Test the Spirits: A Meditation on 1st John 4

As we continue looking at the first epistle of St. John, we read some clear distinctions being made in chapter four between the Holy Spirit given to Christians by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and the various false spirits that pervert every age.  This was necessary in John's time, because people went about claiming to have the Holy Spirit, or to have communications from Him, but conflicted with the Word of Christ given through the Prophets and Apostles.  The fundamental issue for the Christian community, was how to know who to believe, when someone came to town claiming to have been inspired by God.

Far from unique in John's time, this problem has plagued the Church and the world from the beginning.  In the Garden of Eden at the temptation and fall of our first parents, the devil proposed to have a better word than what God had given-- the consequences of which has been suffering, sin, and death for the whole human race.  After God gave His Word to Noah, the world still disregarded it, until it was swept away in the great flood.  When God gave His Word to Moses, there were rebellions against it from both inside and outside the people of Israel.  The Prophets often called the people back to God's Word when they wandered off after other gods, even through captivity and war.  The Word of God became flesh in our Lord Jesus Christ, and the nation crucified Him.  The Apostles bore witness to Jesus, and the world persecuted them.  The Church has born the Word of God throughout the ages, and from age to age, persecution has arisen against that Word by those who bring another word... another spirit.

Given how common the resistance of sinful men has been to the Word of God ever since the fall of man, we should not be surprised to see the same resistance and rebellion in our own day.  Inside the Church, we have people claiming to hear the Spirit tell them that God now approves of sexual deviance (adultery, fornication, homosexuality, etc,) and murder (abortion, feticide, infanticide, suicide, etc.).  We have self proclaimed prophets, claiming that the Holy Spirit has told them that God no longer wants us to walk in the way of Jesus' Cross and suffering, but rather wants us to be prosperous and wealthy in this world.  We even have these prophets teaching the people a new definition of faith which turns God into their own personal valet, grace into material opulence and moral laxity, and the Gospel into social or political liberation.  Some of these prophets teach that man is not created in the image of God, but evolved from the mire by chance-- an accident of inanimate matter and energy, somehow now seeking a God who may himself be evolving along with us.  With such a cacophony of disparate voices all claiming to be from the same God, how is the Christian to sort it all out?

St. John gives a clear and simple method for doing just that.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits
to see if they are from God, for many false prophets
have gone out into the world.
By this you know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come
in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not
confess Jesus is not from God.  This is the spirit of the antichrist,
which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Little children, you are from God and have overcome them,
for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world,
and the world listens to them.
We are from God.
Whoever knows God listens to us;
whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
(4:1-6, ESV)

The simple rule St. John gives to Christians in his day, and every day, is to test the spirits-- the proposed teachings of self proclaimed prophets-- against the established witness of the bona fide Prophets and Apostles of God.  The ancient Hebrews knew this same principle, which is why they gathered together the writings of the Prophets into what we now call the Old Testament.  The first Christians understood this, too, as they gathered together the writings of the Apostles into the New Testament, and bound them together into our Bibles.  Since the last of the Apostles died, the canon of Scripture has been closed, though it may have taken a few decades to collect all the various letters together.  This authentic record of God's Holy Spirit, speaking and writing through the Prophets and Apostles, is the measure by which any new prophet must be judged.

And though our itching, sinful ears often yearn to hear the false melodies of lying spirits, John reminds us again that the Christian is of God.  As such, the Christian is bound to the authentic Word of God which comes to wash us of our sins, give us new life, and eternal salvation in the very Word Made Flesh:  Jesus Christ.  We have been given ears to hear the Law of God's wrath against all sin and evil, and ears to hear and believe His Gospel of redemption in Jesus.  The ears and heart of our new man-- of our new nature, born from above by water and Spirit-- resists the false and twisted words of false and twisted prophets, preferring the pure spiritual milk of Jesus speaking through His true Prophets and Apostles.

Are you confused today by the multitude of Christian groups, denominations, sects, and cults?  Do you wonder where you can turn for the truth, when the air is thick with lies?  Return to the Word of God.  There you will find Jesus, crucified and risen for you, that you might live forgiven and free forever.  If your church or your pastor has left the Scriptures, call him back to faith and repentance-- and if he will not hear you, find a church and a pastor that still clings to the inspired and inerrant Word.  There, the lies of the evil one will be put to flight, and the only thing remaining to hear will be Jesus your savior, calling you to repent, believe, and live in Him by His grace through faith.  There, and there alone, will you find the Truth that sets you free.

Amen.