9 Oct 2012

I John 4:2-3

Posted by joncooper

I John 4:2: “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.”

This is one of the tests of authentic Christianity: any group that denies Jesus Christ (be it His claim to be the messiah, or His resurrection, or His death, or His deity, or His manhood) is the spirit of antichrist and does not come from God. This would include Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and many others. They deny the real Jesus and are therefore false religions.

Yes, Muslims do believe in a Jesus, as do Mormons. But they believe in a false Jesus. The Jesus of Islam is not God in the flesh; he’s just a non-divine prophet. The Jesus of Mormonism isn’t the eternal, uncreated God; he’s just a man who rose to godhood. The Bible does not say “Well, as long as you believe in some guy named Jesus you’re good to go”. No, you have to believe in the Biblical Jesus – the real Jesus. You can’t just make up a false god and call him Jesus and run with it. Believing in a false Jesus means that you have rejected the real one, and rejecting the real Jesus means, as John said here, that you are anti-christ.

As an aside, John is not talking here about the Antichrist who will arise during the Tribulation and rule over the world. That is an entirely different subject. What he is saying is that during the church age there is an anti-christ spirit – a spirit that opposes the real Christ and presents false Christs instead. That spirit was alive and well in John’s day and it has continued down to our own day. It is an evil spirit that we must watch out against.

It should also be pointed out that this is not the only test of a false religion. In the book of Galatians Paul made it clear that a gospel of salvation by works was not the truth, but a lie that had no power to save. The Catholic Church believes in the real Jesus but they deny that He has the power to save you; they teach that His death was not enough and you must add works of your own in order to earn salvation. That is a false gospel that has no power to save.

Here, though, John is focusing on cults that deny the person of Jesus in some way. Those groups are to be avoided and resisted.

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