John's church was a lively, Spirit-conscious community, and some teachers who had left claimed the Spirit's inspiration for what they taught. 1"Test the spirits to see whether they are from God," John says. He tells them to examine what claims to come from the Spirit. The Greek verb for test, *dokimazo*, belongs to the assayer's shop. It describes what a craftsman did to metal or a coin to find out whether it was pure. Peter used the related word for faith tested by fire like gold. A test of this kind takes a claim seriously enough to check it. Spiritual experience cannot vouch for itself. It has to be measured against something outside it.
John names the measure. 2"Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." The test concerns the person of Jesus. It asks what a teaching says about him, whether it confesses that the Christ is a particular man who lived, bled, and died. The verb for has come is in the perfect tense, which describes something that happened and continues. He came in the flesh, and the coming stands. The confession shuts the door on two errors John's church faced, the teaching that Christ only seemed to have a body and the teaching that the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at his baptism and left before the cross. In both the eternal Son never entered human life.
After the test comes comfort. 4"You are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world." The verb for have overcome is perfect as well. The victory has been won and its effects remain. John credits the one who lives within. A person tempted to feel outmatched by more confident voices is told that the one within is greater than the one behind the lie. Discernment grows out of this security, since a community that knows whose it is can examine a claim without panicking.
5"They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them." Popularity gives no assurance of truth. When a message fits the assumptions of its age and draws a crowd, John says the sympathy is explained by where the message came from, and that is a consolation to a small, slandered church.
Then John says 6"We are from God." The we is the apostles, who heard and saw and touched the Word of life. The standard for testing the spirits is the message those men handed on. A new claim gets measured against what was given at the start.
Apply the same test to a sermon, a book, a voice online, or a feeling that arrives in prayer. Ask what it says about Jesus, and whether it is the Jesus the apostles preached, who lived in a body and died on a cross.
Prayer
Father, you have given us your Spirit, and you have told us to test every spirit. Give us clear minds and humble hearts. Keep us anchored in what the apostles heard, saw, and touched, and help us confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. When louder voices unsettle us, remind us that he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. In Jesus' name, amen.