1 John 4:1 - Meaning and Application

The apostle has already said that we can know God’s life in us by the Spirit he has given. Now he shows that this same Spirit can be told apart from other spirits that appear in the world.

He first warns the believers to be careful about spirits and spiritual teachers who had arisen. “Beloved, do not believe every spirit” means, do not trust every person who claims to speak by God’s Spirit, or says they have visions, inspiration, or new revelation. Since God had truly given spiritual gifts, others were now pretending to have them too. It is no surprise that false claims grow where real truth has already appeared.

Then he tells them to test the spirits, to examine whether they are from God (1 John 4:1). God has given his Spirit in these later days, but not to everyone who claims that gift. Believers are allowed and expected to use careful judgment in matters of religion. The reason is clear: many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). In the days before and during Christ’s coming, many people expected a redeemer, and some used that hope to present themselves as prophets and messiahs, just as Jesus warned would happen (Matthew 24:23, 24). So it should not seem strange that false teachers rise in the church. That happened in the apostles’ own time, and it is a dangerous sign when people boast of being inspired preachers when they are not.

He then gives the test for these claiming spirits. Their teaching is to be judged by what they say about Jesus Christ. “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God” (1 John 4:2). Jesus Christ must be confessed as the Son of God, the eternal Word and life who was with the Father from the beginning. He is also to be confessed as the Son of God who came into our human nature, lived among us, and suffered and died in Jerusalem. Anyone who truly believes and teaches this with a mind enlightened by God is speaking by the Spirit of God.

On the other hand, “every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not from God” (1 John 4:3). God has given such clear testimony about Jesus Christ, who was here in the world in a body like ours and is now in heaven, that any supposed inspiration which denies this cannot be from God. The whole message of revealed religion centers on Christ, his person, and his work. So an organized opposition to him is especially serious.

This is the spirit of antichrist, about which they had heard that it would come, and which was already in the world (1 John 4:3). God had already said that antichrists would arise, and that hostile spirits would oppose his truth. He also foreknew that one chief antichrist would come later and wage a long and terrible war against Christ, his church, his honor, and his kingdom in the world. That greater enemy would have his way prepared by smaller antichrists and by a spirit of error already shaping people’s minds. Even in the apostles’ day, this antichristian spirit had begun.

It is a fearful and deep judgment of God when people are given over to such darkness that they set themselves against the Son of God and against the Father’s testimony about him. But believers have already been warned that this opposition would come. So they should not be shaken by it. The more they see Christ’s word fulfilled, the more they should be confirmed in the truth of it.