“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. 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, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. 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. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1Jn 4:1-6)
Hi everyone,
Hope you all are having a blessed week! In the passage from 1 John, he says that ‘every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.’ And, every spirit that doesn’t is ‘of the antichrist,..’ So, it must be pretty significant that one ‘confesses’ that Jesus came in the flesh, but why?
What was happening doctrinally during this writing of 1 John is what the apostle John was addressing. At this time there was a ‘false teaching’ being pushed in the church that said all ‘flesh’ was totally sinful and only the spirit was not sinful, because of this, it was being falsely taught that Jesus could not have ‘come in the flesh’ or he would have been sinful. Trying to ‘justify’ their own twisted thinking, they were teaching a false doctrine so significant that the apostle thought it needed to be addressed. This teaching of which I speak was called Gnosticism- and in John particularly, a form of twisted Gnosticism introduced by a heretic named Cerinthus. Cerinthus was putting his twist on ‘who’ Jesus was during the time of the apostle, and John was refuting his teaching. Cerinthus actually taught that Jesus was born in the flesh by Mary and Joseph, that he had such a superior knowledge (gnosis) that the logos (Spirit of wisdom) came on Jesus at his baptism (symbolized by the dove) when he became ‘Messiah’ (Christ). When Jesus faced suffering and death the Spirit left Jesus and the body died but the Spirit of Christ lives on. So, what John is saying here is that if you believe that Jesus Christ didn’t ‘come in the flesh’- that He is, and was, both God and man- then you are believing an antichrist teaching and are of the antichrist! John took false teaching seriously, and so should we.
This is why the past couple months we have been studying some of the present day ‘antichrist’ teachings and what scripture has to say in its own defense! Yes, that’s correct- scripture, God’s Word, will defend itself; that is why it is so important for us to know the Word- it is only by God’s infallible, inspired and inerrant Word that we have the sure foundation to stand on against any and all false teaching. The warning is just as pertinent and serious today as it was in John’s day! We will wrap up this teaching Sunday as we look at scriptures that describe false teachers and talk about the warnings and how they apply to our lives in today’s church. I’m attaching below a Steve Lawson bible study that covers this portion of 1 John 4 and speaks about false teachers in the church.
Enjoy, and talk to you all this Sunday!
Randy
First a reading from A.W. Tozer in ‘The Purpose of Man’.
“You are a mirror of the Almighty, and this is the reason you were created in the first place. This is your purpose. You are not created so that you might only take something over here and put it over there—work. You were not created only that you might develop your brain so that you can speak with a cultured accent—education. Neither are we here to enjoy ourselves, even the pure pleasures of life. Nor are we here for the thrills life brings. All the holy prophets and apostles teach that man fell from his first estate and destroyed the glory of God, and the mirror was broken. God could no longer look at sinful man and see His glory reflected. Man failed to fulfill the created purpose of worship to his Creator in the beauty of holiness. He forgot this, forfeited it by sin and is busy now finding other things to fill that emptiness. It is terrible what people will look to if they lose God. If there is no God in their eyes, then they get something else in their eyes; and if they do not enjoy worshiping the great God Almighty that made them, they find something else to worship. If a person does not have God, he has to have something else. Maybe it is boats, or maybe it is money, amounting to idolatry, or going to parties or just simply raising the devil. They have lost God, and they do not know what to do, so they find something to do, which is why all the pleasures in life have been invented.”
And why false teaching appeals to so many!
The Bible Study: Steve Lawson 1 Jn 4:1-2
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