Week 50 John
John says: dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God.
The test John’s referring to isn’t to evaluate whether what a guy says makes sense or is logical or is intellectually defensible or is falsifiable or like that. It’s to test-the-spirit behind the talk. And John says the spirit can be tested by asking one question…did divine Christ become a human?
I try breaking the idea down. Let’s say there’s two guys: Guy #1 and Guy #2. Both guys are asked John’s Test Question.
Guy #1 says True – God materialized in Jesus.
Guy #2 says False – Jesus wasn’t divine.
John accounts for the different answers this way…
Guy #1 is animated by the Spirit of God (S#1).
Guy #2 is spurred on by: the spirit of the Antichrist (S#2).
The debate between Guy #1 and Guy #2 is a debate between guys and also a confrontation between the Two Animators – S#1 & S#2.
And John admits that there’s a pretty common-sense explanation for why Guy #2 (and therefore S#2) have a captive audience: these people (the Guy #2 group) belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them. All are influenced by the same influencer.
John is saying: I can only believe what my animating spirit gives me the capacity to believe. (That’s not a quote but I think it’s more or less what John’s saying.)
Note: quotes from 1 John 4:1, 3 & 5 (NLT)