A Spiritual Test

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 93
• Hymn — The Lord Reigns Over All (#93)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Confession of Sin — Psalm 51
• Assurance of Pardon — Romans 8:1
• Hymn — Praise Jehovah, O My Soul (#560)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Scripture Reading — 1 John 4:1-6
• Sermon
• Hymn — In Christ Alone (#265)
• Benediction

---

Sermon Title: A Spiritual Test

Scripture: 1 John 4:1-6

I. The Test of the Confession (1 John 4:1-3)

A. Believers are commanded to test the spirits — not every spirit is from God, and many false prophets have gone out into the world

B. The true confession: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God

1. The confession is a bold, public profession of faith in the person of Jesus Christ
2. The Greek construction should be read: Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh — not a mere man upon whom Christ descended and then departed

C. The heresy of Docetism arose early in the church

1. From the Greek dokeō ("to seem") — Jesus only seemed to have a physical body, due to Greek dualism (material = evil; immaterial = good)
2. Cerinthus taught that Jesus was born of Joseph, that Christ descended at his baptism, but departed before the crucifixion
3. Irenaeus (disciple of Polycarp, who was a disciple of John) directly combated Cerinthus and wrote that John composed his Gospel to refute this error
4. The Apostles' Creed counters this heresy by publicly confessing the full incarnation, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ the God-man

D. Any teaching that denies the God-man Jesus Christ is the spirit of Antichrist

1. The Antichrist has a future, consummated fulfillment — but the spirit of Antichrist is already in the world
2. The "already / not yet" reality applies to both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness
3. The Holy Spirit is the link and guarantee between the kingdom now and the kingdom not yet (see 1 Corinthians 1 — the Spirit as the down payment of our inheritance)
4. In Matthew 12, Jesus says his works by the Spirit of God demonstrate that the kingdom has come upon his hearers

II. The Test of Character (1 John 4:4-5)

A. John states an indicative: the recipients of this letter are from God and have overcome the false teachers

1. He who is in you (the Holy Spirit) is greater than he who is in the world
2. 1 John 2:18-19 — the antichrists went out from the church, proving they were never truly of it; the true believers remained

B. Holding the good confession and remaining in the church produces godly character; abandoning it corrupts character

1. Those who let their ears be tickled by popular philosophies often see both their confession and their character change
2. Doctrine always begets lifestyle — what we believe shapes who we become

C. Biblical examples of doctrinal departure leading to moral ruin

1. Saul — began well, then abandoned obedience, and became capable of slaughtering the priests at Nob
2. Judas — John 12:6 reveals he was a thief throughout Jesus' ministry; final apostasy led to suicide
3. Apostasy is destructive to body and soul

D. Pastoral application: the question is not primarily whether you have failed, but whether you are genuinely making the good confession and your life's trajectory is oriented toward it

III. The Test of the Commanders (1 John 4:6)

A. John's use of "us" refers to the apostles; whoever listens to the apostles is from God; whoever does not is not from God

B. Listening to the apostles means receiving their word as the fully inspired, infallible, inerrant Word of God — all of it, not selectively

1. Like a child truly listening to a parent: doing everything the parent has commanded, not only what seems logical or agreeable
2. Irenaeus: "We have known the method of our salvation by no other means than those by whom the gospel came to us… which gospel they delivered to us in the scriptures to be the foundation and pillar of our faith"
3. Athanasius, after listing the New Testament canon: "In these alone is proclaimed the doctrine of godliness. Let no man add to these, neither let him take any away"

C. Sola Scriptura was not invented at the Reformation; the Reformers were recovering what the earliest church fathers had always affirmed

D. The greatest threat today is not outright rejection of Christ, but the selective embrace of apostolic teaching — accepting what fits cultural taste and discarding what does not

1. This is the spirit of error, not the spirit of truth
2. The unbroken line of faithful witnesses — John, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Athanasius, Augustine, Calvin, Luther, Owen — all held to Scripture alone as the rule of faith

E. Hold fast to the good confession, to the full apostolic teaching, and to the Spirit of Christ rather than the spirit of Antichrist