Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, if they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
John has just told his readers that God gave them His Spirit. Now he warns them: not every spiritual-sounding voice comes from God. Many false prophets are already at work, and ordinary believers — not officials — are the ones told to test them.
The order matters. The warning comes right after John mentions the Spirit given to believers.
At the end of 1 John 3 John mentions the Holy Spirit given to believers, and by this we know that God dwells in us. Right afterwards we find the work of the enemy: he sends many false prophets into the world, and we must test the spirits. Ever since the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, the enemy's tactics have been those of spiritual imposture.
Where God gives something real, a counterfeit follows.
If God, in virtue of redemption, was pleased to give the Holy Spirit to the Christian in a measure and way which was not and could not be before Christ's death, resurrection and ascension, Satan set himself to counterfeit the heavenly gift, and thwart the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
The verse does not ask you to decide whether a man is saved. It asks something narrower.
The task is not to work out who is a Christian. It is to discern the real character of those who claimed to speak in the Spirit. The enemy imitated that, and his power of subtle persuasion has been great ever since man's first temptation in the garden of Eden.
John writes of "spirits" rather than speakers, and that wording carries weight.
Here we learn that there are many false prophets who speak in the power of the spirit of error (literally, deceit). In all affection we are therefore urged to test the spirits. Of course we must believe that there are spirits. And men who preach by them are, in God's sight, identified with them — a fact of appalling solemnity.
John does not hand this task to a few experts.
He appeals to every saint on his faith in Christ and in the word of God. He clears away all the polished reasoning and sentiment the enemy used to hide what was really at stake… They knew the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent, and they had the Spirit to help them. So, as simple children of God, they were responsible to prove what kind of spirit was at work in these new teachers — and by grace they were able to.
The duty reaches beyond those who teach.
The whole family of God are urged not to believe every spirit, but to test the spirits… Those who hear, as well as those who teach, need to take heed. Responsibility rests on all sides, and no one can escape it.
The next verse gives the test: confessing Jesus Christ come in flesh. That means owning the Person, not just agreeing with a fact of history.
Demons freely admitted that He had come in the flesh. But they never owned Him, and that makes an enormous difference. The government of a country would admit that a pretender had landed, but they would not own him. A rebel might admit that the king had come, when he could not help it. But owning him was another thing. That made a loyal subject.
A common instinct is to trust a teacher because he seems good. Commentators warn that this replaces Scripture's authority with a man's reputation.
Do not let yourselves be misled by the common thought that men of God could not teach what is false. That sets a man's goodness up against the truth of the word of God… If you take men's goodness as security for their doctrine, you cannot do it.
Nor by the speaker's ability:
Suppose someone speaks by an evil spirit. He may be learned, his words may be eloquent, his tone may seem moral — yet in some form or other he will degrade Christ. Suppose someone speaks by the Holy Spirit. His words may be simple and he may be unlearned — yet he will exalt Christ.
John says the false prophets went out "into the world" — and the world receives them gladly.
"Test the spirits!" is now the call. Since God gave the Holy Spirit, the enemy has tried in many ways to imitate His power and action, so we must put everything to the proof. One must not believe every spirit. As we have often noticed, the false prophets are always more popular than the true ones. There were many prophets of Baal in Elijah's time, and many are now gone out into the world.
- Gift — God gave His Spirit to believers. The warning about false prophets comes right after, because the enemy's method since Pentecost has been imitation.
- Counterfeit — Behind a preacher stands a spirit. God identifies the man with the spirit he speaks by. The question is not whether he is a Christian, but what speaks through him.
- Command — "Beloved" — the testing is laid on every believer. Those who hear are as responsible as those who teach, and grace makes even the simplest child of God able to do it.
- Criterion — The Person of Christ decides it. Demons admitted that He had come. Owning Him is another thing, and that is what marks the loyal subject.
- Caution — Never test by a man's goodness, learning or eloquence. Test by the Word, and watch whether Christ is exalted or degraded.
Hereby ye know the Spirit of God every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God;
John writes to people surrounded by voices that all claim to speak for God. He gives them one test: what does the voice do with Jesus Christ? The whole test rests on one Person. So what does it mean to "confess" Him — and is agreeing to a historical fact enough?
Much turns on how the sentence is read. One writer uses an older translation that reads "confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh," without the extra words most English Bibles add. He argues that the common wording turns a test of the Person into a test of information:
The first test concerns the Spirit. "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God." The common rendering fails to give its real force. Adding "that" and "is" is not only uncalled for; it makes the words a mere confession of a fact. But the apostle's words mean the confession of His Person. Would an evil spirit deny the historical fact that Jesus Christ has come in flesh? Some of the most extreme and harmful sceptics allow the fact, and praise the Lord in their own way as the best of men. But no one truly confesses the Person of the Lord, as the apostle sets it out here, except by the Spirit of God.
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Another writer sets admitting a fact about someone against owning that person:
Demons had no trouble admitting that He had come in the flesh, but they never owned Him. That makes an enormous difference. The government of a country would admit that a pretender had landed, but they would not own him. A rebel might admit that the king had come, when he could not help it. But owning him was another thing. That is what made a loyal subject.
The short phrase reaches in two directions at once:
The denial covers both His Deity and His Manhood. He came "in flesh," which shows He was indeed a Man. And He existed so as to "come" in that way, which shows He was more than Man — even God.
Commentators differ on how much the phrase proves by itself. One holds that it shows He existed before His birth, yet does not settle the question of deity:
Just to confess this fact would not be enough, for it does not imply His deity, as some have said. It does imply that He existed before His birth. But if He had been an archangel, you could still say that He came in flesh. The confession of this fact is not enough. The confession of His Person includes everything.
The verse had a concrete target in John's own day:
History tells us that one of the first heresies to trouble the early church is the one John is meeting here. It is called Docetism. It taught that matter was evil, so Christ could not have had a true human body of flesh and blood. His body only seemed to be real; it was in fact an illusion.
This one confession works as a sorting line. Making it would cost a deceiving spirit everything it stands on:
There is one thing that will reveal the true character of every spirit, and that is the blessed Person of the Lord Jesus Christ come in flesh. The real and perfect manhood of the Saviour, when the Word became flesh, is brought before us here... Their whole system depends on not recognising Jesus Christ come in flesh. If they did recognise Him, they would have to recognise the One to whom all authority has been given, and their own independent position would collapse.
The test is finer than a check for outright denial:
A definite test is given for proving the spirits — that is, Jesus Christ come in flesh. Every spirit that would take away even the smallest part of the divine or human glory of our Lord is not of God.
A teacher cannot hide on this point for long:
Of course no single book covers every line of truth, and with pamphlets and tracts this is even more the case. But take the speaker or writer who confesses "Jesus Christ come in the flesh." When he speaks or writes, he cannot fail to reveal that he is sound in this vital truth of Christianity.
- Confess a Person. The test is not agreeing with a fact about Jesus. It is owning Jesus Christ Himself. Sceptics and demons grant the fact and still fail.
- Confess both. "Come in flesh" says He was truly Man. That He came at all says He was more than Man. Writers differ on how far the phrase alone proves deity.
- Confess against the lie. John was answering the teaching that Christ's body only appeared to be real flesh and blood.
- Confess and lose your independence. No false spirit can make this confession, because it would mean bowing to the One who holds all authority.
- Confess or subtract. Anything that takes away the least part of His divine or human glory fails the test.
and every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not of God and this is that [power] of the antichrist, [of] which ye have heard that it comes, and now it is already in the world.
John now turns his test around. A spirit that will not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not from God, and that failure has a name: the spirit of the antichrist.
(Note: the ESV reads "does not confess Jesus." Older translations have a longer wording: "does not confess Jesus Christ come in the flesh." That is the wording these commentators discuss.)
The test is not whether someone agrees that a man called Jesus once lived. Kelly says that treating the words as a bare claim about history drains them. Even people far from faith admit that much.
The first test is about the Spirit. "By this we know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God." The common rendering fails to give its real force. Adding "that" and "is" is not only uncalled for. It turns the words into the mere confession of a fact, when the apostle's word means the confession of His Person. Is it true that an evil spirit would deny the historical fact that Jesus Christ has come in flesh? And some of the most extreme and damaging sceptics allow the fact. They praise the Lord in their own way as the best of men.
John does not describe an outright denial. Hole points out that the verse catches something quieter than that.
Jesus Christ came in flesh of a perfectly holy kind. So there was in Him that wonderful display of eternal life which the first verse of this letter speaks of. To deny His coming in flesh denies two things. It denies that such a clear display among us was possible. It also denies that the divine fulness was in Him to display. We need not wait for a flat denial — even the failure to confess the truth betrays the spirit of antichrist.
Praise for Jesus as a good man passes no test at all. Hamilton Smith shows that "come in flesh" points back to who He was before He came. It also shapes how the one who confesses Him lives.
They may indeed confess that Jesus Christ is truly a man, and a model man. But do they confess that He has "come in flesh", and so is a divine Person who existed before He came? And to confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not only to confess the truth of His Person. It is also to bow personally in obedience to Him as Lord. The false teacher will not confess the truth of His Person, and will not own Him as Lord. So he proves that he is not of God, and that he speaks by a false spirit.
Because the standard is Christ's glory, the same measure that condemns also confirms. Kelly turns the verse into a rule a believer can apply to any teaching.
The spirits which are not of God refuse to own the personal glory of Christ, unless divine power bends and breaks them. The Holy Spirit of God loves to own it. Such is the test. So if any doctrine undermines the glory of Christ, you have clear proof that it is of Satan. And whatever exalts Christ, according to the word, is of God.
John says this spirit is in the world already. Kelly finds it harder to spot in our own day than in history, and he says where it starts.
There are many false prophets, as was said in the first verse, gone out into the world; and I believe there are now. But it is a very difficult thing to realise it in the time we ourselves live in. We can see it in times past; the great difficulty is discerning what is at work now. We are in exactly the same circumstances the saints were in then. For as surely as the Holy Spirit keeps working, so surely will the subtle power of Satan be there to oppose... Its earliest ground is not the godless world outside; it must begin among those who once bore the name of Christ.
So what should a believer do with teaching that fails the test? Crain draws the conclusion.
The New Testament apostles and prophets warned the people of God that this spirit of antichrist would come. John, the last of them, now tells them it has already come. It is not that the Antichrist himself has come. Many have come who are marked by his spirit. That spirit refuses to submit to the Son of God come in flesh, Jesus Christ. So we are right to reject as not of God every system of teaching that disowns or dishonours Jesus Christ come in flesh.
- Person — The test asks who Christ is, not just that He once lived. Sceptics grant the fact and still fail it.
- Silence — A teacher need not deny Him openly. Not confessing Him is the mark, so dodging the question tells you as much as an attack.
- Before and Lord — "Come in flesh" means He was a divine Person before He came. To confess it is also to bow to Him as Lord.
- Measure — Whatever undermines Christ's glory comes from Satan. Whatever exalts Him, in line with Scripture, comes from God.
- Now — The Antichrist himself is not here yet. His spirit already works, and it starts among those who bear Christ's name. So a believer may refuse teaching that dishonours Him.
*Ye* are of God, children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that [is] in you than he that [is] in the world.
Near the end of his letter John warns his readers about false prophets. Teachers who oppose Christ are already at work among them. Then he turns and tells them what they already are and what they have already done. The reason lies in someone else.
John stresses the word "you." He sets his readers against the teachers who claimed to be the trustworthy guides.
"You are of God, dear children" is the address to the whole family. It is also the emphatic "you." The false prophets said they were the reliable guides. No, he means, they are enemies of Christ, sent by Satan. "You" are God's children. These proud, false guides look down on the dear children. God in Christ is the source of every blessing you have: eternal life, forgiveness, a place with Himself as Father, and the gift of His indwelling Spirit.
The tone matters as much as the content. John did not write these warnings to unsettle anyone.
He has written these warnings with a father's tenderness. He does not want to create doubts or fears in simple-hearted believers.
John does not say they will overcome, or that they might. He uses the past tense. One writer shows what that rules out.
For believers the victory has already been won. It is not a question of whether we can win arguments against false teachers. It is not about persuading others to accept the truth. Neither is it that we will overcome them at some future time. No. We have overcome them. How? Because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us – greater than he that is in the world. The overcoming here is not a battle that we fight and win. It is the assured fact of the permanent possession of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The verse compares two persons. One writer names each of them, and points out one difference between us and Christ.
The last words of 1 John 3 speak of "the Spirit whom He has given us," and we know God gave Him to stay with us forever. That is the Spirit John means when he says that He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. The one who is in the world is the spirit Scripture calls the god and ruler of this world. The Lord Jesus said, "The ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on Me." He does have a claim on us, because the flesh is still in us. But the Holy Spirit lives in us, so the One in us is greater.
If the safeguard were sharper judgment or better teachers, the verse would say so. It does not.
"You are of God, little children." He does not rest them on their own competence or ability to judge, or on the authority of other men, but on the Spirit of God, "for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." It is as if he said, "If the Holy Spirit is in you, He will overcome. If not, Satan will win."
The Spirit's power showed itself in what these readers did not believe.
Earlier the Apostle spoke to the young believers about the many antichrists. He told them, "You have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge … the anointing that you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you" (1 John 2:20, 27). Now he speaks of the gift of the Spirit to them, and tells them that He is greater than all the power of evil in the world. They had not been taken in by false revelations. Evil spirits gave those revelations and pretended they came from the Spirit of God.
By the world's measure these believers were nobodies. That is the point.
The "children" are stronger than those who are of the world, because He who is in them is greater than he who is in the world. The power of God is there through the Holy Spirit's presence. It is greater than the power of the restless, pitiless spirit who is in the world… what a true remedy for worldliness (that is, the spirit of this age)! These poor, weak creatures (as the world would say) are yet superior to all the world's power.
No believer is too new or too small for this. But safety comes with a condition.
The weakest, youngest believer has the Spirit of God living in him. The power within him is far greater than the power of the evil one. The might of the Holy Spirit is the power of God, infinite, resourceful, omnipotent. Christians are safe as they yield themselves to the Holy Spirit of God. Satan's tricks may be subtle. But God is behind everything, and the Christian has a wonderful resource in prayer.
- Greater source. John says "You are of God" with force, against rival teachers. God in Christ is the origin of every blessing you have, including the indwelling Spirit.
- Greater person. The One in you is the Holy Spirit; the one in the world is the prince of this world — and the comparison is not close.
- Greater victory. "Have overcome" is past tense. The victory rests on having the Spirit inside you for good, not on out-arguing anyone.
- Greater safeguard. Protection from error does not come from your own competence or from other men. It comes from the Spirit, who helps you spot what is false and reject it.
- Greater in the smallest. The weakest, youngest believer has this power. Safety lies in yielding to the Spirit, and prayer is always there.
*They* are of the world; for this reason they speak [as] of the world, and the world hears them.
John has been telling his readers to test the spirits. Here he gives a second test: not what a teacher says about Christ, but where his words come from and who listens to him. Two questions follow: what does "of the world" mean, and why does the world give such teachers a ready hearing?
"Of the world" is easy to misread. It sounds as if these teachers simply talked about worldly topics. One commentator looks at the wording to show that the point is where their words start.
"They are of the world." The source of all their teaching, and of all their conduct and aims, was not God, but the world which is enmity against Him... "For this reason they speak out of the world," as it literally runs: "(as) of the world" would be our idiom. The world which cast out God in Christ, and crucified Him, was the spring of all they taught. The sense is not that they spoke "about" the world... The world is the source, not the subject-matter, out of which they spoke.
Like recognises like. People who share that source understand such a speaker and welcome him.
The false teachings are "of the world." They come out of worldly principles and carry a worldly stamp. As a result worldly folk enjoy them, understand them and receive them. Such teaching flatters them and settles them in their worldliness, instead of disturbing them and moving them out of it.
The same commentator says why such talk satisfies the people who hear it.
The world loves its own. The world has no knowledge of God, and no knowledge of sin, which needs Him to step in through the Lord Jesus to give both eternal life and everlasting redemption. So the world is content with the grand-sounding guesses of blind men, which leave God out and exalt man as he is.
What does this kind of teaching sound like? Often it sounds generous and high-minded.
They are of the world, and speak according to its principles, and people listen to them readily. The false prophets very often put forward a teaching about human welfare: the improvement of the whole human race, universal brotherhood, and other very grand schemes. But all these things are of the world, that is, according to its principles.
The same writer once saw a huge crowd around a London preacher. He told a friend the preaching could not be the gospel, or the crowd would not be so large. It turned out to be moral advice about sober living and good citizenship. His conclusion: "Such teaching always finds a ready welcome, as long as it leaves out man's fall and ruin and God's claims."
If the world's ear is the mark of this speech, a believer has a plain test to use.
A second way to detect false spirits is by their connection with the world. Are they popular with the world? Every false spirit is of the world and speaks as of the world. So it speaks in line with the thoughts and principles of the world. Because they speak like this, the world hears them. Clearly, nothing that is truly of God will be popular with the world... Take any preaching or religious book that is popular with the world. In the measure of its popularity it stands condemned as not teaching the truth.
Another writer adds a second check. Do not weigh only the size of the crowd; listen to the content. "The living Christ, known within the soul by the indwelling Spirit, is absent from what they say."
The verse also shapes what a Christian may expect of this age. It rules out the hope that the world is slowly turning to the truth.
The truth can only be popular in a very different world. Only there could those who hold the truth expect to be popular. The world hears those who speak of the world. The apostle has no idea of a world that the truth slowly works through, so that it stops being the world in reality... We gain nothing if the sharp line between the world and the people of God almost disappears.
- Source. Their words come out of the world, not just about it. The world is the spring their teaching flows from.
- Sympathy. Worldly hearers share that source, so such teaching flatters them and settles them in their worldliness instead of moving them out of it.
- Sound. The teaching often sounds noble — universal brotherhood, human improvement. The world welcomes it as long as it leaves out man's ruin and God's claims.
- Standard. Ask two questions of any ministry: is it popular with the world, and is the living Christ present in what is said?
- Separation. John holds out no hope of a world slowly won over by truth. The sharp line between the world and God's people is worth keeping clear.
*We* are of God; he that knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
John ends his call to test the spirits with a second measure: does a teacher listen to the apostles? The apostles' word carries settled authority. How a person answers it marks the line between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
The "we" here is not every believer. John speaks for a smaller group with a commission.
"We are of God" (we, the apostles)… The words of the apostles are authoritative. The people these messengers of the Lord spoke to were responsible to receive the word, because it came from an apostle. The refusal to submit would show that the person was of the world, and following the spirit of error. Our responsibility is the same, for we have the letters written by the apostles.
The chapter has already tested spirits by what they say about Christ. This verse adds a second test, drawn from a different source.
The first test against error is Jesus Christ come in flesh, whom the Holy Spirit always glorifies. The spirit that does not confess Him is not of God. The second is not the law and the prophets (divinely inspired as they were), but the new testimony of Christ by apostles and prophets. The New Testament also is indispensable to guard against the spirit of error.
No apostle is alive today, so the test reaches us through what they wrote. That has a consequence for anyone who claims to stand between the reader and the text, or who quietly replaces it with human ideas.
We do not have the Apostles in person today, but we have their writings. These writings are the inspired Word of God. The Apostles are of God: He sent them out with a divine commission from the Son of God… A man therefore shows where he is by his attitude to what the Apostles have spoken… Anyone who makes the church a teacher, or who would make any individual or class the exclusive interpreters of the Scriptures, is exposed as not of God. The reason is that we are called to listen directly to the Apostles, through the word God has given to us by them… With the second test, there may be no denial that the Apostles have the word of God. But there may be an ignoring of it, and the substitution of all kinds of human ideas for the word of the living God.
The test is strict. And the reason is the One who stands behind the messengers.
This is strict, but it is the truth. And if it is true, it is real grace to let all the saints know that there is such a standard — not Christ's Person only, but the apostolic word. If we truly confess Him, we shall surely hear them; if we refuse them, we do not really own Him who sent and inspired them.
Some soften the apostles' words rather than reject them outright. John leaves no room for that.
John speaks here in the strongest terms about the absolute authority of the apostles' ministry. They were of God: He had commissioned them, and their word carries the same vital authority today. There can be no middle ground, no compromising position of any kind. If the apostles' word is minimised or modified by man's bland deceit, this is an actual refusal of God's voice. If one knows God, he hears the apostles: he does not try to explain their words away… To this end we must of course be familiar with the Word of God, to know what the apostles teach.
John does not promise that believers will reform the world. He promises something narrower: power to tell truth from error, however it sounds.
The Apostle himself believed in the power of truth as much as anyone. But he had no empty expectation that the truth had power to reform the world. "You are of God, little children." This is the guard — not of the power, but of the means. It does not say "overcomes," but "hears us" — he is of the truth. They had the spiritual power of discovering what was truth. The means of telling truth from error was the recognition of the Word. Whoever did not submit to the inspired Word was not to be listened to. Though they might speak like angels, it was not of God, it was of themselves.
- Sent — The "we" is the apostles. God commissioned them, so their word carries His authority, not just their own.
- Second — This test stands beside the chapter's first one, the confession of Jesus Christ come in flesh. John gives both.
- Written — The apostles are gone, but their writings remain. Hearing them today means reading Scripture, with no special class of interpreters in between.
- Divided — There is no middle ground. Explaining their words away is a refusal of God's voice; refusing the messengers is refusing the One who sent them.
- Discerned — The gift is not power to reform the world. It is power to tell truth from error. Measure every voice by the inspired Word — which means knowing it.