"No system can be tolerated, however loud its claims or learned its adherents, which deny that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, in other words, either his eternal deity or his historical humanity. Those who deny the Son have neither the Father nor the Spirit" (Stott 156)
For three chapters, John laid out his argument that false teachers regularly infiltrated the church as antichrists who lie as they deny the essential truths the believers knew from the beginning. In chapter four, John puts aside the argument and picks up an admonition: "Test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (v 1). What is the test? "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God" (v 2).
Without equivocation, John put forth the one truth that separates Christianity from all other world religions: God Incarnate. Stott (1988) wrote, "The fundamental Christian doctrine which can never be compromised concerns the eternal divine-human person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (155). That is both the cornerstone and unshakable foundation. Any teacher who begins anywhere else is wrong, misleading, or lying.
The spirit of antichrist never stops trying to deceive the faithful. From Genesis 3 ("Did God actually say 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?' ") to 21st century post modern post-materialist philosophers ("my truth"), the Word of the Lord has been twisted, taken out of context, denied, ignored, and badly paraphrased by false prophets. Ezekiel heard from the Lord,
"Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! Your prophets have been like jackals among ruins, O Israel. You have not gone up into the breaches, or built up a wall for the house of Israel, that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord. They have seen false visions and lying divinations. They say, ‘Declares the Lord,’ when the Lord has not sent them, and yet they expect him to fulfill their word. Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination, whenever you have said, ‘Declares the Lord,’ although I have not spoken?” (Ezekiel 13: 3-7).
John wrote in chapter 2 that the false teachers in Ephesus denied that Jesus is the Christ, even though they had been taught correctly by Paul, Timothy, and John himself. Then, as now, people want to somehow merge the gospel into their own philosophical frameworks (Palmer 1982). The gospel is not another philosophy, nor is it malleable into various preferences. The gospel is simply Truth and believers must stand firm in it.
"As Christians we are tempted to make unnecessary concessions to those outside the Faith. We give in too much…We must show our Christian colours, if we are to be true to Jesus Christ. We cannot remain silent or concede everything away" (Lewis 262).
Conviction is hard to maintain in a world of half-truths, lies, and obfuscations. The world listens to the things it finds appealing, and the gospel offends them by calling out sin and its end result: death. John's encouragement following the admonition to test the spirits is that discerning the false teachers from the truth is simple: does the teacher proclaim that Jesus is the Christ, the Creator Incarnate who came to take away the sins of the world? That's the only test: Is Jesus who he says he is? Christians are God's beloved children (1 John 3:1), who are anointed by the Spirit (1 John 2:27), knowing that Jesus is the promised Messiah who takes away the sins of the world (1 John 2:2). Christians walk in the light as they obey Jesus' command to love one another (1 John 1:5-7, 2:10, 3:11).
This world is filled with the darkness of naturalism, human philosophy, and personal ego. Jesus is the light in which believers walk in love for God and each other. The simplicity of the gospel offends the world, so false teachers create palatable claims that align with dark and self-centered human wills. Christians, while walking in the Light and loving one another, must also stand against false teachings, identifying them with the simple question, "Whom do you say Jesus is?"
Resources
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
Lewis, C. S. "Cross-examination." God in the Dock, edited by W. Hooper, HarperCollins, 1970, pp. 258-267. Originally published on May 7, 1963.
Palmer, Earl F., The Communicator's Commentary Series, Volume 12: 1,2,3 John; Revelation. Word, Inc. 1982
Stott, John R.W. The Letters of John. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 19, InterVarsity Press, 1964, 1988.
