Down an Unfamiliar Road

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XIX) 02/10/22

4:3     Another doctrine refuses to ascribe this to Jesus.  That doctrine is not from God.  It is the doctrine of the antichrist.  You heard that the antichrist spirit is coming. Well, it is already in the world.

EXPOSITION

Now the Apostle John contrasts this doctrine with an opposing dogma.  As he did throughout his Gospel, John once again emphasizes that people must acknowledge Jesus as the man ordained by God to deliver His message of salvation. But there is more. No matter what recognition Jesus may receive as a good man, a great prophet, a wise philosopher, or a good moral leader, He must be confirmed as the Messiah, the Son of God. Therefore, if you do not embrace this premise, God’s Spirit does not live in you because the Spirit will always maintain that belief.

Every false teacher that does not acknowledge Jesus’ incarnation (God dwelling in the flesh) is not of God. False teachers that deny His divine embodiment get this idea from the “Antichrist.”  The Antichrist wants to undermine the Incarnation because it is the basis of our salvation. It would make the person and work of the Anointed One meaningless. John faithfully taught his readers that they would be tempted to backslide, namely, to turn their backs on God. They knew it was going to occur before it happened. The Antichrist himself was not there at the time of John’s writing, but the spirit of antichrist had already come through his false prophets and teachers. His emissaries attacked John’s readers for believing Jesus to be both human and the divine Redeemer of lost humanity.

John often states the case both negatively and positively for emphasis. There is an ancient variant reading of this text of much interest, probably of Latin origin, traced to the second century. In 1 John 4:2, 15 Instead of “to confess Jesus” it reads “to dissolve Jesus” in Latin “solvit Jesum.” Tertullian and Irenaeusboth knew about its existence. The modified text aimed at those who distinguished the man Jesus from the Divine Anointed One and thus “dissolved” his dual Personality. The Greek manuscripts are quite unanimous against this change in reading. Those professedly Christian teachers are ever 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 indifference. In 1 John 5:3, the Greek το τον αντιχριστον (“of the antichrist”) probably means “the spirit of antichrist.” And now it is in the world. It is an independent statement; John does not say they heard this previously.

The issue is not the manner or mode of the Anointed One’s coming but the constitution of His humanness. From the moment Jesus became human, He identified with fallen humankind. His being man redeemed lost humanity. The contradiction of this is the spirit of the Antichrist. Unfortunately, the antichrist spirit is understated today. Many messengers of liberalism remove this message from the Gospel. They deny the Bible as God’s Word. They reject the deity of the Anointed One. They discard the idea that man is sinful and depraved. They have no message for sin-sick souls. It’s all “feel good” theology. Regrettably, this kind of preaching fills some churches today. Most false teachers admit that a historical Jesus appeared in the world just like Alexander the Great was a historical figure. Still, they will not acknowledge that God stepped foot on earth in a human body to pay for the sins of humanity.  

COMMENTARY

In writing to his home church, Ignatius of Antioch (circa 50-120 AD) was adamant about recognizing the combination of humanity and divinity in the body of Jesus the Anointed One. He wrote that whoever declares that there is but one God, just to take away the divinity of the Anointed One, is of the devil and an enemy of all righteousness. Furthermore, those who claim to have faith in the Anointed One as the Messiah, yet not as the Son of the Creator of the universe, are Satan’s instrument. This individual is antichrist, and those who reject the incarnation are ashamed of the cross I am in prison for, stated Ignatius. Moreover, the one who affirms the Anointed One to be a mere man is doomed, not trusting God. That’s why they are unfruitful, like the wild myrtle tree.[1] [2] As we can see, this was already a controversy in the apostolic church era just a few years after Jesus’ ascension into heaven.

In writing to the congregation in Philippi, Polycarp (69-155 AD), John’s disciple warned them to avoid the Docetæ and persevere in fasting and prayer. He tells them that if they did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God incarnate, they belonged to the antichrist movement. Furthermore, whoever does not confess to the reality of the cross, is of the devil. Not only that, but those who pervert the teachings of the Lord for their convenience, saying that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, are the firstborn of Satan’s brood. That means believers must reject such conceit and their false doctrines and return to the Word of God handed down from the beginning,[3] prayerfully watching[4] and continue fasting, pleading in prayer that the all-seeing God will not allow temptation to overcome them.[5]As our Lord said: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”[6] [7]

Quintus Tertullian (155-240 AD), writing against the heretic Marcion, said that this skeptic must now cease to borrow poison from the Jews whom Jesus called “vipers,[8] and stop vomiting the hatred from his corrupt attitude, as when he alleges the Anointed One was a phantom. The problem is that his so-called bright and somewhat unsuccessful Marcionites would continue to preach this false doctrine. Therefore, the Apostle John designated them as antichrists when they denied that God’s Son came in the flesh. They did not do this to establish another god’s right, but because they started assuming the incredibility and impossibility of an incarnate God.[9]

Tertullian was constantly hounding those who denied the divinity of Jesus the Anointed One. For instance, in one epistle, he writes that instead of dwelling on such things as why some of Jesus’ disciples turned away from Him, let us keep in mind the Lord’s teachings and the Apostles’ letters, which warned us that heresies would come and ordered us to avoid them. In such cases, since we were not alarmed at their occurrence, we need not be surprised at their ability to do things that make us want to reject them even more.

The Lord teaches that many ravening wolves will come in sheep’s clothing.[10] Tertullian reminds us this sheep’s clothing is nothing more than calling themselves “Christians” The ravening wolves are the crafty thoughts and impulses lurking within the church to attack the Anointed One’s flock. The false prophets are the fraudulent preachers, the fabricated apostles, and fake evangelists; today’s antichrists rebels. These assaults of perverse teaching upon the Church are not one bit less severe than the dreadful persecutions which the antichrist will carry out in his day. In fact, they are worse. Persecution at least makes martyrs: heresy only produces mavericks.[11] [12]

Others held and distributed this false doctrine for whom Tertullian had harsh words. He notes that in rebuking, with holy indignation, various heretics in his day, John cried out against them using multiple passages of prophetical Scripture. Therefore, for John, those who attacked the true doctrine that the Lord Jesus, the Anointed One is both God and man, must be condemned.

Tertullian also calls to our attention the artful influence of the prophetess Philumene[13] on the gnostic Christian teacher, Apelles.[14] Indeed, he is an antichrist who denies that the Anointed One has come in the flesh.[15] ­­But, by declaring that His flesh is actual and taken in the plain sense of human nature, the Scripture aims a blow at all who make distinctions in it. In the same way, when it defines the Anointed One to be one entity – God in man, it shakes the fancies of those who exhibit a multiform Anointed One. They claim the Anointed One is one person and Jesus is another. One escapes out of the midst of a crowd, and they detain the other. Finally, one appears on a solitary mountain with three disciples, clothed with a cloud’s glory. The other is an ordinary man talking to them; one is outgoing, but the other is timid; lastly, one suffers death while the other rises again. They then utilize this event to maintain their resurrection, only in another body. However, He who suffered “will come again from heaven”[16] and be seen by all who rose from the dead.[17]

Tertullian aims at one more target. Who is it then that has provoked the Lord, now at God’s right hand, so unseasonably and with such severity “shake terribly”[18] (as Isaiah expresses it) “that earth,” which is as yet unshattered? Who has put “the Anointed One’s enemies beneath His feet”[19] (to use the language of David),[20] making Him more anxious than the Father, while crowds in our popular coliseums shout “the Christians to the lions?”[21] Who has yet beheld Jesus descending from heaven in like manner as the apostles saw Him ascend, according to the appointment of the two angels?[22]

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[1] The myrtle is not mentioned in the Bible until the time of the captivity. The first reference is in Nehemiah 8:15 (see Isaiah 41:19; 55:13; Zechariah 1:8, 10-11) in regard to the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. As an evergreen, fragrant shrub associated with watercourses, the myrtle is a fitting symbol of the recovery and establishment of God’s promises. Myrtle trees bore only flowers, not fruit.

[2] Ignatius to the Antiochians, Chapter V., Denunciation of False Teachers

[3] See Jude 1:3

[4] 1 Peter 4:7

[5] Matthew 6:13; 26:41

[6] Matthew 26:41; Mark 14:38

[7] Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians Ch. 7

[8] Matthew 3:7

[9] Tertullian, The Five Books Against Marcion, Bk. 5, Chapter VIII, p. 109

[10] Matthew 7:15

[11] A maverick is an unorthodox or independent-minded person

[12] Tertullian: The Prescription Against Heretics, ⁋4

[13] Philumene was a virgin friend who claimed to be possessed by an angel, who gave her “revelations” which Apelles read out in public.

[14] Apelles was a second-century Gnostic Christian thinker. He started out his ministry as a disciple of Marcion of Sinope, probably in Rome. But at some point, Apelles either left, or was expelled from, the Marcionite church.

[15] 1 John 4:3

[16] Acts of the Apostles 1:11

[17] Tertullian: On the Flesh of the Anointed One, Ch. 24

[18] Isaiah 2:19

[19] 1 Corinthians 15:25

[20] Psalm 110:1

[21] Cf. Tertullian’s The Apology, Ch. 40; it reads: “If the Tiber rises, if the Nile does not rise, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, famine, or pestilence, straightway the cry is ‘The Christians to the lion!’”

[22] Acts of the Apostles 1:11

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XVIII) 02/09/22

^4:3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. This 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.

John R. W. Stott (1921-2011) feels that the phrase “Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh” (KJV), or as “Jesus the Anointed One in the flesh having come” (YLT),[1] could also read “Jesus as the Anointed One came in the flesh,” – James Moffatt translation, “Anointed One incarnate.” It harmonizes both with the name “Jesus” and what heretics taught. They claimed that the Anointed One, a divine figure, descended upon the man Jesus at His baptism and withdrew from Him before His death. John repudiates this doctrine. The truth is not that the Anointed One came “into” the flesh of Jesus, but that Jesus was the Anointed One come “in” the flesh. These two identify one person. The statement, simple as it is, is of exquisite precision.[2]

John Phillips (1927-2010) mentions that the Apostle Paul could say in his day that the “mystery of iniquity is already at work”[3] and, as the Apostle John says, the spirit of antichrist was “even now in the world.” Only the hindering work of the Holy Spirit prevented end-time judgments from bursting into full power and fruit during John’s ministry. The restraining influence of the Holy Spirit has operated on this planet now for over two thousand years. Thus, God in His mercy lengthened the day of grace. But now, once again, the stage is being set for the coming of the personal Antichrist. However long his coming is delayed, his spirit is already here. End-time deceptions are overshadowing the world once more, possibly for the last time. We can see that the “falling away,” Paul wrote about, is all about us.

However, this time suggests Phillips; God may send rapture instead of revival, followed by a rapid fulfillment of all end-time prophetic events.[4] Paul prophesies: “Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons.”[5] Paul adds that the time will come when “people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. Instead, they will follow their desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.”[6] It certainly harmonizes with the Spirit’s message included in this letter.[7]

David E. Hiebert (1928-1995) says the combination “Jesus the Anointed One” occurs eight times in John’s epistles.[8] In two places, the Apostle John separates the names by writing “Jesus is the Anointed One.”[9] Therefore, when the terms appear together, they need to be translated as such. Keeping the two names together best represents John’s insistence that “Jesus the Anointed One” is a union of the human and divine in the Incarnation in the historical Jesus. It’s spelled out in the words “has come in the flesh.” In saying “in the flesh,” rather than “into the flesh,” John repudiated Cerenthus (circa 100 AD), a late contemporary of John at Ephesus, who separated Jesus from the Anointed One. He taught that the spirit of the Anointed One came on a human named Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, at His baptism and empowered His ministry, but left Him before His crucifixion. That means only the human Jesus died and rose again. Cerenthus thus rejected the doctrine of the Incarnation and obliterated the Christian teaching of the atonement.[10]

Stephen S. Smalley (1931-2018) says the Apostle John now specifies the nature of the recommended “test” of the spirits, by which believers distinguish between true inspiration and pretending inspiration. John based this recognition on insight gained from the Anointed One. Living as a true child of God, and acting as a spokesman of His Spirit, involves a confession about Jesus (supremely, that He came from God). Verse two forms an inclusion with verse six and begins a pattern of contrasts that underlines John’s teaching. They include the need to “put the spirits to the test.” It became necessary because of the fundamental coequals in the Johannine community. John wanted to draw between truth and error, the Anointed One and the antichrist, the Church and the world.[11] It would have been easy to tell them apart had these false prophets come from the Jews or some other religion. But the false prophets arising out of the believing community made the test even more necessary.

Edward J. Malatesta (1932-1998) sees the Apostle John affirming that he and the community have the needed knowledge to deal with the spirit of deception with the Spirit of truth. A complete view of the spirits is how they influence the believer regarding their opposite ways of action. Either the Spirit guided them with Light to a clearer understanding of revelation or buried them in a cloud of deception. The ultimate purpose is to determine which is of God or not by observing exterior evidence of what is being said.[12]

Ian Howard Marshall (1934-2015) says that the Apostle John’s test is not infallible. Jesus protested when some people called Him “Lord” yet did not do what He said.[13] Mere confession with the mouth is not necessarily a guide to the heart’s belief. John’s test is relevant to a particular situation in which it was possible to regard certain people as inspired by the spirit of evil because of their false confession. A different form of words may be the test point in other circumstances. Ultimately, however, the whole of the Epistle furnishes the characteristics of genuine Christianity: faith, love, and righteousness are all relevant to the question, and concentration on any one of them to the exclusion of the others is bound to be misleading.[14]

Messianic writer David Stern (1935) has a wake-up call for the Church. One of the earliest heresies was the Docetists, who taught that the Messiah only appeared to be a human being. They considered human flesh too low for such a holy figure as the Son of God. This heresy persists explicitly in “Theosophy”[15] and sects based on Eastern religious teachings, which speak of “the Anointed One” as a spiritual entity which, in effect, masqueraded as a human but was actually “a higher being.” Moreover, it persists in a far more widespread fashion in the implied popular theology of much of the Christian Church. By emphasizing Yeshua’s divinity, it practically ignores His humanity and portrays Him as if He floated around the Holy Land several feet off the ground. For a Jew, there may be difficulty regarding the Messiah as divine, but none whatever regarding Him as human; quite the contrary, the idea of a Messiah who is not a human being is meaningless within the thought-framework of Judaism.[16]

William Loader (1944) says that the translation “acknowledges that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh” is by far the most natural and doubtless reflects the Apostle John’s intention. However, it is possible, says Loader, to construe the Greek so that it reads in translation: “acknowledges that Jesus is the Anointed One came in the flesh.” The parallel with 1 John 5:6 suggests it is more than a literary elaboration. It indicates that the manner of coming is the primary matter of dispute: The anticipated arrival of Jesus as God’s messenger and the expectant arrival of the Anointed One. The sticking point was, are these both were embodied in one man, or was Jesus the man housing the Messiah?[17]

Marianne Meye Thompson (1964) notes that the Apostle John offers a test to discern the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, that is, challenging the substance of one’s teaching, specifically, about Jesus being the Anointed One.[18] The emphasis on true confession indicates that John is not talking about demon possession or ecstatic utterances or prediction of the future but about accepting the affirmations about Jesus handed down and taught in the community. It is not a new test, nor does John expect the Church to do anything new in exercising discernment. But he reminds them that the stakes are high. In the balance hang truth and error about the first commandment and the ultimate question of faith: knowledge and worship of the one true God. For denying Jesus would be equivalent to worshiping a false god, since only through the Anointed One is knowledge of the true God available.[19] [20]

Karen H. Jobes (1968) says that evidently, the Apostle John’s readers find themselves in a confusing situation, where discernment of the truth is needed. So, he reminds them of the necessity of recognizing the Incarnation of Jesus the Anointed One as true knowledge of God because the Word became flesh specifically to reveal the otherwise invisible God.[21] “Therefore, everyone who has a true knowledge of God acknowledges that “Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh” – that is, that the Son of God became a son of man. The incarnation is the heart of Christian epistemology.[22] Consequently, the converse is also true, that anyone who does not acknowledge Jesus as come in the flesh is not God sent; that is, they have not acquired the actual knowledge of God through His revelation in Jesus the Anointed One.[23] It may not seem important to many believers today, but when you stop and think of all the gods and goddesses in religions worldwide, not one of them claims that their god came to earth in human form and died on their behalf that they might have everlasting life.

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[1] Young’s Literal Translation, loc. cit.

[2] Stott, John. The Letters of John (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries), op. cit., p. 156

[3] 2 Thessalonians 2:7

[4] 2 Thessalonians 2:3

[5] 1 Timothy 4:1

[6] 2 Timothy 4:3-4

[7] Phillips, John: Exploring the First Epistle of John, op. cit., p. 131

[8] 1 John 1:3; 2:1; 3:23; 4:2; 5:6, 20; 2 John 1:3, 7 

[9] 1 John 2:22; 5:1

[10] Hiebert, David E., Bibliotheca Sacra, October-December 1999, pp. 426-427

[11] Smalley, Stephen S., Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 51, op. cit., p. 220

[12] Malatesta, Edward J., Interiority and Covenant, op. cit., p. 284

[13] Matthew 7:21-23; Luke 6:46

[14] Marshall, I. Howard. The Epistles of John (The New International Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., p. 206

[15] Theosophy maintains that a knowledge of God may be achieved through spiritual ecstasy, direct intuition, or special individual relations, especially the movement founded in 1875 as the Theosophical Society by Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott (1832-1907).

[16] Stern, David H., Jewish New Testament Commentary, Kindle Edition.

[17] Loader, William, Epworth Commentary, op. cit., p. 49

[18] 1 John 4:2-3

[19] Ibid. 5:21

[20] Thompson, Marianne M., The IVP New Testament Commentary, op. cit., pp. 113-114

[21] John 1:14, 18

[22] Epistemology is the study of acquiring knowledge. It involves an awareness of certain aspects of reality, and it seeks to discover what is known and how it is known. Considered as a branch of philosophy, epistemology addresses cognitive sciences, cultural studies and the history of science. Moreover, epistemology explains why our minds relate to reality and how these relationships are either valid or invalid. It is needed in order to distinguish between the truth and falsehood as we obtain knowledge from the world around us.

[23] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament, Book 18) p. 178

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XVII) 02/08/22

^4:2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus the Anointed One came in a human body, that person has the Spirit of God.

Alfred Plummer (1841-1926) says that the words “Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh” are the crucial test and one which would quickly expose the spirit of“Cerinthian”[1] and “Docetic”[2] teachers. We are not to suppose that all other articles of faith are unimportant. To deny this truth is the worst of all denials, or that such denial involves every kind of doctrinal error prevalent in that age. The confession must, of course, not be in words only but in sincerity and action as well.[3] [4]

Erich Haupt (1841-1926) reflects on verses two and three and believes we must ask about the central point of each person’s confession. What concerns are they confessing? The admission must be grammatically arranged in its proper order concerning the word Christos (“Anointed One”). Should it be combined with “Jesus” as the “Anointed One?” Could we modify it so that we confess Jesus is the Anointed One and that He appeared as such in the flesh? First, the Apostle John takes it for granted that Jesus is the Anointed One, and the requirement is that we affirm this Jesus the Anointed One as both God and man. Secondly, the assumption is that there must be a confession concerning Jesus as the Anointed One. Finally, it requires that we declare His Messiahship and Incarnation.[5]

Alonzo Rice Cocke (1858-1901) states that Jesus the Anointed One is the sum and substance of the Holy Spirit’s teaching, and every prophet who fully confessed Jesus the Anointed One is inspired by the Spirit of God. That Spirit, when it convicts of sin, does so in relation to the Anointed One: “The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in Me.”[6] “He will bring Me glory by telling you whatever he receives from Me.”[7] Speaking the true doctrine regarding Jesus is the essential test to apply to all inspiration claims. All others are false. None are confirmed except those who give a true and loyal testimony to the divine-human Redeemer, Jesus the Anointed One.[8]

Albert Barnes notes that we should not take for granted that everyone who confesses to being a faithful Christian is honest. It is clear that a doctrine might be acknowledged to be accurate, yet the heart might not be changed, nor does it mean that accepting this truth was all that was needed to recognize someone as a Christian. On the contrary, everyone who truly came from God needed to confess this truth. Those who taught this held the secret that God revealed, which was indispensable, and they thus show that they did not belong to those to whom the name “antichrist” could properly be applied. Still, it was quite another question whether this doctrine harmonized with other doctrines to show that they were sincere Christians. It is evident that a person may follow and teach the true principles of Christianity and yet have no evidence that they are a child of God.[9]

Harry A. Ironside (1876-1951) asks, “If someone confesses the incarnation, are they of God?” Maybe, but it does not mean that everything else they teach is necessarily scriptural, but they have the right foundation if they truly believe in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One. We begin with the embodiment, not with an apotheosis. Ironside does not like the use of this theological term. The word apotheosis comes from two Greek words, one meaning from, and the other God or the Deity. So, we speak of an apotheosis as a person entirely under God’s influence. Many ministers and instructors today teach that in the person of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One, we see a remarkable child born into this world and in many respects superior to any other child. In addition, He is viewed as a religious genius, who from the earliest consciousness, was God-intoxicated. Furthermore, whose whole mind was toward a more excellent knowledge of the Deity, someone who was always reaching out to God. Thus, He was so constantly under God’s influence and so absorbed in Him that He eventually began to imitate Him. Therefore, we see in Jesus the Anointed One, God manifested.

Such apotheosis is what is commonly taught by those called “Modernists,” notes Ironside. They deny the incarnation but affirm an apotheosis. The Word of God does not teach apotheosis, but it does the incarnation. Jesus was not just a man or God; He was a God-Man – God in human form.  Jesus the Anointed One did not begin existing when He was born into the world. Instead, He came from heaven. Every spirit that confesseth this is of God. This is the incarnation. Did you ever stop to think what a remarkable expression this is, “Jesus the Anointed One came?” You were born into the world; you had no existence before you were born. But Jesus, the Son of God, was with God before the creation of the universe.[10]

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) believes that for any of these false prophets to deny that the Anointed One, whom they also revere as the bringer of salvation, has already appeared in the historical Jesus, involves nothing other than that He came “in the flesh.” It, thus, seems to be a question of Docetism in the case of their heretical doctrine (instead of Jesus being two in one person, they insist that He was one person in two people). Therefore, of the one who makes the proper confession, it can be said: “they are of God.” Consequently, this confession asserts the paradoxical identity of the present (son of man below) and the future (Son of God above) figure of Jesus the Anointed One.[11]

Paul Waitman Hoon (1910-2000) tells us that by the Anointed One coming in the flesh it once and for all sanctifies our physical being. Such a gulf between the spiritual and the material is false and cannot be defended from the Christian point of view. Consider the implication of this insight for Christian altitudes toward intimacy. Also, this insight enables us to challenge philosophical ideas such as “situation ethics”[12] in our age. The Christian’s answer to the challenge of fleshliness is not to surrender to the Gnostic misconception of declaring that our flesh is inherently corrupt. Instead, it is to spiritualize and ethicize the physical. The Incarnation is, in one sense, an event; in another way, it is also an eternal process whose comprehension needs our thought and thinking. The confession John speaks of stamps a person as “of God” or “not of God,” is not of the fact of being in the flesh, but that the Incarnate Anointed One was in the flesh.[13]

To make Dr. Hoon’s point a little clearer, the Gnostics believed that salvation is all about knowledge. Therefore, they say that the body is of no value, so it has no place or role in a person’s holy living. Therefore, pay no attention to the body’s passions affecting your standing with God. Let it do what it wants to do, but keep your mind on God. After all, Jesus died to save our soul, not our body. This may all sound convenient until you consider that the Son of God came to earth and took on the flesh of a human body. So how could a Gnostic say His body played no role or had any consequence in our salvation? And why does the Scripture say that we are to keep our bodies holy just as He was holy?[14] And the Apostle Paul urges us to give our bodies to God as a living sacrifice because of all He has done for us.[15]

Donald W. Burdick (1917-1996) states that this positive statement when the persuasive Gnostic Cerinthus (50-100 AD)[16] was spreading his destructive heresy abroad, how could Christian people discern which teachers came from God? Their trick was to acknowledge everything else about Jesus except His divinity. John’s answer in verse two is that any person who is from God will gladly confess “that Jesus the Anointed Son of God is come in the flesh.” Then in verse three, John contrasts them with those who “do not accept that Jesus the Anointed One is come in the flesh.” It suggests that their refusal to acknowledge Jesus as a human was intentional, not accidental. John is not talking about accepting a creed, but about faith in a Person who has become and still is incarnate. Such a person believes that the human Jesus and the divine Anointed One are one-and-the-same Person – God incarnate.[17]

Raymond E. Brown (1928-1998) makes an important point here. He says, when we read, “Every spirit that confesses Jesus the Anointed One came in the flesh belongs to God,” it is a translation that might give the wrong impression that there are many Spirits of God. The use of “everyone” introduces human beings, not spirits, as those who confess. John is offering an external principle for which a spirit is at the root of the actions of two groups of people. John reveals this when later he suddenly shifts over to “you [people]” and “those people,”[18] despite his previous reference to spirits. [19] So, instead of thinking about the word “spirit,” as we would a “virus” where many viruses can infect many people. Instead, it is one “spirit” – virus infecting many people.

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[1] Cerinthus, an early Gnostic, who was prominent as the founder of the Cerinthians in view of the early Church leaders. Contrary to the Church Fathers, he used the Gospel of Cerinthus to deny that the Supreme God made the physical world. His interpretation of the Anointed One is what descended upon Jesus at His baptism and guided Him in ministry and the performing of miracles, but left him at the crucifixion because He was just a man, not the Son of God.

[2] Docetism, (from Greek dokein, “to seem”), a Christian heresy and one of the earliest Christian sectarian doctrines, affirming that the Anointed One did not have a real or natural body during His life on earth but only an apparent or phantom one.

[3] See 1 John 3:18

[4] Plummer, Alfred: Cambridge Bible, op. cit., p. 142

[5] Haupt, Erich: The First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 244-245

[6] John 16:9

[7] Ibid. 16:14

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

[9] Barnes, Albert: New Testament Notes, op. cit., p. 4860

[10] Ironside, Harry A., Epistles of John, op. cit., pp. 127-128

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

[12] Situation Ethics: The New Morality, on the doctrine of flexibility in the application of moral laws according to circumstances, was written by Joseph F. Fletcher, 1966

[13] Hoon, Paul H., The Interpreter’s Bible, op. cit., 1 John, Exegesis, p. 274

[14] Leviticus 11:44-45; 19:2; 1 Peter 1:16

[15] Romans 12:1

[16] The Cerinthus doctrine was that the spirit of the Anointed One descended upon Jesus at baptism and guided Him in ministry and the performing of miracles, but departed from Him on the cross at the crucifixion.

[17] Burdick, Donald W., The Epistles of John, op. cit., p.67

[18] 1 John 4:4b-5a

[19] Brown, Raymond E., The Anchor Bible, op. cit., Vol. 30, pp. 491-492

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XVI) 02/07/22

^4:2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God.

Charles Ellicott (1819-1904) mentions that the Apostle John’s statement, “Every spirit that does not confess” seems to be an old curious reading mentioned by Church historian Scholasticus Socrates of Constantinople who said, “every spirit that destroys” (or, dissolves) “Jesus the Anointed One.” However, these words were most likely written in the margin that ended up in the text as a statement against the Gnostics. Clearly, this verse presupposes an evangelistic presentation of the Anointed One before refusal to confess Him as a historical person.[1] This consolation is similar to that in 1 John 2:12 and introduced by the same endearing phrase, “dear children.” John is sure that his readers have held onto the truth and kinship with God.[2] God is in them, and therefore the victory is already theirs. Although they may still struggle, they have only to claim the Anointed One’s strength, and they have won. By making their choice between light and darkness, love and hate, good and evil, God and the devil, they are the victorious party.[3]

William B. Pope (1822-1903) writes that personal faith must have its outward affirmation; every “teacher” or “spirit” must teach based on a confession of belief in Jesus. In chapter two, the test of antichrist was the refusal to believe that “Jesus was the Anointed One,” or “the Son of the Father:” It established the divinity and Messiahship of our Lord. Here the true faith is that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh: not into the world as a human of flesh and blood, which might imply a fallen condition, but “incarnated” that is, God in human form. He appeared who existed before as the Son of God and so “came” that it may be said of Him that He is an abiding presence. In other words, “God is here!”[4]

Bishop Charles J. Ellicott (1819-1905) comments that too often, people regard the Incarnation as a doctrine accepted by faith, but which, except in its issues and results, has no immediate connection with daily life activities. Yet it is plain enough from the text that to confess the Incarnation, in all its blessed fulness and reality of meaning, is to establish proof of being a child of God and a recipient in the fullest measure of the inworking power of the Spirit. It raises the question, could not the Word have become flesh without the humble birth, the slow, silent years of growth, and the gradual increase of wisdom and experience? It, however, may be said that had it been otherwise, the belief that God’s Son took our nature upon Himself would never have been accepted with completeness in the human heart.[5]

William Alexander (1824-1911) believes that the Church or Churches, which the First Epistle directly contemplates, did not consist of newly converted individuals. On the contrary, its whole language supposes Christians, some of whom had grown old and were “fathers” in the faith, while others who were younger enjoyed the privilege of having been born and brought up in a Christian atmosphere. John reminds them that the commandment “which they heard,” namely, the “Word,” the “message,” is the same which they “had from the beginning.”[6] Now this will suit the circumstances of a Church like the one in Ephesus, to whom the Apostle Paul preached the Gospel many years before.[7] That means John could anticipate they would understand what he was saying without much explanation. Just as a minister would say today, “Remember the woman at the well in Samaria,” which regular attenders and long-time members could relate to without a detailed history lesson of the journeys of Jesus.[8]

Daniel Steele (1824-1914) notes that both the King James Version (1611) and Revised Version (N.T. 1881) failed to give the Greek verb homologeō, its exact meaning with the English word “confesseth” or “confesses,” Jesus the Anointed One, is come in the flesh. The Anointed One is the object confessed to, not some fact relating to Him. The confession required is of a person, not some abstract doctrine. Steele says, “The Gospel centers in a person and not in any truth, even the greatest, about the Person.” It is not the confession of the incarnation, but the Savior incarnate, the pledge and pattern of mankind completely redeemed, soul and body bearing the image of the glorified God-man. The believer who thus savingly accepts and publicly confesses the historic Anointed One, not as a phantom, as the Gnostics taught, but a real man, the incarnation of the uncreated Logos who in the beginning was with God and was God, is of God, born from above. “Faith, if it is real, must declare itself.”[9] So, when confession is made, it is not only for sins but also for acknowledging that you accept Jesus the Anointed One as having come to earth clothed in human form. He is not some myth or questionable historical figure; He is real.

Brooke F. Westcott (1825-1901) states the Gospel centers on a Person, not in any truth, even the most complimentary, about that Person. The Incarnate Savior is the pledge of humankind’s complete redemption and perfection, restoring “the body” to its proper place as the perfect vessel of the human spirit. Hence the Divine Spirit must bear witness to that regenerated spirit. The trial of spirits is found in confessing a fact that maintains life’s fulness. The test of the antichrist is located in the confession of spiritual truth.[10] [11]

Henry A. Sawtelle (1832-1913) focuses on the Apostle John’s insistence that confession must be that Jesus the Anointed One came clothed in human flesh and blood. The matter of the admission is not the mere name of the Anointed One, which even those spreading false doctrine confess. Instead, it is the Anointed One in His genuine nature, having a specific history and embodying a particular system of truth. He is Jesus, and, therefore, the Savior of all people. He is the Messiah and, therefore, the Anointed One of God. This Anointed One, Jesus, came from God in the flesh, with the soul and body of human nature. When John wrote this, people were beginning to teach that the Anointed One only appeared to have a human nature, like the angels who came to Abraham’s nephew Lot[12] and Sampson’s faither Manoah.[13] Being mistaken on the incarnation of the Anointed One, they were consequently at fault as to His priestly work and His saving power.

It was only one misstep, some might say, but it involved a denial of the Gospel’s message of salvation by the God-man, the Anointed One, and His actual death; and a person could not deny that essential plan of salvation and saved by it at the same time. It is an ominous warning to such who are passive enough to receive the nature and work of the Anointed One without being changed; who wish to explain this or that away, who deviate from what they consider the true faith. In particular, we must immediately believe this concerning the Anointed One: Gospel truth is of a definite type, which the regenerate will not miss; the spiritual mind will take to it as naturally as the bird to the air or the bee to clover. It does make any difference what a person believes, but it is God. It is related to them in their spiritual nature through regeneration[14]

John James Lias (1834-1923) states that we should observe that the Christian life has two sides, the inward and the outward. Of the inward, faith is the essential characteristic of the outward, confession. Inward determines humankind’s relation to God and the outward relationship to their fellow believers. By necessity, the Christian life passes from the internal to the external, from the union of the soul with God to the external brotherhood with those similarly united to Him. Thus, the public confession of discipleship of the Anointed One – is the necessary consequence of genuine faith.[15]

Lias continues. The Gospel entrusted to them came from above.[16] Over that, they had no power. It was God’s message. They could neither add to it nor subtract from it.[17] But the Apostle Paul does speak of his authority in applying the principles of the Gospel.[18] [19]

Robert Cameron (1839-1904) says that false teachers, whose mold of thought and purpose of life conformed to the wishes of evil spirits, are the indirect channels of opposition to the Anointed One and saints. They also approach believers directly by ambitious aims, the love of money, power, honor, and even knowledge that is not according to God. They gain possession of those rejecting the Anointed One and gratify their unnatural desires in the sins that are too terrible to mention. Unfortunately, too often, these spirits approach the saints and lead them astray through the sensual desires of human nature, by suggestions that are abhorrent to them living in conscious communion with God. All such approaches and improper influences from the unseen realm are practical revelations of the world of evil spirits surrounding us. Whether good or bad, these spirits must operate through human souls, exercising their power upon the stage of life, hence the introduction of false prophets. So, says Cameron, it is essential to understand a great, unseen spiritual force is all around us. It is not superstition but a remarkable fact. Being ignorant of this will lead to confusion, discouragement, and despair. As the old hymn goes:

“Oh, it is hard to work for God,

To rise and take His part

Upon the battlefield of life,

And not sometimes lose heart.”[20]

After years of earnest, conscientious, and intelligent fighting, we might lose heart and sink into utter despair without belief in the supernatural power of God that will someday rise to the rescue and move on to victory.[21]

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[1] Cf. 1 John 2:18

[2] Cf. Ibid. 3:1-2; 13-14

[3] Ellicott, Charles J. Ellicott’s Bible Commentary for English Readers p. 16234

[4] Pope, William B., Popular Commentary, op. cit., p. 314

[5] Ellicott, Charles, J., The Church Pulpit Commentary, op. cit., Vol. 12, pp. 289-290

[6] Cf. 1 John 2:7, 24; 3:11; 2 John 5:5-6

[7] See John 4:6; 19:4; Acts of the Apostles 18:18-21; 3 John 1:12

[8] Alexander, William: The Expositor’s Bible, op. cit., p. 18

[9] Steele, Daniel: Half-hour, op. cit., pp. 96-97

[10] 1 John 2:22ff

[11] Westcott, Brooke F., The Epistles of St. John, op. cit., p. 140

[12] Genesis 19:1-3

[13] Judges 13:9

[14] Sawtelle, Henry A., An American Commentary, Alvah Hovey, Ed., op. cit., p. 46

[15] Lias, John James, The First Epistle of St. John with Exposition, op. cit., pp. 291-292

[16] See 1 Cor. 9:16; Gal. 1:8, 9

[17] See also Eph. 3:2, 3; Col. 1:25; 1 Tim. 1:11

[18] as in 1 Cor. 5:3, 7:12, 25, 40, 14:37, and 2 Cor. 10:8,

[19] Lias, John James, The First Epistle of St. John with Homiletical Treatment, pp. 287-288

[20] “Oh, it is Hard to Work for God,” published in 1849 by Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863), who wrote 150 hymns including “Faith of our Fathers.”

[21] Cameron, Robert, First Epistle of John, op. cit., loc. cit.

BEING CONSIDERATE

Sometimes people use the word “sympathy” when it is better to say “empathy.” Sympathy involves understanding from your perspective. Empathy includes putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and understanding WHY they may have these particular feelings. It creates a sense of concern over the plight of the person. A psychologist at Lesley University tells us that having empathy increases the likelihood of helping others and showing compassion. Empathy is a building block of morality – for people to follow the Golden Rule, it helps if they can put themselves in someone else’s shoes,” according to the Greater Good Science Center. This research institute studies psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being. It is also an essential ingredient of successful relationships because it helps us understand the other person’s perspectives, needs, and intentions.

Although the distinction between empathy and sympathy may seem similar, there is a clear. According to Hodges and Myers in the Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, empathy is “understanding another person’s experience by imagining oneself in their situation, but without actually undergoing it.” A difference is maintained between self and other. Sympathy, in contrast, involves the experience of being moved by, or responding in tune with, another person.”

Earlier in psychology history, many experiments were performed with highly questionable and even outrageous violations of ethical considerations. For example, Milgram’s[1] infamous obedience experiment involved deceiving human subjects into believing that they were delivering painful, possibly even life-threatening, electrical shocks to another person.

These controversial psychology experiments played a significant role in developing the ethical guidelines and regulations that psychologists must abide by today. When performing studies or experiments involving human participants, psychologists must submit their proposals to an institutional review board (IRB). ​These committees help ensure that experiments conform to ethical and legal guidelines.

Ethical codes, such as those established by the American Psychological Association, are designed to protect the safety and best interests of those who participate in psychological research. Such guidelines also protect the reputations of psychologists, the field of psychology itself, and the institutions that sponsor psychology research.

Kate Dunagan of Thought Catalog tells us there are two words we often hear used by others, words that have a specific power to call you to action or defy others’ expectations. You may even feel indifferent about the use of these two words. These two words are, “be considerate.”

We may use the phrase “be considerate” when someone exhibits intolerance. We may use it to remind ourselves that “stirring the pot” isn’t always beneficial for a relationship. Even if that relationship is with a person, we deem an adversary.

But what does be considerate actually imply? We can only understand what civil or polite means for ourselves and how our actions will affect others when we define them ourselves. It will depend on our personality, emotional well-being, and specific circumstances. No one can make this decision for us and it is one of the many obstacles we must overcome amidst the human experience.

Some people may believe that others are considerate when they choose to do what is most harmonious for the majority of a group. It could mean attending a concert we do not wish to attend or changing our personality to be accepted by a collection of strangers. This could be when we buy that item our best friend urges us to get, even when we don’t have the money. It is the moment we say “yes” when we should say “no.”

Yet, there are also moments when we say “no,” and we should say, “yes.” It is the moment procrastination becomes a part of our daily routine, even though we have a multitude of errands to accomplish. We feel lonely and need to reach out to someone the moment we don’t. It is the day we deny ourselves any new experience for the sake of self-preservation.

In certain situations, it can be challenging to realize whether or not we are being considerate, to whom we are being inconsiderate, and who needs to ultimately “win” in the end. If we are being destructive and aware of it, it may benefit everyone involved that we leave the concert. On the other hand, suppose we choose to play along with the person who asks us to alter our personality for the reward of admiration. In that case, it is our decision whether or not we are being considerate to ourselves. If it is a situation that would benefit our growth as individuals, it may be best to force ourselves against the usual grain.

When the pressure of other people is involved, we need to look back to who we are and what’s best for us. Ask yourself, what is more inconsiderate than denying others a behavior they wish for you to exhibit or showing up to an event you do not desire to attend without the bulk of your true self. When we do this, people like to believe we are giving them something (for example: our time) when we give in to their wishes but, in truth, we are not. When we are intentionally a pseudo-version of ourselves, we give them nothing. Nothing good, anyway.

A surefire way to guarantee success in being mindful of others is to be aware of our own needs. How we treat ourselves has a direct correlation to how we treat others. If we decide to let other people’s opinions determine what we do and who we are and only give them a sliver of our identity, they will never get to see the fullness of our existence. We may even deny ourselves the fullness of our presence if we choose to let societal pressures win. We are missing out on the beauty of our blemishes and our strengths.

But what does the Bible say about showing consideration? The prophet Ezekiel received this word from the Lord, “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So, I removed them when I saw it.”[2]

The Apostle Peter gives us an example of being considerate using a husband-and-wife situation. He says, a wife should be willing to cooperate with her husband. Then, even those who refuse to accept God’s teaching will be persuaded to believe because of the way you live. You will not need to say anything. Your husband will see the pure life you live with reverence for God. It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful. No, your beauty should come from inside you – the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. That beauty will never disappear. It is worth very much to God.

In the same way, a husband should treat his wife in an understanding way, since they are physically weaker than you. You should show her respect, because God gives her the same blessing He gives you – the grace of true life. Do this so that nothing will stop your prayers from being heard. So, all of you should live together in peace. Try to understand each other. Love each other like brothers and sisters. Be kind and humble. Don’t do wrong to anyone to pay them back for doing wrong to you. Or don’t insult anyone to pay them back for insulting you. But ask God to bless them. Do this because you yourselves were chosen to receive a blessing.[3]

Then the Apostle James offers instructions to believers as a group. He tells them, brothers and sisters, you are believers in our glorious Lord Jesus the Anointed One. So don’t treat some people better than others. Suppose someone comes into your meeting wearing very nice clothes and a gold ring. At the same time a poor person comes in wearing old, dirty clothes. Let’s say you show special attention to the person wearing nice clothes by telling them, ‘Sit here in this good seat.’ But you say to the poor person, ‘Stand in that corner!’ or ‘Sit on the floor by our feet!’ Doesn’t this show that you think some people are more important than others? You set yourselves up as judges – judges who make bad decisions.[4]

Finally, the Apostle Paul has this advice: Don’t be interested only in your life, but care about the lives of others too.[5] Also, don’t speak evil of anyone but live in peace with others. You should be gentle and polite to everyone.[6] Finally, put a stop to all sarcasm, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in the Anointed One forgave you.[7] You should never stop showing consideration for others, not even those who may not like you.

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[1] The Milgram experiment(s) on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram..

[2] Ezekiel 16:49-50

[3] 1 Peter 3:1-4, 7-10

[4] James 2:1-4

[5] Philippians 2:4

[6] Titus 3:2

[7] Ephesians 4:32

CARRYING YOUR CROSS

French Archbishop François Fénelon (1651-1725) was struck by how his people responded to the words of our Lord Jesus, “If any of you want to be My follower, you must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross given to you for following Me.”[1] So he offered the following insight to those struggling to keep up with Jesus because their cross seemed too heavy or inconvenient. His French expressions are not easy to translate but I’m sure you’ll get his point.

God is very resourceful in making crosses for us to carry. Some seem to be constructed out of lead and iron, which are overwhelming in themselves. And some are made of straw, which seems so light and yet is no less difficult to bear. Other crosses appear to be made of gold and jewels, the glitter of which dazzles those around and excites the world’s envy, but all the while being as punishing as the most despised of crosses.

Sometimes He makes crosses for us out of whatever we love best which can make us bitter. Positions of responsibility involve constraint and harassment. It gives us things we do not care for and removes what we crave.

The poor man who does not have bread to eat considered his cross made of lead, but God mingles trouble very much like the cup of those who are prosperous. In fact, the rich may hunger for freedom from their cross just as the poor hunger for bread. Whereas the poor can freely knock at every door and call upon every passerby for pity, the person of high estate is ashamed to seek compassion or relief. God very often adds bodily weakness to this moral servitude among the great. Nothing can be more profitable than two such crosses combined: they often suffer while God shows them their lack of power and the uselessness of all they possess to satisfy what only God can give.

Wisdom tests us in all manner of ways according to our position. Therefore, it is very possible to drink the cup of bitterness[2] while living in luxury without having to endure some calamity – indeed, to drink it to the last dredges out of the golden vessels that adorn the tables of kings. In this way, God can reveal that our supposed greatness is nothing more than powerlessness in disguise.

Happy are those who seek these things with that illumination of the heart that Apostle Paul advises.[3] The trials of high position are more acute than rheumatism or headache! But faith turns them into something that accounts for our good.[4] It teaches us to look upon all such things as mere trials,[5] and our patient acceptance of them shows us absolute freedom, which is all the more real because it is hidden from our gaze in our hearts and spirits.

The only good point of worldly prosperity is one to which the world is blind – its cross! An elevated position does not save us from ordinary afflictions common to the human condition. Indeed, it has its unique trials, and it involves oppression that prevents people from seeking the relief open to those in a less exalted place. Those who are not in a high place can at least, when ill, see whom they will, and be sheltered from external threats.

But well-known persons must carry their cross. They must live for others when they might prefer to consider their comfort. In this way, God turns the good things that the world covets into trouble and toil and allows those He has raised to earthly grandeur to be an example to others. It is His will to perfect their cross by concealing it beneath the most splendid worldly riches to show what little value there is in prosperity. Let me repeat; happy are those who, in such circumstances, learn to see God’s hand sustaining them in mercy. But, unfortunately, in seeking a false paradise, many too often forfeit the hope of true heaven after this brief life ends.

Fénelon ends with this prayer: O cross! Holy cross! May I cling firmly to you! May I worship my Lord as He hangs upon you, and may I die with Him to sin and the world forever! Amen.

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[1] Matthew 16:24

[2] Ibid. 20:22

[3] 1 Corinthians 2:12

[4] Romans 8:28

[5] James 1:2

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XV) 02/04/22

^4:2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God.

Joseph Benson (1749-1821) notes that many commentators understand this clause, “Every spirit that confesses Jesus is the Anointed One, who is come in the flesh, is of God,” to mean that they acknowledge Him to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Therefore, they are devoted both with heart and voice to believing Him to be such, and committed to Him and confessing Him as such. However, this might expose them to the loss of all things, even their property, liberty, and lives. Therefore, we must acknowledge this to be a perfectly Scriptural and excellent standard of testing, proving those in whom it is found possess the Spirit of God and the Anointed One.[1]

Albert Barnes (1798-1870) sees the Apostle John saying here is a test he immediately specifies in verse two. This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit. One spirit says, “I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. Another spirit refuses to say the same about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. It is the Spirit of the Anointed One’s enemy. You have heard that this enemy is coming, says John, but I’m telling you it is already active in the world.

Those that confess notes Barnes, that is, makes a proper acknowledgment that Jesus is the Anointed Son of God is part of John’s doctrine and gives its rightful place and prominence in his instructions. It cannot be supposed that a mere statement of this in words would show that they were of God in the sense that they were true Christians; but the reasoning is that if this constituted one of the doctrines followed and taught, it would show that they were advocates of truth and not apostles of error. If they did not do this, it would be decisive regarding their character and claims.[2]

Richard Rothe (1799-1867) adds that the whole activity of salvation in the Christian world acknowledges this earthly, historical life of the Anointed One. If He had not come as a human, He couldn’t have died on their behalf; He could not have risen from the dead. This is humanity’s spiritual sanctuary, and anyone who attacks this has the spirit of the Antichrist. But, on the other hand, to labor for its illumination and fuller restoration is the proper task of all who work for God in the world with a clear conscience of what they are doing. The historical Jesus the Anointed One repels those who do not have a godly spirit; those He attracts surely have something of that Spirit. Hence, in all periods of the Church’s history, those tendencies have been the most destructive, which have more or less expressly proclaimed indifference to the historical Anointed One. Nothing can grieve the Christian spirit more than to see cold-blooded people rejoice at the destruction of this image of the Anointed One who is worshiped worldwide. At the same time, a critical study of His historical life is necessary.[3]

Johann P. Lange (1802-1884) says that the Apostle John now gives the test to use on these spirits mentioned in verse one. It is an oral confession of a doctrinal truth.[4] And although this is not mentioned here by John, the verbal confession must agree with the person’s Christian lifestyle.[5] Furthermore, only a confession originating from the heart under the influence of the indwelling Spirit of God can be meant here. That confession is “that Jesus the Anointed One who came in the flesh is God’s Son.”[6] This was extremely important because He had to be human to die on our behalf, and He had to be God so that He had the power and authority to forgive sin.

Daniel Whedon (1808-1885) sees the first test of a true Spirit in the opening of verse two. This test is aimed at the Docetists, who denied the flesh and body of the Anointed One and made Him a phantom. The Apostle John’s language is sweeping when he writes, “Every spirit of that confesses.” that Jesus came in the flesh yet denies other truths. The word “spirit” is with a lower case because it refers to the speakers and their inspiration. Or, as Augustine states: “Arius, and Eunomius, and Macedonius, and Nestorius,[7] acknowledge that Jesus came in the flesh; are they not, therefore, of God?  Augustine answers his question: “Those heresiarchs did not, in fact, confess the Anointed One came in the flesh because whatever they might do in words, they deny Him by their works.[8] They lack kindness because they have no unity; that is, unity with the Church.” Christopher Wordsworth (1807-1885) gives a different answer, which says in effect that to confess the Anointed One has come in the flesh is to acknowledge Him as Messiah, with all it embraces; namely, His divine atonement for our sins.[9]

William E. Jelf (1811-1875) points out that we can see how little similarity there is with Apostolic teaching and the modern notion that we cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood with sufficient certainty. As a Bible School teacher in the 1960s, I was stunned by how many books authored by so called theologians and Scriptural experts found few reasons to give the Apostles any credit for writing the epistles with their names on them. If you go as far back as the days of the Apostle John, there is an overwhelming cloud of witnesses who give John credit for writing both the Gospel and Epistles. And, of course, that cast a shadow over all the doctrines taught by these Apostles.

It is true, says Jelf, that we cannot, generally speaking, demonstrate to these skeptics any testimony to satisfy and persuade those who deny these things. However, that should not prevent being able, for our and others guidance, to assert with certainty which doctrines are true and false. So much is clear from John’s desire that his readers use a particular point of principle to test a teacher’s being or not being in error. Of course, if it had been impossible to say absolutely that this doctrine was objectively true, it could not have been a test of the subjective truth of the teacher. We are to form a definite judgment on doctrines and use them as tests. Again, it shows the weakness of the notion that it is immaterial what a person believes. Everyone’s belief must be true or false, even in points on which Scripture speaks most mysteriously. Humanly speaking, opposing doctrines cannot both be accurate. Those who do not accept either one is so far in error they may be thought and spoken of as such if need be.[10]

Richard H. Tuck (1817-1868) implies that the Apostle John’s readers should know how to detect heretical teachers because God gave them the Spirit. Apparently, they failed to use the Spirit’s wisdom and depended on their debate skills. But John’s message was clear, rely on God’s Spirit, not yours.

One person may assume they have the Spirit; another may have the Spirit: you will know which it is if you discern rightly what the spirit tells them what to say and do. John suggests one test as especially applicable to the delusions in his time. Another way was to insist on the Anointed One’s genuine humanity. It is vital to notice that the heretics of the later apostolic age did not deny the Divinity, but the humanity, of the Anointed One. The spirit of the antichrist inspired them. Observe that the antichrist is not a person but a sentiment, influence, point, and teaching attitude. The essence of apostolic teaching is loyalty to the Anointed One; the nature of the misleading teaching or self-deceived prophets was independence from the Anointed One or hostility toward Him. If any person wants to improve upon the Anointed One’s ministry or teaching, we cannot be wrong in calling them antichrist. And so, John is saying expect even more antichrists to come.[11]

John Stock (1817-1884) says the Apostles, who are inspired and infallible guides, did not leave us without help detecting heretics. The Spirit of God taught them how to prepare and warn the faithful followers of the Anointed One, which the Spirit guided them into all truth.[12] He, by them, leads to the confession of the true faith and the acknowledging of the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Anointed One, both God and man, truly God, perfectly man; indivisibly God and man. The Apostles’ Creed was gathered from their epistles, amplified by the Nicene council, called on the Athanasian to lament their errors directed at our ever-blessed Lord. Also, the Arians denied the deity of the Anointed One; the Apollinarians rejected His human nature; Nestorians divided Him into two persons, and the followers of Eutyches could not distinguish between His God/Man personality.

Four things harmonize to complete the stature of our Lord Jesus the Anointed One: His Deity, His humanity, the combination of both, and the distinction of the two joined into one. Thus, theologian Richard Hooker (1554-1600)[13] notes Stock speaks on these sublime matters. The three Creeds of the Church, also our Articles of Faith, affirm what that Holy Spirit teaches touching the two whole and perfect natures: that is to say, the Godhead and manhood, joined in one person, never to be divided, of whom is the Anointed One, wholly God and man.[14]

Stock continues; let us hold on[15] as we see others backsliding and pray God will never take His Holy Spirit from us, without whom no confession is made. Otherwise, we’ll become unprofitable servants. Let us confess that the Anointed One’s offering was a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world;[16] that we are saved by God’s grace, through faith in the Anointed One our Lord, who is our one, and only, and all-prevailing Advocate with the Father. The Apostle Peter, and all the Apostles, affirmed, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved than the name of Jesus the Anointed One of Nazareth, whom the Jews crucified, whom God raised from the dead,[17] and who was delivered for our offenses and raised again for our justification.”[18] [19]

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[1] Benson, Joseph: Commentary of the Old and New Testaments, Vol. 3, p. 11103

[2] Barnes, Albert: Notes on the New Testament, op. cit., p. 4859

[3] Rothe, Richard: The Expository Times, op. cit., December 1883, pp. 123-124

[4] 2 John 1:10

[5] Cf. 1 John 1:6

[6] Lange, Johann, Exegetical Commentary, op. cit., p. 133

[7] Augustine: The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, Book 5:5; Book 22:60, 64, op. cit., pp. 278, 520, 522

[8] Titus 1:16

[9] Whedon, Daniel D., Commentary of the Bible, op. cit., pp. 272-273

[10] Jelf, William E., Commentary on First Epistle of John, op. cit., p. 56

[11] Tuck, Richard H., Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary, op. cit., p. 309

[12] John 16:13

[13] The works of that learned and judicious divine Mr. Richard Hooker with an account of his life and death by Isaac Walton arranged by the Rev. John Keble, M.A., late fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, seventh edition, revised by the Very Rev. R. W. Church, M.A., honorary fellow of Oriel College, and dean of St. Paul’s and the Rev. F. Paget, D.D. Canon of Christ Church, and regius professor of pastoral theology in the University of Oxford, Vol. I, Clarendon Press, London, 1888, p. 44

[14] Stock, John: Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 421-322

[15] Colossians 2:8

[16] Galatians 1:8; 1 Peter 1:12

[17] Acts of the Apostles 4:12, 10

[18] Romans 4:23

[19] Stock, John: Exposition of the First Epistle of John, op. cit., pp. 324-325

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XIV) 02/03/22

^4:2 This is how we know if they have God’s Spirit: If a person claiming to be a prophetacknowledges that Jesus the Anointed One came in a human body, that person has the Spirit of God.

Then Medieval scholar Bede the Venerable (672-735 AD) brings up another aspect to consider in what John is saying. He states that we must understand that the word “confesses” implies the profession of orthodox faith and the practice of the good works that ought to accompany faith. If it were not so, then there would be some heretics, many schismatics, and many pseudo-orthodox who would confess that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh but who would deny that confession by their behavior, for they have no love. For it was the agápe-love of God toward us which induced His Son to come in the flesh. God showed His agápe-love to us not in words but in deeds, not by talking but by loving.”[1]

John Calvin (1509-1564) says, let us consider what this “confession” includes; for when the Apostle John says that the Anointed One came, we, therefore, conclude that He was before with the Father; by which His eternal divinity proves to be valid. Moreover, by saying that He came in the flesh, that means that by putting on a human body, He became a real man, of the exact nature with us to become our big brother, except that while being free from every sin and corruption, He was still subject to temptation.[2] So it should not surprise us that even after being born again, we are also subject to worldly temptation. And lastly, by saying that He came, the cause of His coming must be noticed, for the Father did not send Him for no reason. Later, it was on this truth that the office and merits of the Anointed One depended.

Now we can see that when the ancient heretics departed from the faith, they denied the Anointed One’s human and divine natures combined in one man, says Calvin. Unfortunately, the Vatican is doing the same thing today. (Calvin is speaking of his day and time.) Although they confess the Anointed One to be both God and man, they rob the Anointed One of His merits by substituting freewill, merits of good works, fictitious modes of worship, depending on all the sacraments for grace, and the advocacy of the saints. So, the question is, how much of the Anointed One is part of the Church’s salvation plan?[3] It not only goes for the Roman Catholic church but other so-called Christian cults and movements such as Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.

John Trapp (1601-1669) takes the Apostle John’s words here in verse two and says, “Bring it to this test: Gold may be molten, yet it remains natural gold; so, does the truth. Whereas error like glass (bright, but brittle) cannot endure the hammer or fire.”[4]

Matthew Poole (1624-1679) sees the Apostle John giving his readers general rules, both affirmative and negative, which would serve them in judging their current situation; the great controversy of that time with the Apostle John and the Jews: Whether Jesus was the Messiah? And did the Messiah come or not? And with the Gnostics: Whether the Son of God came in the flesh, in true human nature? Or was He, by appearance, a mere apparition? And John affirms: They who confessed the Messiah’s arrival were of God; namely, they were in the right, this truth was of God. Therefore, of the two litigating parties, Jesus was of God, the others not of God; of these two warring parties (God & Gnostics), John took God’s side against those in opposition to Him. Yes, they made a true confession and honestly confessed Him, that is, sincerely, pleasantly, and practically. It allowed them to trust in Him fully, subject themselves to Him, be born of God, His very children, behave, and have the Holy Spirit’s influence in their lives.[5]

English classical scholar theologian and mathematician Isaac Barrow (1630-1677) says that our Savior’s conception by a virgin allowed Him to be born in a form agreeable to the nature of humankind. Thus, He became undeniably human, which excellent mystery is in Scripture[6] variously expressed or implied by the word’s “being made,” or “becoming.” In other words, God manifested in the flesh, taking the form of a servant,[7] being made in the likeness of humans, and being found as a man, assuming the seed of Abraham,[8] partaking of flesh and blood; descending from heaven. Again, God sent His Son into the world, in the likeness of sinful flesh.[9] The result of what is signified by these and like expressions being this: He which before from all eternity did exist in the form or nature of God, being the Son of God, did truly become a man; assuming human nature into the unity of His person, by conjunction and union with the Divine nature incomprehensible and inexpressible.[10]

He was not only (as the Gnostics and some other heretics concede) human in outward appearance, notes Barrow, but in reality, a perfect man. He had a natural body, figured and limited like ours, compacted of flesh and blood, visible and tangible; which was nourished and did grow, and He grew in wisdom and stature,[11] with a will, subject and submissive to the Divine Will,[12] with a normal appetite and need of sleep. Nevertheless, when He attended Lazarus’ grave, His spirit groaned and was troubled. He then and, upon other occasions, wept out of pity and sorrow.[13] The Gospel writers used terms such as being troubled feeling sorrow to describe Him undergoing His passion. The writer of Hebrews wrote, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet He did not sin.”[14] [15]

Daniel Whitby (1638-1726) explains why he thinks the Apostle John writes about testing the spirits to identify those from God and Satan. He tells us that the Jews were awaiting the coming of the Messiah. But they were divided into two camps: A minority remnant who believed that Messiah already came and Jesus of Nazareth was His name. He was the one promised with Messianic characteristics. But the majority rejected their choice and kept looking for another.

Now, says Whitby, among those who did come pretending to be the Messiah or the prophet promised by Moses,[16] also claimed to have the spirit of prophecy and do what Jewish historian Flavius Josephus said, “pretended to be prophets.”[17] That’s what the Apostle John is saying here, but he calls them “antichrists.” It isn’t so much that they were against the Anointed One; they falsely pretended to be the Anointed One in opposition to the real Messiah. Neither could they belong to Him or confess Him who was the “Word made flesh.”[18]

William Burkitt (1650-1703) says that in this verse, the Apostle John lays down a rule of trial, how we might know that a teacher is inspired by the Spirit of God, from one that was not. The one sent from God daringly and openly, despite the danger, possessed and professed, taught and preached, Jesus the Anointed One in His character, nature, and offices, as the incarnate Word, the Son of God. That He was sent from heaven ascribing virtue and effectiveness to the sacrifice of His death and attributing to Him alone the whole glory of a perfect Savior: this doctrine is of the Spirit of God. However, some teachers would not take that risk for fear of suffering and persecution, so they denied either the Godhead or manhood of the Anointed One and disowned His incarnation, death, and resurrection. Such teachers and such doctrines are not of God but are the very spirit of antichrist, which, says John, you have been foretold should come, and is now already in the world.

Here’s what we learn from this, says Burkitt. Such teachers renounce either His incarnation, works, miracles, and teachings or deny any of the offices of the Anointed One such as Prophet, Priest, and King. Thus, they reject His divinity or the merits of His payment of our debt on the cross as not of God; they are antichrist and will find the Anointed One against them on Judgment Day when they appear before Him.[19]

James Macknight (1721-1800) explains that the passage “Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh” introduces two things; First, Jesus is the Jewish prophets’ prophesied Anointed One. Secondly, this divine celebrity came as a human being. Here, the Apostle John had rightly declared that every teacher convinced they are inspired, who confess that Jesus is the Anointed One come in the flesh, is God anointed. For as Paul told the Corinthians,[20] “no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.[21]

John Brown of Haddington (1772-1787) hears the Apostle John say to his readers, “Now you can distinguish the good Spirit from the bad.” They are the ones called of God and preach the Gospel and inspiration of the Spirit because they believe, freely admit, and boldly proclaim their faith in the Anointed One, the Son of God. For it was He who took on our human nature and fulfilled the Law on our behalf to secure our salvation. These are genuinely anointed and authorized by God for the task. So, those who do not believe and adhere to these principles do not have God’s approval.[22]

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

[2] See Matthew 4:1-11

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

[4] Trapp, John, op. cit., p. 475

[5] See 1 John 5:1-5; Matthew 16:16-17; 1 Corinthians 12:3

[6] John 1:14

[7] Philippians 2:6-7

[8] Hebrews 2:16

[9] Ibid. 2:14

[10] Ibid. 2:17

[11] Luke 2:52

[12] See Mark 13:32; Luke 2:52; Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42; John 5:30; Matthew. 21:18; John 4:6, 7

[13] John 11:33, 35

[14] Hebrews 4:15

[15] Barrow, Isaac: The Theological Works, Vo. VII, An Exposition on the Creed, University Press, Cambridge, 1859, pp. 196-197

[16] See Matthew 24:24-26

[17] Josephus, Flavius: The Complete Works, Wars of the Jews, Bk. 2, Ch. 13, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Grand Rapids, p. 1238

[18] Whitby, Daniel: A Paraphrase with Annotations, 1 John Chapter 4, p. 466

[19] Burkitt, William: Expository Notes on N.T., op. cit., p. 729

[20] 1 Corinthians 12:3

[21] Macknight, James: Literal Paraphrase, op. cit., p. 85

[22] Brown, John of Haddington: Self-interpreting Bible, op. cit., p. 1327

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XIII) 02/02/22

^4:1 Dearly loved friends, don’t always believe everything you hear simply because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it actually is, for there are many false teachers all around.

David Legge (1969) looks at what the Apostle John tells us in this great epistle of assurance. For this great Apostle, every faithful Christian ought to be able to discern between truth and error. That does not mean that you have to be an expert in the cults or world faiths. In fact, it doesn’t have to imply that you’re well-read in the great systematic theologies of Christianity. But it does mean that every true child of God should have enough of a grasp of Christian doctrine to discern between truth and error. So right away, John tells us that there is a need for discernment because not every spirit is of God. We ought not to be naïve and gullible to believe that all who claim to speak for Almighty God are genuine and deliver their message on His behalf. So right away, John’s warning the Church, and consequently warning us, that just because a person talks about God, or preaches from the Bible, or even speaks of Jesus as Lord, it does not mean that they are of God nor a herald from God. We must wake up to the fact that there are spiritual forces who seek to deceive God’s children even today.[1]

Legge is not saying that we should avoid reading or learning about the teachings of cults or other world religions, but our priority must be to understand God’s Word. Familiarity with Christian doctrine is a fundamental necessity in order to discern what is right or wrong in their teachings. To put it another way, you would never be qualified to test a student’s knowledge of algebra if you were not an expert in algebra yourself.

Douglas Sean O’Donnell (1972) says that many Christian communities today want to move us beyond the Word to the Spirit. That is a bizarre estrangement and one that is moving in the wrong direction. We are not missing some spirit-filling experience when we read and teach the Bible. But there must be time for singing and praying and then for the Word. To be led by the Spirit in corporate worship or private devotion is directed back to the inspired apostolic testimony. When the apostles received the Holy Spirit, they were the Anointed One’s witnesses to the world via the preached Word and later the written Word.[2] As we together (discernment is a corporate endeavor) resist the antichrist spirits of our age and guard the truth (as the custodian of apostolic Christology) “once for all delivered to the saints,”[3] let us not divide this God-ordained union of the Spirit and the Word.[4]

David Guzik (1984) says that being able to discern the right spirit from the wrong is the responsibility of every Christian, especially congregational leaders. According to the Apostle Paul (let the others judge) and (test all things; hold fast what is good).[5] Trying the spirits is the work of the body of the Anointed One. This job is done using God’s gifts of discernment to Christians in general, especially pastors, elders, and teachers of a congregation.

Guzik then offers the following points: (i) Scriptural standards judge all prophecy. It is never to be received just because it is dramatic or given by a particular person. We trust in the principle that God will never contradict Himself, and we know what He has already said in His Word. (ii) True prophecy is never of any private interpretation.[6] It means that there will be agreement and confirmation from the body of the Anointed One, though perhaps (or probably) not everyone will agree or confirm.[7]

4:2       This is how you can recognize God’s doctrine.  Every true doctrine teaches that if I confess that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man.’  That doctrine is from God.

EXPOSITION

The Apostle John may have taken this from what he states in his Gospel, “The Word became a man and lived among us. We saw His divine greatness – the greatness that belongs to the only Son of the Father. The Word was full of grace and truth. John the Baptizer told people about Him. He shouted, ‘This is the one I was talking about when I said, “The one who is coming after me is greater than I am because He was living before, I was even born.’”  Yes, the Word was full of grace and truth, and from Him, we all received one blessing after another. God gave the Law to us through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus the Anointed One. No one has ever seen God. Only the Son is the one who has shown us the likeness of God. He is God and is very close to the Father.”[8]

Verse two contains the main subject of the section. To confess the Incarnation is to prove that one draws their inspiration from God through His Spirit. Therefore, the words, “This is how you can recognize” (NIV) may be either imperative in harmony with “believe” and “test” in verse one, or indicative, in harmony with “we know” in 3:16.

The specific doctrine whereby we test to find whether a teacher is false or true is the doctrine of the Anointed One. If a person denies either the deity or the humanity of the Anointed One, they are a false teacher. Some of John’s readers had become convinced that Jesus did not come in the flesh. Cerinthus, a Gnostic, taught that Jesus did not have true humanity. By denying the physical, historical humanity of the Anointed One, they attacked the fundamental doctrine of Redemption. The death of the body of the Anointed One was necessary to pay for our sins. If this did not happen, then it undermines our salvation.

The word “confesses” means to identify. If anyone does not identify with and acknowledge the humanity of the Anointed One, they are pretenders. Belief in the incarnate Son of God is a touchstone of the Christian faith. Candid acknowledgment that the Messiah came in the flesh to forgive sins is the heart of Christian belief. So, the principle here is that by His incarnation, Jesus took part in our life; by regeneration, we take part in Jesus’ life. 

That means Jesus took on humanity that He might die with it. He gave His life that we might have His life. Jesus eternally existed as God but stepped foot on earth and took on humanity at a specific time. In doing this, He did not divest Himself of His deity. Instead, Jesus voluntarily set aside the use of His divinity while living in His humanity. The babe in Bethlehem was far more than a remarkable child; He was God the Son who stepped into a human body. Our Master never ceased to exist as God. He did not begin when He was born. Denial of this is the spirit of the antichrist.[9]

British writer and lay theologian C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) said, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.” Anything less than viewing Jesus as an eternal God who took on humanity simply throws kisses at Him. It does not take His deity seriously. We cannot whittle Him down and still worship Him in all His glory.[10]

COMMENTARY

One of the earliest Church Fathers, Polycarp (65-155 AD), who was a disciple of the Apostle John, has this to say on what John writes here: “Everyone who does not confess that Jesus the Anointed One has come in the flesh is antichrist. Whoever does not confess the testimony of the cross is of the devil. Whoever perverts the teachings of the Lord to their lusts and says that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that person is the firstborn of Satan. So let us forsake the vanity of many and their false teachings and turn to the Word which was delivered to us from the beginning.”[11]

Polycarp then goes on to say: “Continuing in prayer, and diligent in fasting; appealing in our requests to the all-seeing God ‘not to lead us into temptation,’ as the Lord has said:[12] ‘The spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.’”[13][14]  If the doctrine that Jesus was either a phantom or that He was a regular human over whom the Holy Spirit took charge so as to appear as a man was already fostering during John’s day, then for sure Polycarp knew about it.

Early Church scholar Andreas Osiander (circa 600-700 AD) points out that if the world can convince believers that Jesus was not God incarnate, but simply a very blessed and inspired prophet, then the heart and soul of Christianity is ripped out. It will die a slow and painful death.[15]  It would eliminate any faith in His sacrificial death and resurrection.  Also, the notion of His ascension and return would become nothing more than wishful thinking.

Œcumenius (500-600 AD) is not hesitant to say that the confession that the Lord has come in the flesh is not made in words but deeds. The Apostle Paul said we constantly experience the benefits of our Lord Jesus in our bodies, but this is so that the life of Jesus can also be visualized in our bodies.[16] Therefore, whoever has Jesus at work inside them is dead to the world and no longer lives for it, but the Anointed One, who carries Him about in their body – this person is of God.[17] Therefore, saying we are in union with Him is not enough unless that union is also manifested in the same works that He did.

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[1] Legge, David: 1,2,3 John, Preach the Word, op. cit., “Discerning Christianity” Part 12

[2] Acts of the Apostles 1:8; 1 John 1-3

[3] Jude 1:3

[4] O’Donnell, Douglas Sean. 1–3 John (Reformed Expository Commentaries), op. cit., loc. cit. Kindle Edition

[5] 1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:21

[6] 2 Peter 1:20-21

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

[8] John 1:14-18

[9] 2 Corinthians 5:18; 1 Timothy 3:16

[10] Lewis, C. S: Mere Christianity, p. 31

[11] Polycarp of Smyrna: Letter to the Philippians Ch. 7

[12] Matthew 6:13

[13] Mark 14:38

[14] Polycarp: op. cit

[15] Andreas: e-Catena

[16] 2 Corinthians 4:10

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

NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R Seyda

FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN

CHAPTER FOUR (Lesson XII) 02/01/22

^4:1 Dearly loved friends, don’t always believe everything you hear simply because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it actually is, for there are many false teachers all around.

Robert W. Yarbrough (1948) notes that the Apostle John again calls his readers “beloved.” This noun of direct address occurs at key junctures in his first epistle:

            2: 7        Beloved, I write to you not an old but a new commandment.

               3: 2        Beloved, we are children of God; it is not yet evident what we will be.

               3: 21      Beloved, we have confidence before God if our hearts do not condemn.

               4: 1        Beloved, do not give credence to every spirit.

               4: 7        Beloved, let us love one another.

               4: 11      Beloved, if God loved us this way, we ought to love each other.

John employs “beloved” primarily to introduce weighty statements of fact. In 4:1, however, as also in 4:7, “beloved” precedes a command. This word implies a close rapport between John and his readers in all occurrences. In 4:1 and 4:7, it gives particular weight to his commands. John writes not as a distant authority figure but as a mentor with personal, loving regard for his addressees.[1]

Colin G. Kruse (1950) sees the Apostle John explaining to his readers that they may know that they have passed from spiritual death to life if they showed love towards fellow believers. However, it is not only those who, like John, remain faithful to the message heard from the beginning and love fellow believers who claim an experience of the Spirit. Many others maintained their belief that God dwelled in them, received His Spirit, and spoke in His name. The secessionists were included among such people and undoubtedly to the forefront in John’s thinking as he wrote. So, at the beginning of this chapter, he warns his readers to exercise discernment when they encounter people claiming to speak in the name of God but have no resemblance of God’s love working through them to others.[2]

Judith M. Lieu (1951) states that the mention of the gift of the spirit, which earlier climaxed the certainty of divine presence,[3] can be unclear. The Apostle John just reminded them of the command to “believe” the name of the Son of God[4] now; he urges them not to “believe” every spirit. The Greek term itself, pneuma, carries a spectrum of meanings, from that which in the modern world might be understood as natural, “wind”; or as biological, “breath,” which denotes life. Some see “spirit” as the psychological, emotional, and creative part of being human that continues after the body decays or as responsible for extraordinary or abnormal behavior; through the powers of the universe. The pneuma may be essential to the constitution of the living human being or may act upon it from outside; it may be a neutral force or actively good or evil. It lacks personality but working in or on human beings; it can acquire personal characteristics. God, too, acts through His spirit; since God is personal.[5]

Ben Witherington III (1951) observes that the Apostle John was not dealing with a minor church split or the departure of a few disgruntled souls. Still, it is unclear whether he is speaking solely about his house churches or a general problem infecting and affecting the early Christian movement, including his portion of it. In other words, it is uncertain whether we should see the “many” as related to the size of Johannine communities or a more extensive number based on all the churches at that time. In any case, these antichrists were leading prophetic teachers, and they seem to have won various members of these congregations over to their point of view about Jesus. Thus, John tries to arm the audience with criteria to detect the true from the false teachers/prophets. It would appear that the phrase “the spirit of the antichrist” refers to the anti-Christian spirit that motivates and inspires the antichrist. However, possibly “antichrist” here is a synonym for “Satan.”[6] [7]

Gary M. Burge (1952) says it is essential to pause and evaluate this disharmony in the early church. House churches were isolated in cities throughout the Roman empire. There were few formal creeds (such as the later Creed of Nicaea) to give doctrinal guidance in the early years, nor were the Scriptures available as we have them today. No one owned a “New Testament,” At best, the early Christians only had random collections of letters from the apostles and compilations of stories about Jesus. Therefore, oral communication was essential. Churches relied on emissaries from their leaders, who relayed information from other communities and taught. Paul sent out Timothy and Silas in this capacity, and John sent out elders as his spokespersons.[8] [9] So we can see how some of those sent out may have verbally altered the original message sent with them, while others substituted their doctrines.

Bruce G. Schuchard (1958) notes that the passage’s first reference to a/the spirit/Spirit, “a source of assurance,”[10] now speaks to a spirit’s potential to threaten. For there are true spirits, and there are false spirits. Therefore, the Apostle John must now warn that not everything seems to represent the Spirit of God. Just as John’s appeal not to love the things of the world[11] complements his last appeal to brotherly love,[12] so too his urging the Christian community not to believe in any and every spirit complements his prior exhortation to believe in Jesus through the Spirit that Jesus gives.[13] Instead of John pressing everyone to move on to new and higher spiritual ground, he reminds them of the faith they needed to believe that the Anointed One could redeem and save them from sure punishment.[14]

Marianne Meye Thompson (1964) observes that the Apostle John cautions us that anyone who claims to be inspired by the Holy Spirit can and must be tested. Just because someone suggests that they have the Spirit is not proof that they do. Here “spirit” has been variously taken to refer to (1) the anointing that inspires the prophet, (2) to the person who is inspired, or (3) to the message delivered by the prophet. Obviously, the three are related, in testing a person’s words, one is actually examining whether or not that person speaks by divine guidance. In light of the rest of the passage, two things emerge. First, John believes certain individuals are inspired or led to confess or deny the Anointed One by spirits beyond the human individual. Second, ultimately there are only two spirits: God’s Spirit, also called the Spirit of truth, because it guards and inspires truth; and the spirit of antichrist, which inspires falsehood, and especially false confessions of the Anointed One.[15] [16]

Peter Pett (1966) says that the Apostle John’s epistle readers certainly knew of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. However, John also speaks of the spirit of error,[17] although possibly not having any specific “spirit” in mind. In the light of what has been said elsewhere, it is possible that we might see this spirit of error as hinting at the devil[18] or possibly some of his demons. These are the “evil spirits” of the Gospels, who speak through the antichrists.[19] But then, we might instead have expected him to talk of the “spirit of deception.” The idea of the spirit of error may simply, therefore, be of any “spirit,” whether the inner spirit of the prophet or an external spirit which possesses him, which prophesies error. At certain times, it might well be just a vivid imagination that was at work. Many things can lead to mistakes.[20] In line with Dr. Pett’s reasoning, it is good that John gave his readers some tests to see which indwelling spirits were in harmony with the Bible and which were not.

As a Unitarian, Duncan Heaster (1967) views this opening verse and says that there were other tests of these prophets – if they didn’t accept that Jesus was Lord, they didn’t have the Spirit.[21] If they held false teaching about whether Jesus came in the flesh and discriminated against other Christians, they also were to be rejected.[22] When Paul says that God and the Holy Spirit witness to the truth of what John is writing, he presumably refers to how those with the gift of discerning spirits had tested and approved what he was saying.[23] All this means is that as soon as a genuine prophet gave an anointed prophecy, it was immediately recognized as such because of all these methods of “testing the spirit.”[24] It is curious that Heaster conveniently left out the fact that the spirits were tested to see if they were from God. This could be considered a case of self-incrimination as a Gnostic.

Karen H. Jobes (1968) thinks that the Apostle John wants his readers to recognize that there are other forces at work than the Holy Spirit for professing Christians, and he refers to those forces as “spirits.” They must be tested by the gold standard, not of human experience or opinion, but sound Christology. The association of Jesus, the Spirit, and the Gospel message is very much the Apostle Paul’s point.[25] John’s readers need to understand that not everything said or done by someone who professes to have the Holy Spirit is of God because many false prophets can be found worldwide. John’s necessity of testing the spirits confirms that he uses the Greek word pneuma (“spirit”) to refer to the activating impulse of human behavior, which may be of the Spirit or the world. False prophets are not speaking the truth about God and His work through Jesus the Anointed One regardless of their thoughts.[26] [27] So, beware of those organizations that use the catchphrases, “Church, Christian, Christ,” etc., in their titles.[28]

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[1] Yarbrough, Robert W., 1-3 John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament), op. cit., pp. 219-220

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

[3] 1 John 3:24

[4] Ibid. 3:23

[5] Lieu, Judith: The New Testament Library, op. cit., pp.162-163

[6] Although the Apostle John is not talking about miracles, it does not eliminate them as possible factors in the ministry of those who left the community. In either case, judgment should not rest on doctrines built upon miracles, but of miracles by doctrines of the Word. Any miracle enforcing what contradicts the Anointed One and His Apostles’ teaching is not “of God” and offers no authority for Christians. In other words, a miracle may be real and yet not of God, just as a word may be inspired and yet not of God. Cf. Deuteronomy 13:1-2; Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 16:14

[7] Ben Witherington III. Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, op. cit., loc. cit., (Kindle Locations 7072-7077)

[8] 3 John 1:5

[9] Burge, Gary M., The Letters of John (The NIV Application Commentary), op. cit., p. 173

[10] 1 John 3:24

[11] Ibid. 2:15

[12] Ibid. 2:

[13] Ibid. 3:23-24

[14] Schuchard, Bruce G., Concordia Commentary, op. cit., p. 417

[15] 1 John 4:2-3, 6

[16] Thompson, Marianne M., The IVP New Testament Commentary, op. cit., p. 112

[17] Cf. Ibid. 4:6

[18] Ibid. 2:13; 3:8, 10; 5:19

[19] Ibid. 2:18-19; 2:22

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

[21] 1 Corinthians 12:3

[22] 1 John 4:1-10

[23] Romans 1:9; 9:1; cf. 2 Corinthians 11:31; Galatians 1:20; 1 Timothy 2:7

[24] Heaster, Duncan: New European Commentary, First John, op. cit., p. 29

[25] 2 Corinthians 11:4; cf. 1 Corinthians 12:3

[26] Cf. 1 Timothy 4:1; Revelation 16:13–14

[27] Jobes, Karen H., 1, 2, and 3 John (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on The New Testament, Book 18, p. 177

[28] For instance: The Church of Jesus the Anointed One of Latter-Day Saints – Mormons; Worldwide Church of God; Church of the Anointed One, Scientist; Church of Scientology; Seventh Day Church of God; United Pentecostal Church; Christadelphians, etc.