I John 4:6

I John 4:6: “We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”

Here John presents another simple but sobering test: those who refuse to hear the Word and reject it are not of God. This gives us quite a few ways to tell genuine believers from counterfeit ones.

According to the book of I John, genuine believers:

• obey Jesus out of love
• love other believers
• lead a righteous and holy life
• listen to the Word and accept it

The reason this matters is because there are a great many people who call themselves Christians and who claim to have a “salvation experience”, but who do not show any of these characteristics. They refuse to obey Jesus. They despise other believers. They mock righteousness. They hate the Word and refuse to obey it. Those are not the characteristics of Christians; those are the characteristics of pagans.

In fact, it’s very common today for so-called Christians to mock the Word. People hate the apostle Paul and love making fun of him. They reject many of the Bible’s teachings outright, stomping their foot and saying they will never> obey it. The only teachings in the Bible that they will listen to are the ones that they like; the ones that they “disagree with” are rejected with great anger.

It is very disheartening to try to teach the Word these days. People will listen to the Word and then say “Well, I just don’t believe that” or “I just believe differently”. There was a time when Christians actually feared God and listened to Him; they read the Bible and believed it. Modern Christianity, though, loves disagreeing with God. They think that God is wrong on a lot of issues and they aren’t afraid to say it.

What John is saying here is that these are false Christians. True Christians do not reject the Word. They do not shake their fist at God and scream that they will never obey Him. They do not mock the apostles and demean their teachings. That is the spirit of antichrist. It is not the spirit of God.

If your approach to the Bible is “I’ll believe what I like and will reject the rest”, then you are not saved. If your approach to God is “I’ll obey Him when I feel like it and tell Him to drop dead when I don’t”, then you are not saved. If your approach to the apostles is “They’re a bunch of losers”, then you are not saved. John is very clear about this: “he that is not of God heareth not us”. If you refuse to hear the Word then you are not of God. End of story.

Salvation is not of works – but genuine salvation always produces works. That is the point of the book of James. Salvation changes a person, and I John outlines the changes that always occur whenever a person is saved. If your life is missing those changes then you are not saved. You may think “but I had an experience!” Guess what? An “experience” is NOT one of the ways you can tell if your salvation was real! People in false religions have “experiences” too. What John is doing here is outlining objective ways to examine your salvation. Sadly, much of modern Christianity miserably fails this test.

I’m afraid that, in today’s world, we don’t have churches full of real Christians. What we actually have are churches full of lost people who have convinced themselves that they’re actually Christians – and thereby immunized themselves from the gospel. After all, you’re not going to pay any attention to the gospel if you think you’ve already been saved!

Jesus warned that this would happen:

Matthew 7:21: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”

How do you know if you are in that group? By applying the tests of I John.