Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXIX) 02/24/22

^4:4 Since you belong to God, my dear children, you have already won a victory over those worldly people because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.

Matthew Poole (1624-1679) feels that by the Apostles being born again and enjoying God’s guidelines and strength, they overcame these notions of the heretics that the flesh meant nothing, only the soul. It also gave them the courage to face the persecution that came at them from the antichrist crowd and so-called Christian speakers. That’s because the Holy Spirit was strong in them than the lying, impure spirit of the antichrist in their distractors.[1]

Daniel Whitby (1638-1726) focuses on the word “overcome.” He says the doctrine we preach and confirm by these gifts and distributions of the Holy Spirit has prevailed mightily over all the opposition the unbelieving Jews and false apostles made against it. That’s because the spirit that acts in them can only work through them with counterfeit and lying imitations. In contrast, the Spirit that is in us enables us to confirm the truth with real miracles, signs, and various gift distributions by the Holy Spirit, by which God bears witness to the truth of that doctrine you preach.[2] [3]

William Burkitt (1650-1703) hears the Apostle John telling those he’s writing that they are of a nobler descent, of a more excellent pedigree, and higher offspring when compared to these antichrists and their false teachers. Christians are God’s children, regenerated by God’s Spirit, enlightened by His new birth creation, led by His guidance, motivated by His influences, and animated by His assistance. Thus, they have overcome them and their false doctrines because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. We cannot accomplish this on our own, that’s impossible, but with God’s Spirit living in us.

Thomas Pyle (1674-1756) says that the Apostle John is telling every child of God that the powers of the Holy Spirit displayed by the Anointed One, conferred on His apostles, and residing in many churches, give testimony that their faith is far superior to what these worldly-minded imposters pretend to have with their false doctrines.[4]

John Bunyan (1628-1688) noted that God put hostile feelings between the woman and her seed and the serpent and his seed.[5] This hostility was so embedded that nothing could remove it; it will remain in the world. These two seeds have always had, and will have, that which is essentially opposite to one another, and they are “the spirit of truth and the spirit of error,”[6] sin and righteousness, [7] light and darkness.[8] Hence, says Bunyan, “an ungodly person is a plague to the godly, and those who live right by standing in their way, to shame those who live wrong.”[9]

James Macknight (1721-1800) responds to the Apostle John’s words in verse four by saying that the goal of the divine government will be that truth and virtue will finally be victorious over error and wickedness. That’s because God, the supporter of truth and virtue, possesses far great power and wisdom than the evil spirits who promote heresy and iniquity.[10]

John Brown of Haddington (1722-1787) reminds us that we who are born of God as His children have been taught by His Spirit to avoid or withstand or overcome these imposters, exposing their errors by remaining steadfast in our faith, profession, and obedience. We do not defeat them through debates, arguments, or ecumenical cooperation. He who dwells in us is greater than he who dwells in the world both in wisdom and power to the antichrist spirit present in the world under Satan’s control.[11] As I heard one preacher encourage us, “If the devil comes and tries to discourage you because of your past, just remind him of his future.” 

Richard Rothe (1799-1867) believes that if a believer looks at themselves in comparison with the world and the forces in it with the natural eye, they certainly cannot seem to themselves to be greater than they. Also, in their experience, it only too frequently becomes clear to them that they, as the weaker, succumbs to the world. But they should and can believe that indeed they are stronger than the world because the Spirit of God, which is in them, is mightier than the world and its spirit. So, being conscious of their weakness, they keep this fact constantly before them. It would be fatal self-deception if any Christian tried to convince themselves that they are not weak. Instead, clearly distinguish between themselves and Him that dwell in them, and in proportion, as they acknowledge their weakness, they should also recognize the invincible power of their God.

Wherever we are not confronted with those who deny the historical Anointed One, says Rothe, we should not speak of an antichristian tendency, neither should we do so when we meet denial, not of the fact itself, but only of a form in which it has up until now been represented the spirit of Antichrist. This should have no place to dwell in anyone whose interest is remaining true to Jesus the Anointed One in the history of humanity. We should not drive away such a person from us, nor separate ourselves from them, but should rather attempt to come to an understanding with them.[12]

There are two things that Rothe does not mention here. One of them is that when the antichrist spirits confronted Jesus, He never said He didn’t have time for them. And the second one is that attempting to understand such an atheistic individual does not include compromise. It means we find out where they stand and then let them know where we stand and how we both stand in the eyes of God. They will then know they will never persuade you to join them as part of the antichrist crowd, and will also know that they don’t have what you have in your personal relationship with the God and Anointed One they don’t have. Keep this in mind; their war is in the material world; ours is in the spiritual world. The only spirit they may have been that of the antichrist, but the Spirit we have is that of our heavenly Father, and He is greater than the antichrist and their father, the devil.

Robert Young (1822-1888), the famous producer of the “Literal Translation” of the Bible, renders verse four this way: “Ye – of God ye are, little children.” So, it isn’t that the Apostle John calls them his little children but identifies them as God’s little children in the faith. Young continues this format in verse five: “They – of the world they are;” and in verse six: “we – of God we are.”[13]

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) focuses on the term, “he that is in the world,” which implies the ruler of the world, [14] who is the devil, the father of these lying teachers, [15] whose works the Anointed One came to destroy.[16] By saying “them in the world” rather than “the world in them,” the Apostle indicates that they belong to “the world’s system of ethical values and philosophical virtues.” The Apostle John constantly teaches that the Christian’s work in this state of trial is to conquer “the world.” It is, in other words, to fight successfully against that view of life which ignores God, against that complex system of attractive moral evil and suspected intellectual falsehood which is organized and arranged by the great enemy of God, and which permeates and inspires non-Christianized society.[17] If Dr. Plummer were alive today, he might say, regrettable, that many so-called Christians are not only them in the world but the world in them.

Charles Simeon (1759-1836) in one of his sermons on First John stated that considering the opposition made to Christianity in the apostolic age, it is surprising that it gained so rapidly, so extensive, and so permanent a footing in the world. That its establishment resulted from miracles, there is no doubt: but miracles, unless attended with a divine power to the hearts of the beholders, could change no minds. The very raising of Lazarus from the dead served only to embitter the minds of many against Him who caused it to happen. That which gave energy to the Word, and caused it to work effectually for the conversion of souls, was the power of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, after many embraced the Gospel, every possible method Satan could devise was used to turn them from it: but millions maintained their steadfastness, even to the end: for, as the Apostle John informs us, “greater was He that was in them than he that was in the world.”[18]

Rev. William Basil Jones (1822-1897) points to the Apostle John saying that He that was in the Christians is God; he that was in the world is Satan, “the prince of this world.” So, (Question), how does God dwell in His people. (1) By His Word.[19] (2) By their faith (3) By their love to Him.[20] (4) By His Spirit.[21] Not only that but (Answer), God is greater than Satan. (a) God is independent, but Satan is dependent.[22] (b) God is infinite, but Satan is finite.[23] (c) God is the God of truth, [24] but Satan is the father of lies. (d) God is healing, but Satan is malignant.

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[1] Poole, John: Commentary on 1 John, op. cit., loc., cit.

[2] See Romans 15:19; 1 Thessalonians 1:5; Hebrews 2:4

[3] Whitby, Daniel: A Paraphrase with Annotations, op. cit. p. 467

[4] Pyle, Thomas: Paraphrase, op. cit., p. 395

[5] Genesis 3:15

[6] 1 John 4:6

[7] Ibid. 3:7-8

[8] 1 Thessalonians 5:5

[9] Proverbs 29:27

[10] Macknight, James: Literal Paraphrase, op. cit., p. 88

[11] Brown, John of Haddington, Self-Interpreting Bible, op. cit., p. 1327

[12] Rothe, Richard: The Expository Times, December 1893, p. 124

[13] Young, Robert: Translation of the Whole Bible (1863), op. cit., loc. cit.

[14] John 12:31

[15] Cf. 1 John 3:10; John 8:44

[16] 1 John 3:8

[17] Plummer, Alfred: Cambridge Commentary, op. cit., p. 144

[18] Simeon, Charles: Horæ Homileticæ, op. cit., Vol. XX, Sermon 2453, pp. 469-470

[19] Psalm 1:2; 119:97

[20] 1 John 4:12-13, 16; John 14:23

[21] 1 John 4:13; John 14:16-17

[22] Cf. Job 1:12; 2:6

[23] Revelation 20:1-3

[24] John 8:44

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NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXVIII) 02/23/22

^4:4        My dear children, you belong to God, so you have already defeated these false prophets. That’s because the One in you is more powerful than the one in the world.

EXPOSITION

John did not need to look far to find corroboration for this statement. No doubt he remembered when Jesus said at the end of the last supper, “Now is the time for the world to be judged. Now the ruler of this world will be thrown out.”[1] And later in the Garden of Gethsemane, when He was about to be arrested, Jesus said, “I cannot speak with you much longer. The ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over Me.”[2] So, then, Jesus told His disciples about the role of the Holy Spirit. He told them not to fear interference from unbelievers because the Spirit will use them to show the world “how wrong their judgment is because their leader has already been condemned.”[3]

The readers of this epistle belonged to God’s family and, as such, had God’s resources to fight false teaching. For one thing, spiritual rebirth has an intimate closeness with the truth. Regenerated people owe their allegiance to their Father, their Procreator. There is correspondence between the message of God and the people of God. John’s readers overcame the false prophets and teachers with all their deception. It does not mean they overcame error with apologetics or clever arguments. They had no comprehensive course in cult awareness. The Apostle John tells them how they found their power – “He who is in you is greater.” It harmonizes with the message John received in his revelation: “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”[4] The one who is “in” them is the Holy Spirit.[5]  He is the foundation of their victory over false prophets and is far greater than satanic power (he who is in the world). And as John will say later: “We know that we are children of God and that all the rest of the world around us is under Satan’s power and control.”[6]

Thus, we see the Apostle John’s emphatic opposition to the false teachers in his day.[7] They are on one side and his readers on the other, and it is from this standpoint that John urges them to “prove the spirits.” John knows nothing of any neutral position from which we can criticize with absolute impartiality the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. As Jesus said, “Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me scatters.”[8] This assumed neutral position is already within the margin of error. When John says, “You have overcome them,” he is speaking of false teachers; but in what sense have John’s little children overcome them? He may be speaking in anticipation; confident of the victory, he writes of as an accomplished fact.[9] But it is better to take the statement literally. The sheep have conquered the wolves by refusing to listen to the false teachers: the seducers have “gone out,”[10] unable to hold their own within the fold. Consequently, one side has God with them, the other Satan.

COMMENTARY

I like what early Church scholar Hilary of Arles (401-449) said about the believer’s advantage: “God’s power to save is always much greater than the devil’s power to cause harm.”[11]  And Medieval monk and scholar Andreas points out that there are three who live in the believer: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and there is only one in the world, Satan.[12]  So guess who outnumbers who?  It makes me wonder why so many believers today still fear the devil.  Maybe it’s because the presence of God in their lives is not that strong.

Gregory the Great (540-604) encourages us that whatever we see in this world that goes against the truth, we are to trust in the grace of Almighty God. Remember the voice of the Truth, which says, “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.”[13] Therefore, whatever must be done, do it with the utmost confidence. Although we are not always protected from the spiteful arrows of our enemies, it is a disgraceful thing when we lose faith because of such scoundrels. To give in to such awful people will undoubtedly result in losing all faith.[14]

Bede the Venerable (672-735) states that by believing that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh, you have already overcome the antichrist. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”[15] But how could the Son of God have laid down His life for us if He had not taken on human flesh, which made it possible for Him to die? Therefore, anyone who violates God’s Law of Love denies by the way they live that the Anointed One has come in the flesh. So, no matter what they might claim, this person is antichrist.”[16]

Theophylact of Ohrid (1050-1108) says that true believers overcome the false prophets because the God who is in you is greater than the one by whom the false prophets have chosen to live. However, there is another sign of false prophets: they make simple believers remorseful through their misinformation. Therefore, many believers must be extremely disappointed when they see these so-called prophets awarded the highest honors while being treated disrespectfully by other Christians and the world.[17]

John Calvin (1509-1564) says we must observe why the Apostle John added the words, “because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” He did so to counteract our tendency to give up even before we engage an enemy. It comes from being so engrossed in believing everything we hear that we are open to all kinds of misconceptions because Satan is an artful deceiver. Even if we were to hold out for one day, yet a doubt may creep into our minds as to what might be the case tomorrow; that would leave us in a state of perpetual anxiety. Therefore, John reminds us that we become strong, not by our power, but by God’s power. Subsequently, he concludes that we cannot be conquered any more than God, who has armed us with His power to end the world. But in this whole spiritual warfare, this thought ought to dwell in our hearts, that it would be all over with us immediately were we to fight in our strength; but that as God repels our enemies while we wait and trust Him to act, victory is certain.[18] [19]

James Arminius (1560-1609) reacts to the Apostle John’s statement that we have overcome the world. He notes that the opposition’s greater capability, or at least of one equal, makes it possible to overcome the influences of the world that come against us. That was how Uzziah was prevented from burning incense when the priests resisted his attempt to do so.[20] In the same way, our bodily passions are hindered from doing what it pleases, “because the spirit wants what is contrary to the flesh,”[21] and because “greater is He that is in us, than he that is in the world.”[22] [23]

Arminius then focuses on the Holy Spirit’s role in assisting us in coping with our reborn spirit’s tendency to break God’s Law. He distinguishes the Spirit’s work as He prepares a temple for Himself, and the same Spirit as He inhabits that temple when it is sanctified. The question is: Whether these acts and operations may be attributed to the Spirit, the regenerator, not as He regenerates, but as He prepares the hearts of believers to admit to His efficiency of regeneration and renovation. With that being said, Arminius believes that it is generally clear that this opinion is not contemptuous to the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, it cannot take away from the Spirit anything attributed to Him in the Scriptures; but that it only indicates the order according to which the Holy Spirit disposes and distributes His acts and gifts.

However, Arminius says that we may disrespect the Spirit of adoption who dwells in the hearts of the regenerated by having such contrary inclinations in our reborn spirit. Sometimes, our reborn spirit develops an attitude of self-will. In other words, let me do this my way, not God’s way. But unfortunately, this often fails to produce anything positive and becomes defective, being conquered by the sinful tendencies that dwell within. As such, this is in opposition to the declaration of what John says here in verse four. Arminius also does not think that this attitude of self-will is the result of what the Apostle Paul told the Romans.[24] In that case, the subject under investigation is a man confronted by grace; for it is one thing to feel or perceive some effect of preparing grace; and it is another to be under grace, or to be ruled, led, and influenced by grace.[25]

John Trapp (1601-1669) comments that what the Apostle John says here about becoming victors is not that we have become overcomers with the help of the Holy Spirit in thinking about the Anointed One. On the contrary, we are more than conquerors by His sweet habitation because we are sure to overcome and triumph.[26]

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[1] Hebrews 12:31

[2] Ibid. 14:30

[3] Ibid. 16:11

[4] Revelation 12:11

[5] See 1 John 3:24; 4:2

[6] 1 John 5:19

[7] Cf. Ibid. 2:20

[8] Matthew 12:30; cf. Luke 11:23

[9] Cf. John 16:33

[10] 1 John 2:19

[11] Hilary of Arles: Commentary on 1 John, loc. cit.

[12] Andreas: Catena, op. cit., loc. cit.

[13] 1 John 4:4

[14] Gregory the Great, op. cit., Epistles, Bk. 1, Epistle 20, p. 821

[15] John 15:13

[16] Bede the Venerable, Ancient Christian Commentary, Vol. XI, Bray, G. (Ed.), James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John

[17] Theophylact of Ohrid, (Bray Ed.), James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, op. cit., loc. cit.

[18] Calvin, John: Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, op. cit., loc. cit, Footnote 84: “The world” is in this verse identified with “the false prophets;” true Christians had overcome these for this reason, because greater was He that was in them than he that was in the world, that is, in the unbelieving and ungodly, of whom the false prophets formed a part. Hence it follows, “They are of the world,” that is, they are of the number of those who are ungodly and wicked, who make up the kingdom of darkness.

[19] Calvin, John: Commentary on the Catholic Epistles, op. cit., loc. cit.

[20] 2 Chronicles 26:18, 21

[21] Galatians 5:17

[22] 1 John 4:4

[23] Arminius, James: op. cit., Disputation 9, p. 442

[24] Romans 7:18-19

[25] James, Arminius: op. cit., Vol. 3, A Dissertation of the True and Genuine Sense of the Seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, First Part, pp. 281-282

[26] Trapp, John: op. cit., p. 476

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXVII) 02/22/22

^4:3 If another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus, that spirit is not from God. It is the spirit of the Anointed One’s enemy. You have heard that the enemy of the Anointed One is coming. Well, he’s already in the world.

Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) notes that the divide between “the way you know the Spirit of God” in verse two and “the way you know the spirit of antichrist,” in verse three, is that each is marked by the initial use of the Greek pronoun hos, (“this” – NIV).  “This” is a demonstrative pronoun that frames the description that distinguishes the two spirits. The statements “every spirit that confesses that Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh is of God” and “and every spirit that does not confess this Jesus is not of God” together prescribe the litmus test for distinguishing one side from the other. It is the yardstick for measuring the genuine work of the Holy Spirit instead of the unholy spirit.[1]

But to the average reader, it must seem strange that the Apostle John says that this confession is by a “spirit.” Some might think these conflicts with what the Apostle Paul said, “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”[2] However, Paul said earlier, “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”[3] So, even today, it must be our spirit that confesses that Jesus is the Son of God who came in the flesh to save us.[4]

Marianne Meye Thompson (1964) observes that the Apostle John paraphrases the longer statement that one must acknowledge that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh[5] with the simpler formula that one must acknowledge Jesus.[6] Such a restatement makes it clear that what John ultimately seeks is faith in a person; the Incarnate Anointed One, and not faith in a doctrine, even the doctrine of the Incarnation. It is personal, for it is a person’s commitment to Jesus the Anointed One. In John’s dualistic world view – truth and falsehood, he can state in the harshest of terms as the opposition of the antichrist.[7] The defectors have the spirit of antichrist, a spirit opposed to the Spirit of God because it sets itself up against the Son of God, Jesus the Anointed One, and what John calls people to be and do.[8] [9]

Ken Johnson (1965) states that Jesus was born 100% human and yet was, 100%, God. Some Gnostics taught Jesus was a phantom, not having a real body. When He walked along the shore, He did not leave any footprints![10] He also left no cross as a holy object, nor the empty tomb as a holy shrine, nor His crown of thorns to be venerated. However, He did leave His Apostles and the Holy Spirit as witnesses to the reality of His incarnation.

Peter Pett (1966) agrees that the spirits of the prophets needed testing against revealed truth, which would determine whether the Holy Spirit inspired their motivations. It was probably false if the prophecy was of new, previously untaught ideas, but it could easily be figured out. The Spirit of God at work through the spirits of the prophets could be tested in this way. If they were true, their Spirit-inspired spirits would testify that Jesus came as a human being in the flesh but was equally the Anointed One, the One Who was the unique “Son of God.”[11] For that was the revealed truth proclaimed by the Apostles and prepared for in the First Covenant. On the other hand, those whose spirits do not prophesy of Jesus as God’s Son at all but only speak of “the Anointed One” are not of God, for what they teach is false. Rather, they are antichrists, setting up a false Anointed One instead of the true one. The believers in the churches had heard that such were coming. Well, here they were, already in the world. Let them listen carefully to what was taught before accepting any prophet’s message.[12]

Duncan Heaster (1967) says that a person claiming to be filled with the Spirit had to confess Jesus as the Anointed One, as Messiah. The Judaist infiltrators would not openly confess Him in this way. But they must confess that He “came in the flesh.” They must openly accept that Jesus was a real person, for already emerging ideas of Docetism. The Jews were advocating Gnosticism to cloud the whole issue – that a man born of Mary was God’s Son, the Messiah, having a perfect character, and now risen, was able to share His spirit with believers in Him. Much false teaching about the nature of the Lord began with Jewish attempts to cloud the true Christian teaching about the Lord; these attempts later morphed by further extension into the absurdities of Trinitarian doctrine.[13]

Here we see an open confession by Heaster that to believe in the Trinity is absurd. That’s because the one God approach by the Jews that would deny Jesus as being a separate Son of God from the Father needed to be stopped. In later writings by the Apostles, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were made individual deities. Hence, the trinity was born. But many times, in the Epistles, they are presented as three in one, inseparable from each other.[14] But Heaster could not be more wrong. Numerous scriptures point to their ministries and mission on earth.[15]

Karen H. Jobes (1968) notes that the statement that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh would certainly argue against Docetic claims.[16] But there are several other kinds of heretical views that this statement refutes. Because they all strike at the heart of truth about Jesus the Anointed One, they can be easily identified as antichrist spirit rather than the Spirit of the Anointed One. The antichrist spirit does not acknowledge that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh. Yet, there is simply not enough information in the text to allow a specific reconstruction of the antichrists’ beliefs that put them at odds with the Apostle John.

We may never know, says Jobes, which of these various readings of 4:2-3, often in light of 5:6-7, come closest to characterizing the dispute in the Johannine community, but some points can be noted with greater certainty. First, the perfect tense of the verb “has come” indicates that the point being made about Jesus the Anointed One has a present significance resulting from the past action of His coming. Second, John presents this statement about Jesus the Anointed One having come in the flesh as the criterion for testing whether a teaching “spirit” is of God or not. Thirdly, John’s dispute with the secessionists is about who has the authority to interpret the significance of Jesus. Jesus commissioned men who personally knew Him to be His witnesses.[17]

David Legge (1969) relates that the first and greatest test in verses two and three is this: “What do you know about Jesus?” “What do you know about Him as the Anointed One?” The Apostle John already told us that if you deny that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Son of God the Father, you are a liar.[18] Not only that, but you are one of the antichrists. Now, the Apostle Paul put it this way, “I tell you that no one who is speaking with the help of God’s Spirit says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ without the help of the Holy Spirit.” So, the first test of whether you are of God or not, and whether the spirit that motivates your prophecy and teaching about the Lord Jesus is of God, is what you are saying, what you believe. In an early church hymn, the composer put it this way:

               ‘What think you of the Anointed One? Is the test
               To try both your state and your scheme;
               You cannot be right in the rest,
               Unless you think rightly of Him.’[19]

David Guzik (1984) outlines how to know when a false prophet speaks: (a) Every spirit that confesses that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh is of God. (b) Every spirit that confesses that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh is of God. (c) This is the spirit of the Antichrist: To deny the true Jesus is the basis of the spirit of the Antichrist. (d) Is now already in the world. And to protect the child of God, Guzik offers this list: (i) You are of God, little children, and have overcome them. (ii) He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (iii) He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Guzik feels it is safe to say that initially, the Apostle John directed this against some form of Docetism, the view that the Anointed One was a spirit who only seemed to be a true man. Today, some groups deny that Jesus is really God (such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Muslims). But way back when John lived, it was a time closest to the actual life and ministry of Jesus on this earth; people didn’t have a hard time believing Jesus was God. But it is difficult for them to believe that He was a real man. So, this false teaching said Jesus was truly God (which is correct), but only a “make-believe” man.

Some think that this is the only test of false doctrine. However, this is not the only test, but it was the significant issue challenging the Church in John’s immediate time. Today a person might confess that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh yet deny that He is God as the Bible teaches. They also promote false doctrine because they are not presenting the true Jesus. The devil doesn’t care at all if you know Jesus or love Jesus or pray to Jesus – as long as it is a false Jesus, a make-believe Jesus, a Jesus who is not there, and who, therefore, cannot save lost sinners.[20]

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[1] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, op. cit., p. 421

[2] Romans 10:9

[3] Ibid. 8:16

[4] Cf. John 4:24; Acts of the Apostles 2:38; Romans 1:9

[5] 1 John 4:2

[6] Ibid. 4:3

[7] Ibid. 2:18-19

[8] Ibid. 3:23

[9] Thompson, Marianne M., The IVP New Testament Commentary, op. cit., pp. 116-117

[10] Johnson, Ken. Ancient Epistles of John and Jude, op. cit., p. 77

[11] Ibid. 2:22-23

[12] Pett, Peter: Commentary on the Bible, PDF, loc. cit.

[13] Heaster Duncan: New European Commentary, op. cit., 1 John, pp. 29-30

[14] John 10:30; Ephesians 4:4-6; Colossians 2:9

[15] Matthew 3:16-17; 28:19; John 1:4; 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 2 Corinthians 13:14; Philippians 2:5-8; 1 Peter 1:2

[16] Ibid. 5:6

[17] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament, Book 18), pp. 179-182

[18] Ibid. 2:22

[19] What Think Ye of the Anointed One? (1775) by John Newton and adapted to a common German folk tune, “De Fleury [“flower”], as in Fleur-de-lis.

[20] Guzik, David: Enduring Word, op. cit., loc. cit.

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXVI) 02/21/22

^4:3 If another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. It is the spirit of the Anointed One’s enemy. You have heard that the enemy of the Anointed One is coming. Well, he’s already in the world.

With all the grammar aside, Boice points out that a true confession explicitly accepts that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was human and the divine – the Son of God, the Anointed One. Jesus did not earn it, nor was it given to Him, nor was He randomly chosen for this role. He already eternally existed with the Father and voluntarily came to earth to become a human being so that He might save the world from sin’s curse of everlasting punishment. So, we are not talking about two-in-one, but one-and-the-same. It means that, unlike the Docetists, you cannot separate the Son of God from the son of man; it’s not one or the other. He is simultaneously divine and human in one body. That’s how He lived, died, and rose from the dead, that’s how He ascended into heaven, and that’s how He will return to gather the dead and living believers up and take them to live in heaven with Him, the Father, and the Spirit.

Michael Eaton (1942-2017) says there can never be an authentic gospel without true teaching concerning Jesus, the Son of God, is come in the flesh. At the very least, any true gospel must boldly blaze abroad that the man Jesus is “the Anointed One, the divine Savior.” The Son of God has come in the flesh. He is as much God as the Father is God. He is as human as we are human in all things except sin. Only such a One can be our Savior.[1] However, any over-emphasis on our Lord’s divinity or humanity does a disservice to His real mission. He could not die as God on our behalf to remove sin’s curse, nor could He rise from the dead and ascend into heaven if He were not God. Just like sodium chloride is needed to create salt, it took Jesus’ divinity and humanity to make the Messiah.

William Loader (1944) says that the words “acknowledge Jesus” is short for “recognizing that Jesus the man is the Anointed One in the flesh.” Anyone who objected to this identification was labeled as the spirit of the antichrist. The Apostle John has already identified the false teachers who have left the community as operating under the antichrist’s influence; therefore, antichrists themselves.[2] Now here in verse three, John returns to this traditional theme. The danger facing his readers is the ultimate danger expected to confront the Christian community, at the utmost risk of division and disharmony.[3]

David Jackman (1947) talks about the traveling prophets who claimed to speak authoritatively to the nations or (more often) to the Church. Some claim the authority of God to direct others’ lives, including decisions about work, or marriage, or where they live, by virtue of their direct communication with God. Others claim the power of God to exorcise or heal, or to perform signs and wonders. Any thinking Christian (and to be biblical, we must be thinking!) will want to assess these claims to determine whether they are genuine or bogus. We are not called upon to be naïve or gullible, fondly believing all who claim to speak for God. Instead, we must follow John’s exhortation to test these phenomena, not cynically but lovingly, by applying the two critical criteria laid down in this paragraph.[4]

John W. (Jack) Carter (1947) says that the voices we listen to shape our choices. We must listen to the correct ones.  In the first three verses, the Apostle John responds to a relatively specific heresy that is being promoted by some in the church.  Referred to as Docetic Gnosticism, or Docetism, [5] this position held that Jesus, being fully God, is fully Spirit and only appeared to be human.  Since the world is evil, they held that God’s purity would prevent Him from being part of humanity.  They entirely denied Jesus’ human nature, since they tried to resolve a conflict that Jesus could not be fully man and God simultaneously.[6]

What Colin G. Kruse (1950) says here about a spirit’s acknowledgment that Jesus the Anointed One from God has come in the flesh does not vary from the Jewish hope for their Messiah. The one big difference is that for the Jews, the Messiah is yet to come in the flesh. That means, if Jews are hoping for the Messiah to come quickly to bring them freedom from anti-Semitism and establish the kingdom of David once more, John announces that such a spirit was already in the world.[7]

Robert W. Yarbrough (1948) sees the Apostle John acknowledging two very different kinds of spirit manifestations, and this is why some yardstick is necessary. First, a spirit may be “of God.”[8] It may represent and express ideas or sentiments in line with God’s assessment of things. Paul wrote his epistles with a consciousness of having God’s Spirit.[9] John writes with a similar sense of presence. His letter typifies an expression that is “of God” in the sense of conveying God’s wisdom and the truth about the matters at hand.

Or, says Yarbrough, a spirit may give a very different impression: it may seem to indicate that “Jesus is not of God.” It is probably an indirect expression that, in context, means that Jesus as God’s Son did not really and fully assume human nature with real flesh and blood. John issues a warning with at least formal parallels: “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus the Anointed One as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world.”[10] The readers of 1 John are to be alert to the misrepresentation of the Anointed One amid the spiritual manifestations that arise within their community. Such falsification is not a fine point of doctrine but rather the specter of antichrist himself, who, as John has already said, [11] has come and is active in the world. Satan will stoop to any level to deceive people, including God’s susceptible people, who remain present in the world with glorious redemptive potential. The adversary is also on the scene to disrupt and mislead where he can.[12] [13]

However, Judith M. Lieu (1951) says the Apostle John’s warning against “many” spirits encourages the readers to see themselves as vulnerable unless they are alert. There is no suggestion that without John’s intervention, his readers may have been enchanted to believe “every spirit,’’ nor that they were in danger of being awed by any charismatic behavior. Instead, the appeal to discernment is conventional, [14] and it encourages the audience to see themselves as those who consciously measure alternative ideas by their standards and always remain on guard against any decrease in their past practices.

Therefore, any principle for such testing would be unlikely to contain anything new or unexpected. The Apostle John is not giving them a command as to how they are to recognize any spirit that comes from God; instead, he is making a statement of what is already the case. This is the standard pattern following the characteristic, “This is how you can recognize.’’ [15] Some translations have “By this you know,”[16] carries a note of instruction and warning not to forget. The actual wording of this confession is unparalleled, [17] and translators and commentators have interpreted it in any number of ways. First, the debate surrounds the grammatical construction – the content of the spirit’s acknowledgment and, second, the intention of its distinctive emphasis.[18]

Ben Witherington III (1951) states that the correctness of this conclusion to acknowledge Jesus as being from God can be confirmed by noting that the opposite verse of the true confession is said to be “failing to confess Jesus” – nothing more. Now, this is unlikely to indicate failure to accept that a person named Jesus of Nazareth existed or was a human being. Recognizing that a person exists does not require a confession. What, then, about Jesus, the human being, does require a confession of faith? The answer is that this human being, Jesus, is the human Jewish Messiah, the Son of God, who lived and died according to God’s plan.[19]

Gary M. Burge (1952) mentions that this is the only time the Greek dokimazō (“testing”) occurs in the Johannine literature, although it often occurs in the Final Covenant (twenty-two times). But what should one test for? The Spirit of God always glorifies the Son of God.[20] Thus the first test centers entirely on one’s view of Jesus the Anointed One. We saw earlier how incarnational Christology was at the heart of this community’s struggles.[21] Behind these words, John is urging three things about our belief: (1) that the man Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the divine Word of God; (2) that Jesus the Anointed One was and is fully divine as well as completely human; and (3) that Jesus is the sole source of eternal life since He alone reveals the Father to us and atones for our sins.[22]

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[1] Eaton, Michael: Focus on the Bible, 1,2,3 John, op. cit., p. 134

[2] 1 John 2:18, 22

[3] Loader, William, Epworth Commentary, op. cit., p. 50

[4] Jackman, David: The Message of John’s Letters, op. cit., pp. 110-111

[5] The Word Gnosticism is based upon the Greek word gnosis, meaning knowledge. The word Docetism is based upon the Greek word dokesis, meaning appearance. There were two groups of Gnostics, the Docetics and the Cerinthains. The Dosetics denied the humanity of the Anointed One, seeing Him as a mystical god much like the Greek gods. The Cerinthians accepted Jesus’ humanity, and taught that He first received the Holy Spirit at His baptism, and gave it up on the Cross.

[6] Carter, Dr. John W. (Jack). 1,2,3, John & Jude: Holding to the Truth in Love (The Disciple’s Bible Commentary Book 48), pp. 101-102

[7] Kruse, Colin G., The Letters of John, (The Pillar New Testament), op. cit., loc. cit., Kindle Edition

[8] 1 John 4:1

[9] 1 Corinthians 7:40

[10] 2 John 1:7

[11] 1 John 2:18

[12] Cf. 1 Peter 5:8

[13] Yarbrough, Robert W., 1-3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., p. 224

[14] Cf. Mark 13:21; 1 Thessalonians 5:21

[15] New International Version (NIV) cf. 1 John 2:3; 3:24; 4:6, 13; 5:2; cf. 3:16, 19

[16] See New American Standard Bible (NASB)

[17] See 2 John 1:7

[18] Lieu, Judith: The New Testament Commentary, op. cit., pp. 165-166

[19] Ben Witherington III. Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians: op. cit., loc. cit., (Kindle Locations 7092-7097

[20] John 15:26; 16:13-15; 1 Corinthians 12:1-3

[21] 1 John 2:18-22; See 1:1-4

[22] Burge, Gary M., The Letters of John (The NIV Application Commentary), op. cit., pp. 174-175

COMMIT TO BEING COMMITTED

Whenever you volunteer to be involved with any movement or cause, you’re often asked for a commitment to their goals and aspirations. But what does it mean to be committed? Psychologists tell us that commitment represents the motivation to stay in a relationship and to work at improving it. Commitment promotes relationship longevity by motivating people to see, think, and act in ways that help sustain a relationship.

Psychologists John Michael, Natalie Sebanz, and Günther Knoblich from the Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, tell us that the phenomenon of  commitment is a cornerstone of human social life. Commitments make individuals’ behavior predictable in the face of fluctuations in their desires and interests, thereby facilitating the planning and coordination of joint actions involving multiple agents. Moreover, commitment also facilitates cooperation by making individuals willing to contribute to joint activities to which they wouldn’t be willing to contribute if they, and others, were not committed to doing so – to participate in a political demonstration, for example, or to help clean up after an accident in the kitchen.

In a public science essay, Jacy Black writes that commitment in relationship psychology is a construct that is defined differently depending on the nature of the study. It entails a concern for the future and stability of the relationship, along with the desire for the connection to continue. Though typically, commitment is seen as a positive thing, note this is not always the case. Commitment encompasses a wide variety of factors that bind individuals together in a relationship, whether a relationship is healthy.

Then Mel Schwartz (L.C.S.W.) notes that the word commitment usually evokes a strong sense of intention and focus. It typically is accompanied by a statement of purpose or a plan of action. Very often, we utilize this word in regard to proclamations we may make about the seriousness of our relationships. For example, “I’m in a committed relationship,” or “I’m completely committed to this relationship.” In such circumstances, what exactly are we saying? We take it for granted that the word or the expression means the same thing to all of us. I can assure you that it doesn’t. These offerings of relationship commitments are typically statements about behavior or proposed outcomes. For instance, the institution of marriage is most identified with the pledge of commitment. It is an undertaking of legal vows to substantiate our pledge to fidelity, if not continued love. However, statistics reveal that when we formalize our commitments through marriage, there is as much likelihood of failure as success. After all, more than half of marriages experience infidelity, and we’re all aware of the divorce rate. So, if our most honored commitments aren’t kept, perhaps we need to understand why that is so.

We also learn that there are commitment issues or a fear of commitment. Commitment is a term often used in reference to romantic or religious relationships, but a person who finds it hard to commit may experience this difficulty in other areas of life. Individuals with commitment issues may experience mental distress and emotional difficulty when faced with situations that require dedication to a particular long-term goal. When an individual’s fear of commitment leads to the development of anxiety or other mental health concerns, a therapist, counselor, or other mental health professionals can typically help that person address and work through the issues. Some individuals may also wish to explore strategies to overcome commitment issues, especially when they have an impact on one’s relationships and/or daily function.

Then Kendra Cherry, author of the “Everything Psychology Book,” asks, have you ever found yourself changing your mind in the middle of a purchase, only to feel pressured to stick to your earlier decision to buy the item? For example, have you ever agreed to buy a car, only for the salesman to change the terms of the sale right before you sign the paperwork? Was it easy to walk away, or did you feel a sense of pressure and obligation to stick to your original agreement? Psychologists refer to this as the rule of commitment or norm of commitment. So, what exactly is the rule of commitment, and how does it affect our behavior? The rule of commitment is a social norm that marketers and salespeople often use to get consumers to make purchases. According to this norm, we typically feel obligated to follow through with something after making a public commitment.

Once we’ve made some open pledge to something, we feel both social pressure and internal psychological pressure to stick to it. Why? We like to feel that we are consistent in our behaviors and beliefs, so once we make some type of declaration, we often feel that we must stand by our original decision. Sometimes this norm of commitment can work in your favor. If you announce that you are on a diet or trying to get in shape, announcing your plans to friends and family might help you feel pressure to stick to your commitment and achieve your goals. In other cases, this pressure to stick to your original declaration might lead you to make purchasing decisions that might not necessarily be in your best interest.

So, what does the Bible say about commitment? First, the Psalmist David concluded that we should commit everything we do to the Lord. Trust Him to help us do it, and He will.[1] Then King Solomon had this advice: we commit our activities to the Lord, and our plans will succeed.[2] Then he added that uncommitted people care only about themselves; they lash out at common sense.[3]

Then the Apostle Paul urges us to commit ourselves to do what is good. We will reap a harvest of blessings at just the right time if we don’t give up.[4] Not only that, but Paul confessed that he was committed to this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, he pressed on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through the Anointed One Jesus, is calling all of us.[5]

Finally, to young Timothy, Paul had these words of encouragement, commit your best to be the kind of person God will accept, and give yourself to Him. Be the kind of worker who has no reason to be ashamed of their work, one who applies the true teaching in the correct way.[6] Perhaps the great apostle was inspired by the words of the Master, who said, “I am the light of the world. If you commit yourself to me, you won’t have to walk in darkness because you will have the Light that leads to life.”[7]

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[1] Psalm 37:5

[2] Proverbs 16:3

[3] Ibid. 18:1

[4] Galatians 6:9

[5] Philippians 3:13-14

[6] 2 Timothy 2:15

[7] John 8:12

INTEGRITY AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

French Archbishop François Fénelon (1651-1725) was still bothered by those who were not authentic for fear of rejection or ridicule. By doing so, they were trying to cover up their real selves. Therefore, people they loved didn’t get to know them on a factual basis. He knew that the longer this went on, the more miserable they would become and start avoiding personal or intimate contact with others. So, the Archbishop has a few more words of wisdom to give those caught in such a web.

He begins by saying that the first step to real integrity is for the soul to put away outward things and look within to know its fundamental interests. This is only a wise “self-love” that seeks to avoid the intoxication of the world.

In the next step, the soul must add contemplation of God, whom it fears, to self-inspection. It is a weak approach to natural wisdom, but the soul is still greatly self-absorbed. It is not satisfied with respecting God. Furthermore, it wants to be confident that it does fear Him but is afraid it might not reverence Him. This is going around in a perpetual circle of self-consciousness. All this restless dwelling in self is far from the peace and freedom of real love. The soul must go through a season of trial. That way, if it suddenly emerged into a period of tranquility, it would not know how to use it.

The first humans fell because of self-indulgence, and their descendants have to go through much the same course, gradually coming from out of self to seek God. For a while, then, it is well to let the penitent soul struggle with itself and its faults before attaining the freedom of the children of God. But when God begins to open the door to something higher and purer, it is time to respond to the workings of His Holy Spirit step by step until the soul attains true integrity.

The third step is that the soul begins to dwell upon God instead, while ceasing from a restless self-contemplation. By degrees, it forgets itself in Him. It becomes full of Him and ends feeding upon itself. Such a soul is not blinded to its faults or indifferent to its errors. On the contrary, it is more conscious of them than ever, and increased light shows them who they really are. But this self-knowledge comes from God, and therefore it is not restless or uneasy.

Much anxious contemplation of its faults hinders the soul’s progression, just as travelers are hindered by an excessive quantity of luggage that prevents their walking freely. Superstition and scruples, and even, contrary as it seems, at first sight, presumption, grow readily out of such self-consuming processes. Genuine Christian integrity is generous and upright, and forgets itself in unreserved resignation to God. If we mortals expect our earthly friends to be free and open-hearted with us, how much more will God, our best Friend, require a single-hearted, open, unreserved exchange of thoughts and feelings?

Such integrity is the perfection of God’s true children, the object at which we should all aim. The greatest hindrance to its attainment is the false wisdom of the world that is afraid to trust anything to God – that wants to achieve everything by its skill, settle everything its way, and indulge in ceaseless self-admiration. This is the wisdom of the world that the Apostle Paul tells us is foolishness with God.[1] Yet true wisdom, which lies in yielding one’s self up unreservedly to God’s Holy Spirit, is mere foolishness in the eyes of the world.

In the initial stages of conversion, we arc forced continually to urge wisdom upon Christians. When they are thoroughly converted, we have to be afraid that they will be “wise,” and we need to warn them to “think of themselves with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of them” as the Apostle Paul urges.[2] Then, when they finally desire a nearer approach to God, they must lose themselves to find themselves again in God.[3] They must lay aside that worldly wisdom that is so prevalent in self-reliant natures. They must drain the bitter cup of the “foolishness of the cross,”[4] which has often been the substitute for martyrdom for those not called on to shed their blood like the early Christians in Rome.

Once self-seeking and brooding are overcome, the soul acquires indescribable peace and freedom. We may write or read about it, but only experience can teach anyone what it is. The person who attains it is like a child at its mother’s breast, free from tears or longings, ready to be turned this way and that. It is indifferent as to what others may think. It is doing everything as well as possible, cheerfully, heartily, but not worried about success or failure. Such a person embodies the Apostle Paul’s words: “As for me, it matters very little how I might be evaluated by you or by any human authority. I don’t even trust my judgment on this point.”[5] [6]

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[1] 1 Corinthians 3:19

[2] Romans 12:3

[3] Matthew 26:25

[4] 1 Corinthians 1:18

[5] Ibid. 4:3

[6] Fénelon, François: Paraclete Giants, The Complete Fénelon, Translated and Edited by Robert J. Edmonson, Paraclete Press, Brewster, Massachusetts, 2008, pp. 40-41; Vocabulary and grammar redacted by Dr. Robert R Seyda

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXV) 02/18/22

^4:3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. It is the spirit of the enemy of the Anointed One. You have heard that the enemy of the Anointed One is coming. Well, he’s already in the world.

Martyn-Lloyd Jones (1899-1981) says that being a Christian is not a feeling or experience. Yet, there is a good deal of interest in that kind of thinking at present. People tended to return to mysticism[1] at a time of crisis or difficulty in world history. When men and women see all powers fail, observing that all the optimistic prophets, teachers, politicians, and poets have been wrong and become troubled, bewildered, and perplexed, there is always some kind of innate tendency to retreat into mysticism. People nowadays talk about “getting in tune with the heart of the universe;”[2] they also talk about “getting in touch with the Unseen.”[3]

There is also a considerable revival of Buddhism at present, says Lloyd-Jones. Certain famous, well-known novelists, people like Mr. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963)[4] and others, who once claimed to be pure intellectuals, are now saying, one after another, that the only hope for this world is mysticism and the religion they are interested in is Buddhism.[5] You would think that anyone who wants to get in touch with the heart of the universe and the great Unseen Spirit would be happy if someone told them that they could not only get in touch with the Great I AM, but they can live in Him and He in them. His name is Yahweh! The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Yeshua the Messiah’s Father.

J. Dwight Pentecost (1915-2014) was writing about the Holy Spirit’s relation to the tribulation is determined by the interpretation of the Apostle Paul’s words to the Thessalonians concerning the Man of Lawlessness.[6] He then quotes Dallas Theological Seminary professor Lewis Chafer (1871-1952), [7]  who said that Satan would long ago have completed his evil cosmic program and have brought forward its last human ruler. But there is a restraint to Satan implementing his program that will develop and be achieved only at God’s appointed time.[8] He noted that the Apostle John testified that this program of introducing the man of sin had already begun to operate in his day.[9] That Satanic program has continued through the ages, but this restraint has kept it in check. And the restriction, according to John, is the believers who fought back with love for God through loving others.[10]

Donald W. Burdick (1917-1996) says that such a denial of Jesus as God in the flesh is not motivated by God’s Spirit, but by an appropriately named spirit of “antichrist.” It does not imply that the antichrist was already in existence in the first century. However, the influence characteristic of the Antichrist was already active in the Apostle John’s Day and still is. The spirit of the antichrist is a personality, while the Spirit of God is personal. It, no doubt, is, in reality, the inspiration of Satan. John informs us that when the great end-time opponent of the Anointed One appears, Satan will pass on his power, his throne, and great authority to him.[11] [12]

David E. Hiebert (1928-1995) states that the Apostle John’s negative statement, “every spirit that does not confess Jesus,” is broader in scope than the positive, “every spirit that denies [“does not say anything about”] Jesus,” would have been. An open denial of “Jesus” stamps such a spirit as “not from God,” not coming from or proclaiming God’s truth. But John’s negative statement also comprehends any spirit speaking through a false prophet that sought to hide its true identity by avoiding discussion of the decisive issue. John knew that what such a spirit did not say about Jesus in speaking of Him was also significant. In this epistle, John never brought up Jesus without adding some term to show that He is more than a mere man.[13]

Simon J. Kistemaker (1930-2017) points out that in Greek, John uses the perfect tense for the words “has come” to indicate that Jesus came in human nature and even now in heaven. That in addition to His divine nature, He also has a human nature. This is hard for some Christians to digest that there is a human being in heaven next to God who is Spirit. But Scripture teaches that the Anointed One is Jesus, who shares our human nature as our divine redeemer.[14]

Any teaching that professes the divinity and humanity of Jesus has its origin in God. As C. H. Dodd (1874-1973) observes, no utterance, however inspired, which denies the reality of the Incarnation, can be accepted by Christians as true prophecy.[15] Likewise, sixteenth-century German theologian Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583) asked rhetorically whether these two natures are separated from each other? He answers, “Certainly not. Since divinity is not limited and is present everywhere, [16] it is evident that the Anointed One’s divinity is surely beyond the bounds of the humanity that has been taken on, but at the same time, His divinity is in and remains personally united to His humanity.”[17] [18] [19]

Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) has the Apostle John set out the criterion for “testing” the genuineness of those who claim to be “inspired.” That person (alone) is a true child of God who is prepared to acknowledge Jesus the Anointed One as “come (from the Father) in the flesh.” Now he completes this thought by setting the false confession of Jesus over against the truth, and in this way, the content of the true estimate of Jesus, required of every true believer, is intensified and reinforced. The sharp antithesis involved here between truth and error shows that there is no “middle ground.” Moreover, John is not discussing the contrast between faith and unbelief; he condemns those heretical beliefs within and beyond his community, which amount to a determined and antichristian rebellion against God.[20] So, when preaching or teaching principles that are not verified as true by God’s Word, it is not only spreading false doctrine but also considered rebelling against God’s Word.

Edward J. Malatesta (1932-1998) observes that the Apostle John introduces two new thoughts into the test results: if the spirit being tried does not confess that the man Jesus as the Messiah, it is the spirit of antichrist. John did not feel that this was shocking since this unholy spirit was in the world and deceiving many.[21] Apparently, many in the community knew it was around because they heard the message being spread through false prophets. But so deceptive was their doctrine that it must have come as a surprise when John told them how these prophets inspired by this unholy spirit did not believe that Jesus was simultaneously both human and divine. To accept this made Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection a farce and fantasy.

John Painter (1935) says that “every spirit” is a description reflecting the diversity of the opponents in their refusal to make the authentic confession of faith in Jesus, becomes “the Spirit of the Antichrist.” The text uses the neuter definite article with “the Antichrist.” This means that the Apostle John is not speaking of the Antichrist as a man or woman.  As the subject under discussion is the spirit, it is natural to supply the “spirit” of the Antichrist. In this analogy, the Spirit of God is manifest in every speaker that confesses, “Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh.” The spirit of the Antichrist is manifest in every speaker that will not make this confession, mainly if they aim to negate, divide, or destroy Jesus as both the Son of God and son of man.[22]

Muncia Walls (1937) states that the great truth concerning the incarnation and death of Jesus the Anointed One was vitally important to the Apostle John and necessary to fulfill Apostolic doctrinal teaching. It is a subject that one cannot just ignore and teach around it. To John – and it should be to us as well – the subject of the Godhead, and the vicarious death of Jesus the Anointed One on Calvary, is an important part of the Apostolic doctrine which must be taught in every congregation which professes to be the Ekklesia[23] of Jesus the Anointed One.[24] Jesus verifies then by saying, “Yes, if two or three people are together believing in Me, I am there with them.”[25]

James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000) believes there are three possible ways in which the confession of verse two may be taken: (1) “Jesus the Anointed One” was the object. With this interpretation, confession would be to the effect that “Jesus the Anointed One was incarnate. Thus, He was a real human being.”  This statement would be directed against some form of Docetism, the view that the Anointed One was a spirit that appeared as a man. (2) “Jesus” may be the subject. This would give the meaning, “By this, you know every spirit which confesses that the Anointed One became human, is of God.’’ It would involve the identity of the historical Jesus as the incarnate Messiah. (3) The entire phrase may be taken as connected and show that “Jesus” is the direct object of “has come in the flesh.” This would be the simple confession of “Jesus the Anointed One incarnate.”[26]

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[1] Mysticism is a religious belief based on union or communion with a deity, or divine being. Mysticism is what lets you transcend the physical to experience spiritual enlightenment.

[2] Teachings of the Bahai Faith

[3] See the New Message from God about “getting in touch with the Unseen” by Marshall Vian Summers

[4] Aldous Huxley was an English novelist and critic gifted with an acute and far-ranging intelligence whose works are notable for their wit and pessimistic satire. He remains best known for his novel, Brave New World (1932) 

[5] Lloyd-Jones, Martyn, Life in the Anointed One, op. cit., p. 410

[6] 2 Thessalonians 2:7-8

[7] Louis Sperry Chafer toured as a renowned Bible lecturer from 1914 until 1924, when he founded Dallas Theological Seminary and became its first president. He wrote prolifically, producing his widely read Grace, Salvation, and True Evangelism; and his monumental Systematic Theology. Through all the acclaim and accomplishments, his students remember best his deep reverence for the Word, and a daily, humble dependence on the Holy Spirit.

[8] Chafer, Lewis Sperry, Systematic Theology, Vol. IV, p. 372

[9] 1 John 4:3

[10] Pentecost, J. Dwight; Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come: A Study in Biblical Eschatology. Zondervan. (Kindle location 4729-4740)

[11] Revelation 13:2

[12] Burdick, Donald W., The Epistles of John, op. cit., p. 68

[13] Hiebert, David E., Bibliotheca Sacra, op. cit., October-December 1999, p. 429

[14] Hebrews 2:14-15

[15] Dodd, C. H., The Johannine Epistles, Moffatt New Testament Commentary, op. cit., p. 103

[16] Romans 8:34; 1 John 2:1

[17] John 14:2; 17:24; Ephesians 2:4-6

[18] Heidelberg Catechism; Q. & A. 48

[19] Kistemaker, Simon J., New Testament Commentary, James & I-III John, op. cit., pp. 324-325

[20] Smalley Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, op. cit., p. 223

[21] Malatesta, Edward J., Interiority and Covenant, op. cit. pp. 283-284

[22] Painter, John. Sacra Pagina: 1, 2, and 3 John: Vol. 18, loc. cit.

[23] Ekklesia is a Greek word defined as “a called-out assembly or congregation.” Ekklesia is commonly translated as “church” in the Final Covenant.

[24] Walls, Muncia: The Epistles of John & Jude, op. cit., p. 69

[25] Matthew 18:20

[26] Boice, James Montgomery: The Epistles of John, op. cit., p. 109

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXIV) 02/17/22

^4:3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. It is the spirit of the enemy of the Anointed One. You have heard that the enemy of the Anointed One is coming. Well, he’s already in the world.

Alan E. Brooke (1863-1939) says that the Apostle John transitions to a new section by repeating his last prominent idea.[1] The gift of the Spirit ensures knowledge of God to believers. But since all spiritual activities in John’s Day could not be traced back to the Spirit of God as their source, every spirit could not be accepted as true. Therefore, in the Apostle Paul’s day, he recommended that the Corinthians test every spiritual phenomenon accurately.[2] So John provided the readers with a test by which they could know whether the spirits were of God or not. The surest criterion was the confession of the Incarnation, or rather of the Incarnate Anointed One. Those who saw in Jesus of Nazareth as He appeared on earth in fleshly form the complete revelation of the Father was of God. Those who refused to confess Jesus were not of God. Such a refusal was the peculiar characteristic of the antichrist, whose coming they were taught to expect, and whose working they could already perceive.[3]

I remember in 2004 when my wife and I went to see the motion picture, “The Passion of the Christ.” As we watched, it was quite easy to pick out those in the theater who were of God and those who were not. Those who saw Jesus on the screen as a man being treated so terribly for no apparent reason looked like they were watching a horror movie, but those who saw Jesus as God’s Son in the flesh had tears in their eyes. That is why when we preach Jesus, whether, in the context of His ministry, passion, death, or resurrection, the listeners must know we are talking about God’s Divine Son, not just some holy person in history.

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) says that the first part of verse three completes the criterion of “testing.” There we see that “every spirit which annuls Jesus’s divine Sonship is not of God,”[4] is contrasted with “every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh is from God.”[5] “Deny” is used as the antithesis to a proper confession.[6] In any case, “deny” does not differ substantively in meaning from “does not confess,” attested to by most witnesses. The latter, however, was a correction very probably occasioned by verse two. In this sense, the use of “deny” is admittedly exceptional and striking, but the meaning cannot be in doubt: to deny Jesus the Anointed One as having come in the flesh means a person will not acknowledge that He did.[7]

Greville P. Lewis (1891-1976) says that the Apostle John calls this a subtle form of heresy, which claims to be a higher form of Christianity and yet rejects its foundation truth, is inspired by an evil spirit; that antichrist spirit. Today, we must bring the same charge against the modern heresies of “reduced Christianity” or “cheap grace.” The person who reveres the Anointed One as the noblest of all but denies that He was divine and most dignified of all men could not be more wrong. Or the individual who accepts the “divinity” of the Anointed One, but only in the sense that He was uniquely God-inspired, not God-incarnate, commits a grave mistake. So also, the one who stresses doctrine and theology over Christian living and ignores its moral and ethical implication is on the wrong path. In addition, the social reformer, who accepts the ethical and social teaching of Jesus, but ignores the fact of human sin and the redeeming power of a divine Savior – all these are “false prophets,” inspired by the antichrist spirit, not by the Spirit of the Anointed One.[8]

Amos N. Wilder (1895-1993) says that the human soul’s destiny is individually, and the fate of humans collectively is at stake here. To confess or not that Jesus has come in the flesh defines the perpetual crisis in which each person finds themselves and presents the fateful choice set before them. Jesus offers Himself as the Rock of Salvation[9] on which mankind may secure their eternal existence or as the Stone of Judgment that will grind them into powder.[10] The emergency in John’s circumstances compelled his use of the harsh dualism – The Anointed One or the Antichrist; of God or not of God; the spirit of truth or the spirit of error.  In the larger Gospel sense, it is the perpetual emergency of the human soul. The impulses that lead people to choose evil will remain a mystery to unbelievers. Jesus acknowledged this mystery.[11] [12] The Apostle Paul called these “sinful tendencies” leftover from our Adamic nature that lies dormant in our new nature, by which the believer’s moral or spiritual are awakened.[13]

Paul Waitman Hoon (1910-2000) says that the emergency in the Apostle John’s circumstances compelled his use of harsh dualisms – the Anointed One or Antichrist, of God or not of God, of the spirit of truth or the spirit of error. Its most powerful Gospel sense makes it a perceptual danger to the human soul. The impulses that lead people to choose evil will always remain mysterious. Jesus acknowledged this mystery when He prayed, “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever.”[14] Destructive factors in the soul, such as sinful tendencies to some thinkers, are so strong as to justify the doctrine of predestination. Some modern academics locate these factors in the subconscious depths of the mind.[15] Long before Jesus came, the Jews identified these tendencies as yetzer hara, which the Rabbis called “evil inclination.” It is based on what the LORD saw when He looked on the great wickedness of the human race, “that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”[16] Jesus identified this tendency as being part of mankind’s “will.” So then, the conflict is when a person’s will either lean toward God and good, or Satan and evil.[17]

Henry Martyn Bacon (1827-1894) says pity those who dismissed the Anointed One in the flesh as a phantom. Whether it was a dream or documented fact or fiction, it is all the same. But this was not the Apostle John’s point of view. For him, anyone who does not confess that the Anointed One he knew and followed took on a human body proves God does not inspire them. They deny God’s greatest gift to mankind. They refuse to accept the grandest thing ever done for humanity. Furthermore, they reject the concept that the highest ideal of character was realized in the Anointed One.

What all mankind needed, says Bacon, was to see Jesus exert His transforming power. By this kind of seeing, Jesus brought about the profound change that took place in the first centuries of the Christian Church. It gave new elements to thought. It made having Him living in us more desirable. Likewise, it poured into the channel of human activity new forces of civilization and progress, and every department of social life felt the power of the most magnificent of all lives. Though Jesus may have been a phantom to some people’s imagination, nevertheless, He filled the world with His presence. It cannot be denied. It is moral, spiritual power. Not only that, but it made its impact in all the world, in society, government, courts, institutions, orphanages, hospitals, religion, laws, literature, and moral standards. The Anointed One is no phantom. His blessings are in our hearts, homes, churches, and society at large. His influence can be seen in the happiest efforts of the wondrous things being done in the world.[18]

William Barclay (1907-1978) says that Christian belief could be summed up in one great sentence for the Apostle John: “The Word became flesh and lived among us.”[19] Any spirit which denied the reality of the incarnation was not of God. John lays down two tests of belief. (1) To be of God, a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus is the Anointed One, the Messiah. (2) To be of God, a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh.

It was precisely this that the Gnostics were guilty of, says Barclay. To deny the reality of the incarnation has inevitable consequences. (A) It is to deny that Jesus can ever be our example. If He was not in any real sense a man, living under the same conditions as other men and women, He could not show them how to live. (B) It is to deny that Jesus can be the high priest who opens the way to God. The true high priest must be like us in all things, knowing our weaknesses and temptations.[20] To lead people to God, the high priest must be human, or else he will point them to a road that is impossible for them to take if they want eternal life with God. (C) It is to deny that Jesus can in any real sense be Savior. To save men and women, He had to identify Himself with those He came to save.  (D) It is to deny the salvation of the body. Christian teaching is quite clear that salvation is the salvation of the whole person. The body, as well as the soul, is saved. To deny the incarnation is to deny the possibility that the body can ever become the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The last denial Barclay lists can be misleading unless we view it properly. When the Scripture talks about being “saved,” it refers to “saved from everlasting punishment without God.” Once a person dies, their body returns to the dust of the earth.[21] Those who are resurrected by the power of the Anointed One will receive a new body.[22] It would be more in line with the Scriptures if we were to say, “He came to save the soul and sanctify the body.” The Apostle Paul implied this when he asked dedicated believers to offer their bodies as holy and pleasing to God for His service, which is their true and proper worship.[23] Barclay continues by saying, (E) by far the most terrible thing is that denying the incarnation rejects that there can ever be any real union between God and human beings. If the spirit is altogether good and the body is entirely evil, God and humanity can never meet, as long as we are human. Nothing in Christianity is more central than the reality of Jesus the Anointed One’s humanity.[24]

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[1] 1 John 3:24

[2] See Acts of the Apostles 16:16-18

[3] Brooke, Alan E., A Critical Exegetical Commentary, op. cit., p. 106

[4] 1 John 4:3

[5] Ibid. 4:2

[6] Ibid. 2:22ff

[7] Bultmann, Rudolf: Hermeneia, A Critical and Historical Commentary, op. cit., p. 62

[8] Lewis, Greville P., Epworth Preacher’s Commentary, the Johannine Epistles, op. cit., pp. 94-95

[9] Psalm 89:26; cf. Matthew 7:24

[10] Matthew 21:44

[11] Matthew 11:25

[12] Wilder, Amos N., The Interpreter’s Bible, op. cit., 1 John, Exposition, pp. 271-273

[13] Cf. Romans 8:6-11

[14] Matthew 11:25

[15] Hoon, Paul W., The Interpreter’s Bible, op. cit., 1 John, Exegesis, p. 275

[16] Genesis 6:5; cf. 8:21; also see Isaiah 65:2; Jeremiah 3:17; 7:24; 9:14; 11:8; 13:10; 16:12; 23:17; Ezekiel 13:3, 17; Ephesians 2:3; Colossians 3:5

[17] Cf. Mark 3:35

[18] Bacon, Henry M., The Biblical Illustrator, op. cit., 1 John 4, p. 17

[19] John 1:14

[20] Hebrews 4:14-15

[21] Ecclesiastes 12:7

[22] 2 Corinthians 5:1-5; Philippians 3:21

[23] Romans 12:1

[24] Barclay, William: Daily Study Bible, op. cit., pp. 105-106

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXIII) 02/16/22

^4:3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. It is the spirit of the enemy of the Anointed One. You have heard that the enemy of the Anointed One is coming. Well, he’s already in the world.

Erich Haupt (1841-1926) notes that the second half of verse three declares that such a denial of the incarnation is not only a token that one is not of God but also a stamp of positive anti-Christianity. With respect to the meaning, it is comparatively a matter of indifference whether each of the pronouns, toutō (“this”) and tou tō (“of the antichrist”) and the word “spirit,” speak of the same or agree as to the contents “of the,” and translate “of the Antichrist” as its nature or characteristic. Both are grammatically possible, though the former seems, on the whole, the more obvious. The Antichrist, says the Apostle John, concerning whom you have heard that he will appear as the highest and most fearful error and the most bitter enemy of Jesus, has manifested itself in this denying of the divine-human nature of Jesus. However, He who was to come has already arrived. In the future, He will be the final, perfected, and personal exhibition of the Incarnation principle.[1]

Dr. Haupt explains that when the Apostle John said, “every spirit” at the beginning of verse three, he was automatically implying “this is the spirit of the antichrist” in the middle part of verse three. So, to put it another way, John is saying, “the spirit of the antichrist is every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is from God.” That way, no one could say, “Oh, I don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth descended from God, but I’m not antichrist.” By just saying that, says John, you expose yourself as influenced by the antichrist spirit.

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) states that the Apostle John had just declared that, in a life of obedience to and of God’s Spirit, we had a twofold seal – first, that we are of the truth; and secondly, that God abides in us. But it was not to rise to any false expectation that this seal would remain unchallenged from without, however clear it might be to our spirit within. At the same time, we are not to be easily persuaded to change our minds. Any attempt to draw us away from the faith should be confronted with a very trying test. That’s why John told us that teachers and preachers of novelty ideas are to be severely tested.

For many ages, says Plummer, there have been and will be two classes of religious individuals. First, those who desire to talk about any new fancy or supposed revelation that grabs their attention or dispute any accepted faith they are not willing to embrace. The second are those who are equally ready to listen to any novelty in doctrine which may enlighten them at any time. Even when the Apostle John wrote this letter, “many false prophets” had “gone out into the world.” And it is a great blessing for us that this elder apostle responded to that fact for the following reasons. (1) To administer a caution against those too eager to accept any new prophet. (2) To supply a test, both exclusive and inclusive, which might serve the Churches for all time, which John gratefully did with the help of the Holy Spirit.[2]

Clement Clemance (1845-1886) states that supposed Christian teachers are consistently among the most dangerous, who treat the Divinity of Jesus the Anointed One as more or less of an open question or as a matter of unimportance. This “spirit of antichrist” is more or less the “characteristics of an antichrist attitude.”[3] And now it is in the world already – an independent statement the Apostle John does not say that they heard about previously.[4] In other words, John makes it sound as though this antichrist spirit had recently gone out and is spreading fast. He has been aware that the antichrist spirit was already in fashion, which reminds everyone to be careful and not get caught unawares.

Aaron M. Hills (1848-1911) explains that every spirit that is not closely knitted to Jesus is not of God.[5] These words may be understood in different ways. Nevertheless, one way we may understand them is to realize that this knitting and fastening of Jesus to a person’s soul is brought about by a great desire to have Him in their hearts and feel the spiritual joy that it brings. The greater this desire, the faster Jesus is knit to the soul, and having less desire means the knitting has begun to unravel. Whatever spirit, therefore, or feeling that lessens this desire and draws the believer from steadfastly looking to Jesus the Anointed One and from the yearning for His presence, will unravel Jesus from the soul, and, therefore, is not of God, but is the working of the enemy. But if a spirit, feeling, or revelation makes this desire more, knitting the knots of love and devotion faster to Jesus, opening the eye of the soul into spiritual knowing more clearly, and making it more humble in itself, this Spirit is of God.[6]

James B. Morgan (1850-1942)  of Belfast says that after reading what the Apostle John told about spirits, “Who is meant by ‘the spirits’ of whom the apostle speaks?” We do not have far to go in order to find a satisfactory answer – it is furnished here in verse two. Those called “spirits” in the first part are designated “prophets” in the last. They are identified as constituting the same class: Ministers of the Word who claimed to be of God, whether those who write or preach it or those that were acknowledged as Church’s instructors. However, this view gives rise to another question: Why are the prophets or ministers of the Word designated as spirits? No doubt, a reason may be that they are what the spirit is to the spiritual body of the Anointed One. They animate, guide, and control it. But the main reason appears to be the influence that activates them. These may be good, or they may be evil. They may be according to the mind of the Spirit of truth or the spirit of error. They may be the servants either of the Spirit of God or of Satan. Or instruments to advance the cause of holiness or unholiness. They are either the best friends or the worst enemies of the Church and its teachings. Their influence is mighty for good or for evil.[7]

Then Morgan goes on to say that having been given this general counsel, John proceeds to give a particular illustration of both the error that might be introduced and of the duty of opposing it in the subsequent verses – “Here’s how you’ll know the Spirit of God,” etc. There are signs of whether a minister is teaching under the influence of the Spirit of God. What are they? They are both positive and negative. “Every spirit that confesses,” etc.

1. To confess that Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh is to own the Divinity of His mission.

2. To confess that Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh is to own the Divinity of His person.

3. To confess that Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh is to own the Grace of His mission and His person.[8]

4. Finally, to confess that Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh is to own the Reality of His incarnation as the all-sufficient Anointed One.[9]

Morgan concludes by advising, let us learn that we may judge our condition by our attention to the ministry of the Word and act towards it. 1) Do we apprehend, approve, enjoy, and encourage a faithful publication of the Gospel, of the Anointed One and Him crucified, the power and wisdom of God? Or 2) is the subject dark to our uneasiness, contrary to our taste, and distasteful to our feelings? If 1), then there is reason to think we are of God. If 2), there is reason to fear we are not of God. A healthy person relishes and requires solid and wholesome food, but the disgusted person shows that they are laboring under pressure. It is the same with the mind. An enlightened hearer of the Word must have the bread of life served to them, for no other food will satisfy their soul. They feel that they are nourished with the food of everlasting life.[10]  Morgan then closes with the lyrics of a grand old hymn:[11]

“How sweet the name of Jesus sounds

In a believer’s ear!

It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds,

And drives away his fear.

It makes the wounded spirit whole,

And calms the troubled breast;

Tis manna to the hungry soul,

And to the weary rest.”[12]

Alonzo Rice Cocke (1858-1901) says that everyone who denies the incarnation as outlined in the Scriptures, with all that it implies, cannot derive their doctrine from God. First, there is the emphatic mark of all false inspiration. One denying this doctrine is of the antichrist and is swallowing the spirit which will one day control the antichrist. According to the Apostle John, these modifiers of God’s Word are their forerunners. There is a pseudo-Christology that comes from the father of lies. Even in John’s day, false spirits were coining Satan’s deceptions and trying to lead God’s children away from the truth. The initial point in the conflict between truth and error was the Person of the Anointed One; the battle had begun before John wrote this epistle.[13]

Then secondly, we must keep in mind, says Cocke, not believing that the Son of God came to earth as a spirit and was born as a human is not the only way to deny the Anointed One. Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of Me and My message in these adulterous and sinful days, the Son of Man will be ashamed of that person when He returns in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”[14] Then we have the case of the Apostle Peter sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came over and said to him, “You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.” But Peter denied it in front of everyone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.[15] Then there was the Apostle Paul’s warning to Titus: “Such people claim they know God, but they deny Him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good.”[16] So, also, Paul’s notice to Timothy: “If we endure hardship, we will reign with Him. If we deny Him, He will deny us.”[17] And then Apostle Peter also called attention to this: “But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves.”[18] So, I’m sure we could all add to the list of ways to deny Jesus His rightful place in a person’s life.

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[1] Haupt, Erich: The First Epistle of John, op. cit., p. 253

[2] Plummer, Alfred: First Epistle of John, Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 22, Homiletics, p. 105

[3] See 1 John 2:18

[4] Clemance, Clement: First Epistle of John, Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 22, Exposition, op. cit., p. 102

[5] 1 John 4:3

[6] Hills, Aaron M., The Scale of Perfection, op. cit., Bk. 1, Part 1, p. 43

[7] Morgan, James B., An Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., p. 285, 291

[8] 2 Corinthians 8:9

[9] Morgan, James B. Biblical Illustrator, op. cit., loc. cit., Lecture XXIX, p. 7

[10] See John 10:2-5

[11] Morgan, James B., The Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., Lecture XIX, p. 292

[12] How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds in a Believer’s Ear, by John Newton (1779), Music by Alexander R. Reinagle.

[13] Cocke, Alonzo R. Studies in the Epistles of John, op. cit., loc. cit. Logos

[14] Mark 8:38

[15] Matthew 26:69-70

[16] Titus 1:16

[17] 2 Timothy 2:12

[18] 2 Peter 2:1

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XXII) 02/15/22

^4:3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. It is the spirit of the enemy of Christ. You have heard that the enemy of Christ is coming, and now he is already in the world.

The mutilation of verse three is attributable to those who desired to separate Jesus’ Divine nature from His human body: or to use the language of the early interpreters, some persons have corrupted this epistle, aiming at “separating the manhood of the Anointed One from His Deity.” But humanity is united to the Divinity in the Savior to constitute not two persons but one only.[1]  This reading was found primarily in the oldest manuscripts and is referred to by many of the early church Fathers. Still, it has no authenticity and was introduced, perhaps at first from a marginal note, to oppose the prevailing errors of the times. The shared reading, “who does not confess,” is found in all the Greek manuscripts, in the Syriac versions, in the Arabic; and, as Johann Lücke (1703-1780) says, the other reading is manifest of Latin origin. The accepted reading in the text is continuous and entirely harmonizing with John’s way of writing.[2]

William Graham (1810-1883) noted that this is more proof of John’s agápe-love for the little children, to whom he writes to warn them against the delusions of false teachers and seducing spirits. Instead, he wants them rooted and grounded in the Anointed One so that all the trials of the world, the flesh, and the devil could not move them. Consequently, they grew up in Him, who is the head of all things, ever the deeper, ever the more substantial and steadier, the longer they are united to Him, the more violent the storms that beat upon them.

These spirits, says Graham, are no other than the angels who kept not their first estate[3] but, having sinned against God, were cast down into Tartarus[4] to await the Anointed One’s day of judgment.[5] The chief or leader of these infernal hosts is called Satan (“the adversary”) or “the devil,” or “the tempter.”[6] He is also “the destroyer.”[7] All these names unite to give us the terrible conception of a powerful malignant fallen spirit, the primæval enemy of God and mankind, the first mover of evil in the universe, the liar from the beginning, detaching the world from its allegiance to God.

Graham believes that this corrupt being and his human slaves are the victims of apostasy and are called “messengers” or “angels of the devil.”[8] They are also referred to as “unclean spirits” because they lead people into uncleanness of body and mind.[9] They are also named “wicked spirits”[10] because they aim to extend the dominion of sin and death over the world. They are also often called demons, often used in connection with the possessions mentioned in the Final Covenant.[11] Their attributes are lying, wickedness, uncleanliness, seducing, etc. We may gather from these hints a clear idea of their character. It is the Satanic empire so often mentioned in Scripture, under various names, in which we are born, and to deliver us from which the Lord Jesus was appointed Mediator and Redeemer. From this infernal domain proceed spirits of false prophets, which have gone abroad into the world to deceive the nations and seduce humanity from their allegiance to the Son of God. In the Apostle John’s mind, we should try the spirits of all false prophets and delusive doctrines whether they are of God.[12]

Richard H. Tuck (1817-1868) sees the Apostle John setting aside some other verses for the moment. He now resumes his proper theme. His central truth is this – Love is the high-water mark of the children of God, who is love. Love to God is a delusion if it does not find expression in love toward one another as fellow believers. And the love of Christian brothers and sisters is a sure test of our having the Spirit of God, says Tuck, for the spirit of antichrist is a self-seeking and self-serving spirit. Just as it severs the Divine from the human in the Anointed One, it detaches Divine love from human conduct. Love to one another may be recognized as a gift of God’s Spirit, an influence from the very being of God.[13]

John Ebrard (1818-1888) maintains that distinguishing between the Spirit of God and the spirit of antichrist in this passage by the Apostle John is for all times the right criterion. The more the spirit of anti-Christianism and the antichristian dictatorship unfolds itself in the world, the more openly it exhibits itself as a spirit that denies the incarnation of God’s Son. For our own time, the passage teaches us that the spirits of those systems present a redeemer, either a mere man Jesus who is not the Anointed One and the Son of God, or the Anointed One-idea without any historical Messiah. It bears the essential marks of anti-Christianity, open apostasy, and unbelief. They do not have to name themselves as antichrists to be taken seriously. Their attitude toward God and the Anointed One is proof enough.[14]

Daniel Steele (1824-1914) also has confirmation in ancient manuscripts and the witness of Greek experts that there is overwhelming evidence, including the English Revised Version, requiring the omission of the words “is come in the flesh,” as an obvious amendment by some scribe to form an antithesis. No matter how orthodox one’s theological creed may be, they do not really and savingly confess the Anointed One until enthroned in their heart as both Savior and Lord. It is their reason for bowing to His authority as an infallible Teacher and submitting to His will as their supreme sovereign, God-man.[15]

In my research, I found that some commentaries, such as the Expositor’s Greek Testament, question if it was inserted, along with other additions, as a rejection of false teaching. But in so doing, it takes away the real emphasis on Jesus’s person as the Messiah. So, the text could read this way: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus the Anointed One is from God.” But no matter what the conclusion, this verse does not lose any of the power that acknowledges Jesus as the Anointed One.

Brooke F. Westcott (1825-1901) says we should notice the comparison of this verse to chapter two, verse twenty-three. Here we see the spirit of mankind influenced and controlled by an evil spirit and a divine Spirit. They never work together, no more than oil with water or darkness with light. There are not two seats on the throne of your heart, only one. As Jesus said, it is impossible to them both together; it must be one or the other.[16] The failure to acknowledge the Incarnation of the Son of God denies a characteristic of the Christian Faith, the true union of God and mankind.[17] By saying “antichrist” as distinguished from “is of the devil,” (or the like) John confronts the erroneous claims of the false prophets: such a spirit, whatever appearances may be, is not of God. And if it is not of God, it is against God. There is no neutral ground.[18]

John James Lias (1834-1923) points out that most commentators supply the “spirit of” antichrist here. But, says Lias, Dr. Brooke F. Westcott (1825-1901) and Bishop Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885), more correctly, would have the rendering more general, “this is the temper,” or “tendency,” or “character” of antichrist. It refers to the many spirits and forces that reveal antichristian action. That “it” and not “he,” as the earlier translators render, is correct, appears from the neuter “the” – and “even now is in the world.” It’s another way of saying, “And now it is in the world already.” Therefore, the antichristian disposition must be in the world to pave the way for the advent of Antichrist himself.[19]

Lias unfolds the relation between Antichrist and the Man of Sin. Antichrist, we are told, (1) rejects the Anointed One, (2) denies the Father and the Son, (3) denies that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh. The man of sin (a) assumes to himself Divine honors, [20] (b) denies the claim of any other being than himself to be Divine, (c) sets himself against the law of God. Whether these two descriptions can be reconciled in every respect is not perfectly sure. But there appears no absolute, conclusive reason why they should not apply to the same person. To assume Divine honors is to deny the Anointed One, and to deny Him is to deny the Father who sent Him, and denial of Him who sent Him involves rejection of His law.[21]

American Pentecostal evangelist Bert B. Bosworth (1887-1958) once stated that “Heresy, in the Final Covenant, does not necessarily mean the holding of erroneous opinions. It may also mean the holding of correct opinions in an unbrotherly or divisive spirit.” Bosworth mentions that Augustus H. Strong (1836-1921) noted that the word “heretical” may also mean “dissenting.”[22] Still, false doctrine is the chief source of division and is, therefore in itself, a disqualification for participation in the Lord’s Supper, which is an additional inappropriate ban.[23]

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[1] Scholasticus Socrates: p. 312

[2] Barnes, Albert: Notes, Explanatory and Practical on the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude, Harper & Brothers, New York 1850, p. 372

[3] Jude 1:6

[4] Tartarus, the infernal regions of ancient Greek mythology. The name was originally used for the deepest region of the earth, the lower of the two parts of the underworld, where the gods locked up their enemies.

[5] 2 Peter 2:4

[6] Matthew 4:1-11; 13:19; 22:3; 1 Corinthians 7:5

[7] Revelation 9:11; See also his other appellations, Matthew 10:25, 27; 12:24; 2 Corinthians 6:15

[8] Matthew 25:41; Revelation 7:9; 9:14; 12:12

[9] Matthew 10:1; Mark 1:27; 3:11; 5:13; Acts of the Apostles 5:16; 8:7; Revelation 16:13

[10] Ephesians 6:12

[11] See Matthew 7:22; 1 Corinthians 10:21 et. al.

[12] Graham, William, A Practical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of John, op. cit., Chap. X, pp. 244, 252

[13] Tuck, Richard H., Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary, op. cit., p. 310

[14] Ebrard, Johannes: Biblical Commentary on the Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 281

[15] Steele, Daniel: Half-Hour, op. cit., pp. 97-98

[16] Matthew 6:24

[17] Cf. 2:22ff

[18] Westcott, Brooks F., The Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 142

[19] Lias, John James: The First Epistle of St. John with Exposition, op. cit., p. 297

[20] 2 Thessalonians 2:4

[21] Lias, John James: The First Epistle of St. John with Homiletical Treatment, p. 293

[22] Augustus Hopkins Strong is perhaps the most notable Baptist theologian of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. His place in a compendium of Baptist theologians is central. Strong taught and wrote his orthodox theology from a committed, reformed, Baptist perspective, while at the same time rigorously engaging intellectual developments within his cultural context. Strong’s magnum opus, the Systematic Theology, embodied the best of his own theological reflection and of Baptist theological thought.

[23] Strong, Augustus H., Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, op. cit., pp. 358-359