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1 John 4 Commentary
by Brad Boyles
When I worked in the computer software industry, I became familiar with the latest viruses and malware that would infect our client’s computers. It seemed like every few months or so, there was a new threat out there. For our customers, most viruses could be traced back to an email or website that was clicked and granted access by the user.
I remember one, in particular, that was a pop-up that precisely mimicked an antivirus update. It looked completely legit. It would come up and warn you that your virus definitions were out of date and that you needed to “click here” to update to the latest software. To the untrained eye, it looked completely harmless. An ignorant person clicks the link and within seconds an infection occurs.
Here’s the thing.
Almost every user I talked to about this issue didn’t even have that brand of antivirus software (the one in the fake pop-up). Why do you need to update something that isn’t even installed? If they would have been familiar with what they had, they wouldn’t have fallen prey to this trickery.
Here’s the point. The only way you can discern a counterfeit is to know what the real thing looks like. In this chapter, John gives us a basis for understanding false spirits. It’s not the only test we can engage in, but it’s a great start.
This is how you will be able to know whether it is God’s Spirit: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus Christ came as a human being has the Spirit who comes from God. 3 But anyone who denies this about Jesus does not have the Spirit from God. The spirit that he has is from the Enemy of Christ; you heard that it would come, and now it is here in the world already.
1 John 4:2-3 GNB
There are two ways this false spirit can manifest itself but both ways come from the same spirit. One is obvious. A spirit that outright denies Jesus or twists his Name is definitely false. Any “Christian” institution that denies the fully man / fully God nature of Jesus Christ is not of God. However, there’s also a more subtle version of this.
I once heard a man give a “Gospel presentation” to youth group kids to illustrate a point. He talked about problems in our life, and how we suffer greatly because we don’t know God. He talked about how we long for guidance and moral direction. He articulated the fact that being a Christian means forgiveness, love, and hope. He outlined the power that comes from knowing God and having a plan for our life.
He talked about the importance of prayer in our Christian walk, and how we must dedicate our lives to it. Next, he went on and on (for a long time) about all the great treasures of living a Christian life and having faith that leads us toward God. He talked about a lot of great things. By the end of it, he looked around the room and asked, “Now what did I leave out?” The room went silent. Apparently, by their standards, he had given a great presentation.
He didn’t mention Jesus! Furthermore, he failed to mention sin, repentance or the reasoning behind Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection to begin with!
There are lots of nice, shiny packages that come to us looking like the real thing. Unless we are in our Word, we will fall for them every time. We will be just like my clients on the phone who clicked on the antivirus update never knowing that it was about to cause a virus instead of eradicating one. That’s exactly what false spirits do, right? They mimic the real thing hoping to lead us away!