Test Every Spirit

The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. 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. 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, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 John 3:24 – 4:3)

These verses contain one of my father's favorite proof texts that he abused to support his favorite doctrine about the nature of Christ. Subsequently I developed for many years an aversion to this verse. But not long ago as I was reading this again it struck me what the true meaning of this text really is and I found myself getting really excited about it instead of avoiding it. This has happened with me in regards to a number of proof texts he used that were seriously distorted to often imply nearly the very opposite of what they actually were intended to convey when taken in proper context.

The world around me which includes my church seems to be intensifying in conflict. Attitudes are sharpening, people are polarizing over singular issues and proponents from both sides are employing similar tactics to demand that their opinions are right and everyone else is not just wrong but downright dangerous. Too often deception is also employed to attempt to cover up evidence that may discredit their position while emphasizing verses and quotations that make their position look favorable. All this is creating battle lines behind which all neutral parties are demanded to choose sides and give support.

This greatly concerns me, for most of the time I find myself in disagreement with the hard-line positions on both sides of these issues. What I am observing is that people who approach their search for truth in this manner often don't want other people to really study and pray and contemplate the issues for themselves but simply want others to take their opinions as the truth. The mindset of simply accepting what other 'experts' have researched is promoted over wrestling with issues individually with an open mind and a humble heart. Today there is more and more emphasis on facts and knowledge and proving who is right and wrong and less attention to the condition of the heart and the spirit.

Yet the more that I immerse myself in these teachings of Jesus, particularly in the writings of John, I find myself wondering why both sides on these issues get so worked up and even angry at times as they attack each other openly in a spirit that is anything but like what I am finding in my reflections on the life of Jesus. It seems that any attempts on the part of some to move toward an experiential relationship with God is viewed with great suspicion by those eager to control other people's minds and dictate to them what they should believe. It almost appears that such people are afraid to trust the Holy Spirit to bring unity to the body of Christ and they feel that unless they can control the direction of investigation and dictate how everything should be interpreted that disaster is sure to result.

This brings me back to what came to my attention this morning as I read this passage again. John says here that many prophets have gone out into the world. That means that these prophets came from the group of Christ-followers, the church as we would now call it. But he did not necessarily imply that they intended to leave the church; he simply said that they went out into the world.

It occurred to me that many today who claim to speak for God in our church go out into the world to warn the world, to scold the world, to condemn those in the world believing that somehow these tactics will somehow intimidate or frighten people into wanting to join our church. At the same time people are lining up on the other side of the same issues from inside the church accusing those who are claiming to speak for God as being false prophets. Both sides say that anyone who is on the opposite side of any issue is wrong and is trying to split the church with their resistance to truth. But in reality it appears to me that both sides are participating in a very similar spirit, the spirit of fault-finding, criticism, slander, condemnation and even at times deception in order to vindicate their own positions.

There are at least two definitions for what a prophet is that comes to my attention. One is that a prophet is someone who supposedly speaks on God's behalf to others who do not have such a connection with God. Another definition, and one that is more common in the world is that a prophet is someone who can foretell the future accurately. But does not this include people who predict dire consequences to come upon the church if the church does not align itself with their views and opinions about the hot topic of the day? Are not our attempts to intimidate others by predicting terrible results if people don't agree with us a form of prophesying? Or such prophets may enjoy assaulting the outside world with predictions of vengeance from an offended God if they do not 'repent' and align their beliefs with those of the church. But what spirit is behind all of these dire predictions, these stern prophecies of warning?

What I find compelling in these words of John is that his focus is not on the accuracy of the facts or doctrines that one side or the other may be promoting but rather is instructing us to test every spirit. Now, if your theology has not yet taken into account that each person has a spirit you may find yourself casting about or confused as to what might be implied here. But having accepted that truth some years ago, I now firmly believe that the real issue that is vital to understand and that affects each person's salvation is the condition of our own spirit in alignment to God's Spirit. There are many spirits in this world, both supernatural spirits of demons and heavenly messengers, but also there are as many spirits besides those as there are living people on the earth today.

Each spirit of each person has the means of communicating in some way with other spirits in ways we don't understand very well. But this communication takes place between us whether we are even aware of it or not. What has long been understood is that spoken or written words are only a very small segment of the real communication that takes place between us. Much more is communicated through the means of body language, voice tone and even things like scents and touch. But beyond all of those things there is the reality of how our spirits communicate attitudes and information that is beyond our conscious awareness but that may in fact be even more efficient that we ever dared to consider.

This concept is very intimidating to those who want to believe in a religion based solely on cognitive facts alone. It means that they cannot control information nearly as much as they would like to believe and as a reaction many move toward denying these realities about the spirit realm. They do not want to believe that there are channels of communicating that may be conveying things they cannot control, so they simply deny that it is happening. But that does not change the fact that it is still taking place. It only means that such ones are choosing to remain in ignorance about a whole segment of activity that is having an enormous impact on everyone's lives whether they are aware of it or not.

I have noticed over the years that many people have taken this verse and immediately twisted it to mean nearly the opposite of what it actually says. Rather than admitting that there is such a thing as our spirit and that it does communicate a great deal whether we consciously perceive it or not, they use this text to insist that we must test every doctrine, every belief, every fact by how it aligns with the Bible. Of course what happens next is that they insist on personally determining how each passage must be interpreted in the Bible to prove what they already want to believe. But all of this misses the main point of what John is talking about here. He is not telling us that we should test every cognitive doctrine we come across to see if it is factually provable or not; he is talking about something completely different here – the condition of a person's spirit. But if we have ignored or denied the whole reality of the spirit world and how we constantly interact with it through our own spirit, this verse makes little sense.

One reason that many do not want to take this instruction at face value may be because if their own spirit were to come under examination it might be exposed to be very unlike the spirit that was seen in the Jesus they claim to represent. Yet it is our spirit and the condition of our spirit that has the most effect on our influence for good or for evil. It is the condition of our spirit that determines whether we are safe to live and interact in the presence of holy angels or whether we would be abjectly miserable in an atmosphere of pure unselfishness. And it is our spirit that betrays whether we are really speaking on behalf of God or whether we are promoting our own agenda.

Jesus made it abundantly clear that there will be those who show up on judgment day – the day when the secrets of every heart will be publicly exposed – fully expecting to be ushered into paradise only to discover that the condition of their spirit has disqualified them to live in the presence of the Lamb. They will be very confused and will engage in arguing with the Judge, claiming they they had the truth all down pat and have done everything they felt God had required of them to be saved. But all of this is completely ignored as the Judge responds that He simply does not know them. This is not because they did not have their arguments about factual truth figured out enough, but rather because they had indulged in a spirit throughout their lifetime that was foreign to the spirit of heaven.

I take this warning by John very seriously. Testing every spirit is not just a suggestion but is something that may determine my eternal destiny in the light of what I just noted above. I have come to realize that the condition of my spirit has far, far more to do with my fitness for heaven than any amount of good deeds or correctness of doctrine may ever accomplish. I am not inferring that false doctrines make no difference. Rather I am saying that a dependence on a cerebral religion that ignores or minimizes the state of our inner being and the spirit that we cherish is a counterfeit religion that will result in eternal death. It is a fraud no matter how succinctly we may be able to proof-text our beliefs. Only by having our spirit synchronized with the Spirit of God can we become fitted to live in the company of holy angels and in the presence of God. And this must begin with the choices we make right now that affect our spirit, not something that will magically happen to us sometime off in the future.

The surrounding passage of this verse gives important clues as to how to test every spirit. I don't want to miss these clues or to misinterpret them. My own father for years made this very mistake by trying to lift this verse out of context to insist that salvation pivoted on whether one believed that Jesus had sinful flesh or not. But in doing so his spirit became so embittered and vindictive that in trying to push what he strongly believed was 'the truth' on everyone around him, he actually alienated everyone and became sour, depressed and even hateful. Not until he was allowed to suffer a series of strokes which removed him from the rabid sources of reading that fed his addition to critical attitudes could he respond to the spirit of love which is what his heart needed the most.

This demonstration of the effects of a wrong spirit has been a severe warning to me ever since that time. I too am in great danger of succumbing to the spirit of rightness, the spirit of criticism, the spirit of condemnation that has been in my family for generations. But God has been convicting me for years of my need to allow the mind of Christ to take shape in me as I learn to abide in Him and let Him abide in me. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

But it is not just enough to claim that we have the spirit of God in us. Many claim to have the spirit of God while attacking others who disagree with them. This is why John immediately says that we must test every spirit, not just people's words. People who have a divisive spirit often go to great lengths to prove that their facts and doctrines must be believed because they can prove that truth is on their side. But no amount of proving or investigation or arguing will ever settle many matters under dispute. Rather, if we take the words of John seriously and learn how to check a spirit using the means that John lays out in this little book, we will discover that it is not nearly so difficult to detect who is really speaking on God's behalf and who is simply using God's name as a means of gaining access to our attention.

I wanted to get into the clues that I find all through this passage as to just how to go about testing spirits. But this post has already gotten so long that I feel I should explore that more thoroughly another time. But it is vital for anyone serious about wanting to come into alignment with God's Spirit and to not be deceived by spirits claiming to speak for God to spend time meditating on this passage. To really grasp the truths embedded here it is also very important to ask God's Holy Spirit to guide our minds, open our hearts and help us to lay aside every preconception so as to be open and humble and teachable enough to receive the truth as revealed in the life and death of Jesus.

Father, I ask that you test my spirit and transform my spirit to be in closer harmony with You through the work of renewing my mind and the presence of Your Spirit within me. Give me Your wisdom and Your humility and allow my heart to be warmed with Your passion of love. I am filled with so many misconceptions and distorted notions about You that confuse me. In addition I am bombarded with ideas and spirits of people insisting that they are speaking on your behalf. But often the spirit that I sense in them seems foreign to the gentle, loving Spirit that I have come to love about You. But worst of all I all too often detect that same spirit of harshness emanating from my own being as I passionately seek to share exciting truths I am discovering about You with people resistant to change. Please heal my spirit and cleanse me of everything that is not like Your Spirit. For ultimately it is Your reputation that is on the line most of all. Thank-you Jesus.