1 John 4: 1-3 Dear friends, 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. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
The antichrist spirit wants to eliminate God’s presence of redemption from mankind. When humans reject that Jesus has come in the flesh for the benefit of mankind, they reject every aspect of pleasing the perfect, holy, eternal, Creator God. Jesus came to place mankind in right relationship to the only true God. People who live by faith in Jesus Christ and his works are cleansed of their own works and efforts to please a holy God. Jesus replaces our attempts at holiness by giving us his holiness, his perfection, making us able to live eternally with an everlasting God. Because of Jesus’ works, the Holy Spirit came to abide within men. He testifies of the eternal God by closely allying himself with the spirits of those with faith in Jesus. Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, came to redeem mankind of its waywardness from God’s presence, allowing men and women to know God and to be perfect in his presence. The Creator God has never left his creation, even though mankind’s rebellion was so great that in Noah’s time He did away with everyone but Noah’s family. Yet his plan from the beginning of time was always to redeem humans who were made in his image. Redemption’s plan was completely fulfilled in the life of Jesus. No other man could do the things that Jesus did: He healed the sick and broken and moved the natural elements to suit his purposes. But we might ask, why did the Creator have to come in the flesh? Why did Jesus call himself the Son of Man? Jesus had to come in the form of a lowly man to experience the finiteness of human beings. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. (Hebrews 4:15) If He had not come as a human, He could not have been the perfect sacrifice for people, for He would not have known the pressure and the terror of living for a short time in an incomprehensible existence. He lived by faith just as men who are alive to God live by faith. As the perfect sacrifice, Jesus died with faith in God and his redemption plan, satisfying God’s wrath on a wayward, rebellious people, imprisoned by their own desires, living under their own authority and not God’s. We see human bondage in the Israelites who were led into Egypt because of the scarcity of food in their nomad environment. The slavery experience of the Israelites in Egypt is analogous to humans in their slavery to the Evil One. A savior was needed to release the Israelites from their captivity, and a savior is needed to redeem men from their bondage to rebellion. Moses was chosen to free the Jewish people from Pharaoh. Jesus came to deliver mankind from their slavery to the evil one, displaying the devil’s works, not God’s goodness. Moses through God’s directions and power performed many miracles, so did Jesus through God’s direction, for Jesus always did the will of his Father. The Father’s words were his words, and his words were the Father’s words. Moses’ words were given to him by God. The Jewish people in captivity had to believe in Moses’ words for deliverance from captivity. They had to place the blood of the lamb above their doors to escape death, to find life outside of Egypt. Christians have appropriated Jesus’ blood for their lives. By this act of faith, the souls of Christians have been released from the hold of the Evil One. Jesus rejoices when his apostles come back to him and tell of their great ministries, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” (Luke 10:17) John states very emphatically that people must believe in the words and actions of Jesus Christ in the flesh or they will never be free from the control of evil. The Jews had to followed Moses’ words to find release from captivity; people must believe that the Deliverer has come to them in Christ to bring release from eternal death. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:12) Christ had to walk this world as a man; He called himself the Son of Man, identifying himself with humans, even to death, alone as all humans experience death, for no one can go with you on that last journey even though they might wish to. From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[c] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”). (Matthew 27:45-46) We see Jesus alone on the cross, and we see him in desperation, if God has abandoned him, Life itself has abandoned him. Jesus felt alone, as mankind is alone without God, caught literally in nothingness. But Jesus knew by faith, God is faithful. Just as we the believers know that truth when we die.
People believe many things to make sense of life, developing philosophies, ideologies and religions to navigate existence. Their hope of something more than this life usually rests with their own imaginations, their own awareness of life. Even the atheist has a solution to future existence: a perfect nothingness, falling back into the black holes of the universe. For them our lives are but a personification of energy; when the energy ceases, the light goes out permanently, trailing back into the abyss of blackness. For many people, maybe the majority of people, if eternal life exists, it must be achieved by a life of goodness, love, and help, doing what is right, not what is hurtful or destructive to others. Do unto others as you desire to have people do unto you. This kind of life is somewhat like a game: the scorekeeper tallies up the good acts and the bad acts that transpire in our lives. If the good outweighs the bad, the person is the winner, but if the bad supersedes the good, well, there has to be consequences for losing, so some religions see some sort of punishment after life; others see a gracious God evening out the score so there is no punishment. Some religions consider the idea of oblivion for bad people such as Hitler. Because of our finite nature and the unresolvable understanding of why we have an awareness called life, we imagine many answers and solutions that will perpetuate life. John’s letter emphasizes that there is a God to serve and that his Son Jesus Christ came in the flesh. The New Testament emphasizes the Holy Spirit coming to earth to abide in those who have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as their own. Of course, all of this happens by faith, vicariously. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. If God’s Holy Spirit resides in a person, that person has acknowledged Jesus as the Savior of mankind. The work of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life is to reveal God and to proclaim the saving works of Jesus. Anyone who claims anything else is not from God, neither does he or she know God, nor the plan of God for the redemption of humans from their evil ways. The antichrist people exist in darkness, in blindness, ignorant of their purpose for living and their need for redemption. When Jesus was talking to the Pharisees after He healed the blind man, He was stern with them. The Pharisees believed they knew God and how to please him. They were satisfied with their religion as followers of Abraham and Moses. Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” (John 9:39-41) These Pharisees displayed the antichrist spirit. No matter what they saw Jesus doing, or how many miracles He performed before their own eyes, or how deep Jesus’ teachings were from the Old Testament, they were not going to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. They were so embedded in their own religion of rights and wrongs, they were blinded to truth even when it walked boldly into their world of religion and philosophy. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
We should analyze whether we participate in the antichrist spirit that easily erodes the lifestyle of Christians. We might believe that Christ came to this earth two thousand years ago, but his teachings and affirmations in our lives might be weak. We must be careful if we only have a vaccination of Christ and not a lifestyle of Christ. A double-minded spirit can weaken our commitment to the Lord. In the Old Testament Abraham claimed absolute fidelity to God by offering to sacrifice his son because of God’s demands on his life. Later on, God tested Abraham, saying, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:1-2) We see an absolute “all in” factor in Abraham’s life. He was willing to give up his son, not for some personal gratuity from God; maybe more wealth, more blessings from God in some way. No, his willingness to give up his son was an obeisance to God, honoring God as his maker. If God desired his son’s sacrifice, he would do it. We see this same spirit in the widow who gives her last two pence in an offering to God. She was not giving for her own personal gain, but she was giving her last means of living for the benefit and pleasure of God. Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” (Mark 12:41-44) This total commitment to God is often the direct opposite of the human spirit to fend for himself or herself in this world. This lack of trust in God can be called an antichrist spirit, a double-minded spirit. Rather than trust God completely, relying on the plan of God to take care of us, we rely on our own efforts. In some cases other divinities, philosophies, ideologies are more important to us than God. In our present world, we find Christians hoping power and authority will keep us safe from the world’s wickedness. By seeking the world, we desire the most for ourselves and others we love. Rather than dedicating our sons and daughters, our wealth, our livelihood to God, we place them in the hands of the world. Often in our minds, our salvation is based more on our decisions about life rather than on what God desires for our lives. If God does not satisfy our yearnings, maybe something other than God is necessary. As Christians we might say Jesus the Son of God has come in the flesh; believing we have evaded the contamination of the antigod, antichrist spirit, but our lives really journal the truth. If we serve God as if we are acceptable to him, for we have said the magic words of salvation, we have taken the vaccination of truth on our arms, but have avoided the real story of our lives, written clearly in our diaries of how we really live, we fool ourselves. The real truth of a life is the dedication to God, our obeisance to him. If we believe Christ has come in the flesh, He is the story of our lives. Are we daily writing God’s tunes, his words, or are we writing our music, our words? Do we know the voice of God? Do we have ears to hear? Are songs of praise radiating from our lips as we walk through the day? Are we interacting constantly with God? Even Cain the rebellious one interacted with God. The antichrist spirit is believing God did not come in the flesh; believing the Spirit has no voice within us; believing life has to be worked out by ourselves. The antichrist spirit is believing God is not really involved with our lives. If our thoughts, our lives are sitting in any of these poison patches of unbelief, we are accepting the antichrist spirit. If any of that is true in us, we need repentance, for we are children of God because Christ came in the flesh to set us free! Amen!
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