1 John 4:1–6
Plain and straightforward
“No system can be tolerated, however loud its claims or learned its adherents, which deny that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, in other words, either his eternal deity or his historical humanity. Those who deny the Son have neither the Father nor the Spirit” (Stott 156).
For three chapters, John laid out his argument that false teachers regularly infiltrated the church as antichrists who lie as they deny the essential truths the believers knew from the beginning. In chapter four, John puts aside the argument and picks up an admonition: “Test the spirits to see whether they are from God” (v 1). What is the test? “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God” (v 2). Without equivocation, John put forth the one truth that separates Christianity from all other world religions: God Incarnate. Stott (1988) wrote, “The fundamental Christian doctrine which can never be compromised concerns the eternal divine-human person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (155). That is both the cornerstone and unshakable foundation. Any teacher who begins anywhere else is wrong, misleading, or lying.
The spirit of antichrist never stops trying to deceive the faithful. From Genesis 3 (“Did God actually say ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’ “) to 21st century post modern post-materialist philosophers (“my truth”), the Word…
