What does it mean that many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1)?

But there must be guards as to the operation of the Spirit of God, that is, the child of God must be guarded against all that would imitate the operation of the Spirit. Satan is extremely cunning, and his agents are abroad everywhere. We must remember that all that professes to be spiritual necessarily has a spirit behind it. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” The trying of the spirits therefore is testing the teachings of men by the pure Word of God. The Spirit of God can teach nothing contrary to the Word of God, and fundamental falsehood is the deliberate attack of Satanic wickedness, “the spirit of antichrist.” How urgent then is our own responsibility of learning the Word of God, to be preserved from the deceptions of evil spirits! If even while the apostle was still living, “many false prophets” had “gone out into the world,” their number today is increased beyond measure, comparative to the number of the prophets of Baal and of the groves in the days of Elijah, in contrast to the number of true men of God (1 Kings 18:19‑22). But these New Testament false prophets are of course those who assume a profession of Christianity which is hypocrisy, rather than the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The fourth chapter begins with exposing the subtlety of the present ways of the devil as regards what is religious. God, in giving the Spirit, has provided ministry under Christ for men (Eph. 4:7, 11-16). But here we learn that there are many false prophets who speak in the power of the spirit of error (lit. deceit). In all affection we are consequently exhorted to try the spirits. Of course we must believe that there are spirits, and that men who preach by them are in the sight of God identified with them, a fact of appalling solemnity. "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1).

1 John 4:1. Having spoken to his beloved children of the gift of the Holy Spirit, given to them that they might know that the Father and the Son dwelt in them, the aged Apostle warns them about the spirits that spoke through false prophets, who sought to lead them astray. Through these false teachers, the enemy endeavoured to introduce among the saints of God doctrines destructive of the foundations of Christianity. At the beginning, even as in these last days, there were "false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ;" being actually Satan's ministers (2 Cor. 11:13-15). It is not enough for a professed servant of the Lord to claim that he is speaking by the Holy Spirit to be heard by the saints of God. Indeed, where such a claim was made there might be good ground for suspecting that the source of the ministry was not divine. The spirit by which one speaks must be subjected to the divine test. The false prophets of whom John speaks here had once been among the saints of God, but they had gone out into the world, manifesting by their apostasy that they did not really belong to the Christian circle (see 1 John 2:19). From without they still sought to influence those within.

He says that many false prophets have gone out into the world, that is, men who pretended that their words were uttered with the authority of God, but who were liars and deceivers, and therefore, emissaries of Satan. It is generally thought that because they went out into the world, the reference must be to teachers of evil doctrine who leave the assemblies for the world.

No doubt the description includes this class, but it surely applies also to those who do their deadly work in the gathering itself, where the children of God are, and are liable to be misled. "World" in John has, as we have already seen, a moral meaning more often than a local one. Going into the world may not mean moving from one place to another, but the adoption of worldly principles and ways of acting and thinking. The false prophet is guided by worldly habits of thought, and not by the Spirit of truth.

The Apostle John, the last of the apostolic band, lived long enough to see that, "many false prophets are gone out into the world." The Apostles whether by word of mouth or in writing, had communicated the inspired Word of God, manifestly moved and borne along by the Holy Spirit. Before long other men rose up. They too spoke as those borne along by the power of a spirit, and consequently their utterances also were inspired.

56 "Try the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world." Men had slept, and the enemy had sown tares. Satan always seeks by violence and opposition to resist the coming in of truth, and to hinder its reception; or if he cannot do that, then, when it is come in, he will corrupt the truth. "Evil men have crept in unawares," false prophets (or false spirits) are gone out into the world - holy kind of men, it may be, in their way, but false prophets, who attack true and simple souls, with great apparent power, a mingling of much real truth; but error must be put down in the heart and conscience.

If God in virtue of redemption was pleased to give the Holy Spirit to the Christian in a measure and way which was not nor could 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. He acts by apostates, the many false prophets who not only mislead others to perdition, but incur themselves vengeance more severely than the guilty Jew or the dark Gentile. Hence the care to present the two-fold criterion of the truth in the simplest and most direct form for the help of every Christian who needs it.

"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits if (or, whether) they are of God." It is a question of discerning, not Christians, but the real character of those who claimed to speak in the Spirit. This the enemy simulated; and his power of subtle persuasion has ever been great since man's first temptation in paradise. "He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh falsehood he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and its father" (John 8:44). Evil spirits were more than ever at work to oppose the Spirit of truth, as very many unclean spirits in the possessed were cast out by the Holy One of God when here. In the Gospel of the divine Servant of God and man, it is the first miracle recorded; Christ's word had power to bless man, and expel the demon. And now that the intrepid and unflinching apostle to the uncircumcision was gone, his warning to the elders of the church in Ephesus was being rapidly verified: "I know, that there will come in among you after my departure grievous wolves, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall arise men speaking perverted things to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:29-30).

This outbreak of evil was aggravated before the eyes of the last apostle. He appeals to every saint on his faith in Christ and in the word of God; and strips the true question of all the gloss of reasoning and sentiment by which the enemy obscured what was at stake. It was really giving up God and His word under pretension of new and higher truth. Some antichrists denied the real humanity of Christ, others His true deity, and others their union in one person. In any of these ways the truth of His person, and of His work consequently, was abandoned and sought to be overthrown. They knew the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent; and they had the Spirit to help them. Thus they were as simple children of God not only responsible but by grace adequate to prove what sort of spirit wrought in these new lights. They were bound for His sake and for their own souls to sift their novelties, "because many false prophets were gone out into the world." Were these men such? Christ had given true "apostles and prophets," who conjointly form the foundation of the church dogmatically. Hence we have Mark and Luke, to say nothing of writers of Epistles, who were not apostles but prophets. Satan imitated this, and availed himself of these unbelievers in going out into the world to lead astray and destroy. There were "many false prophets."

The first test is as to the Spirit. "Herein we know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesseth Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God." The common rendering fails to give its real force; for the introduction of "that" and "is" is not only uncalled for, but makes it to be mere confession of a fact; whereas the apostolic word means the confession of His person. Is it true that an evil spirit would deny the historical fact that Jesus Christ is come in flesh? Do not Mohammedans admit this fact without hesitation, if the Jews do not? And assuredly some of the most extreme and pernicious sceptics allow the fact, and eulogise the Lord after their fashion as the best of men.

Having introduced the Spirit into what he has to say to them, the apostle raises a note of warning, because every spirit is not the Holy Spirit of God, and many false prophets had gone out into the world. We are, perhaps, a little apt to take things easy, and to go about as carelessly as if there were not a foe in the universe, forgetful that the spiritual world is ever in restless activity, and that a great warfare is being waged between God and Satan, between righteousness and sin, between good and evil, between heaven and hell, in which no quarter is given or taken, where no truce note is at any time sounded, where the battle is always at its hottest, and where the contending hosts fight at all times with all their might. It is in the souls of men that this war is being waged with restless activity, and the issues are eternal. We require to take this to heart, for we are in danger of flattering ourselves that occasionally there comes a suspension of hostilities, that an armistice has been proclaimed, and the ever watchful foe is not slow to take advantage of our carelessness. This battle, as I have said, is fought out in men. It is men that come to us, and that seek to get us to hearken to their words, but it is wicked spirits in the persons of these men with whom we have to wrestle.

At the end of 1 John 3 the Holy Spirit is mentioned as having been given to believers, and by this we know that God dwelleth in us. Immediately afterwards we find the work of the enemy in sending forth many false prophets into the world, and the necessity of trying the spirits; for ever since the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, the tactics of the enemy have been those of spiritual imposture. The world's true character comes out here, and note that it is a world into whose bosom many false prophets have been received: no one is more likely to receive a ready welcome from the world than a false prophet. Such have been popular in all times.