Such a confession is tantamount to saying, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4-5). It is the confession of every true believer, that our Lord Jesus did indeed come to live and die and resurrect to life that we might have eternal life through faith in him.
It is also a confession in agreement with God’s Word. In fact, John reiterates this truth in verse six: “We [that is, the prophets and apostles] 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” (4:6). It’s not an egotistical statement but a divinely inspired revelation. We look and listen to the Scriptures, and through them believing “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). Spiritual discernment is always connected to God’s Word, as the Holy Spirit will always direct us to, not away from, Scripture. This then is a reminder to us all to be faithfully in the Word of God and living according to it.
Yet, even a false prophet can say he believes the Bible, but does he willingly submit himself to it as the very Word of God? Is his confession of Christ derived from a cultural rendering of Jesus or according to how Jesus is revealed in Scripture? In his confession is Christ glorified? A right confession can be nothing less than what Paul declares to the Colossians, saying,
[Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:15-20).
A credible confession exalts Christ according to the Word.
Beware the man who gets in the way of this, as he is not led by the Spirit of Christ but the opposite, “antichrist” (4:3), direct spiritual opposition to the gospel. The Holy Spirit will always, without exception, exalt Christ, according to his Word. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says of the true prophet, preacher, or teacher, “when you have heard him you do not say, ‘What a wonderful man’; you say, ‘What a wonderful Saviour!’ You do not say, ‘What a wonderful experience this man has had’; you say, ‘Who is the Man of whom he is speaking?’ The attraction is to Christ; he glorifies Christ.”[3] And only the one indwelled by the Spirit of Christ can do this because the Holy Spirit always confesses and exalts Christ.
Live the Truth
If every Christian is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of truth, how then is anyone led astray by false teaching? The answer is, interestingly, connected to our joy. What hinders our joy, according to John’s epistle? First, sin, including an unwillingness to acknowledge and confess it. Sin is the robber of Christian joy. Second, a lack of love for fellow-Christians, notably in the local church. The most miserable Christian in a church is the one who cannot forgive, harbors resentment, and will not love his brethren, as he has been loved by Christ. Third, worldliness, often manifested in a lust for worldly pleasure. The Christian who finds worldly pleasures more pleasing than the pleasures of Christ will find himself not pleased but miserable. And, all of these are hindrances to Christian joy but also contribute to a lack of discernment, a spiritual gullibility to false teaching.
Are your habitually engaged in sin or harboring unconfessed sin in your life? Repent and run from it! Confess your sin to God, for he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Are you at odds with your brother, unwilling to forgive and seek restoration, repent of your sin against Christ’s commandment, love your brother from the heart, for “Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling” (1 John 2:10). And, “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15a), because “all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:16-17). Or, as Jim Elliot said, “He is not a fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Beloved, or “Little children,” as John calls us, you are not victims, nor haplessly vulnerable, to the ways and works of evil. Rather, “you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (4:4). John does not say you are greater but “he who is in you is greater.” Such a statement does not deny the real struggles of the Christian life, including falling to temptation, conflict in the church, worldly allurement, and susceptibility to false teaching, but John is teaching us to look to and rely upon the Helper we have been given. The joyful Christian is blessedly dependent, and in this dependence, we find the strength to live for Christ and the accompanying joy he intends for us.
[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).
[2] “δοκιμάζω,” Frederick William Danker, Ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3rd Ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), 255.
[3] Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John (Wheaton: Crossway, 2002), 408.
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