For an explanation of this layout and the key to the books referenced, read here.
Chapter 4 (NIV–the verses in this chapter were taken from this version. Each chapter will be from a different version to avoid copyright issues.)
On Denying the Incarnation, 4:1-6 NIV
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.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “4:1-3. To begin with, the Spirit of God must be distinguished from false spirits. … The touchstone … is their attitude toward the incarnate person of Jesus Christ.”
(Life) “4:1-2 … we shouldn’t believe everything we hear just because someone says it is a message inspired by God.” Other tests: 2:19, 3:23-24, 4:6.
(ESV) “Christian faith is not spiritual gullibility. … The unseen spiritual influences … can be ‘tested’ by observing their doctrine and conduct as well as by the gift of spiritual discernment.” (Recovery) “The expressions every spirit and the spirits refer to the spirits of the prophets, which are motivated by the Spirit of truth, and the spirits of the false prophets, which are actuated by the spirit of deception.”
v. 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,
(ESV) “John establishes a doctrinal standard, specifically a Christological one, for testing spirits.”
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.
(Life) “The antichrist … is more fully described in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12 and Revelation 13.”
(Recovery) “The heretical view of the Docetists was that Jesus Christ was not a real man but simply appeared to be.”
v. 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.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “4:4-6. … The readers had successfully resisted the antichrists (false prophets) by means of the One who is in them. … Reliance on God is the secret of all victory whether over heresy or any other snare.”
(Life) “Evil is obviously much stronger than we are. John assures us, however, that God is even stronger.” (ESV) “unless such people affirm both the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus, they are not truly ‘confessing Jesus,’ … they are under the influence of the spirit of the antichrist.”
(Recovery) “The believers have overcome them by abiding in the truth concerning Christ’s deity and … humanity.”
v. 5, They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
(ESV) “Jesus himself did not convince most leaders of his time.”
(Vincent’s II) “Speak they of the world. … Literally it is” ‘they speak out of the world; i.e., the character of their utterances corresponds to their origin.”
(Recovery) “Both the heretics and he heresies concerning Christ’s person are of the satanic world system. Hence, the people who are the components of this evil system listen to the and follow them.”
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 recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
(Life) “False teachers are popular … they tell people what they want to hear.”
(ESV) “It does not make sense to them and does not fit their man-centered, materialistic system of thought.”
FIRST JOHN 4 MEDITATION vv. 1-6.
Believers are rightly warned to test the spirits of those who speak of Jesus. The internet is stuffed with religious messages and sites of all kinds. Who do we listen to and trust? What do they say about Jesus? Specifically, do they acknowledge that He was born of the Spirit in Mary, who produced Him in the flesh—fully God and fully Man (John 1:1, 14)? Or do they limit Him as a mere man, such as a prophet or wise man, and not as fully divine?
This faith of the Christian, that Jesus was fully God and Man, is critical. He had to be born a human baby in Bethlehem, hang on a cross with His human hands and feet pierced, His body placed in a grave and without decaying rise bodily from the grave to be seen by many. He had to be God and resist all sin. He had to be obedient to the Father at all times so His spotless righteousness could be imputed to all who believe. He as God had to raise Himself from the dead so our hope would be in Him and His power to raise us up at the last day.
We must believe in a Jesus who was filled with the Father and the Spirit. John’s epistle tells us that His communion with the Father is exactly what knowing God really means (1 John 1:1-6); we can know this abiding in us, beginning with the Spirit dwelling in us and then going from there. Our bodies are temples of God, of the Spirit, and Jesus’ life tells us how to live with that new reality. Otherwise, we are like all the other believers in all the other religions who believe in a holy book, a far-off god, and do the best we can to be good. The Deists have this perspective.
The Christian life is not about doing good and being nice and going to church. It is living the life of Jesus who lives through the Holy Spirit in us (Galatians 2:20). In the process of sanctification, the Spirit wants to take us from burdened by the law to the liberty of grace; from enslaved to the flesh to led by the Spirit; from trust in self’s works to faith in Christ and His finished work. With the operation of grace, the Spirit, and faith, the disciple is free to express the love of God to the world as Jesus did.
We overcome and persevere in our faith and knowing God by sticking with this truth, that Jesus has come in the flesh and is the Son of God. He is the Creator of all things that were made, and He created us to have fellowship with Himself. His life is the model of that life of communion. It is important to keep ourselves in the word of God and act upon what we read so we can internalize its truths. By this obedience we’ll see the Spirit work in us more and more. We’ll know the difference between the false (that will completely ignore this divine fellowship) and the true (that embraces knowing God and His Son).
