DISCERNMENT IN FELLOWSHIP (4:1-6)

Generosity within the early Church, was particularly focussed on those who served Christ in peripatetic ministries: apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers. Jesus had taught them that anyone who merely gave a cup of water to one of His prophets, would receive a prophet’s reward. The church at Antioch no doubt funded Paul and Barnabas’s initial mission expenses. Lydia offered Paul and Barnabas open-ended hospitality. And the Philippians partnered with Paul when he first took the gospel into Europe. Teachers such as Apollos moved from place to place, as the Spirit led them, relying on a warm reception from the local believers.

Heretical teachings about Christ were spread in the same way, by relying on the goodwill and practical hospitality of the local churches. In his second letter, John warns a particular church not to receive those who do not hold to the doctrine of Christ. And in his third letter, he describes a church whose leader Diotrephus had bought into the heresy, and banned his members from hosting John. But Gaius, one of the congregation, had remained faithful; and John gives him a recommendation about a particular teacher he is to welcome.

In recent years I’ve come across numerous Christians who’ve been deceived by false teachers into giving them financial support, way beyond what they can actually afford. This is the so-called ’Prosperity Gospel’: “You give to me, and God will give back to you”. But only the preacher experiences prosperity! The givers end up in debt or worse - and yet can’t grasp that they have been deceived, often repeating the same mistake over and over again. And this happens in UK just as much as it does in third-world countries.

This is the context that links these verses to John’s previous teaching on generosity.

SPIRIT-PROMPTED GIVING SHOWS WE ARE INDWELT

John closes his teaching on loving our fellow-believers, and the effect of sacrificial giving on our assurance (3:21,22), by reminding his readers that discipleship can be summed up in just two commandments:

• believing on the name of God's Son, Jesus Christ

• loving one another as Christ commanded us

Jesus had taught John that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and its corollary was to love your neighbour as yourself. Everything else in the Law was simply the outworking of these two commandments.

When we find ourselves prompted by the Spirit to give sacrificially, we realise experientially that Christ is continuing to indwell us. Our hearts' obedience means we are in Him; and the practical act of giving shows that He is in us.

So when an itinerant preacher arrives needing hospitality, or a tele-evangelist tells us that our giving will enable God's work to progress through him, we might assume that this is the Spirit's prompting and that by giving till it hurts, we will be greatly blessed in return. But wait, says John!

Don't assume every such prompt is from the Spirit of God. TEST THE SPIRITS. But how?

PROPHETIC, FLESHLY, OR DEMONIC?

We know from personal experience, that some individuals can 'lay things on us': they can persuade us to do things that we wouldn't normally choose to do; by emotional blackmail, spurious reasoning and 'alternative facts', or a sense of obligation. Politicians holding rallies, speakers at protest marches, crusade evangelists down to Sunday preachers; crowds can be 'worked' with a whole range of techniques. None of us are invulnerable to such manipulation and deception: the devil himself can appear as an angel of light, and Jesus forewarned us that even the very elect could be deceived by his false prophets.

Our Western mindset ignores the human spirit, and Western Christians are not used to distinguishing the soul from the spirit. Anyone with any pretensions to being a prophet is regarded with deep suspicion, often rightly so! So when John says, 'Many false prophets have gone out into the world', it sounds strange to our ears. What does he mean?

Earlier, he had said 'Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.  But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.' (2:18-20). He defines antichrist as anyone who denies the Father and the Son (2:23). So it seems that at the human level, he is referring to the ex-members who have joined the heresy about Jesus. They have 'gone out' from the church, back into the world.

But a prophet is primarily someone who speaks on behalf of a spirit being, who acts as the spirit's mouthpiece. Each prophet speaks under the influence of an indwelling spirit, whether that be their own human spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of Baal, the spirits in Legion, the lying spirits of Ahab's prophets (1 Ki 22:22) etc. It is characteristic of these 'last days' that Satan has unleashed a horde of lying spirits, who persuaded these ex-church-members to become false prophets, and anti-Christ.

IT'S ALL ABOUT JESUS'S TRUE IDENTITY

How do we ‘test the spirits’? The answer, says John, is very simple: and just the same as Jesus’s question to the disciples at Caesarea Philippi: ‘Who do you say that I am?’

‘Confess’ is the same word used for confessing our sins, meaning to agree with God about something. When we confess Jesus Christ is Lord, we are agreeing with God who said, “This is My beloved Son. Listen to Him!”

In Greek, the verb ‘has come’ is in the perfect tense, not the aorist. That means that he came and still is, flesh. He did not abandon his human body just before the crucifixion. He came into His world as the Son of God, but has ascended to the Father as the Son of Man: that's why He is our ideal High Priest, because He has 'lived experience' of what it is to be in our shoes, from conception to coffin.

In fact, its a participle, and it's in the accusative. The main verb in the sentence is 'confess', and then there are two accusatives: 'Jesus' or 'Jesus Christ', and 'come in flesh' or 'Christ come in flesh'. So we should read it either as "confess Jesus Christ as 'come in flesh'" or "confess Jesus as 'Christ come in flesh'". Either reading is a very precise rebuke of Cerinthus's form of docetism, which held that the Christ spirit came on the man Christ Jesus at baptism, and left before the crucifixion. [Interestingly, this is very much what present-day Jehovah's Witnesses believe].

It’s not enough to believe Jesus is the reincarnation of some previous prophet such as John the Baptist, Elijah, or Jeremiah (Mt 16:13-18). It’s not even enough to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but preach about everything except His Sonship and divinity. We must test everyone whose teaching we listen to, whether in person, by reading, or online, by this test: do they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? Do they teach that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, come down from heaven in person and made flesh?

The balancing truth is that holding to the truth about Christ is John's only criterion for being 'of God'. All other aspects of doctrine - baptismal rites, sanctification, church structures etc etc - are secondary, and should not create barriers between believers.

GRASPING CHRIST'S IDENTITY IS THE KEY TO AN OPEN HEAVEN

John had seen Jesus Himself use this identity test, when seeking to discern how far the disciples had got in their understanding of who He was. During a team-building retreat in Caesarea Philippi, He'd asked them who people thought He was. John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets, were common views. Then He asked, "Who do you say that I am?" (Mt 16:13-17). Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!". Jesus knew that "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father which is in heaven". Peter was speaking by the Spirit of God!

Jesus then began teaching them what kind of Messiah He was; that He would be crucified, then resurrected. And we know that Peter then briefly became Satan's mouthpiece, trying to dissuade Jesus from this. But Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain to witness His transfiguration, as He discussed His exodus from Jerusalem with Moses and Elijah. And Father God confirmed Peter's earlier revelation, letting the trio see Jesus's awesome hidden glory, and saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him!" (Mt 17:1-6)

For them, grasping the revelation that Jesus was the Christ, come in flesh, was the prelude to their first experience of fellowship with both the Father and the Son. They needed to understand what kind of Messiah (or Christ) Jesus would be, but then were ready for a fuller revelation of His glory. As we continue on through First John, we will see how his focus is more and more on Jesus's identity - as he knows this is essential if they are to share his 'fullness of joy' in ongoing fellowship with God.

CHRIST'S IDENTITY IS MULTI-FACETED

This statement about Jesus's identity is only one of very many in John's letter:-

• That which was from the beginning, which we've seen, heard, touched: the Word of life

• The eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us

• Our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ

• We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous

• Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?

• The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil

• Every spirit which confesses Jesus as Christ come in flesh, is of God

• God sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him

• He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins

• Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God

• Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God

• Who is he that overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God

• This is He who came by water and blood - Jesus Christ

• The Father, the Word and the Spirit witness in union in heaven, to Christ's sonship

• The Spirit, the water and the blood witness in union on earth

• God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son

• Continue to believe in the name of the Son of God

• The Son of God has come & given us understanding, to know Him who is true

In this instance, John frames his test as relating to Jesus's incarnation. But in other places the focus is slightly different: either simpler (just 'Jesus is the Christ') or more expansive ('Jesus is the Son of God'). Anyone who has met the Risen Lord will in that moment have grasped enough of His identity, never to fail John's tests! But their vision of who Jesus is, in His ascended glory, will go on expanding as the Spirit takes the things of Christ and reveals more and more of Christ's divine Sonship (Jn 16:14,15).

Anyone who truly grasps that Jesus is the Son of God, will know that He was with the Father 'in the beginning': that His Sonship is eternal. He always and only does what He sees the Father doing, and the Father always shows Him everything He is doing. He always honours the Father, and the Father always honours Him. They will realise that He 'came from the Father' through His incarnation, and has returned to the Father by His ascension. And that as Son of God He received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, which He has poured out on and into His people.

As Son of the Living God, 'the God of the living and not the dead', we will realise that He is the Vine, and we are merely branches: totally dependent on our connection to Him as the source of our eternal life. We will recognise that His Priesthood is 'of the order of Melchizedek': it operates by the power of an endless life. As we meditate on His heavenly ministry we will see more and more facets of His identity: as our Trailblazer, our High Priest, the Guarantor and Mediator of the New Covenant, the Cleanser of our consciences, our Advocate who brings us into the throne-room of Almighty God with confident assurance.

WORLDLINESS MARKS FALSE PROPHETS

‘The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (Rev 19:10). But prophets can be driven by spirits other than the Holy Spirit. False prophecy is a reality; for example Jezebel sponsored hundreds of prophets of Baal and Ashtoreth. The astonishing thing is that Satan is so deceptive that dynamic, crowd-pulling speakers motivated by his anti-Christ spirits, can masquerade as men of God; deceiving, if possible, even the elect.

Such men ‘are of the world’. You can recognise them by their white suits, stretched limos and private jets. They preach a very popular ‘gospel’, which appeals to the world. They do not preach the Cross, or dying to self. There is no emphasis on holiness, or separation from the world. Think of the 'Children of God' sect of the '80's and '90's, who taught their womenfolk the art of 'flirty fishing' as an effective means of evangelism. In fact in John's time, there were groups such as the Nicolaitans, who are thought to have taught wife-sharing as a mark of Christian love! And in Thyatira there was 'that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce my servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols' (Rev 2:20).

They speak 'as of the world'. They use manufactured emotion, soaring rhetoric, and motivational skills to persuade their audiences. Paul refused all such techniques: 'I, brethren, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of man but the power of God.' (1 Cor 2:1-5).

This applies not only in evangelism, such as Paul was engaged in in Corinth & Athens, but also in teaching believers. Peter describes false teachers' methods like this: 'For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the last of the flesh, lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error'. (2 Pet 2:18)

RESPONSE TO THE TRUTH REVEALS THE SPIRIT OF THE HEARER

No doubt John's faithful readers would have tried hard to persuade their erstwhile friends to return to the fold. When we try and point out false teaching in such a situation, those who are ‘of the truth’ will listen. But those who can’t recognise the truth of what we are saying, have ‘the spirit of error’. Satan has blinded their minds so they cannot see the glory of Christ (1 Cor 4:4).

Such folk, like their teachers, are 'of the world'. They have never got free from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. So when a dashing man in a white suit and stretch limo with a beautiful woman beside him appears on stage, they are primed to believe all the worldly manipulation he has learnt to use. 'The world hears them'.

Capitalising on their worldliness behind the scenes, is the spirit of AntiChrist. He has gained a foothold in their hearts: after all, who would want to follow a Messiah who advocates crucifying the flesh?

But try and bring the wanderers back to a true understanding of Christ's divine identity and His being the Messiah who had to be crucified, and you will soon realise that there is more than human rationality preventing them listening to you. You are in a spiritual battle! The Spirit of truth within you, is coming up against the spirit of error. Try witnessing to a Jehovah’s Witness, and you’ll see how true this is!

Occasionally you will meet someone who laps up every word: they are 'of God' - they have been taught of God before you ever went street-preaching, and come to Christ (Jn 6:45)

But whatever response you meet, 'you are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world'. Though you are just little children, the Spirit of God within you is 'mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to Christ' (1 Cor 10:5).