What is orthodoxy? How can we tell if a teaching is orthodox?

The Spirit had another service to perform, another truth to unfold. "Ungodly men had crept in unawares," and it became necessary to warn against evil. It is far more difficult to preserve blessing when it is brought in than to testify of it at the first. So we find in Jude the exhortation given to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, not merely to publish the tidings of the blessing that had been brought in pure and uncorrupted. "Believe not every spirit." Far happier to say, "Believe the Spirit"; but because of error it had to be said, "Believe not" - the mystery of iniquity which was to come in, and was already in the world, required it. All the Apostles had to warn thus against the evil which had come in, and John more especially, as being the last of them.

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.

It is a great mercy to have orthodoxy professed; by orthodoxy, I mean the cardinal truths of the Gospel, although, of course, the profession of orthodoxy is not life. There may be orthodoxy, and yet not life, especially in these days; and we have come back to where the Spirit of God will keep the soul in possession of the truth. There may not be salvation, though there may be orthodoxy of profession.

Of course, the ultimate test of the truth of any doctrine is whether it is in accord with biblical revelation. The fact that the church taught something in the first century does not make it true, and, likewise, if the church did not teach something until the twentieth century, it is not necessarily false. Tertullian, Anseim, Luther, Calvin, Darby, Scofield, and the Westminster divines were all instruments in the hands of God to minister truth to His church, but none of them was perfect in all his thinking. People do not make a doctrine right or wrong. Defective life never enhances doctrine, but neither does it necessarily falsify it. Earning a doctors degree may make one an expert in a particular field of study, but it does not make one infallible or without need of further light on a given subject. An understanding of the truth of the Bible can be communicated by the Holy Spirit in and through the formal education situation and procedures, and it can be communicated apart from them.

And what are these tests? He gives us two sure rules by which we may judge whether a teacher or prophet is bringing the truth of God. If John tells us not to believe every spirit, he means that we must not accept as true the profession one may make that he is speaking by the Spirit; and if he says, "Try the spirits whether they are of God," he would have us realize there is an absolutely sure way of detecting false claims, and exposing the pretensions of those who are assuming to be what they are not.

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.

In contradistinction to these men who were of the world, and who spoke as of the world, the apostles were of God, and to them was committed the testimony of God, and whosoever was of God heard them. In this way we distinguish between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Nothing can be much more simple. Christ is the touchstone for everything. He is the true light in which everything is seen as it really is, and we have in addition to this, the writings of the apostles of our Lord, and we must reject everything that is not in agreement with their words.

Let us turn to the rule he has given by which we are to know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Notice that in the first place he insists on the divine origin of the apostolic mission. He says, "We are of God;" which means that those in apostolic times who had introduced and established Christianity had done it by the authority of God; that by divine sanction, by the Spirit of God, they had given the faith its permanent form — the form in which it was to be handed down to succeeding generations. John teaches that the New Testament Scriptures are given to us by the Spirit of God, and to be held as such. If we speak of teachers, since the days of the apostles, we need ask but one question: Do they hear the apostles and prophets who by the Holy Spirit have given us the New Testament Scriptures? John says: "He that knoweth God heareth us" (ver. 6). The way to know whether a teacher or prophet is of God, therefore, is by the teaching he brings. Does he teach apostolic doctrine and practice? Whatever his claim may be, if he does not do this he has no claim to be received as sent of God.

Here however is special need of discernment; and the truth is essential that we be not misled. Accordingly the guard is furnished in 1 John 4:1-6. The first test against error is Jesus Christ come in flesh whom the Holy Spirit always glorifies; whereas the spirit that confesses Him not 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. He that knows God hears us; he that is not of God does not hear us. The New Testament also is indispensable to guard against the spirit of error.

But, further, we may ask, what mean those words of the venerable apostle John? "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world." How are we to try the spirits, or how are we to discern between the true and the false, if we are not to judge? Again, the same apostle writing to "the elect lady," gives her the following most solemn admonition, "If there come any to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed; for he that bids him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." Was she not responsible to act on this admonition? Assuredly. But how could she, if we are not to judge? And what had she to judge? Was it as to whether those who came to her house were ordained, authorised, or licensed by any man or body of men? Nothing of the kind. The one great and all-important question for her was as to the doctrine. If they brought the true, the divine doctrine of Christ — the doctrine of Jesus Christ come in the flesh, she was to receive them; if not, she was to shut her door, with a firm hand, against them, no matter who they were, or where they came from. If they had all the credentials that man could bestow upon them, yet if they brought not the truth, she was to reject them with stern decision. This might seem very harsh, very narrow minded, very bigoted; but with this she had nothing whatever to do. She had just to be as broad and as narrow as the truth. Her door and her heart were to be wide enough to admit all who brought Christ, and no wider. Was she to pay compliments at the expense of her Lord? Was she to seek a name for largeness of heart or breadth of mind by receiving to her house and to her table the teachers of a false Christ? The very thought is absolutely horrible.

"By their fruits ye shall recognise them." Do they exalt Him who humbled Himself? Do they confess His incomprehensible being, God and man in one Person? Do they proclaim His grace and truth? Do they follow Christ in absolute subjection to scripture? Do they own it, as the invaluable standard, and the sure communication, of God's mind by His Spirit? Is the believer established? Is the sinner won and delivered? Or are minds filled with ideas which but inflate the spirit, inspire self-complacency, and end in death? For these are practical effects which test what men teach, and which are legible enough to simple souls little versed in scriptural truth, and still less in human subtleties. And thus the Lord safeguards the sheep in various ways.

But it may be well to add here that nothing can be less of the Spirit of God than to apply to minor differences of a disciplinary sort the rigour which is an absolute duty where it is a question of the true Christ or a false. Such a mistake is turned by the great enemy to the scattering of those whom Christ died to gather together in one. Even doctrine in general, unless fundamental, is not a Scriptural ground for so extreme a course. Still less is it due to a difference about the institutions of Christianity, whether baptism or the Lord's Supper. But the doctrine of the Christ does claim the allegiance of every saint; and he who undermines His person is to be discarded not only publicly but from private recognition at all cost.