1 John 4:1-6

A digression. The reference to the Spirit (1 John 3:24) reminds John that some who claimed to possess the Spirit of God, e.g. the false prophets, did so unjustifiably. Hence his readers must have a token whereby they may discriminate between true prophets and false. That token was the nature of their testimony concerning Christ. Thus the Spirit of truth or of Christ could be distinguished from that of error or Antichrist.

1 John 4:1. prove the spirits: the primitive Church, as we learn from 1 Corinthians 12-14 *, was rich in activities and experiences attributed to the operation of the Holy Spirit. At the same time evil spirits were believed to exist and to take possession of human beings, producing phenomena outwardly akin to those due to the Spirit of God. Hence some mode of distinguishing the two operations was needed (for which reason discernings of spirits is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:10 as one of the charisms). In the case of men claiming the inspired and exalted type of utterance known as prophesying the test suggested here is the orthodoxy of their message as regards the person of Christ (in 1 Corinthians 12:3 it is the confession of the lordship of Jesus). A prophet to be genuine, says John, must proclaim the reality of the Incarnation, the true union in Jesus of the human and the Divine. gone out: i.e. from the Church into the world (1 John 2:19).

1 John 4:2. confesseth. flesh: other possible translations are confesseth Jesus as Christ come in the flesh, and confesseth Jesus Christ as come in the flesh. In any case the double name suggests the two sides of our Lord's nature, both being contained in His historic Person. The Incarnation was, therefore, real, and not, as the Docetists taught, merely apparent.

1 John 4:3. confesseth not Jesus: i.e. in the sense just named. A different, but well attested, reading gives us Every spirit which annulleth Jesus, i.e. breaks up, as Cerinthus (cf. Introd.) did, the unity of His Divine-human Person. heard: i.e. in apostolic teaching (cf. 1 John 2:18). in the world already: it had found a home outside the Church in the non-Christian section of society. For world in this sense, see 1 John 2:15 *.

1 John 4:4. he that is in you: i.e. the Spirit of God, who, as the Spirit of truth, is greater than the spirit of error which is in the world. Hence false teaching, to which the world listens with sympathy, is rejected by the Church.

1 John 4:6. We: John himself, possibly also the circle of apostolic witnesses of whom he regards himself as a type (1 John 4:11).