1 João 4

1 João 4:2

Vernon McGee says: This is a very important passage, but there is a danger of going off the deep end here and becoming rather fanatical. I believe that there is an abnormal preoccupation with the occult on the part of many Christians today which is a most dangerous thing, but we do need to know what the bible teaches about it. In the first six verses of this chapter, John gives a warning against false teachers, false prophets. He gives us this warning, having just established the fact that we have been given the Spirit of God and that we have been given an anointing to understand the things of God Paul Van Gorder titles this section: "How to Spot the Devil's Kids" Federal law is now calling for "truth in advertising." The labels of products must contain an accurate listing of the ingredients. The consumer is encouraged to "read carefully before using." A similar caution is given to believers in 1 John 4:1-6. Before a believer swallows all that is packaged "Christian," he is advised to do some testing. Not everyone who comes in the name of Christ is a representative of the truth....Religious deceivers most certainly abound today! They have invaded our pulpits, our colleges, our theological seminaries, and even our homes. The false prophets of our day, sometimes masked in religious respectability, launch continual assaults upon God's Word and His Christ Danny Akin - “What do you believe about Jesus?” No question is more crucial or important. No question has received more confusing and mistaken answers. That is certainly true in our day, at the beginning of the 21 st century 1) “Jesus was a subversive sage. His witticisms tended to undermine the everyday view of things. Jesus taught them: If someone sues you for your coat, give them your shirt as well. In a two-garment society, that would have been funny.” Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar 2) “I am inclined to the view that Jesus caught a glimpse of what the world is really like when you look at it with God’s eyes. He endeavored to pass that glimpse along in short stories we call parables and in subversive proverbs we call aphorisms. But He did not spell out what He meant. My glimpse is informed by, but bypasses, the Jesus of the Gospels – the Christ superimposed by the evangelists on their own glimpse of the real Jesus. I am convinced that the New Testament conceals the real Jesus as frequently as it reveals Him.” (Robert Funk, Honest to Jesus, Harper San Francisco, 1996). 3) “I asked my class, “Who was Jesus?” Most said he was a religious figure. Some said philosopher, comparing him to Socrates. Then there was Jesus as political leader, with one student comparing him to Mao and Stalin.” Tyler Roberts, lecturer and head tutor of religion at Harvard University 4) “He was a feminist. He cured ill women, allowed them to become people who related his truths, forgave a repentant prostitute, allowed her to touch him. Women gave their money to support him. Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the Resurrection – what’s more important than that, in Christianity? She was apostle to the apostles, told by Christ to go to tell them that he had risen. There should be a role for women to preach and teach today – a role too often denied.” (Susan Haskins, Mary Magdalene: Myth and Metaphor). 5) “It’s in the scrolls if you really study the codes: It was not a resurrection. He was put on the cross. Those within his own party, trying to help him commit suicide, gave him poison – the sponge dipped in vinegar. He was unconscious but not dead. His side was pierced, blood came out. A dead body does not bleed, so his followers knew he was not dead. They put him in the cave. He lived until his seventies, and it was he – Jesus acting behind Paul – who led their party out of Judaism and to Rome. He married Mary Magdalene and had four children.” (Barbara Thiering, Dead Sea Scrolls interpreter, author of Jesus, the Apocalypse). 6) “With the deepest respect for others and their beliefs, to my mind Jesus, and John the Baptist also, were mistaken and misguided ‘end-time’ prophets: Jesus was neither a mediator nor a savior, neither superhuman nor divine. The time has come to leave Jesus to his place in history, and to move on.” The Rev. Andrew Furlong, Church of Ireland’s dean of Clonmacnoise and rector of Trim and Athboy (RNS, 2002). He resigned from his post 3 days before he was due to appear before a church court on charges of heresy. 7) “Poll: One fourth of Americans Believe Jesus Sinned on Earth.” “A quarter of Americans feel strongly that Jesus sinned when he lived on earth,” the Barna Research Group reports. Twenty-five percent of Americans surveyed this year said they strongly agreed that “when he lived on earth, Jesus Christ committed sins.” (June 2002 RNS) Such confusion and mistaken notions about Jesus do not stop with Him. If you get it wrong about Jesus it is certain you will get it wrong elsewhere. Listen to Eric Weight, a Mormon, who helped in the construction, with hundreds of others, in building a Hara Krishna temple in Spanish Fork, Utah, “You find out they’re not that much different than we are. They’re children of the Heavenly Father.” (RNS, 3-5-02). Hear persons like Jan Willis, named by Time magazine in the year 2000 as 1 of the 6 top Religious Innovators for the New Millennium who calls herself a “Baptist Buddhist.” Her defense of such an odd combination: “It seemed to make sense because it was my experience.” She adds: “If I have learned anything about myself thus far it is that in my deepest core I am a human being, graced by the eternal truths espoused both by Baptists and by Buddhists. And more than that, I am aware that it is not any particular appellation that matters. For ultimately, what I have come to know is that life – precious life – is not a destination. Life is the journey.” (RNS, 2-22-02). Cross the Atlantic to Great Britain where the Prince of Wales, Charles, heir to the throne, recoils from the historic title given to the monarch of England, “Defender of the Faith,” opting rather for the title, “Defender of Faith.” He says, “I personally would rather see it (his future role as king) as Defender of Faith, not just the faith (the Church of England), because it means just one particular interpretation of the faith, which I think, is sometimes something that causes a great deal of a problem.” (RNS, 1-11-02). Or return again to this side of the Atlantic and listen to God allegedly speaking to Neale Donald Walsch in his book Conversations with God (quoted in “What in the World!”, Vol. 24, No 7, 1998, page 2). “Listen to your feelings. Listen to your Highest Thoughts. Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differs from what you’ve been told by your teachers or read in your books, forget the words. Words are the least reliable purveyor of Truth.” There is a tendency to ascribe any unusual phenomenon to God. Such a lack of discernment opens the door for false teaching and provides an opportunity for demonic activity to invade the church. Remember: spiritual or religious activity is not necessarily godly activity! Watch and wait. Look and listen. Evaluate the message and the messenger by the Word of God. False prophets are deceptive in their message..... Where there is truth, error will be lurking in the background. There are those who are deceptive by their message. Be on the lookout.... In Matthew 16:13 Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” Here is the million-dollar question, the inescapable question, the question every person who has ever lived must answer. John says you can basically divide all of humanity into 2 categories: those who get it right and those who get it wrong Johnny Hunt - 1 JOHN 4:1, 2, 6 False prophets are everywhere it seems! They write books, preach in churches, have television shows, enjoy large crowds, knock on neighborhood doors, teach Sunday School classes, and promote great causes. Sadly, we have increasingly become Christians who know our Savior but who cannot discern God’s truth from Satan’s deception. There are two major ways to determine if a person is of God. First of all, keep a general rule of not immediately believing everything you hear. Make a commitment to the Lord to have a healthy skepticism that will drive you to find out if truth is being spoken. Second, test what you hear directly with the Bible—and only God’s Word! When you do, you’ll be carrying out the two tests given in this passage that identify false prophets. First, does this person believe that Jesus has come in the flesh? It’s not just an issue of believing that He has come; the full humanity and full deity of Jesus is an ultimate test of genuineness. Second, does this person speak the doctrine of the Bible as preached by the apostles? If not, this person is preaching and teaching a false doctrine. Be warned and be careful because the devil is a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Cling to God’s Word, and you will steadily stand on truth. EVENING Dear God, my heavenly Father, thank You for Your Word. I desperately want to know You more and ask that You would fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Help me to be strong in my faith. I humbly pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. HE TAKES OUR PLACE A valuable painting had been purchased by F. W. Boreham called "The Chess Player." It portrayed Satan playing the game with a young opponent, and the man's soul was at stake. The game had progressed to the point where it was the novice's turn, and there seemed to be no move he could make that would not mean defeat for him. Awful despair was on his face as he realized his soul was lost, and Satan was grinning as he anticipated victory. A champion player who had come to view the canvas studied the picture for a time and then called for a chessboard. Placing the pieces in exactly the same position as in the painting, he said, "I'll take the young man's place." He then made a move that showed how the devil's captive could have won and been set free. Danny Akin - In The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society (Eerdmans, 1989, p. 242), Lesslie Newbigin writes, “The gospel is news of what has happened. The problem of communicating it in a pluralist society is that it simply disappears into the undifferentiated ocean of information. It represents one opinion among millions of others. It cannot be ‘the truth,’ since in a pluralist society truth is not one but many. It may be ‘true for you,’ but it cannot be true for everyone. To claim that it is true for everyone is simply arrogance. It is permitted as one opinion among many.” Once again John makes it plain that Christianity is rooted and grounded in “the Christological question.” What do you believe about Jesus? If he is just another enlightened religious teacher, he “is permitted as one opinion, one option, among many.” If, however, He is the very incarnation of God, the gospel and only the gospel is true, and He is the only option for salvation amidst the millions of others. QUESTION - What is Docetism? | GotQuestions.org ANSWER - Docetism was an early Christian heresy that promoted a false view of Jesus’ humanity. The word Docetism comes from the Greek dokein (dokeo), which meant “to seem”; according to Docetism, Jesus Christ only seemed to have a human body like ours. Docetism allowed that Jesus may have been in some way divine, but it denied His full humanity. Hardcore Docetists taught that Jesus was only a phantasm or an illusion, appearing to be human but having no body at all. Other forms of Docetism taught that Jesus had a “heavenly” body of some type but not a real, natural body of flesh. Docetism was closely related to Gnosticism, which viewed physical matter as inherently evil and spiritual substance as inherently good. The problem with Docetism is that it denies the core truths of the gospel, namely, the death and resurrection of Christ. If Jesus did not have a real body, then He did not really die (Docetism teaches that His suffering on the cross was mere illusion). And, if Jesus had no physical body, He could not have risen bodily from the dead. Without the actual death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have no salvation, we are still in our sins, and our faith is futile (1 Corinthians 15:17). Docetism also denies the ascension of Christ (since He had no real body to make the ascent). On the matter of Jesus’ humanity, the Bible could not be clearer. Jesus went out of His way to prove His bodily resurrection to the disciples who thought at first they were seeing a ghost: “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). The apostle John warned the early church against the false doctrine of Gnosticism, which embraced Docetism’s error: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:1–2). Note the apostle’s emphasis on Jesus being “in the flesh.” Denial of Jesus’ humanity was heresy. John repeats the warning in another epistle: “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 1:7+, emphasis added). Early church fathers fought valiantly against Docetism, especially Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 35–107). Ignatius rightly taught that, if Jesus had not actually shed His blood on the cross, then His death was meaningless. Ignatius saw that there was no possible way to align the deception of Docetism with the truth of Christianity. Docetism must be rejected because it is not a biblical view of Jesus’ nature. In fact, Docetism stands in flat denial of biblical truth. Jesus Christ did not simply appear human; He was truly human, as well as truly God. He came from heaven and took on human flesh and bone, and He lived the life of a normal man in this world—a Spirit-filled man, to be sure, and a man who always obeyed the Father, but a man nonetheless. His suffering on the cross was real, and His death was an actual death. He shed real blood to pay the real price for our real sin in order to grant us real forgiveness. Related Resources: What is Montanism? | GotQuestions.org What is Apollinarianism? What is Ebionism? What is monophysitism? What is Eutychianism? What is Nestorianism? What is the hypostatic union? Does Christ have two natures? What is Arianism? Who were the Alogi? QUESTION - How should a Christian view modernism? | GotQuestions.org Religious skepticism and atheism are hallmarks of modernism ANSWER - Modernism arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, due to some major changes in the world, including the rise of industrial societies, the development of larger, more populated cities, and the terrible tragedy of World War I. Because of a combination of these and other factors, people in Western society began to think and believe differently, and this shift in perspective has been labeled “modernism” by historians and philosophers. Religious skepticism and atheism are hallmarks of modernism. Sigmund Freud, who spoke of the drives of the unconscious mind; and Friedrich Nietzsche, who believed that the human “will to power” was important in man’s evolution, were influential in the rise of modernism, and their ideas still help shape culture today. Modernism can be seen most vividly in the world of art and literature, where it stimulated a complete break from the styles and forms of the past. “Modern art” rejected realism and objective thinking and began to lean toward expression of the subjective, inner world. Stream-of-consciousness writing styles and abstract forms of painting predominated. Self-consciousness and the expression of one’s self became major themes in art, as it had become in life. A Christian should regard modernism from two angles: first, modernism provides a clue to understanding humanity. Modernism is humanity’s attempt to understand itself and human life without the aid of God’s revelation. Its rejection of God and focus on self are the results of society’s embrace of falsehood. Christians are to be ambassadors for Christ, speaking the truth to a world that is lost and deceived by Satan. A Christian should treat those ensnared in untruths with gentleness, with prayer, and with speaking the truth in love (2 Timothy 2:24–26; Ephesians 4:15). Second, a Christian should see modernism as another step toward the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Bible. Paul says that in the end times people will be “lovers of self” (2 Timothy 3:3). Peter mentions that a hallmark of the last days will be the presence of “scoffers” and skeptics (2 Peter 3:3), and Jude echoes the warning (Jude 1:18). Modernism, with its emphasis on self-expression and self-fulfillment and rejection of God, has nudged humanity that much closer to the final judgment. Again, a Christian should view modernism as the expression of man’s attempt to understand himself and as the partial fulfillment of prophecy. Christians should engage the culture influenced by modernism with courage and truth. The children of God should use their talents and intelligence to influence culture with art, literature, philosophy, and science based on the truth of God. We should refuse to keep our light covered (Matthew 5:14–16). This means injecting Christian thought into the culture rather than keeping it to ourselves to be enjoyed only by others like us. QUESTION - What is post-modern Christianity? | GotQuestions.org ANSWER - Post-modern Christianity is just as difficult to lock down in a concise definition as post-modernism itself. What started in the 1950s in architecture as a reaction to modernist thought and style was soon adopted by the art and literary world in the 1970s and 1980s. The Church didn’t really feel this effect until the 1990s. This reaction was a dissolution of "cold, hard fact" in favor of "warm, fuzzy subjectivity." Think of anything considered post-modern, then stick Christianity into that context and you have a glimpse of what post-modern Christianity is. Post-modern Christianity falls into line with basic post-modernist thinking. It is about experience over reason, subjectivity over objectivity, spirituality over religion, images over words, outward over inward. Are these things good? Sure. Are these things bad? Sure. It all depends on how far from biblical truth each reaction against modernity takes one’s faith. This, of course, is up to each believer. However, when groups form under such thinking, theology and doctrine tend to lean more towards liberalism. For example, because experience is valued more highly than reason, truth becomes relative. This opens up all kinds of problems, as this lessens the standard that the Bible contains absolute truth, and even disqualifies biblical truth as being absolute in many cases. If the Bible is not our source for absolute truth, and personal experience is allowed to define and interpret what truth actually is, a saving faith in Jesus Christ is rendered meaningless. There will always be "paradigm shifts" in thinking as long as mankind inhabits this present earth, because mankind constantly seeks to better itself in knowledge and stature. Challenges to our way of thinking are good, as they cause us to grow, to learn, and to understand. This is the principle of Romans 12:2 at work, of our minds being transformed. Yet, we need to be ever mindful of Acts 17:11 and be like the Bereans, weighing every new teaching, every new thought, against Scripture. We don’t let our experiences interpret Scripture for us, but as we change and conform ourselves to Christ, we interpret our experiences according to Scripture. Unfortunately, this is not what is happening in circles espousing post-modern Christianity. QUESTION - What are the dangers of postmodernism? ANSWER - Simply put, postmodernism is a philosophy that affirms no objective or absolute truth, especially in matters of religion and spirituality. When confronted with a truth claim regarding the reality of God and religious practice, postmodernism’s viewpoint is exemplified in the statement “that may be true for you, but not for me.” While such a response may be completely appropriate when discussing favorite foods or preferences toward art, such a mindset is dangerous when it is applied to reality because it confuses matters of opinion with matters of truth. The term “postmodernism” literally means “after modernism” and is used to philosophically describe the current era which came after the age of modernism. Postmodernism is a reaction (or perhaps more appropriately, a disillusioned response) to modernism’s failed promise of using human reason alone to better mankind and make the world a better place. Because one of modernism’s beliefs was that absolutes did indeed exist, postmodernism seeks to “correct” things by first eliminating absolute truth and making everything (including the empirical sciences and religion) relative to an individual’s beliefs and desires. The dangers of postmodernism can be viewed as a downward spiral that begins with the rejection of absolute truth, which then leads to a loss of distinctions in matters of religion and faith, and culminates in a philosophy of religious pluralism that says no faith or religion is objectively true and therefore no one can claim his or her religion is true and another is false. Dangers of Postmodernism - #1 – Relative Truth Postmodernism’s stance of relative truth is the outworking of many generations of philosophical thought. From Augustine to the Reformation, the intellectual aspects of Western civilization and the concept of truth were dominated by theologians. But, beginning with the Renaissance the 14th – 17th centuries, thinkers began to elevate humankind to the center of reality. If one were to look at periods of history like a family tree, the Renaissance would be modernism’s grandmother and the Enlightenment would be its mother. Rene Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” personified the beginning of this era. God was not the center of truth any longer – man was. The Enlightenment was, in a way, the complete imposition of the scientific model of rationality upon all aspects of truth. It claimed that only scientific data could be objectively understood, defined, and defended. Truth as it pertained to religion was discarded. The philosopher who contributed to the idea of relative truth was the Prussian Immanuel Kant and his work The Critique of Pure Reason, which appeared in 1781. Kant argued that true knowledge about God was impossible, so he created a divide of knowledge between “facts” and “faith.” According to Kant, “Facts have nothing to do with religion.” The result was that spiritual matters were assigned to the realm of opinion, and only the empirical sciences were allowed to speak of truth. While modernism believed in absolutes in science, God’s special revelation (the Bible) was evicted from the realm of truth and certainty. From modernism came postmodernism and the ideas of Frederick Nietzsche. As the patron saint of postmodernist philosophy, Nietzsche held to “perspectivism,” which says that all knowledge (including science) is a matter of perspective and interpretation. Many other philosophers have built upon Nietzsche’s work (for example, Foucault, Rorty, and Lyotard) and have shared his rejection of God and religion in general. They also rejected any hint of absolute truth, or as Lyotard put it, a rejection of a metanarrative (a truth that transcends all peoples and cultures). This philosophical war against objective truth has resulted in postmodernism being completely averse to any claim to absolutes. Such a mindset naturally rejects anything that declares to be inerrant truth, such as the Bible. Dangers of Postmodernism - #2 – Loss of Discernment The great theologian Thomas Aquinas said, “It is the task of the philosopher to make distinctions.” What Aquinas meant is that truth is dependent upon the ability to discern – the capability to distinguish “this” from “that” in the realm of knowledge. However, if objective and absolute truth does not exist, then everything becomes a matter of personal interpretation. To the postmodern thinker, the author of a book does not possess the correct interpretation of his work; it is the reader who actually determines what the book means – a process called deconstruction. And given that there are multiple readers (vs. one author), there are naturally multiple valid interpretations. Such a chaotic situation makes it impossible to make meaningful or lasting distinctions between interpretations because there is no standard that can be used. This especially applies to matters of faith and religion. Attempting to make proper and meaningful distinctions in the area of religion is no more meaningful than arguing that chocolate tastes better than vanilla. Postmodernism says that it is impossible to objectively adjudicate between competing truth claims. Dangers of Postmodernism - #3 – Pluralism If absolute truth does not exist, and if there is no way to make meaningful, right/wrong distinctions between different faiths and religions, then the natural conclusion is that all beliefs must be considered equally valid. The proper term for this practical outworking in postmodernism is “philosophical pluralism.” With pluralism, no religion has the right to pronounce itself true and the other competing faiths false, or even inferior. For those who espouse philosophical religious pluralism, there is no longer any heresy, except perhaps the view that there are heresies. D. A. Carson underscores conservative evangelicalism’s concerns about what it sees as the danger of pluralism: “In my most somber moods I sometimes wonder if the ugly face of what I refer to as philosophical pluralism is the most dangerous threat to the gospel since the rise of the Gnostic heresy in the second century.” These progressive dangers of postmodernism – relative truth, a loss of discernment, and philosophical pluralism – represent imposing threats to Christianity because they collectively dismiss God’s Word as something that has no real authority over mankind and no ability to show itself as true in a world of competing religions. What is Christianity’s response to these challenges? Response to the Dangers of Postmodernism Christianity claims to be absolutely true, that meaningful distinctions in matters of right/wrong (as well as spiritual truth and falsehood) exist, and that to be correct in its claims about God any contrary claims from competing religions must be incorrect. Such a stance provokes cries of “arrogance” and “intolerance” from postmodernism. However, truth is not a matter of attitude or preference, and when closely examined, the foundations of postmodernism quickly crumble, revealing Christianity’s claims to be both plausible and compelling. First, Christianity claims that absolute truth exists. In fact, Jesus specifically says that He was sent to do one thing: “To testify to the truth” (John 18:37). Postmodernism says that no truth should be affirmed, yet its position is self-defeating – it affirms at least one absolute truth: that no truth should be affirmed. This means that postmodernism does believe in absolute truth. Its philosophers write books stating things they expect their readers to embrace as truth. Putting it simply, one professor has said, “When someone says there is no such thing as truth, they are asking you not to believe them. So don’t.” Second, Christianity claims that meaningful distinctions exist between the Christian faith and all other beliefs. It should be understood that those who claim meaningful distinctions do not exist are actually making a distinction. They are attempting to showcase a difference in what they believe to be true and the Christian’s truth claims. Postmodernist authors expect their readers to come to the right conclusions about what they have written and will correct those who interpret their work differently from what they have intended. Again, their position and philosophy proves itself to be self-defeating because they eagerly make distinctions between what they believe to be correct and what they see as being false. Finally, Christianity claims to be universally true in what it says regarding man’s lost condition before God, the sacrifice of Christ on behalf of fallen mankind, and the separation between God and anyone who chooses not to accept what God says about sin and the need for repentance. When Paul addressed the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on Mars Hill, he said, “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent” (Acts 17:30). Paul’s declaration was not “this is true for me, but may not be true for you”; rather; it was an exclusive and universal command (that is, a metanarrative) from God to everyone. Any postmodernist who says Paul is wrong is committing an error against his own pluralistic philosophy, which says no faith or religion is incorrect. Once again, the postmodernist violates his own view that every religion is equally true. Just as it is not arrogant for a math teacher to insist that 2+2=4 or for a locksmith to insist that only one key will fit a locked door, it is not arrogant for the Christian to stand against postmodernist thinking and insist that Christianity is true and anything opposed to it is false. Absolute truth does exist, and consequences do exist for being wrong. While pluralism may be desirable in matters of food preferences, it is not helpful in matters of truth. The Christian should present God’s truth in love and simply ask any postmodernist who is angered by the exclusive claims of Christianity, “So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Galatians 4:16).