This week in Ecclesia, we talked about I John 4:1-6:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for 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, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”
It is a tricky passage when you first read it. The challenging part is the use of the term, “spirit” and “antichrist.” Those words call up too many bad assumptions for most people. They think of demons and ghosts and the end times and all sorts of weird stuff. It becomes much clearer when you realize that by “spirit,” John is talking about prophecies and teachings, in the same way that when Paul refers to “discerning of spirits” in I Corinthians, he is talking about knowing if a prophecy is true or not. John is writing about how to know who is a true or false teacher. When he uses the term “antichrist,” he is talking, not about some devil-possessed world ruler that will come at the end of time (in the Bible, the term never refers to that, by the way…but that is another discussion). Rather, John is talking about the idea of people who are against Christ, people whose spirits are on the other team, the team opposed to Jesus. John is trying to help his people know who they can trust, who is actually on the side of God and the truth.
The reason John needs to do this is because the subtext for the letter is a church split. Throughout the books there are hints about people who have left the fellowship of this small church. Perhaps these people are even ratting out the remaining Christians to hostile authorities. It appears that the way the people left is under the influence of the teachers who were teaching that Jesus did not actually come in the flesh. Eventually, these teachers took their followers and broke fellowship. So, as you read this passage (and the rest of the book), try and put yourself in the place of this little church. They have just gone through the gut-wrenching, doubt-raising experience of loosing people from their fellowship. Friends, perhaps family are gone. People they worshiped with, supported, learned from, taught, trusted, and confided in have embraced an alternate teaching and then left. That is not an easy emotional experience. When you loose a significant portion of your community, you question things. People could have easily been thinking, “If they left us, does that mean that they are not true Christians? If they left us, does that mean we might be wrong? They said we were wrong. How do we know if they are right or not? How do we know if we are still on the right side?”
In the face of that situation, it make sense when John says:
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13)
John writes the small church to let them know that they are okay, that they are still in Christ, that they know God, that they are on the right side of things, and that they have eternal life. That is why the book constantly talks about how to know who really knows God. That is why it has all these tests about who is really in fellowship with Christ. This is very important for setting the tone of the book. It makes it much richer and easier to understand.
In this particular passage, John is reassuring the church that the teaching the departing faction embraced is not the teaching of those who know God. They had denied that Jesus had come in the flesh. Perhaps they were influenced by Greek dualism that denigrated the physical or they were some form or early, gnostic-style group. Either way, they had denied a very basic truth of Christian teaching. The people teaching these false ideas had left, and some had followed them. As John says, “They [the false teachers] are from the world [even though they were in the church fellowship for a time]; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.” Therefore, those who left with them are also not truly Christians. The fact that they followed this false teaching is evidence that they were not really the Christians you thought. They are from the world because they listened to the world’s teaching.
Now, this teaching is not simply a condemnation of the departing faction. I don’t think John is as much concerned about blasting them as he is concerned about reassuring the flock that they were right to hold to the teaching that the apostles had given them. It was proof for them them that they were from God, because they were listening to God’s teaching.
And so, they could be reassured, even in the face of the doubt caused by a split, and the persecution that may have come as a result of former members of the church turning them into the Roman authorities. They could know that they had “overcome them.” If they held to the truth, they could know that they were with God. Because they still believed the truth about Jesus, they could know that they knew God, while the others left because they didn’t.
Now, unless this sound like John is saying, “No matter what, if you simply believe true things about Jesus you are saved,” we must read the rest of the book. The other tests that let the little church know they are in God also include the fact that they love, they obey, they have the Spirit, and they sin less. The evidence of knowing God is a transformed life, including transformed beliefs. How you live and how you think about Jesus are both signs of where you stand in relation to God. I have more thoughts about this passage, but that covers the gist of it.
Communion
As always, I enjoyed Communion very much. It is a very central aspect of my spiritual life. It is so rich. I was thinking, this week, about how amazing it is that God is for us. The bread is the sign of Christ’s body given “for you.” The wine is the sign of Christ’s blood shed, “for you.” Communion is a sign that God is not against us, that he loves us, even me. God is on our side, working on our behalf, and he has given us himself. He did not hold back anything he could have given us. He give us Jesus. God is for us. What a wonder!
A Song that Struck Home
During the singing, we sang the song that goes: “Lord, let your light…shine on us…that we may be saved, that we may have life, to light our way through the darkest night. Lord, let your light shine on us.” It struck home to me very deeply. I have been wrestling a lot with how Christians ought to live. More than that, how I ought to live. I feel like there is so much wrong in the world, so much sin and pain and brokenness, that when I take it seriously, I am overwhelmed. I am not sure what my part in healing it is. I am not sure how to live as a follower of Christ when I actually face how bad things are. There is a lot of darkness, and I have been feeling the need for light. Jesus, the Wisdom of God, is our light, the one who knows the path to healing and wholeness for broken people and a broken world. We need him because he can light our way. That gives me hope.
The Doxology
Also, every week, one of my favorite aspects is singing the doxology at the end of the night. We always end this way, and it is a sweet moment every time, no matter how the evening has gone. I love the doxology because is at the same time, both a vertical expression to God and a horizontal encouragement to each other. We sing a command: “Praise God.” We command all creatures and heavenly host to praise God for all the good blessings that flow from his hand. I think that command to the creation is a very fitting thing for God’s people to sing. In a way, we are entering into the priesthood that God had given to Adam, in which he would bring the unspoken praises of the world before God in spoken praise. Although Adam failed, in Christ, the one who ultimately fulfilled Adam’s calling, we can reclaim that priesthood and call forth the praises of creation and bear them to our triune God. The mission of our missional community, is of course, to draw all things, including the people of our culture and time, into the expression of praise to our God: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is why I love that song.
