How lovely God is Pt 2: Test every message

1 John 4:1-3                           1Dear 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.  2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but 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.

Test the spirits

The Apostle John, often remembered as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” had a pastor’s heart but also a keen sense for danger.  By the time he wrote his first letter, sometime between 85 and 110AD, the church was several decades old and had already begun to face the problem of false teaching.  Just as Jesus had warned about wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15), and Paul had warned that “savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock” (Acts 20:29), John recognized that false prophets were not a distant possibility—they were a present reality.

John begins: “Do not believe every spirit.”  That statement alone challenges the modern assumption that sincerity is enough.  In our world, many assume that all spiritual paths lead to God, or that as long as someone is “authentic,” their message is trustworthy.  John would disagree.

We believers believe the Holy Spirit is alive and well in the believer’s heart.  But we also know that we live in a fallen world—the evidence is everywhere around us—so we must also be skeptical about what is presented to us.  The Christian faith is one of openness and hospitality, but it is not one of gullibility.  The word “spirit” here refers to the unseen spiritual influence behind a prophet, teaching, or message.  Behind every sermon, philosophy, or religious claim, there is either the Spirit of God or some other spirit.  Paul says this same thing…

“Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-22)

Discernment is not the same as cynicism.  To test means to engage thoughtfully, bringing every claim under the light of Scripture and the guidance of the Spirit.  Engaging thoughtfully means to use every tool we have available to see if that sermon we just heard, or the theme in that end-times book we just bought rings true.  We have three tools readily at hand:

What does the Word say?  God’s Word is our ultimate standard, and it is consistent within itself.  If the message doesn’t line up with the rest of Scripture then something is wrong and it’s not Scripture.  We might be having a problem understanding, or have misread something, but we must not accept the message until that disconnect is realigned.

16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the servant of Goda may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

What does the Holy Spirit say?  The Holy Spirit comes into the believer’s heart at salvation for a multitude of reasons.  One of them is to lead the believer into truth.

13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.  He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  (John 16:13)

What does the congregation say?  Every believer is fallible, but if consensus in a group of believers is reached about a message it is likely that message is true.

14For lack of guidance a nation falls, but victory is won through many advisers. (Proverbs 11:14)

This testing is crucial because John says, “many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  Already in the first century, the church was facing the rise of false teaching—some denying Christ’s humanity, others denying His deity, and still others distorting His teaching to justify immorality.  If this was true in John’s time, how much more must we be watchful today, when countless voices compete for our attention—through books, podcasts, pulpits, and social media.  For example, the prosperity gospel teaches that God guarantees wealth and health if we have enough faith.  It sounds hopeful and empowering, but it shifts focus away from Christ crucified toward material gain.  The prosperity gospel fails the test because it makes Jesus a means to an end rather than the end Himself.

Every spirit that acknowledges

To “acknowledge” Jesus means embracing Him as He is revealed in Scripture: the eternal Son of God, fully divine and fully human, come in the flesh for our salvation.  The early church was already battling heresies like Docetism, which claimed that Jesus only appeared to have a human body, and Cerinthian Gnosticism, which suggested that “the Christ” spirit descended on the man Jesus at baptism but left Him before the cross.  John’s test strikes directly at these errors: the true Jesus is God incarnate, born of the Virgin Mary, who lived, died, and rose again in the flesh.

Why is this confession so central?  Because the incarnation is the heart of the gospel.  If Jesus did not truly take on flesh, He could not be our substitute.  Hebrews 2:14–17 explains that Jesus had to share in our humanity so that by His death He could destroy the devil’s power and make atonement for our sins.  Likewise, if Jesus was not truly divine, His death could not have the infinite value needed to redeem us.  The confession of Christ is the bedrock upon which all other truths stand.  In practical terms, this means that any teaching, movement, or spirit that exalts Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord—affirming His incarnation, death, and resurrection—is aligned with the Spirit of God.

Every spirit that denies

Denial can be open and hostile, or it can be subtle and deceptive.  Some deny Christ by claiming He was only a good teacher, not divine.  Others deny Him by claiming He was divine but not truly human.  Still others preach “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4), reshaping Him to fit cultural trends—a Jesus who approves of sin, a Jesus who offers success without repentance, a Jesus who is spiritual but not Lord.  Others claim Jesus was only a prophet, but not the Son of God.

John is uncompromising: “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also” (1 John 2:23).  To deny Christ is to lose access to God, because the Father is revealed only through the Son (John 14:6).  For the believer today, this means we must be careful not only about what we reject but also about what we accept.  Sometimes denial of Christ is hidden in partial truths—messages that use Christian words but drain them of their biblical meaning.  This is why testing is essential.

The spirit of the antichrist

When believers use the word antichrist it is usually capitalized and refers to the beast of Revelation who declares himself to be God and corrupts the Temple of God.  But the word itself means both against Christ and in place of Christ.  The antichrist spirit opposes Christ by denying Him, and it replaces Christ by offering substitutes.  These substitutes may look spiritual, moral, or even compassionate, but they ultimately lead people away from the true Savior.  So while there is an Antichrist still to come, the ‘spirit of antichrist’ is already here deceiving through false teaching and misleading through false prophets.

This shows that the antichrist spirit is not limited to one person in the future—it is present wherever Christ is denied.

22Who is the liar?  It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.  23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.  (1 John 2:22-23)

What about me?

John’s instruction in 1 John 4:1–3 is both timeless and urgent.  Believers must test the spirits rather than blindly accept every message.  We must hold fast to the confession that every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh is from God, while recognizing that every spirit that denies Him is not.  Behind such denial is the spirit of the antichrist, already at work in the world.

This passage calls us to vigilance, humility, and faith.  Vigilance, because false prophets are real and active.  Humility, because discernment requires submission to God’s Word and Spirit.  And faith, because we know the Spirit within us is greater than the spirit of deception in the world.

To test the spirits, then, is not merely an intellectual exercise—it is a matter of spiritual survival.  It anchors us in Christ, the Word made flesh, the Savior of the world, the Lord who will return in glory.