Testing the spirits - Truth and Love

1 John 4  Testing the Spirits

4 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. ⁴ You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

God Is Love

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ⁹ By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴ We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.

¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love, because He first loved us. ²⁰ If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

John, in this portion of his letter to the church, taken from today's daily reading in the One Year Bible, is encouraging his readers to beware of false prophets or teachers. They/we are to  test the spirits to determine whether what is being said is truly of God. He gives two conditions or evidences of a true teacher or believer. He begins by saying that the first evidence is is the acknowledgment that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. As we try to discern truth among the many voices and teachings that are around today it is important that we truly understand what John is presenting here as evidence.

It is important that he uses the name Jesus Christ. There are many people today who will acknowledge that Jesus lived, that He came in the flesh. They will say He was a good man and a good teacher. But, they do not acknowledge that He is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, the Anointed one of God. A teacher or teaching that tries to minimalize or eliminate the deity of Jesus is a false teaching. The new age teachings which embrace some of Jesus teachings but deny that He is God are false. We should run from them. Jesus says " I and the Father are one"(John 10:30). He also says "  “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) Jesus is either who He says He is or He is a liar. Jesus is not simply a good man and teacher. Jesus Christ came in the flesh to pay the price for all the sin of every man. That is the  standard of truth with which we discern whether a teaching is true.  

The second evidence or test that we are to look for is love. This is both a love for God and a love for our fellow man. We love because He first loved us. There are many people today who do good humanitarian works. They truly exhibit a love toward their fellow man. But if they do those works for any reason other than a response to God's perfect love it is not an eternal work. The love that we are to have for others is to be more than something we profess. Love is much deeper than tolerance or inclusion, two of the buzz words of progressive thinkers. It is not enough to tolerate or include some one. We are to love them with the perfect love of God. That is something we can not do without the Holy Spirit in our lives.

John said, in verse 6  By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So here is the balance we are left to find. We are to love others with the perfect love of God. If we don't love our brother who we see how can we love God. Yet we are to hold fast to the truth that Jesus is the Christ. Jesus says "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."(John 14:15) In commissioning the disciples He says " Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; " (Matthew 28:19-20)

True love requires us to tell the truth. Walking in the truth requires that we love. Neither truth nor love exists independent of the other in Christ. Our human tendency is to favor one over the other. To walk in the perfect balance of these two we need yield to the Holy Spirit.

Truth and love,  is how we discern the spirit of others. Truth and love  is how others discern us.