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.