#DailyDevotion Some Who Use Jesus’ Name Are AntiChrist
Wednesday Easter 5
1 John 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for 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, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
Just because someone uses the name of Jesus doesn’t mean they are a Christian. Just because someone is a pastor doesn’t mean they are teaching correctly what the Lord wants them to teach. We have become terribly too tolerant as Christians in particularly the United States. Ungodly forces among have been teaching us that it doesn’t matter what you believe or what you teach, we’re all going to the same place. But is that what Jesus teach? Mat 7:13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.
In this epistle lesson we are commanded to test the spirits. We are not to accept everything that mentions Jesus or even uses the bible. The teaching must use the bible correctly and actually teach what the bible teaches in context. John is addressing here a particular error popular in his time and becoming more popular today. That error is Gnosticism. Anyone who appeals to you today who downplays the bible we have and says we must look to these other books that we excluded from the bible are believing another spirit rather than the Spirit of Christ.
What does John mean when he says these spirits do not confess Jesus Christ has come in the flesh? There is a threefold false teaching in this damnable error. The first is Jesus only looked like he was human. He was purely spirit but made himself look like us. This Jesus cannot die for you. The second, Jesus was only a man, but the spirit of Christ, the Son of God possessed Jesus as his baptism. This Son of God cannot die for you and make satisfaction for your sin. In both of these Jesus isn’t truly God and Man. He is not the Lord, the God of the Old Testament in the flesh, who offers himself upon the cross, dying that we might possess eternal life. The third error is one where the erring spirit teaches what Jesus did in the flesh is not enough for your salvation. You must do something; you must contribute something to your salvation. Like the previous two it is most pernicious because while not denying that Jesus is truly God and Man, it denies the complete and total work of Jesus in the flesh. John warns us, these teachers are following and teaching the doctrines of the antichrist, the beast and the false prophet of the book of Revelation.
When Christians confess Jesus is the Christ, the Lord, we are confessing Jesus is the promised messiah who is the Lord of heaven and earth in the flesh. He is the Lord you see written in small capital letters from Genesis to Malachi in the flesh. Anything else is just a poser. Anything less will not and cannot save you from sin, death and the power of the devil. But Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Son of God, the Word of God, by whom and through whom heaven and earth were created taken upon himself the flesh, the seed of David, the seed of the woman, the Virgin Mary, and remaining truly God and Lord, he has saved you utterly, completely, without anything left undone so you may have salvation unto eternal life, freely, by his grace, through faith in him.
Heavenly Father, grant us a discerning spirit, so we may test the spirits and listen only to those who confess your Son, come in the flesh, for our salvation. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.