Simon Bowkett's Podcast

1 John 4:1-6 - Discernment for the people of God

May 28, 2022 Simon Bowkett
Simon Bowkett's Podcast
1 John 4:1-6 - Discernment for the people of God
Show Notes Transcript

Thirty minute Bible exposition

Studiocam

https://youtu.be/tMetx8U3Ru0


Show Notes

•       Introduction

Warning and why, v. 1

     Warning

     Advice

     Reason

Exercising discernment, vv. 2-6

     Vv. 2-3 Criterion 1: Acknowledging God in Jesus

          Jesus Christ

          Incarnate

          Denying Jesus

     Criterion 2: Acknowledging the Spirit in God’s people, vv, 4-6

          You

          They

          We

•           Conclusion


Transcript

A transcript is available on the tab at the top of this page.


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“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.

 

4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

         •        Introduction


How do you live right in a culture that permits everything except 'right' and 'wrong'?

It’s not actually as easy a situation as that though, is it, because we actually live in a culture that goes beyond not permitting right and wrong to actually PROSCRIBE … prohibit … the idea that there is such as recognisable thing as right and wrong, let alone going so far as to say ‘this is right’ and/ or ‘this is wrong’.

And that rule holds at all times and in all places, or so it seems, unless you want to prohibit saying ‘this is right’ and ‘this is wrong’ … because then you are absolutely allowed (in fact required) to say ‘this saying certain things are right or wrong is … not right, but wrong.’

In that case, all of a sudden you ARE (apparently) allowed to say ‘this is right and this is wrong’.

And what I want to say is that in a situation where this is the case, where this discernment of right and wrong is PROHIBITED, you can’t have a society either 

·       living right, 

·       or living together in fact 

… because there is no behavioural norm that regulates how you are going to live together.

IT. 

DOESN’T. 

WORK.

And guess what?

You get this erroneous, unlovable sort of ideology permeating churches too.

So in our passage of Scripture in 1 John 4:1-6 today John addresses this very issue for a group of first century house churches scattered around outside the ancient city of Ephesus in Asia Minor.

1)   Warning and why, v. 1

“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.”

That is a red-hot metaphorical poker to the (equally metaphorical) eye-socket of the culture we inhabit.

You are CERTAINLY not supposed to say things like that, John!

Only GOD could say a thing so judgemental as that … and we’d rather think of God as love than as the righteous judge of all the earth, because thinking otherwise might be in danger of disturbing our slumbers, thank you very much!

Now there’s a big snag there with that pattern of thinking, because what John is doing here is in the Bible.

And this warning comes from John, famously characterised as the Apostle of Love, speaking under the influence of the Spirit of God and writing Scripture as he goes along.

What John’s got here, to start with, constitutes a counter-cultural and possibly very timely warning for us.


Warning

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit …”

Some people do, you know.

It’s not godly to do that.

Some people seem to think it is.

‘He had a prophecy’, they say.

What this verse tells us is that ‘Did he?’ is actually a GODLY question to ask at this point!

Do NOT believe every spirit.

Ask whether this is coming from the Holy Spirit, and do so In a certain way (the method) and for a reason (the rationale for this statement … in fact commandment … in God’s Word.


Advice

“test the spirits to see whether they are from God”

Test the spirits. 

Since in the second half of the present verse the author mentions “false prophets” who have “gone out into the world,” it appears highly probable that his concept of testing the spirits is drawn from the OT concept of testing a prophet to see whether he is a false prophet or a true one. 

The procedure for testing an Old Testament prophet is found in Deuteronomy 13:2-6 and 18:15-22

An OT prophet was to be tested on the basis of 

(a) whether or not his predictive prophecies came true (Deuteronomy 18:22) and 

(b) whether or not he advocated false articles of faith and/ or ungodly practises (Deuteronomy 13:1-3).

In the latter case the people of Israel are warned that even if the prophet should perform an authenticating sign or wonder, his truth or falsity is still to be judged on the basis of his claims, that is, whether or not he advocates idolatry and its accompanying sinful practices and behaviours.

Here in 1 John the idea of “testing the spirits” comes closer to the second OT example of “testing the prophets” mentioned above. 

According to 1 John 4:2-3, the spirits are to be tested on the basis of their Christological confession. 

That is to say, the person motivated by the Spirit of God will acknowledge Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh … with all the consequences of that acknowledgement for how we think and live.

But the person motivated by the spirit of deceit will not confess Jesus as He is and the consequences for life that flow from that, so that person is therefore not from God.

This comes close to the idea expressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:3 where the person speaking charismatic utterances is also to be judged on the basis of his Christological confession: “So I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus is cursed,’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

Now, of course, Paul is not looking for a mere verbal acknowledgement but he is talking about a genuine disposition consistent with these things which would by way of the consequences that arise from saying ‘Jesus is Lord’ … that is living your life like He is your Lord and your God!

This confession entails a change in the direction of your life because there are certain things the Lord taught that require a total change in the direction your life is heading in, and if He is acknowledged as God in the flesh then He has the authority to say those demanding things he taught.

The thing is, then, that if you’ve acknowledged the Lord’s authority to make these claims on your life, you’d want to go along with those things but you’d still need good MOTIVATING reason for running with John’s advice here, and that is precisely where John is going next …


Reason

Here’s the reason you should do this testing the spirits to see which is from God, it is:

“… because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Here’s the truth you’ve got to LIVE with, says John.

There’s lots of false prophets gone out into the world

Now, that’s not just a way of saying ‘prophets that make mistakes’, or ‘prophets who get it wrong some times’.

There is a whole Biblical theology of ‘the false prophet’.

·       Isaiah 44:25 has a warning about false prophets and the deceiving ‘signs’ that they perform.

·       Jeremiah has at least five warnings about them and another in Lamentations 2:14 which is not so much a warning to the reader as a retrospective lament about the consequences of tolerating false prophets for the lives of the people.

·       Ezekiel is concerned to warn about false prophets with two in Ezekiel 13 about false dreams and lying divinations and one in Ezekiel 22:27-29: “Her officials within her are like wolves tearing their prey; they shed blood and kill people to make unjust gain. 28 Her prophets whitewash these deeds for them by false visions and lying divinations. They say, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says”– when the Lord has not spoken. 29 The people of the land practise extortion and commit robbery; they oppress the poor and needy and ill-treat the foreigner, denying them justice.”

You can see where accepting and promoting lies leads in that, can’t you?

Hosea and Micah also carry warnings but we need to realise that this is not the voice of some sort of Old Testament prophets’ ‘closed shop’.

·       In Matthew 7:15 the Lord reinforces the injunction NOT to be undiscerning of those who do the work of the father of lies whilst masquerading as angels of light:

“‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.”

The Lord isn’t mincing words and wants His people to take this seriously!

·       Then in Matthew 24:11 when speaking about the terrible things that will happen in the Last Days He warns: “and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.”

He’s warning ALL His followers there.

This isn’t some ecclesiastical side-show for the theological nit-pickers … it’s a warning to us all.

·       This crops up in Mark.

·       This crops up in Luke.

·       There are warnings in Acts and 

·       2 Peter and 

·       Revelation.

Let’s not get too bogged down in this widespread Biblical theology of the antics, the fruits and the consequences of tolerating these false prophets except to say we are clearly and repeatedly warned to watch out for them and that they will both excuse and appeal to the behaviours our sinful nature would LOVE to see justified, and that they will also display all sorts of lying signs and wonders, visions and ecstatic utterances to try to give credibility to their errors and deceptions.

2 Peter 2:1-3 rounds it all up for us:

“But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them – bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.”

It’s a clear Biblical theme of some consequence to warn God’s people to be watchful against these things, but having joined in the Biblical chorus of warning, John now goes on to spell out how to set about the business of discernment.

         Exercising discernment, vv. 2-6

You see, it’s all very well for John (or any preacher for that matter) to bang the drum and write that these believers around Ephesus, in these scattered house churches, should not believe every spirt but test the spirits to see what’s from God … but HOW are you going to do such a thing?

The enemy of souls doesn’t come along with a design on his T-shirt that reads: ‘Hello, I’m the enemy of your soul’!

Paul writes about this to the troubled churches in Corinth in 2 Corinthians 11:13 ff.

“such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.”

In a context of open warfare between the forces of light and darkness, we are to expect marauding attacks from the enemy operating behind our lines and we are to seek them out, to search and destroy their influence.

Read 2 Corinthians 11 when you get a moment … the passage I’ve just given you a snippet of … because you don’t hear this very often from the pulpits of our culture because it doesn’t play to the agenda of polite liberal society. 

And yet, Scripture is absolutely clear about this, and it makes perfect sense when you realise what’s going on in this world in the struggle the Enemy of Souls mounts against God and His people, against the life-saving Gospel of Jesus as the Christ Who has come in the flesh to redeem the people of the world.

John’s appeal is an appeal to be more alert to our spiritual context and to respond … to act accordingly.

And here’s the watershed issue when it comes to recognising the people who are serving the purposes of the bad guy …


Vv. 2-3 Criterion 1: Acknowledging God in Jesus

Vv. 2-3 “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.”

Now … just hang one a second because that word ‘to acknowledge’ needs some looking at.

ὁμολογέω

Here’s how a Greek lexicon might unpack that term for you in all its various uses across Scripture:

1) to say the same thing as another, i.e. to agree with, assent 2) to concede 2a) not to refuse, to promise 2b) not to deny 2b1) to confess 2b2) declare 2b3) to confess, i.e. to admit or declare one's self guilty of what one is accused of 3) to profess 3a) to declare openly, speak out freely 3b) to profess one's self the worshipper of one 4) to praise, celebrate

Too many of our English language translations seem to suggest that an intellectual assent to the piece of data that Jesus is the Christ Who was incarnate is what is being ‘acknowledged’ here.

Even the word ‘acknowledge’ in English is a sort of ‘Oh, I grant you that but …’ sort of word, isn’t it?!

That is NOT what we’ve got going on in John’s criterion here for discerning the spirit of truth from the spirit of error!

This is a wholehearted alignment with and embracing of the implications and consequences of recognising that Jesus is the One Who fits the profile of the coming God-appointed and God-anointed-Saviour, Who was prophesied in the Old Testament Who is therefore to be embraced and aligned with, utterly wholeheartedly as our only source of salvation.


Jesus Christ

Sounds pretty uncontroversial?

Let’s see, now …

Jesus Christ.

Named Jesus because He is the ONE to save His people from their sins … as in Matthew 1:21.

The Christ.

The Messianic deliverer, the Prophet, Priest and King of Old Testament Biblical theology.

The question we must pose is this: in these people’s preaching, teaching and living, is Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the One Who is God incarnate … even described with the character and attributes of God while His coming is being prophesied beforehand in the Old Testament?

There’s the big one.

Is JESUS ‘the One’, according to them?

Is He the Incarnate One?

 


Incarnate

Here’s the thing.

It is not a PEOPLE that are the Servant of Isaiah’s Servant Songs.

It is not the people of Israel who are the Messiah coming to save God’s multi-racial people.

It’s not the people it’s the PERSON , the historical person Who lived and walked as a physical man in Galilee and died on a physical wooden Cross, Who was laid in a rock-hewn tomb and Who rose physically from that physical tomb on the third day at Jerusalem and Who then appeared over a protracted period to people there and in Galilee, appearing physically (incarnate, in a body) to individuals and crowds of up to 500 people at a time … Jesus Christ.

Actually, physically BEING God incarnate.

Those are facts of the faith that carry huge spiritual implications and impacts on the life a person goes on to live.

v. 2 (NET): “By this you know the Spirit of God: Every Spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, but every Spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”

That sounds like church language for Sundays, doesn’t it? 

But it is far more than that because it is THIS which shows up just who it is that you line up with in the huge cosmic conflict in Creation.

What this watershed question shows up is which of these self-proclaimed apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is in fact a denier of Jesus.

In fact, worse than that, an active participant in the opposition to Him.


Denying Jesus

V. 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.”

Failure to acknowledge Jesus in the sense defined already does not leave you (says John) with an option that we DO sometimes think is open to us.

What do I mean?

Well, we might be discussing a new book or a new preacher who has turned up on our shores having made a big name for themselves somewhere else in God’s Creation, and we might say ‘Is he a good brother?’

And the guarded response might come back ‘well, I don’t know, but he’s definitely on the side of the angels’.

John seems to leave no middle option like that where this criterion for discernment is concerned.

There needs to be this wholehearted commitment to Jesus being all the Scripture says He is … as Saviour, Messiah, God incarnate (because that’s what the prophets foretold) or you’re simply on the side of the evil one, says John.

How about that?!


Criterion 2: Acknowledging the Spirit in God’s people, vv, 4-6

This next section is quite striking because just as vv. 2-3 said that where you line up in how you relate to Who Jesus is actually sits on a par with how you relate to His accredited messengers, and what they say, and that comes over plain and clear in vv. 4-6

“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognise the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

John addresses first You, then They, then We.


You

This statement is firstly about ‘you’ … the believers John is writing to.

John acknowledges that the Holy Spirit is in them.

He says ‘the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world’, and that is a reference to the believers’ being indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God not the worldly spirit that inhabits unbelievers.

This is: 

·       everything Ezekiel promised many hundreds of years earlier as one of the blessings of the Kingdom of God that was to come, and that

·       John was around to hear the Lord speak so much more clearly about in the Upper Room, 

·       and then was around to see the coming of the Spirit as the Spirit of Prophecy foretold in Joel 2 on that first Pentecost after the Resurrection and 

·       and Who John then saw and experienced Him to be at work throughout Acts and every day of his life until the day he pointed his pen at the page for these first readers of his first letter.

The Eras of the Messiah … of Christ come on the flesh … has come upon him and upon ‘you’ … and John saw, heard handled … touched … was an eye-witness to them of Gpd’s Glory, both in the works of the incarnate Messiah in the world and in Himself and all God’s people.

I’ve seen it, I know it, and I see it also in you (says John).

Notice that the reassuring evidence that the Spirit is in them and they are therefore saved is that (v. 3) “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

In this instance it is their having overcome the advocates of error that evidences the fact that the Spirt of the Almighty is in them … which reassures their salvation.

But then, there’s also ‘them’ to be thinking about, because the spirit that is in them doesn’t acknowledge his defeat.

Here’s what to stay alert to about ‘them’.


They

This next group mentioned is the ‘they’ in the situation … the ones who are indwelt by the spirit of the one who IS in the world described in the end of v. 3 “This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.”

That is really pretty blunt, isn’t it?

Well, no wonder John goes on to say of those folks (and, remember, these were people that had been inside and influencing those Ephesian house churches) “They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them”

Did you notice that little development of thought at the end there?

Those people you are to discern as NOT AT ALL being ‘on the side of the angels’ are characterised to help us in recognising and rejecting them and their message as authoritative. 

And they are characterised in three ways … three ways to recognise them …

1. They are FROM or OF the world

2. They speak from the viewpoint of the world

3. The world listens to them.

Karen Jobe says: “The Johannine duality is defined between the poles of being ‘of God’ … and being ‘of the world’ … While John affirms that his original readers are ‘of God’, those who do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ ‘has come in flesh’ are ‘of the world’.”

And her analysis of what is going on here, then, is this:

“John does not allow that such people may claim the name of Christ, for their rejection of this truth has put them outside the bounds of Christianity. Even while they teach about Christ, their thoughts are shaped not by the gospel but by worldly categories of religion and philosophy. Such professing ‘Christians’ listen to the world, and speak back to the world its own message, varnished in Christian terms. Therefore the world receives their message, even though it is a distortion of the gospel.”

And that has implications for these people’s relationship to the apostles and their apostolic message … in fact it explains their reaction to the apostle and the apostolic message.


We

V. 6a “We are from God, 

and whoever knows God listens to us; 

but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.”

You can tell this is more of a sermon than a letter, because John has got three points here again!

1. We are from God

2. Whoever knows God listens to us

3. Whoever is not of Good does NOT listen to us.

The logic seems remorseless, but quite what is John saying here?!

He is re-asserting his authority to speak on the basis that he was an initial eye-witness and learner from the coming of the ACTUAL Jesus as the ACTUAL Messiah and Saviour … in the flesh, crucified, raised and then sending the Spirit on that first Pentecost after the resurrection ascending back into the Heavenly Glory with the Father.

Remember, this is how he started off this book in 1 John 1:1ff.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 

The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, 

so that you also may have fellowship with us.

And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”

So the upshot is that those who do not acknowledge this Jesus will not acknowledge John’s teaching as an accredited messenger of this Jesus.

Likewise, those who DO acknowledge this actual Jesus WILL recognise His accredited messenger in John … not because John has been to great preacher school or had amazing leadership training but because they will recognise the actual Jesus and hear the actual Jesus’s voice in and through John’s teaching.

What else would you expect, 

·       given that the One Who created the world was not recognised by the people of the world (John 1:10) or 

·       when the One Who came to redeem the world was rejected ((John 1:11)?

What happens here, then, on the basis of all of this, is that John draws the line between truth and error, between the people of God and the people of the world, and he draws it at the divide between the acceptance and rejection of the apostolic teaching that John gives.

Who gets to say what is true about God, and the Lord Jesus … and the Gospel that is offered to this lost world?

Well, anybody of course!

But what they say and who you LISTEN to marks the line of division, because those who teach other than what the apostolic gospel actually IS do not truly know God and it is not HIS work that they are doing.

It is the apostolic teaching that marks the line of division.

IT is the touchstone and arbiter of Gospel truth.

         •        Conclusion

So John writes that here’s how WE know … the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

V. 6 “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognise the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”

So where does this leave us, then?

o   Firstly, we are to expect and to be alert to those who come into or walk out of our churches and gatherings on the basis of the sort of things John’s been describing … Jesus Christ is God Incarnate with all the implications that brings for life and faith, love and obedience.

o   Secondly, we need to be alert to the fact that these people and their ideas will appeal to us - scratch us where our fallen human nature itches - and may well bring lying wonders, dreams, prophecies, visions and whatever to give credence to them … but their father was a liar from the beginning and the touchstone is truth not mass appeal.

So John says here to these house churches scattered around Ephesus and to us wherever we are today, following the Lord with sincere hearts:

“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.”

And in fairness, he’s told us exactly how to do it.