Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1)

False Teachers Insure Division In The Church

First, we have to ask ourselves: “Is this Scripture only a historic fact, or could this also continue to happen today?” We do know from history that the Apostle John was speaking about first century Gnostic teachers; and what is not generally taken into consideration here, is that these people were also claiming to be Christians. They were posing as genuine believers with the “true” interpretation of the teachings of Christ; not unlike e.g. the dubious duo of the EC Tony Jones and his quasi-universal pastor Doug Pagitt with their New Christians And A Christianity Worth Believing are doing now.

I not going to get into specifics at this point, here I just want to bring to the reader’s attention the fact that there were also various “factions” within the ancient visible church also considering themselves Christians, which would eventually necessitate the various Creeds of Christendom. So, by taking our text verse at face value, we can clearly see that the Bible is teaching—or more correctly—God Himself is saying in essence: “Everyone who claims to teach something about Me has not necessarily been sent from Me; ‘many’ of these ‘prophets’ are actually false.”

Notice we’re told that many false prophets were loose back then. Now let’s think about something John would have literally heard Christ Jesus Himself teach — “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). After all John had walked with the Master for three years; he left everything to follow Him, and it is clear that he was in an inner circle often highlighted in the Gospels. Notice how many times when some important event was to happen in Christ’s earthly life where our Lord involves Peter, James, and John.

However, the point relevant to our little study of 1 John 4:1 here is that the Apostle who wrote this letter—under the direct inspiration of God the Holy Spirit—would be in a very good position to recall our Lord talking about those false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing. This would also seem a good place for me to let you know, in no uncertain terms, that I personally don’t happen to like this particular idea that there are counterfeit teachers; but God didn’t ask our opinion on the matter.

At this point Dr. Glen Barker’s comments concerning our text will prove very helpful here:

The opponents not only lay claim to God but boast of their “inspiration” by the “spirit.” Likely they gave evidence of their “inspiration” through “prophetic utterings” and perhaps even other signs such as ecstacies and glossolalia. Such “signs” were present in the religious milieu of the Greeks and Romans and most persons took them seriously.

That they sometimes caused special problems in the early church is attested by Paul (cf. 1 Cor 12:3; ch. 14; 1 Thess. 3:21). The warning is not against those who “feign” the Spirit’s presence but against genuine evil spirits’ inspiring the existence of false prophets—i.e. those who had left the community.

They were zealous in their proclaimation (cf. 2 John 7) and may have been even more successful than the faithful community in making converts from the world (4:5). Likely John saw in them the fulfillment of Jesus’ warning (cf. Mark 13:22) against false prophets in the “end times” (cf. 2:18). The false prophets’ success would itself be a problem and probably used as an authenticating sign by them.[1]

Like I recently pointed out in Wrong Spiritual Practices Reproduce Same Wrong Experiences one of the major didaskalia daimonion means doctrines, teachings of demons (cf. 1 Timothy 4:1) advanced by deceitful spirits before the very gullible evangelical public right now is that if someone has a “nice” and/or “good” experience of a supernatural sort, then it’s automatically assumed to be of God; gord along with the new gospel where God loves you so much He has a wonderful plan for your life, which is the the dream that God has supposedly placed in your heart to unlock your destiny.

It’s so unfortunate that if such as these false prophets polluting the Christian message would only be willing to listen, they would see that this whole “pie in the sky” musing so popular today that people will all live together in harmony within the church visible is actually destroyed right here in our text verse alone. Think about it a moment, if it had been God’s intention for life here on His earth to be one where all people would come to a harmonious understanding of Who He is and what the genuine Gospel is, then quite obviously He would never have allowed that:

many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:1-6)

But no one who really reads the New Testament can possibly come away without seeing numerous warnings within it that have to do with false prophets and false teachers. And this is to let alone the Old Testament, which itself is also full of these false prophets/teachers. The fact of the matter is, for reasons we don’t fully understand, God did decide to allow many false prophets and counterfeit teachers to go out into the world; but at least He told us that many times they would come as wolves in sheep’s clothing; and by that Jesus means they are going to appear as true believers. Don’t be fooled.

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Endnotes: 

[1] Glen W. Barker, “1 John,” in Frank E. Gæbelein, Gen. Ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary with the New International Version, 12 Vols. [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976] Vol. 12, 340.

See also: 

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PROFESSOR TONY JONES AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY COHORT

MICHAEL DOWD AND DOUG PAGITT OF THE EMERGING CHURCH

MICHAEL DOWD & SPENCER BURKE—INTEGRITY AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY (PART 2)

RICK WARREN AND HERESY

PETER SCAZZERO RECOMMENDING CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY

THE NEW DOWNGRADE AND ITS APOSTLES OF UNBELIEF