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The First Epistle of John Chapter 4 (1Jn 4:1) Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. John warns against naivety among Christians. It may well be that you would listen to any Bible teacher who calls himself a Christian and sounds plausible. It may be that you would listen to whatever any professing Christian tells you is right for your life and think this message has come from God. John means for us to be more discerning about listening to spiritual teaching, because the human spirit of the teacher might be influenced either by the Holy Spirit or by the spirit which is of the world. Demons are teachers of religious ‘truth’ ( 1 Tim 4:1), the devil tried unsuccessfully to mislead Jesus in this way (Matt. 4:6) and many so called teachers are influenced by demon spirits, not by God. To speak anything in the name of the Lord which is outside of the scope of His Word is to be a false prophet. (1Jn 4:2-3) 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, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world. What follows is not a test of infallibility of the teacher, but a test of the source of their teaching. If you really want to know if you can trust what any religious leader or teacher says, then you must examine their Christology. Nothing less than an exalted Christology, the belief and confession that Jesus is fully man yet fully God manifest in the flesh is a basic requirement. If they are wrong here, they will be wrong everywhere –and they are influenced by the spirit of rebellion, which is manifest in the hearts of men, but which finds its origin in the first rebel – Satan, who makes it his business to lead people astray from truth and blind them to it (2 Cor. 4:4). (1Jn 4:4) You are from God, little children, and have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. John is certain of the conversion of his readers; he is confident that they are born of God and share his nature; and therefore he is able to assert that they have perfect victory over all the world and all
the lying spirits of antichrist - for the one who dwells in them (Jesus Christ) is greater all these in every way. (1Jn 4:5) They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world's perspective and the world listens to them. The messengers of Satan are subtly made to appear like true servants of the gospel (2 Cor. 11:1315), but they cannot understand the truth which we know, for they have not experienced it as we have. Not being born of God, they belong to the sphere of the world. Jesus said to them ‘you are from below I am from above’ (John 8:23). Their nature is carnal, for they are born of flesh, but it is not spiritual, for they are not born of the Spirit. Being of the world, God is not their father, and they remain under the influence of Satan – this is why they cannot understand what God says (John 8:4345). (1Jn 4:6) We are from God; the person who knows God listens to us, but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit. We share the same nature of God, and so our message is breathed from the truth that lives within us. All those who have this same nature are able to recognise God speaking through us, for he is their father too. If a person will not respond to the word of God, they are not governed by the spirit of truth, but are in error (KJV ‘error’ better translation than NET ‘deceit’). All those who believe know the truth (1 John 2:21). (1Jn 4:7-8) Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love John’s appeal is that we should be careful to love each other, and that we should make it our practise to find ways in which we can show this love. For true love is from God and finds its source in the God who is love, and so the expression of love by a person is also a demonstration that they have been born of God and therefore have a living relationship with God (knows God). Those who do not love as Christ loves are not born of God, for his nature is not evident in their lives. (1Jn 4:9-10) By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The love in God’s heart was revealed by his action. He gave his only son and sent him into the world on a mission to redeem lost sinners and reconcile those who had become God’ enemies because of sin. This action involved his suffering the awful cross and this reveals the great length to which the divine love was willing to go in order to bring us back to God. It was not that we loved God, and besought him to deliver us. Before this gospel came we were estranged from God, as the scripture says ‘there is none who seeks God’ (Rom 3:11). Yet it was Christ who died bearing our sins so that we might be at peace with God (Rom 5:1). (1Jn 4:11) Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another.
John’s application of this truth is simply that if God loves each of us, then we should love each other. We are part of the community which is loved by God, born of God, and which knows God. (1Jn 4:12) No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us. Although God is invisible (1 Tim 1:17) for He is Spirit (John 4:24) yet by his people’s demonstration of love, his reality and presence become tangible in the community of His people. If we love one another, we will know and be assured that God dwells in us and the more we love, the more we will grow in assurance and maturity in Christ. The measure of the spiritual growth of a church is not the size of the congregation, nor how contemporary is the worship band, nor how charismatic the preacher is, nor even how zealous the evangelism is. Rather, it is how much the members love each other that reveals a healthy spirituality. (1Jn 4:13) By this we know that we reside in God and He in us: in that he has given us of His Spirit. In this way we will now that we are in God and He is in us, because it is His Spirit who dwells in us and supernaturally pours his love into our hearts - enabling us to love our brothers and sisters in the way that Christ does. (1Jn 4:14) And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. The person writing this exhortation one of the original twelve disciples who saw with their own eyes the evidence of Christ being the son of God sent into the world to be our saviour. It is also the testimony of our own experience – we know the father sent the son to be the saviour of the world because he has saved our souls. (1Jn 4:15) If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God. It is by faith that we confess Christ as the Son of God, and by believing we are born again, entering into a relationship with God wherein he dwells in us, and we in him. (1Jn 4:16) And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him. Through Christ we have come to know and experience the love that God has for us. Since God is by nature love, those who live in love live in God and God dwells in them. (1Jn 4:17) By this love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the Day of Judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. As we continue with Christ and grow in His love we become more mature and complete in our relationship with God so that we may have confidence, a bold assurance, when we stand before Him in the Day of Judgment to face Him without shame because He loves us. As Jesus is so are we in this world – Jesus is the son of God, and so are we His sons, sharing the nature of Christ who dwells
within (Gal. 2:20). So it ought to be that we share His life and are viewed by God as part of the whole beloved church of His son on earth. (1Jn 4:18) There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. We do not need to fear someone who loves us so perfectly, for it is His perfect love for us drives all fear from us. Fear brings the dread of punishment and those who are afraid have not attained the full maturity of love, or as the Living Bible says, ‘are not fully convinced that He really loves them’. (1Jn 4:19) We love because he loved us first. The source and power of the love we have is found in the fact that he first loved us. An old chorus asks: ‘How can I help but love Him, when He loved me so?’ (1Jn 4:20-21) If anyone says "I love God" and yet hates his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And the commandment we have from him is this: that the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian too. John sums up the exhortation of the chapter as he asserts that since God loves us we ought to love each other too. The verse may well be a rhetorical question, as it is in the AV: If a man cannot love his fellow believer, whom he has seen, how can he possibly love the God whom he has not seen? It is a commandment which John heard from the mouth of the Lord – love one another (John 13:3435). © Mathew Bartlett 2012 Bible Studies Online UK www.biblestudiesonline.org.uk You may copy, print or distribute our studies freely in any form, just so long as you make no charges. Sign up today for our FREE monthly Bible study magazine “Living Word” Scriptures taken from the NET Bible www.bible.org