Spirit of the Anti-Christ

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 4:3)

There is a great deal of speculation about this idea of antichrist swirling around the world. Many of these ideas inadvertently reinforce the very spirit they claim to be warning others against. Why is it so difficult to understand what the Bible is speaking of when it uses the term antichrist? Is antichrist simply a person that must be identified near the close of history, or is this a spirit that is pervasively infecting the spirit of everyone who misunderstands the true character of God?

I am coming to realize that again, it comes back to a basic misapprehension about the very nature of the atonement, of God's nature and character and the real reasons why Jesus came to this earth to die. Because we approach this issue of antichrist with false preconceptions about the whole plan of salvation and how it is revealed at the cross, we are bound to come to confusing conclusions about how to identify the antichrist or test a spirit to see if it is against Christ or from Him.

Unmasking the antichrist spirit requires far more than simply demanding a confession that one believes that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. That might work in some situations, but demons and deceived people alike can be very adept at lying; so to think that we can somehow simplistically determine whether someone is correctly representing Jesus or is against Him does not always hinge on whether they are willing to agree to this fact of history.

The great debate that so infuriated the Jewish leadership in the days of Jesus revolved around who had a more valid concept of what God was really like and how He relates to sinners. These religious people were very certain that based on their understanding and reading of the Old Testament Scriptures, they could explain how God felt toward those who were not in conformity to His instructions. And because it is a principle that we always reflect the kind of God we believe in, the way these men shunned and scorned and condemned those they viewed as deserving of God's reproach made it clear in practice and in teaching that their views of God were in stark contrast to the way Jesus perceived God.

Because Jesus showed consistent compassion and refused to ever condemn anyone and was always eager to demonstrate forgiveness and tenderness, the religious elite became enraged that this man would assert such preposterous claims as to represent the God that they claimed to serve. The God that Jesus claimed to reflect was so opposite to the God that nearly everyone else assumed Him to be that conflict was inevitable. Thus the real issue of whether a person's spirit is seen to be against Christ (anti means against) or is in harmony with Christ will always hinge on the core beliefs they have at their heart level of what God is really like. Every other proposed test to explain who is antichrist is peripheral to this central test.

In the context of this chapter in 1 John, it becomes explicitly clear that John is telling us that if any spirit we are testing is not full of God's kind of agape love, then immediately we can know that it is against Christ. The whole reason that Jesus Christ came to this world to start with was to reveal the radical, self-sacrificing, selfless, servant spirit of the agape love that resides in the heart of the Father. Indeed, it does not just reside there but is a description of the very essence of who God is in totality.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

An antichrist spirit will insinuate that God is good but will resort to using force, fear or threats when necessary to accomplish His will. But it is very dangerous to ascribe what the Bible declares as evil to God. Jesus, the explicit revelation of God, never resorted to such methods of His enemy. Thus anyone claiming to represent God but relying on methods of intimidation or fear to promote their message or anyone claiming that God is less that pure agape love cannot be trusted to be representative of the true spirit of Christ.

Whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. (1 John 2:5-6)

The easiest way to detect a spirit of antichrist is to compare their spirit with the spirit exhibited by Jesus in the way He treated people. Only those who abide in Christ in spirit and in truth can reflect the spirit that pervaded the words and actions of Jesus.

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (1 John 2:9-11)

A person with a spirit of antichrist may claim to be a solid Christian and have all the truth. Yet in their heart they can harbor animosity toward those who disagree with them. John calls this out and names it for what it is – hatred. We may try to soften it by claiming that we don't really hate anyone; but we are only deceiving ourselves and the real truth about our spirit can be seen by others and will sooner or later become exposed to all. When we harbor bitterness, resentment or hold onto offenses of any kind, we are cherishing a spirit of hatred to one degree or another and this spirit is always from the greatest antichrist ever, Satan himself.

Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:22-23)

John here is clearly saying that the Son, Jesus, is exactly the same as the Father. He also notes that any spirit engaged in any kind of deception is not of God. This is what both the Jews and most people today cannot reconcile in their thinking. Many work very hard to rationalize away the discrepancies between their dark views of the Father and the clear revelation of love in the life of Jesus Christ. But anything that insinuates that there is any difference at all between them betrays a spirit of antichrist. Only as we come to see the extravagant agape nature of the love that Jesus revealed, particularly during the last hours of His life surrounding His death, can we begin to grasp the true nature of real love. Anything less than this is a counterfeit and comes from the spirit of antichrist.

Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. (1 John 2:28-29)

There are two key points in this text. One is that shame is very much something very much associated with the spirit of antichrist and robs us of the necessary confidence that we must have to safely face the extreme intensity of love experienced in the presence of Jesus. The second is the issue of just how righteous God really is. Too often we make assertions about God as using force and fear to get His way, particularly in viewing stories from the Old Testament. All the while we give little weight to the explicit revelation of God in the life of Jesus that is the only authentic standard by which to see God. But attempting to define God relying on dark perceptions of Him from the Old Testament where everything is shrouded in shadows is a huge mistake. True righteousness is 100% pure agape love and nothing less. Only until we begin to believe this and use this as the starting point for examining everything else can we hope to know the real definition of this word righteous. And only as we begin to see God as truly righteous, pure agape love and not something less, will the corresponding results of true righteousness begin to be seen in our own reflection of Him.

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; (1 John 3:10-11)

The spirit of antichrist puts more emphasis on 'being right' or any other number of priorities that elevates correctness of doctrine, keeping up appearances or conformity above loving others. Yet John clearly spells out here that love must be the core principle above every other issue if we are to be in agreement with the spirit of Jesus. The antichrist spirit will even attempt to redefine the word love to include attitudes that are out of harmony with the way Jesus revealed the Father. The antichrist spirit is extremely subtle in its deceptions to make us think we are on God's side while all the while we are living apart from the agape love that must mark the spirit of all who abide in Christ.

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. (1 John 3:16)

How many people claiming to speak for God are urgently spreading warnings of impending doom or grand conspiracies yet are unwilling to esteem others more important than themselves? Are such ones willing to lay down their lives for others? People might claim they are willing to lay down their lives yet they fail to even understand what that very concept includes. Laying down one's life for others is not so much about death as it is about reflecting the humility and meekness demonstrated in the life of Jesus who forgave His torturers even while they were killing Him. The spirit of antichrist can never reflect the attractiveness that is seen in the life of Jesus. It is marked rather with an intensity more reminiscent of the force employed by those insisting that Jesus could not be the Son of the God they believed in. Their God was willing to resort to violence to get his way and so they were too.

This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 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 3:23 – 4:3)

John is bringing the focus ever more closely to the core issue of love being the single test issue between truth and falsehood. To believe in the name of Jesus means to believe that the character that Jesus demonstrated is exactly the same character as what is to be seen in the Father. That character is nothing other than pure agape love untainted by anything less. When someone insists on clinging to ideas about God that include attributing to Him tactics and methods of the enemy, then we can discern that this spirit is against Christ or antichrist. Only love untainted by any of the deceptions of Satan is of God.

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. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 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. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:4-8)

Agape love is greater than any other spirit in the world. It may not appear to achieve the immediate results that we desire, but in the long term it is always in the right. If we are not abiding in this kind of love, we may still assume we are on God's side but that does not mean we have His Spirit or view things the way He does.

Testing every spirit includes repeatedly testing our own spirit as well by comparing it with what we increasingly discover in the life of Jesus. If the world listens to us it is likely because our spirit is more in harmony with the antichrist spirit than with the agape love spirit of Jesus. Belonging to a church or having our heads filled with proof texts and effective arguments in no way assures us that we have the right spirit. Love is the only standard that can be safely used to detect whether a spirit is of God or is against Him. As John points out here, the only way we can live in love is to abide in God who is love. Those who are actively pursuing an intimate knowledge and an experience in the love of God beyond simply a head knowledge of the truth about God are the ones who will have a spirit that is reflective of the Spirit that is of God.

My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; (John 10:27)

Propitiation

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. (1 John 4:10)

I am finding in this book a number of definitive explanations for a number of words. They often appear using the word 'this', such as, this is the message, this is His commandment and now here as in, this is love. I find this very helpful for me, as most religious words have become so clouded and their meanings so obscured that there is urgent need to rediscover their true meanings so as to properly understand the real truth of the gospel once again.

But here another word shows up in John's definition for love that is possibly one of the most perverted words in Christianity today. If you ask just about anyone in any church what the word propitiation means, they will likely give you an answer something along the line of appeasement for an angry God. This assumption about God's attitude toward sinners and about the reason that Jesus died on the cross is one of the most successful diabolical heresies that has ever been invented by Satan, and it has managed to insure that millions live in constant fear and dread of God while the real truth about God's forgiveness, compassion and agape love remains largely out of sight.

This version of Christianity is a direct result of false teachings brought in not long after the New Testament church began to move into the dark ages a couple hundred years after Christ. As people lost sight of the purity of God's true agape love, the very essence of the true gospel, notions from paganism, imperial Rome and fallen human nature began to seep into the church and soon theology became contaminated with insinuations about an angry God offended because His demands were not satisfied. Some of the early church fathers created what is now known as the 'penal substitution model; or the 'satisfaction' theory which became so pervasive throughout all of Christian thinking that very few today even realize that it is not the truth embraced by the early disciples that believers received from Jesus.

Because of these very dark views of God that permeated theology and views about God, even the Bible translators based their interpretations of what was written in the Hebrew and Greek texts and infused this false philosophy into the wording their versions of the Bible. In fact, a number of words we find in Scripture do not even come from the Greek and Hebrew but were imported from Latin, the language of Roman law which is still used in the teaching of law today. Thus legalism has become so firmly intertwined into religion that most people just assume that it was the message that Jesus gave to His followers. But nothing could be further from the truth.

This word propitiation is a classic example of this, possibly the epitome of the legal approach. Most people believe that God is angry about rules that have been broken and that somehow Jesus came to pacify His wrath to make a way for us to gain eternal life. Thus the cross is improperly viewed as an appeasement, a satisfaction of God's demand for death, the punishment required for our sin. All of these concepts are wrapped up in what people assume this word propitiation means. But again, nothing could be further from the truth.

The original word from which propitiation is derived actually means mercy seat. Now if a person is not familiar with the sanctuary model of salvation given to Moses by God in the Old Testament, they will be a little fuzzy as to what mercy seat might mean. But for those who have spent time becoming familiar with both the furniture and the symbolic practices of the whole sanctuary system, it becomes quite clear what John is trying to convey in this definition about God's love.

The sanctuary system was a complete cycle of rituals, feasts and activities that concluded in one year's time. Each year the most solemn day of all was called the Day of Atonement. This day was the culmination of the symbolic moving of the sins of all the people through various rites and procedures that involved the blood of lambs, bulls and other animal sacrifices brought to the sanctuary by sinners. It would take too much time to explain all of it here, but those familiar with this know that the blood symbolizing the guilt of sins moved from the outer courts through various means until the final day of atonement when everything else had been cleansed. On that day the High Priest took upon himself all the collective sins for the whole year into the Most Holy place and sprinkled blood on what was called the Mercy Seat. This was the last time the symbolic sins were ever moved.

This Mercy Seat was the open space on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant, the only piece of furniture in the Most Holy place which was the most sacred room on earth in the sanctuary where the very presence of God promised to dwell. God's intense presence was focused primarily over the Mercy Seat under which was housed the Ten Commandments on tables of stone inside the ark. On both sides of the Mercy Seat were two large angels representing the covering cherubs hovering over the throne of God in heaven. All of this was meant to provide a sand-box type illustration of the whole plan of salvation worked out by God to salvage sinners and restore them back into harmony with God and the rest of the loyal universe. Thus the name of the Day of Atonement actually means At-one-ment which comes from an obsolete English term meaning full reconciliation between estranged parties.

When John says here that Jesus was sent to be the propitiation for our sins, given this background context of the sanctuary model and services and realizing that the word propitiation actually means Mercy Seat, it can be more readily seen that Jesus did not come to appease an angry, offended Father God but did quite the opposite; Jesus came to reveal that God is not the one holding on to any offense but rather it is our misapprehensions about God that is preventing full reconciliation with Him. To facilitate getting us to understand this truth Jesus came to be the recipient of the full load of guilt, shame, condemnation and all the other natural effects that sin produces so as to remove any excuse for ever believing lies about how God feels about us again. With Jesus, 'the buck stops here'!

Just as the Mercy Seat on the sacred Ark of the Covenant became the final resting place of the blood of guilt collected over the full year from all the ceremonies conducted in the sanctuary system; so too did Jesus become the final repository of all the guilt, shame, condemnation and every other obstacle that has kept us from feeling safe in God's presence. Jesus absorbed all the offense. The reason that Jesus suffered so much internally while hanging on the cross was not primarily due to the external pain inflicted on Him but rather from having the concentrated effects of all the sins of the whole world throughout all of history laid on Him. But He did this because He is the epitome of mercy Himself reflecting the Father's heart. And in His mercy and agape love He was willing to endure the cross.

The real power of the cross has nothing to do with some supposed appeasement of the wrath of God but has everything to do with the effect that a true perception of its meaning will have on our own hearts. When we believe the lies about God promoted by nearly every version purported about what the cross supposedly meant, we perpetuate false ideas about God and prevent ourselves and others from perceiving the truth about agape love. But when the true glory of God's character begins to become evident, we can let go of these false ideas about the cross and embrace the real truth of what took place there. What then happens is that the more we focus on this amazing act of Jesus' revelation of agape love emanating from the Father's heart, love is awakened in our own hearts. And this responding love will have no part in viewing God as a threat to be appeased but rather as the most intense source of life and love and power drawing us to the very center of the universe.

Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God's throne. (Hebrews 12:2 GNB)

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. 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. 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. (1 John 4:16-18)

How to Test the Spirits

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; (1 John 4:2)

Sadly it has taken altogether too many years for me to just begin to appreciate the real meaning of this verse. Because of the dark misunderstandings that I grew up with about what God is like, whenever I came across things like this they seemed completely incongruent with everything else I thought about in religion and so my frame of reference prevented me from having any clue as to what John was trying to convey here. In fact, I still have to argue with residual assumptions inside my head too often as the light slowly increases inside of me.

Because so many have abused this text by trying to make it support their pet theories about the nature of Christ or other simplistic formulas of religion, it has taken a great deal of time for God to give me enough background information and understanding to begin to see the real import of this passage. What we believe about God and especially our beliefs about why Jesus died on the cross directly affect how we come to view other messages, especially about love. As long as we entertain confused ideas about a God needing appeasement or legal satisfaction, it will be impossible for us to reconcile the truths that John in particular is seeking to get across to us about the real nature of God. But when we begin to embrace the light as it is revealed in Jesus, that light will quickly begin to illuminate the inconsistencies that have long been hiding in the darkness and we will discard much of what we have learned in exchange for the life-giving glory of the truth.

Whenever I come across a phrase like this, By this you know..., I begin looking around at the immediate context to see if there may be a definitive description readily available to update my understanding about some religious term or concept. In this case John is directly addressing the key issue raised in the previous verse of our need to be able to test every spirit. Not every spirit is reflective of the truth about God but very many spirits claim to speak for Him and many with very subtle inferences. I have started to perceive that the religious spirits that a large majority of professed Christians believe are in fact counterfeits of the true Spirit of God. As John points out here, we must be very careful not to believe just any spirit.

But according to John, there is a key here that can unlock how to test spirits to see if they are trustworthy, accurate and particularly if they correctly represent the truth about God. John says that they will confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

Now, I have puzzled over this most of my life trying to figure out why this is important or what it has to do with salvation. After all, it takes very little faith at all to believe that Jesus was a human being that had real flesh and bones and substance like the rest of us. Even unbelievers, atheists and almost anyone you talk to would likely not take much issue with this simple assertion. So how in the world can confessing that Jesus was a flesh and blood human being make any difference in our life? And even more confusing is how that fact might be used to separate and distinguish between true and deceptive spirits. There must be something missing here that needs to be brought into clarity for this thought to give us power to test the validity of spirits.

Some people will turn to a verse previous to this (3:24) that talks about keeping the commandants. They assert that if someone does not keep all Ten Commandants and teaches others to ignore them then they cannot be trusted at all. I will not argue that anyone reflective of the true spirit of God will not be found trying to undermine the principles of the Ten Commandants, but again, that is too simplistic and even leads toward a legalistic mindset that itself can be a spirit that can deceive us into thinking we are right with God while missing the point completely. Did not the religious leaders of Jesus' day specialize in keeping all the commandants perfectly? Yet they received more rebukes from Jesus than anyone else and they even ended up putting Jesus to death due to their hostility toward His claim to represent the very God of those commandants.

If we back up yet another verse it becomes clear that the commandants have more to do with love than trying to keep up a rigid performance of religion. Jesus also made it abundantly clear that the commandants are all about loving God and everyone around us. John in particular keeps bringing the issue back to love as being the core issue at stake, not external performance. And he also tries to get us to realize that true religion has much more to do with the heart and the condition of our spirit rather than a measurement of our apparent piety or how good we can keep up good appearances. So simply claiming that we can test a spirit by checking them against the Ten Commandants may fall far short of giving us an effective key by which we can test every spirit.

This verse under consideration is actually a twin with the next verse that gives the flip side of it.

...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. (v. 3)

Now given the religious assumptions that many have about Jesus and God, this next verse still is not very helpful in understanding how to effectively test spirits unless one has a better understanding of why it was important for Jesus to come to this earth in the first place. Too many Christians think that religion and salvation are simply matters of profession – that if we just say the right words and do the right acts that we are good to go to heaven. Or many believe that the core issue is our legal standing with God and all we need is to secure a pardon for our breaking of the rules. But these spirits too must be tested to see if they are actually from God or are deceiving spirits.

Do we really think that all God wants for us is to say some words that sound religious enough to pass some litmus test in heaven so He will then take us there? What about the ways we treat each other, our disposition, our attitudes towards God, the condition of our characters? Do we suppose that God will impose some artificial change on our characters when we arrive in heaven so that we suddenly become someone we have never been before? Many in fact do believe in this theory. But such thinking denies the core principle of freedom of choice that is so vital for true love to even exist.

I have long cognitively accepted the facts that Jesus was a human and had flesh; that Jesus came from heaven and was also God and I have been willing to 'confess' those things whenever asked about them. But at the same time I also realized that doing so didn't really have any transforming effect on my own life or give me any clue as to how to discern between the spirit of others who might be out to deceive me in some way. Even John's mention of the spirit of antichrist was not very helpful to fill me in as to how to test every spirit as there are many wild and crazy ideas circulating about what the term antichrist even means or what that involves. There has to be something very significant missing here that will pull of of these facets together to make perfect sense.

As I peruse over the verses before and after this text I see a heavy saturation of references to love and about abiding in God. Those are a vital component in deciphering the meaning of these verses. But something that jumped out at me as being very relevant to my pursuit of understanding how to test every spirit shows up a little ways back in the previous chapter.

Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. (1 John 3:7-8)

The reason it is so important to test every spirit is to determine whether they are in harmony with the real truth about God or whether they are intent on conveying or reinforcing false ideas about God – in other words, deceiving us. In these last verses John again is talking about how to determine what is truthful and what is not. And it revolves having a correct understanding of what is righteous and what is sin. It also clearly points out that God is righteous and sin is of the devil.

Now that may sound too simplistic at first, but given the background of what God has been revealing over recent years about Himself, this takes on significantly more meaning for me now. As I have come to unpack better definitions of many words that have long been obscured through mistaken use and religious assumptions, coming to verses like this with a new understanding of what righteous means and what sin means opens up a whole different dimension here. In fact, this is very close to another place in this little potent book where John explicitly gives a definition of the core message that Jesus came to reveal and for us to pass on to others.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

All of these clues factor into understanding how to test every spirit.

• Any spirit that promotes any dark views of God in any way is going to be a counterfeit spirit that should be turned away from immediately.
• Any spirit that is not rooted in and filled with love and promotes the practice of abiding in Christ will be a false spirit, a spirit that is against Christ and is an antichrist.
• Any spirit that in any way participants in the works of the devil is going to be a spirit that should be avoided at all costs.

But knowing what the works of the devil are is important to determining the nature of a spirit that is in harmony with the devil and his principles.

Here are a few direct statements about what the devil is up to:

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:9)

It starts to become clear that when Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil that He came to expose the lies of the devil for what they really are; He came to defeat death and bring life and He came to stop the devil from stealing, killing and destroying. But how we perceive the way in which Jesus accomplishes this makes all the difference in how we go about testing every spirit.

I am not going to spend time reciting the false teachings so prevalent about the reason Jesus died on the cross. Rather I want to get straight to the point that is only recently becoming more clear to me about the real truth of the cross. This truth is so potent that I am beginning to appreciate more fully why the early church had such compelling attraction and power to draw thousands to want to know God more for themselves. The true Spirit of God was so present in that group of believers that the message about God was irresistible except by those who clung firmly to their own agenda and preconceptions. All who were honest of heart and seeking for the real truth and were willing to let go of their misconceptions about God amd were drawn to join with the rapidly growing movement. And not any amount of vicious persecution could slow down the progress of the gospel spreading over the whole world.

So, what does Jesus coming in the flesh have to do with any of this? Here is what has come to my attention recently that helps make far more sense than the confusing explanations I have heard much of my life.

When I step back to view the great cosmic conflict from the larger perspective, it begins to make much more sense how all of this fits together. Ever since sin entered our world and blinded us to the love of God and the truth about how good He is, how fair He is, how just and truthful and compassionate He really is, we have harbored a deep resentment against Him, because in our hearts we have blamed Him for all the pain, suffering and tragedies that plague all of our lives. Part of the diabolical effects of Satan's lies has been to feel that God is ultimately the cause of all this mess because, we assume, He could have prevented it long before it ever reached this planet. And He could still intervene to prevent tragedies and horrific crimes from taking place if He would just assert His authority and use His superior power to intervene and forcefully stop these things from transpiring even now.

In our hearts we naturally tend to sympathize with those screaming out at God after some terrible tragedy asking why He seems so impotent to stop all the evil in this world. Others cling to a hope of a final day of reckoning and vengeance (read revenge) when the scores will finally all be settled and all the perpetrators of evil will get their 'just dues'. Of course that logic runs into problems when we also promote a belief in forgiveness, so we insert Jesus' horrific death on the cross as a substitute for the punishment we believe sinners deserve for breaking the rules set down by heaven.

In all of these assumptions the truth about unconditional love, God, justice and pretty much every other term becomes distorted and confused. But even so, our own hearts sometimes secretly wish that, like Job when he suffered so much and could not make sense out of it all, we wish that we could just be able to drag God into a court of real justice so we could expose Him to the reality of how bad things really are down here that He seems to be overlooking. And sometimes we hurt so badly that many wish they could just get their hands on God so they could make Him aware of the suffering that they feel He is allowing (a way of expressing our desires to settle the score or inflict revenge).

One of the deepest cravings that most of us experience is the desire to have something we call balance. Even our symbols for justice include a mythical set of scales that infers a need for balance between good and bad, righteousness and wickedness. But if we think about this it can be a bit confusing as to why we assume that adding enough righteousness will somehow offset an 'equal' amount of wickedness and thus satisfaction can be achieved. Yet this thinking has been inherent in the human psyche ever since our first parents imbibed of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The principles inherent in that tree are still very much the basis by which we interpret reality to this very day. It is the principle of balance between good and evil, ying and yang, whatever terms you might want to employ.

Now here is the true power of the cross. It is not a revelation of an offended God executing His rage against sinners against His own Son as a substitute to satisfy some distorted notion of justice. Quite the opposite, the cross is a stark revelation of the real truth about a God who is so humble, so gracious, so perfectly agape love that He was willing to become a human with vulnerable flesh and bones that could feel and hurt and know pain for the purpose of giving humans opportunity to vent all the rage pent up inside us against a God whom we could not previously get our hands on because He was out of reach.

As sinners we have intuitively felt that if we could just have the opportunity to inflict enough pain on God that somehow that we could sooner or later get Him to react in some way similar to how we react when we hurt. We have felt that God has somehow been unfair in judging us for indulging in violence and revenge while not really understanding why we do these things. So to answer that very issue, Jesus allowed demoniacally inspired humans to torture Him as much as they could in a feverish attempt to intimidate or compel Him to react in some way like we would react under such treatment. We were certain that given enough pain that sooner or later God would begin to understand our situation better and would finally take offense, resort to retaliation or do something that would then justify our own reactions when we indulge in those same emotions.

Yet to the amazement of the whole universe, God in the flesh could not be swerved from the totally selfless love and unconditional forgiveness that make up His character. Jesus explicitly demonstrated this at the cross under the most extreme circumstances. Beyond all the physical torture, demons added a another layer of intense mental and emotional torture that the world could not witness that went on for hours inside of Jesus. This inner torture from an assault of accusations, lies about God and diabolical insinuations that have perpetuated the whole system of sin since its inception, brought so much torture to the mind of Christ that the physical pain was hardly noticed. Yet through all of this Jesus demonstrated as never before seen in history, the true character of God who is pure love, pure compassion, pure forgiveness. And He did it in a way that could not be displayed any more clearly.

When this view of the real purpose of the cross is taken as our basis for understanding it, these messages from John take on a whole new dimension. Now it can be readily seen that any spirit that denies that God is like what Jesus demonstrated cannot be a spirit that comes from God but is against the truth about God (antichrist). False prophets – people claiming to represent God but not in harmony with the truth about His pure agape love – will promote all sorts of ideas about God that are not in harmony with the real truth about Him as revealed by Jesus. And only those who are willing to lay aside all their preconceptions and distorted views of God in favor of embracing the clear picture of God as only revealed in the life and death of Jesus who is the perfect revelation of God, will begin to grasp the true message of the cross and will begin reflect the same spirit as that revealed by Jesus.

One last note about the nature of how to discern and test every spirit. Any spirit of a person claiming to speak the truth about God that uses fear as a motivation to compel people to accept their message is immediately suspect at best. For John makes it very clear that fear and God are not in any way compatible.

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. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment (the day when everything hidden will be exposed); because as He is, so also are we in this world. 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. We love, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:16-19)

Don't Believe 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. (1 John 3:24 – 4:1)

Last time I dwelt on the phrase here test the spirits. There are many important places in this passage where I see things that fill in just what is involved in doing this most important work and I want to explore them much more thoroughly. But first I want to revisit this verse and the phrase that caught my attention this morning, do not believe every spirit.

Lately there seems to be an amping up of the spirit of fault-finding and accusing in many quarters of the church. That this is happening increasingly in politics is to be expected though it is becoming very wearing. But within the body of churches who claim to be followers of the teachings and example of Jesus this is very disconcerting.

Recently I wanted to tap into resources that would provide ongoing news and information about some of the divisive issues swirling around in our church. I have spent some time in discussion groups on the internet and have at times engaged in various discussions as well as reading articles that have helped to give me broader perspectives. Many of the things I have read have helped to give me better understanding and some of them have been very inspirational and useful. But at the same time I have also been alarmed at the high number of people on both sides of these issues who seem to have little regard for the words of Jesus about the spirit that should be reflected by His disciples while they strongly assert that they are following biblical truth and have plenty of proof texts to support their rigid, inflexible beliefs.

Some of these people are ready to deride others who do not see things the way they do and apparently want to consign others to be lost based on which side of certain topics they choose to endorse. Yet the tone of their own comments is so strident at times that it makes me alarmed. But what concerns me even more is how easy I find it to respond in a similar fashion and make my own strong statements in reply to them. I find that I have to constantly pray for a more humble spirit all the time I am composing a statement to post in these discussions lest I discredit the very truths about God that are changing my own life and perspectives and freeing me from the very prejudices that I see in others.

What I am seeing – and this is certainly nothing new – are people assuming that if they just assert their own conclusions strongly enough that maybe someone else will be intimidated to change their opinions from the other side of some issue and join them. They seem to believe that truth apparently has to have more force behind it so that others will be convinced that it is true. Yet when I have pointed out that when often the real problem is faulty assumptions about the meanings of words or much deeper issues than the topics under discussion that are far more important and concern our fundamental attitudes and views of how God wants us to see things, almost without exception no one even notices.

I am not suggesting that I am feeling miffed because my comments are not appreciated. What I am saying is that I am baffled at times when people desire to argue endlessly using illogical reasoning or worse yet, depending on traditions passed down from unbiblical sources without any willingness to examine their own assumptions. I often see that many are relying on singular references to prop up their insecure positions on some subject while remaining unwilling to honestly consider the validity of their opponents line of thinking.

John here warns us about the danger of believing every spirit. But that is a curious way of putting it that we don't normally discuss. Our methods of testing almost without fail come down on the side of testing assertions based on the accuracy of how they fit our interpretations of key texts that we rely on to prop of our agendas. But I have seen very little attention paid, either from the people writing articles and especially among those engaged in vigorous debate after the articles, who are giving any weight to this instruction to test every spirit. I wonder if that is because we are so far removed from an intelligent awareness of what is going on in our own spirit that it is just easier to ignore this teaching. This results too often in freeing us from divine inhibitions so we treat others any way we feel like when they see things differently than us.

As I read these words this morning that I need to beware of what spirits I believe, I am reminded of the vital importance that our spirit has to our salvation. I am coming to realize that the devil has a very easy time keeping people distracted with intellectual sparring over issues that we feel are vital for the unity of the church while not noticing that the spirit motivating our own hearts is very often the real cause of disunity. It matters far less that we can successfully prove our positions on some topic than the spirit that we allow to control us while discussing them. What I am observing is that on the part of many there is little reluctance to accuse others harshly while insisting that everyone has to agree with their particular interpretations and think there is nothing amiss in their own spirit. Yet to me it seems rather evident that this attitude is more in line with the one that the Bible calls 'the accuser of the brethren'.

I am coming to see more and more that a far better method for measuring what is valid or safe for us to consider is the atmosphere surrounding the person in regards to their spirit. Deception is very easy to disseminate when it comes to facts, proof-texts, quotations and arguments. In addition, because there is such a wide diversity of meanings behind our words it is impossible to communicate with others without some level of misunderstanding. But too often our statements move beyond misunderstanding to intentional deception whether that happens consciously or without our conscious awareness.

To combat error, we can try to spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to decipher what is factually true, untrue, provable or disprovable. But we will usually only accomplish taking ourselves and others into even greater confusion and deeper prejudices. We are surrounded with people eager to get us to believe their version of what they are certain is gospel truth. But what I have been learning is that much of what is being promoted as truth has very little if any real 'good news' within it. And many of these interactions contain large doses of intimidation, fear and threats that if we do not accept some particular position that we are endangering our souls for eternity.

My own father was caught up in this vortex of intensity and became very bitter and combative for a number of years. He, like many I encounter today, was sure that his salvation depended on the accuracy of his beliefs while largely ignoring the condition of his own spirit. He believed like many do that truth is solely in the arena facts, doctrines and cognitive beliefs and that the spirit is just a topic somewhere down the list to be considered as another item to study.

But over the years God has been convicting me that my spirit and my attitudes are the main issue, not a peripheral side note. This truth can frighten many who are highly dependent on carefully crafted arguments to support their dogmatic positions and they usually reject such suggestions out of hand. But the more I open myself up to receiving insights from God's Spirit in the context of His Word, the more I cannot avoid that God seems to be primarily concerned with this area of my life while all the other facts and proofs and discussions are mainly supplementary for conditioning my spirit in preparation for integration into a society of holy, joyful beings.

Satan's greatest decoy is not to confuse us on the accuracy of what day is the Sabbath, what happens to people when they die or who we should ordain. Satan's most effective weapon to keep us in deception is to get us to obsessively study facts about doctrines in order to attack others in an accusing spirit. Just because I may gain a broad grasp of factual and doctrinal truth in no way is assurance that I am experiencing a saving, transformational relationship with God. If Jesus tried to teach anything it was this point. The Jews in His day were similar to many of us today who are confident that we know the truth from our study of the Scriptures while oblivious to the condition of own own spirit.

It takes special watchfulness to keep the affections alive and our hearts in a condition where we shall be sensible of the good that exists in the hearts of others. If we do not watch on this point, Satan will put his jealousy into our souls; he will put his glasses before our eyes, that we may see the actions of our brethren in a distorted light. Instead of looking critically upon our brethren we should turn our eyes within, and be ready to discover the objectionable traits of our own character. As we have a proper realization of our own mistakes and failures, the mistakes of others will sink into insignificance.

Satan is an accuser of the brethren. He is on the watch for every error, no matter how small, that he may have something on which to found an accusation. Keep off from Satan's side. {TMK 181}

When I hear comments that are forceful and have a sharp thrust to them, I realize that the intensity of the writer is intended to push others to agree with them and come to believe that what they have to say is the truth. But John here is saying that truth is not necessarily found by intellectual investigation but will be discerned by first paying attention to the kind of spirit that is present in the medium of delivery.

This of course indicts me along with everyone else. I am keenly aware of how often my own spirit becomes defensive, combative and at times even accusing. I am far from consistently reflecting the spirit of humility that I am beginning to see marks the character of God. It still seems like an oxymoron to view God as being extremely humble, especially God the Father. Yet I have to stick with that conclusion because Jesus and the Father are exactly alike and Jesus clearly was the perfect example of humility. Thus it only follows that the most likely sources of God's kind of truth will be those who most closely reflect the spirit of Jesus rather than the spirit of the accuser.

So what happens when a person might have 'truth', factual, biblical, verifiable doctrines, and yet delivers these ideas utilizing methods and attitudes more reflective of the accuser? Am I to attempt to separate the information away from the person, or will that only cause me to become infected with the highly contagious virus of criticism by interacting with them at all? Do I have to embrace factual truth from people who are unwilling to be molded by the gentle spirit of Jesus, or might I be better off drawing back a bit from them and waiting for God to send someone more in tune with His ways to share with me where I might be doctrinally misinformed?

I am not taking a hard position here but am wrestling with real questions that remain partially unanswered in my own mind. Given my own track record of discouraging others by coming on too strong with 'truth' at times, I wonder how people should relate to me when I am on the delivery end of this issue. Either way, it seems that clearly there is a serious and pervasive problem in the body of Christ of ignoring the state of our spirit while putting far too much weight on winning arguments and trying to force our beliefs on those around us. I find myself having to turn away from some of the debates in order to quiet and rejuvenate my own spirit by dwelling on the beauties and attractiveness of God in His presence in order to regain my own perspective and peace. And I long to be completely free of the aggressive edge that too often creeps into my own interactions with others when I seek to share with them what I have been learning about God.

So I come back to the clear instruction of John that I must learn how to test every spirit. I am reminded that this includes testing the right spirits as well as the wrong ones. God's Spirit along with all those who reflect His Spirit in their own lives, are never afraid of being tested, for their value does not come from what others think of them but from God alone. On the other hand, every false spirit will be afraid of being challenged because there are always elements within them that might be exposed as fraudulent when increased light is brought to bear.

The light that I must learn to use to examine every spirit must be light received from the only reliable Source of truth. That means I must maintain daily a close connection in my own spirit with the Spirit of truth in order to have enough light in me to discern whether a spirit is of God or whether it is otherwise no matter how factually accurate someone may be. I am learning that the more important part for me is to make the choice that Mary did when she broke all the rules and chose to sit with men at Jesus' feet instead of remaining in the role that everyone expected her to play. Marinating in the presence of Jesus is the only way I know to absorb more of His spirit and mindset so as to be better prepared when I encounter a need to test another spirit.