First John 4:1-6 The Spirit of Truth v. The Spirit of Error part 2
1 John 4:1-6 · Andrew Molloy · Aug 14, 2022
Letters of John (2022), No. 27
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926192857847

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, can you hear me okay? Yes, I sound good. Excellent, okay. So 1 John chapter 4, verse 6, titled The Spirit of Truth versus the Spirit of Error, part 2, and I didn't know why it was titled that way until like at the end of verse 6 and then I said, oh, that's how it was. Yeah, you had to go into the story to find out. As is often with John, you have to read ahead and then you're in the know. So let's start with Bob's verses from last week, from chapter 4, verse 1 through 6, and then we'll read through verse 6. And he actually last week did one through three.

So verse one, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist of which you have heard that is coming and is now, and now it is already in the world.

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore, they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. And so there we have four through six. Verse four.

Okay, this, you are from God. And the you are, is emphatic in the Greek, giving the meaning of you yourselves are from God. I don't understand it, but somehow in the Greek, it's very emphatic. And it really says you are ek, God, or you are out from God. We are from God as our source of life and our hearts and mentality and framework finds its source in God and from God is how the Greek goes here. You are from God little children, so little technion, little born ones, or little teachable ones you could say. We are the offspring, the spiritual offspring of our Father God. And we have overcome We have overcome them. Overcome is naka'o.

It's in the perfect tense. It's a perfect active indicative. It's from the noun nike or Nike, as you see. It means to be a victor or one who prevails or one who conquers, a conqueror, one who wins in a contest. is the meaning of nika'o, so overcoming. Uist says the verb is perfect and tense, speaking of a past complete victory and a present state of being a conqueror. So more on this nika'o or overcoming.

We have overcome the spirit of the Antichrist. Another word for that up there is you can see prevailer. We have prevailed. John uses this word overcome three times in 1 John. Once he uses it, young men, you have overcome the evil one. He uses it another time in 5, 4-5, for whatever born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. And that's chapter five, verse four and five, which we'll get to.

So three times there, John uses nekaho. It's used of God in Romans 3, 4. Let God be found true. Though every man be found a liar, as it is written, that you may be justified, and it's talking of God here, that you may be justified in your words and prevail when you are judged. And that word prevail is nakao. It's used of Christ in John 16, the gospel of John 1633. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

And that's, let me see if I can get to my question here. Oh, and once again in Revelation, a couple times, at least three times in Revelation, it makes sense that it's in Revelation when you have Christ in the heavenlies and you have John seeing Christ in heaven and him being an overcomer. So this is from Revelation 5, 5. And one of the elders said to me, stop weeping. And he's talking to John here, which is interesting. And we're in revelations, but he's talking to the same guy. Stop weeping.

Behold, the line that is from the tribe of Judah, the root of David has Nakao. has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals. So there's some usages of this word, nekeo. Yeah, perfect tense. So happened in the past, abiding results in the present.

So my question is, how have we, and how are we, overcomers, evictors, conquerors, is the question. and opened a question, but I think you know the answer. Hopefully you know the answer, right? Yeah, yeah. There's actually only one answer, right? Yeah, one answer and that's because Christ was the overcomer and the victor and the conqueror. When he went to the cross, he died and was buried and he rose again. He conquered death and Satan and hell and Hades and all that. And so we just are placed in him making us overcomers, victors, and conquerors too. Andrew, just a side point, the fact that we are overcomers doesn't mean that we are without trials and tribulations. Yeah, right. Right, but at the end of those trials we'll be overcomers, right? Right, absolutely.

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them. We're still in verse four. Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Let's look at this, because greater, for the reason that God is greater. We are overcoming. I just put in this first little sentence, I just put the mathematical. symbols greater greater so he is greater than he who is in the world using the mathematical symbol there it's a good way for you mathematicians to understand yeah And I almost couldn't find that little symbol. It was the other way. And I said, Oh, that's not right. Yeah.

So, and greater is the Greek word Megas, M E G A S. And it's really surpassing others in nature and power. And it's used here of God, but it's used all over scripture for various reasons. And here it's used of God. And you might add to that, God is higher, more higher. So he's greater exalted, more majestic, greater in majesty than anything, than these spirits in the world, than the antichrist in the world. He is greater than all that. So greater is he who is in us and that's, that's, That's God in us.

So that's a statement of fact. And it's a result of our regeneration, our new birth, right? A fact of our new birth. And it alludes to the fact that we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, each of us, each believer. It also is, it's our identification to it. God is in us. We are in him. And we are identified with him, even though that John doesn't say that explicitly, but it's there.

It's one of those things that Roxer says is a ubiquitous shorthand. You know, you can add this information. You can add all this information into the verse because John has said it before, or he will say it. And he assumes that his readers know all this. as Roy likes to say.

So greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. And I struggled with this a little at the beginning of the study. I was like, who is he? Who is being referred to there in the second part of this verse? You know that the greater he is God, but Who is he who is in the world?

So I struggled with it thinking, well, that pronoun has to match up with a noun that went before. And I was like, you know, you have to have these Greek feminine has to match and all that. So I was worried about that because I'm not good at that. But then I just went to the context and the context is from chapter four, one through three, and it mentions that every spirit and it mentions many false prophets and a phrase, every spirit, but that's not confessed Jesus.

And the spirit of the antichrist that is coming and is here. So I was like, Oh, that's, that's what it refers to. That is he. You can apply it to any of those up there in verses one through three. And I didn't have to, I didn't deal with the neutered or the enema, just because I think that's it. And you don't have to go through all that Greek, Greek gymnastics to get there.

So who, what is the spirit of the Antichrist that is in the world? And I dealt with this in 1 John chapter 2 verses 21 through 23, and I just reprinted it here. So 1 John's Antichrist is whoever has the spirit or quality of departing from the truth. The denials, a lot of denials, denials of Christ, Jesus Christ, Messiahship, his salvation, his kingship in 1 John 2.22. He denies the father God in 2.22, denies the sonship of Jesus in 2.22. And from last week, verse three, An Antichrist is one who denies the deity or the divinely sourced origin of Christ as God. He also denies Jesus's humanity, that he came bodily in the flesh. So that's the spirit of the Antichrist. And that's what these false teachers will teach because they are imbued by this spirit of the Antichrist. Therefore, This is a he that is he in the world. I came to that conclusion.

First John 4.4. But the spirit has a progenitor or source. And can you guess who that source is? The evil one. I think I heard that. So I thought, well, And I probably don't have to do this, but I need to prove that God is greater than he who is in the world, or God is greater than the spirit.

So let's prove that out from Ezekiel 28. And we're talking about Lucifer here who becomes Satan. And it's long, but I just kind of highlighted out the pertinent facts. From Ezekiel 28, starting in verse, I think 12 here, you know, God says you have the seal of protection.

You were in Eden, and I'll just summarize. You were in the garden. I befitted you with ruby, topaz, diamond, beryl, and jasper, emerald, and I created this wonderful creature. Lucifer, on the day you were created, you see, you were anointed cherub who covers and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created. And that's important. That's an important fact. Until unrighteousness was found in you, By the abundance of your trade, you were internally filled with violence and you sinned.

Therefore, I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God, and I have destroyed you, O covering cherub." And that's who he is, Lucifer. He's a covering cherub. Then I'll skip down. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. By the multitude of your iniquities in the righteousness of your trade, you profane the sanctuaries.

Therefore, I brought fire from the midst of you. It has consumed you." So just a poet just lays out how God created Lucifer there in the garden. And so the conclusion of that verse four is greater is Christ in us than Lucifer who becomes Satan and a system of old because Lucifer, Satan, is a creature created by the one who indwells us. And if the one who indwells us created Lucifer, of course, he's greater in power and nature than his creation. So I proved that out there. Just wanted to... That's good. Thank you. Yeah.

Just so you don't, no one takes my word for that from there. And one commentator, someone I heard, or maybe I read it online, said that, you know, God didn't create Satan. He created Lucifer. He created the arch Lucifer but right Lucifer became Satan right and you could wonder how that was done but yeah so and God of course doesn't create evil but Lucifer went his way yeah well it's like man right yeah and man chose to disobey him so he you know both both the angels and man were created you know untested, I guess you'd say. Yeah, I just, it reminds me of this thing T. Austin Sparks says that Adam was created, a body, soul and spirit.

But when he sinned, he became a different creature than what he was created as. I mean, just Sin entered and he's a different creature or creation than his original creation. And the soul and the body kind of takes precedence over the spirit. Um, because he was, you know, man had a spiritual relationship with God in the garden and now that's kind of been flipped around. Um, and yeah, cause that he was dead in the spirit after he sinned. So, uh, he's a different creature than he was in the garden of Eden. And so you could say that about Lucifer too.

So verse five, they are from the world, therefore, Let me get rid of that. The magic of PowerPoint. You can see it happening live here. Verse five, they are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. Again, they is another emphatic pronoun and they are the spirits whom we are to test.

And they are out from the world, that Greek word, preposition ek, out from the cosmos. This is the Greek word for world. And if you recall in just the last verse, we are out from God. We are ek, out of God. And they are out from the world here in verse five. And both are emphatic, so we have two emphatics. The we, in verse four, the emphatic they, we, ourselves, and they, themselves. Two emphatics there. A lot of commentators and merriment mention that, the importance of that emphatic.

Interesting in verse one from Bob's lesson last week, we are to test the spirits. And I don't think he got into the Greek. last week, but the Greek for test is dokimazo and that's examining as through a refining fire with a view towards approval is how you are to test these spirits. Same word as how God tests us in trials, dokimazo. Not so we fail, but we are approved. So it's saying that, you know, when you talk to, and I make the statement here, that we judge these anti-Christ spirits or these false teachers who we come into contact with, but we're to post questions, perhaps prod, confer with them, see if What's coming out from them is from the Holy Spirit or whether in fact at the end of it or the bottom of it is a denial of the incarnation of Christ or a denial of Christ's work, right?

I know that I had met with this very nice couple for about a year. They came every week, the two of them. to my house every, like, Saturday. Guess who they are from? They are from the Jehovah's Witnesses, so. Oh, wow. Yeah, but we, you know, I sat through there, but I wanted to get to the bottom of this, what I believe, and when I got to it, I was hoping to sort of convince them of the incarnation and the cross of Christ, right? I never got there because they moved away, but that's what I think I was doing.

I was documenting But they never get to the exact thing and the exact thing of the Jehovah's Witnesses is that Jesus Christ Was once what Michael of old? Michael the Archangel and now he just came in the form of a man and I don't think even in the flesh that He was just sort of a spiritual being that looked like a man, but, and he was creative of course, like Lucifer, Michael was created by God. And so Michael is Christ, but you never get that. You never get there with the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Yeah. They never tell you that. And that's what I was trying to get to the bottom of. And they don't really have scripture to back it up either, right? Yeah. But they have some shades of scripture, right? Some half-truths. They put it together in that way. And then they'll prove to you that Jesus wasn't, you know, the word. So yeah, it's really interesting. So there it is. I've done that. But it's, yeah, so you just pray for those people. And that's the bottom line issue, is this section of John with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Andrew? Yeah.

Like I was telling Bob, the false teachers will not come out and teach you their false doctrine right away. They'll find particular things in your doctrine that they agree with and then preach that. They won't teach their false doctrine. They'll just, you know, as you go along, they'll probably introduce false parts of their doctrine. And since you believe everything else, then you're going to start believing in the false doctrine, too, just as it comes forth. But they're not going to preach false doctrine right away. They're going to hide that.

Yeah, you're right. Hide the football. Yeah, so that's exactly it. And they'll establish a rapport with you that you'll have all this agreement on. Maybe, you know, 90% because they'll say things that are pretty true about God and Christ, but then at the end, Yeah, so that's exactly it. That's a good point, Jim.

Well, Andrew, you don't know. Maybe they'll use what you said to them down the road. You never know. Yeah, maybe something I sort of uttered out or spit out is a key. But I don't know. I don't know. But it took a long time. But we never got anywhere getting to the bottom line there. So in verse 5 here, they are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. I like what Weiss says, he has this outline.

So overall, verses 1 through 6, we're discerning false spirits, the discernment of false spirits. But I like how he came up with this here in verses 1 through 3, and it's an objective test. It's doctrinal. But then now in 4, 5, and 6, we are in a subjective test, and that's the witness of the Spirit.

And I like that dichotomy that he gives. So first he moves from the objective to the subjective. And notice how we are in the subjective realm of talking about how they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. There's not like a specific doctrine like the incarnation of Christ here or the deity of Christ. There's the subjectiveness and I like that. I like how he put that in his outline. So we are now in the subjective realm of discernment. So two types of discernment, objective, doctrine, doctrinal, and then just what you, what the spirit tells you subjectively.

They're from the world, therefore they speak as from the world. Again, it's emphatic, it's they themselves are sourced from the world, they come out from the world. So if they come out from the world, it follows, if you follow it logically, that their speech will come from the same source. They are speaking now as out from the cosmos system, and it's in the present tense.

That's why it's speaking now. It's in the active voice in indicative mode. The world listens to them. Listen is to incline one's ear, to hearken to. The Greek word is Akuo. The world is presently listening to them, is the sort of color of the Greek in the present tense. Akuo, here in verse 5, listening. the cosmos is actively listening to the spirit of the Antichrist or you could call it the spirit of the age and that's very subjective, right? You can see how that's subjective, but we all know what that is without defining it. And in this case, the word Akuo falls under the Greek shade, I guess, of yielding to, hearing, and obeying.

To hear one from strongs. So it's hearing and obeying. And I notice it's interesting that it's not Kupakuo, right? It's not listening under. Right, that's good. It's, I guess, listening in parallel to. So you're listening to a peer and they hear their same They hear their peers instead of hukukua, listening under. I just thought that was interesting. The word is not hukukua.

So the world knows and hears its own, its ears prick up when it recognizes the source voice of the anti-corrupt spirit. Or when it hears the voice of a spirit or false prophet or a false teacher, you know, it listens in, it recognizes that voice. It would also follow, I think, that that ear, that person who is listening, akuo, will tune out the voice of the Holy Spirit, right, or anything of God. And then it caused me to question that the Holy Spirit does convict the world of sin. So a little listening, I guess, to the voice of the Holy Spirit in convicting of sin must happen with the unbeliever.

Just a passing comment. Yeah. Yeah. If you're dealing with electronics at all, you know what a resonant circuit is. It's something that harmonizes with a specific frequency. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If we turn your radio or your TV or whatever across the dial, you know, and you come to a station, you hear it or you see it. Yeah.

And it's like that with us and God is that when the Holy Spirit is speaking to us, we hear Him because we are resonant with Him. We have been created by God like Him. We are His, He's in us. And so it's not just that He dwells in us, He's made us new creations like Himself. So that we harmonize. And we can hear Him and we can understand Him. I love that parallelism that this verse brings out in that sense, okay? The world is tuned to the unreal and loves it. The Christian is tuned to reality and loves it. Yeah, and the things of God, the things of God are real, are the reality.

And you know that right that's a excellent point because I in work I think this page working that up I Thought that I thought of a radio, you know an old dial radio where you get that were she Finally yeah, you can't be on zoom or any monitoring electronics, but you finally find a radio station and it comes through crackly and then clearly if you fine-tune that little dial and that's yeah that's that I I had that passing thought but I I passed it and but yeah I'm glad you brought that up so that that's really excellent or it could be in the physical world it could be a pot what's it called positive feedback where you where you, if you, you create a positive feedback loop, I guess, with, with the world. Um, but I don't know, that's, that's out of my, that's getting into audiology and that's something to speak on.

So let's define what this cosmos, this word is the world. Let's define that word. Um, because we've been talking about it a lot. And it's very subjective, but this, this definition from Schaeffer way back when is the best, is a really good definition of the cosmos.

So first he says, the cosmos, the cosmos is a vast order or system that Satan has promoted. which conforms to its ideals, aims, and methods. It is a civilization now functioning apart from God. The system embraces its godless governments, its conflicts, its armaments, its jealousies, its education, its culture, religions of morality and pride. It is the sphere in which man lives it is what he sees and what he employs to the uncounted multitude it is all they will ever know so long as they live on this earth so they live in this system it is properly styled the satanic system which phrase is in many instances justified interpretation of the so meaningful word cosmos. It is literally a cosmos diabolicus, or world of Satan.

So yeah, he just, he just nails everything because you have governments in there, you have conflicts, and we're going through that now in the world, armaments, jealousies, look at that, education, culture, all the religions that stress morality and things like that. Not that we don't stress morality, but, you know, morality as a way to salvation. So it's just an excellent definition of the word cosmos or world.

Okay, on to verse 6 here. And in verse 6, I'll read it really quick. We are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, and hence the theme of our topic today, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So we are from God. He who knows God listens to us.

And now this is really sort of has some color to it after what Roy said about the frequencies. I like that. So This verse, I'm just going to spend a little time with because we know all this in verse six, what he's saying, because we've seen all this information from the previous verses. So, John is saying, we ourselves, that's emphatic. And he's talking about him and the apostles. We ourselves have our source as well out from God.

And he who is presently knowing God, as well at Gnosko knowledge, experiential knowledge, and is growing in grace in their knowledge, hearkens to, or yields to, or obeys our divinely sourced and singularly true apostolic message is kind of how I worded out verse six here. And that's my That's my own attempt at a translation. It's hard to read, but when you read it without verbalizing it, it kind of makes sense because it's kind of, it reminds me of those, how, um, uh, Vernon Peterman would do it. He would make it that kind of detailed and, uh, and it made total sense if you read it, but it's hard to speak it out there. So we have the emphatic, we ourselves, we are from God as a source. And so the one who is out from the God, God as well, from a source, that's us, we can hear this Apostolic message. And why do I say that?

Because it ties into 1 John 1.3. where John starts out this entire epistle by saying, what we have seen and heard and we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us. There's the us. And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ.

And he's talking about that, that initial apostolic message of the gospel of Jesus Christ which these believers have heard from the beginning. You know that from the beginning is what he said. So by this we are experientially coming to know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So I want to end with just some verses here that coincide with that, that coincide here with verse 6.

From John 17 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So we can get the truth from the word. John 15 26, even the spirit of truth, which proceeds from the Father, So there we have that spirit who indwells us, is internally testifying to us about Christ. And then John 10, 26 through 30. And this is really, this is really interesting.

When John speaks of the sheep, you know, you are sheep. But you do not leave because you are not of my sheep, he says. And that of my sheep is ek. You are not out of my flock of sheep. My sheep hear my voice. And that word is akua. Isn't that interesting? And I know them and they follow me.

And I give eternal life to them. And they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all. Isn't that interesting? The same word, Megas, is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. And I and the Father are one. So it's interesting too that the Holy Spirit is, Christ refers to him as the Spirit of Truth. That's his title. you'd have the hymn versus the spirit of error. And I'll leave it there. Thoughts? Yeah, Andrew, I think May Roy can help me here too.

I think when it says they're emphatic, isn't that having to do with the position in the Greek text? Yeah, right. I think it, I've heard Macaulay say it's the position in the Greek text, so those two, the they and the we are in the first place in the Greek text in that verse. I think that's what it is. Well, but then I think it was maybe Merriman said they could put it anywhere, but it's just something, it's something they do to the Greek and that makes it, in fact, that makes it we ourselves, you yourselves, and what was the third one? We ourselves, you yourselves, and they themselves. Right. These three verses, they have those three pronouns, Andrew, you just mentioned, are the emphasis here in this text.

You, true believers, they, the Gnostic people, and we, the missionary team, so to speak, John and those that were with him, the apostleship relationship. And I think that we could include us as well in the broader sense of that word. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think we could. Because he identifies, John identifies himself and the apostles with his believers that he knows that he's writing this to. It's really amazing. And the purpose, too, of this letter is for believers, specifically. So there's an encompassment here. This is a family that we're talking about. And so these three pronouns, the only ones that's not part of the family is they. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, right. Yeah, they and them. Yeah, really interesting.

When I first started out with 1 John, I was honing in on this fact that he mentions Antichrist. When I first started out, I was like, well, are we to test our faith, et cetera, et cetera? No, that's not it. But he does bring up a testing and that's the they. And certainly we're in the section of we're testing, we're docking, matzoing these spirits.

So there is a, and during John's time, there were these false Gnostics that, so the false teaching has a, It's a background to the first book of John, but it's not the theme, right? But it's in the background, and he brings it out here. But that will disappear back now into the background, and now he'll continue on with us, and we'll get into God as love next week, right? So, it's interesting.

One of the things, too, that Ironside brings out, as well as Lise, is that This incarnation is what they are teaching in a false way. The idea that Christ was from God rather than being God. If you listen to what's being taught by the majority of modern theologians, Jesus Christ came as a man. and he followed God's principles and he was a good man and a good teacher and he became just like God well that's not the incarnation the incarnation truly the truth the reality is that God has existed always and he took upon himself flesh for us he became a man He didn't come into existence at the birth of Christ, nor did he come into existence by Christ following his examples and becoming like him. No, he is God. He is the promised one. Isn't that something? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Roy, we're probably going to have to end here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We're running over. Yeah. And just one thing for future reference, your sound, Andrew is coming through loud and clear, but you're kind of much softer. I'm not sure what you can do, but... I'm not projecting, Gail says, so I'm sorry. Okay, all right.

Yeah. Andrew, you took down your presentation, right, Andrew? Oh, yeah, I did. Yeah, okay. We just created a weird effect on our screen. It's okay. Why don't you go ahead and close? Yeah, okay. Yeah, a lot of chitchat there at the end. It's okay. It's all good. We're sorry. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this wonderful study in John and just be with us throughout this week. In Jesus' name, Amen.