First John 4:1 says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are out of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” The expressions “every spirit” and “the spirits” refer to the spirits of the prophets (1 Cor. 14:32) motivated by the Spirit of truth, or the spirits of the false prophets actuated by the spirit of deception. Hence, there is the need to discern the spirits by proving them to see whether they are out of God.
In verse 2 John goes on to say, “In this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ having come in the flesh is out of God.” Such a spirit is the spirit of a genuine prophet motivated by the Holy Spirit of truth, which confesses the divine conception of Jesus, affirming that He was born as the Son of God. Every such spirit is surely out of God. In this we know the Spirit of God.
Jesus was conceived of the Spirit (Matt. 1:18). To confess Jesus coming in the flesh is to confess that He was divinely conceived to be born as the Son of God (Luke 1:31-35). Since He was conceived of the Spirit to be born in the flesh, the Spirit would never deny that He has come in the flesh through divine conception.
In verse 3 John continues, “And every spirit which does not confess Jesus, is not out of God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now is already in the world.” The spirit in this verse is the spirit of a false prophet actuated by the spirit of deception, which does not confess Jesus coming in the flesh. This is the spirit of the errors of the Docetists. This name was derived from the Greek dokein, “to seem,” “appear to be.” The heretical view of the Docetists was that Jesus Christ was not a real man, but simply appeared so; He was just a phantasm. Docetism was mixed up with Gnosticism which taught that all matter was essentially evil. Hence, the Docetists taught that, since Christ is holy, He could never have had the defilement of human flesh; His body was not real flesh and blood but merely a deceptive, transient phantom, so that He did not suffer, die, and resurrect. Such heresy undermines not only the Lord’s incarnation, but also His redemption and resurrection. Docetism was a characteristic feature of the first antichristian errorists whom John had in view here and in 2 John 7. The spirit of such errorists is surely not out of God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.
Second John 7 says, “Many deceivers went out into the world, who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” The deceivers mentioned here were heretics, like the Cerinthians, the false prophets. These deceivers do not confess Jesus Christ coming in the flesh. This means that they do not confess that Jesus is God incarnate. They deny the deity of Christ. In verse 7 John says that those who do not confess Jesus coming in the flesh are not only deceivers but also antichrists. An antichrist differs from a false Christ (Matt. 24:5, 24). A false Christ is one who pretends deceivingly to be the Christ, whereas an antichrist is one who denies Christ’s deity, denying that Jesus is the Christ, that is, denying the Father and the Son by denying that Jesus is the Son of God (1 John 2:22), not confessing that He has come in the flesh through the divine conception of the Holy Spirit. Whoever denies the person of Christ is an antichrist.
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