4 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. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world. ⁴ 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. ⁵ They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God. The one who knows God listens to us; the one who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (1Jn4:1-6).

Historical context

It is important to remember the context of this apostolic teaching on testing the spirits, more particularly the time frame (late first century) and the problems that existed in the churches in those early days, not least of which being there was no completed, compiled New Testament. One of the more prevalent heresies of John’s day was Gnosticism and the related Docetism. That was the concept that that which is material is inherently evil or at best inferior to what is spiritual. Consequently, anyone who was understood to be the Son of God must have been a purely spiritual Being who only appeared to have a physical body, thus denying His true humanity. Hence verse 2, John’s assertion that every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.

The reference to “every spirit” would be at best simplistic if taken in isolation and apart from the chronological context. For virtually everyone claiming to be a Christian prophet these days, false or otherwise, is likely to meet such a criterion. More tellingly and timelessly helpful is what John goes on to write concerning the attitude of the world to particular spiritual prophecies. If they accord with the spirit and aspirations of the current world order “Κόσμος”,  then they are more likely to have derived from the prince of this world than the Holy Spirit. Such teaching would fall in the category of what Paul referred to as “ear tickling” – an evangelist giving his hearers what they might humanly crave to hear: “For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” (2Tim4:3).

Worldly teaching

I suggest the two prime examples of that are what might be described as “easy-believism” and also  any evangelistic teaching that infers that Christian discipleship apart from being spiritually beneficial is advantageous to attaining material wealth in the current age. That is shown to be anti-Christ by the Teacher Himself on both counts in Lk14:25-33. That opened with “If anyone comes to Me and does not (comparatively speaking) hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.  Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost, to see if he is likely to be able  to complete it?”  Jesus concluded: “So then, none of you can be My disciple who is not prepared to keep a loose hold on all his own possessions”.

Jesus is indicating that becoming a follower of His is something that needs carefully to be weighed up, like someone about to build a tower or a king embarking upon a battle. That would be at the least surprising if such a decision determined whether one “goes to heaven when one dies”. In fact it would be a no-brainer, but as I have been continually asserting, especially in the context of Mt25, the soul going to Heaven or Hell is not directly related to whether or not one knows Christ as Lord and Saviour, albeit it does pertain to whether or not one “knows God” and is “of Him” (1Jn again) – to be considered further in the next post.

Also as I have also been recently outlining, prosperity in the age to come and in a resurrected body shall indeed result in material as well as spiritual blessing for Christ’s faithful disciples  (as befits the Lord of the Universe’s corporate Bride – Rev3:21 &19:7). But for the present age, His disciples are walking in the footsteps of the Nazarene carpenter’s Son’s life and experiences during His earthly pilgrimage – heirs of God, yet suffering as their Co-heir did in order that they might one day be glorified with Him (Rom8:17NASB).

What of yours truly?

I am claiming to have received prophetic insights  concerning the interpretation of Scripture in the context of preparing for Christ’s second coming. Such an audacious claim certainly needs to be tested as to which Spirit or spirit (if any) might be the instigator. I believe John and Jesus’ criteria above are met in terms of the gospel presentation as I have come to understand it, but further conditions should also be satisfied for someone making such an assertion concerning biblical interpretation, and these were touched upon in this much earlier post.

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