- Jan 18, 2019
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1 John 4:1-3 Dear friends, 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. 2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
When John speaks of “spirits,” he is not referring to vague inner feelings or disembodied beings floating about, but to the spiritual influences behind human teachers and messages. In the context of his letter, “spirits” are what we hear from those who claim divine authority for what they say. This is why John connects spirits with “false prophets.” To listen to a teacher is to come under the influence of the spirit that informs their teaching.
To “test the spirits,” then is to evaluate the content of what is being taught. John gives a clear test: what does this message say about Jesus Christ? The Spirit of God confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This confession is an acknowledgment of the real, historical incarnation—God’s Son becoming human, living, suffering, and redeeming in the body. Any teaching that undermines this truth fails the test, no matter how spiritual or persuasive it may sound.
False teachers deny or distort the incarnation by claiming superior spiritual insight that detaches salvation from the concrete, embodied life and death of Jesus. This is not a harmless theological disagreement but evidence of a different spirit at work, one opposed to God and his redemptive action in history. To deny Jesus “came in the flesh” is to reject the very way God has defeated sin and the devil.
John calls this opposing influence “the spirit of the antichrist,” and he is not pointing to a single future villain so much as to a present, active pattern of resistance to Christ. The antichrist spirit is already in the world wherever Christ is reinterpreted in a way that severs him from his true identity and saving work. Testing the spirits, therefore, is an act of faithfulness and protection: it keeps the community anchored to the apostolic witness about Jesus and prevents them from being led by spiritual claims that, however impressive, ultimately draw them away from the true Christ.
When John speaks of “spirits,” he is not referring to vague inner feelings or disembodied beings floating about, but to the spiritual influences behind human teachers and messages. In the context of his letter, “spirits” are what we hear from those who claim divine authority for what they say. This is why John connects spirits with “false prophets.” To listen to a teacher is to come under the influence of the spirit that informs their teaching.
To “test the spirits,” then is to evaluate the content of what is being taught. John gives a clear test: what does this message say about Jesus Christ? The Spirit of God confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This confession is an acknowledgment of the real, historical incarnation—God’s Son becoming human, living, suffering, and redeeming in the body. Any teaching that undermines this truth fails the test, no matter how spiritual or persuasive it may sound.
False teachers deny or distort the incarnation by claiming superior spiritual insight that detaches salvation from the concrete, embodied life and death of Jesus. This is not a harmless theological disagreement but evidence of a different spirit at work, one opposed to God and his redemptive action in history. To deny Jesus “came in the flesh” is to reject the very way God has defeated sin and the devil.
John calls this opposing influence “the spirit of the antichrist,” and he is not pointing to a single future villain so much as to a present, active pattern of resistance to Christ. The antichrist spirit is already in the world wherever Christ is reinterpreted in a way that severs him from his true identity and saving work. Testing the spirits, therefore, is an act of faithfulness and protection: it keeps the community anchored to the apostolic witness about Jesus and prevents them from being led by spiritual claims that, however impressive, ultimately draw them away from the true Christ.
