Eureka!
This simple Greek word—meaning “I have found it!”—became a life slogan for thousands of California gold prospectors in the mid-1800s. It summed up every treasure hunter’s dream and expressed the thrill of striking pay dirt. For James Marshall (the first to discover the precious metal in 1848) and the “forty-niners” who followed him, the term eureka meant instant riches.
But would-be prospectors quickly learned that not everything that appeared to be gold actually was. Riverbeds and rock quarries could be full of golden specks that were nevertheless entirely worthless. This “fool’s gold” was iron pyrite, and miners had to be careful to distinguish it from the real thing. Their very livelihood depended on it.
Experienced miners could usually distinguish pyrite from gold simply by looking at it. But, in some cases, the distinction was not quite so clear. So, they developed tests to discern what was genuine from what was not. One test involved biting the rock in question. Real gold is softer than the human tooth, whereas fool’s gold is harder. A second test involved scraping the rock on a piece of white stone, such as ceramic. True gold leaves a yellow streak, whereas the residue left by fool’s gold is greenish black. In either case, a miner relied on tests to authenticate his finds—both his fortune and his future depended on the results.
Spiritually speaking, Christians often find themselves in a similar position to the California gold rushers of the mid-1800s. When confronted with various doctrines and religious teachings, all of which claim to be true, believers must be able to tell those that are biblically sound from those that are not.
As was true in the gold rush, just because something glitters doesn’t mean it’s good. Christians need to be equally wary of spiritual “fool’s gold.” They must not accept something as true without first testing it to see if it meets with God’s approval. If it fails the test, Christians should discard it as false and warn others also. But if it passes the test, in keeping with the truth of God’s Word, believers can embrace and endorse it wholeheartedly. California gold prospectors would cry “Eureka!” only when they found true gold. When it comes to spiritual things, Christians should be careful to do the same.
Those who have the Holy Spirit within (3:24) have the ability to discern the truth from error because the anointing of the Spirit teaches them about these things. The doctrinal test is outlined in this paragraph. Those who have the Spirit of God confess that Jesus, God’s Son, has come in bodily form. In other words, they acknowledge the full reality of the Incarnation. False prophets who deny these basic truths are antichrists. In analyzing the wide spectrum of teachers and books on spirituality available today, the test should be: What do they teach about the person of Jesus Christ?
Those who are Deceitful will…
1. Downplay Jesus
4:1 The test believers are to use is given in 4:2–3. The responsibility for testing the spirits rests not merely on scholars or church leaders but on every Christian. Do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit means that the believers should not believe everything they hear just because someone says it is a message from God. They should test the message to see if it is truly from the Lord. One way is to check to see if it matches God’s word, the Bible.
The most important test of all, however, is what they believe about Christ (4:2). Do they teach that Jesus is fully God and fully man? The first-century world was filled with many false prophets who were claiming to speak for God. The believers needed to apply these tests in order to discern truth from error.
The term “false prophets” is another name for the many antichrists. Whereas a true prophet is one who receives direct revelation from God, a false prophet only claims to have received direct revelation from God, but has not. The test is similar to that administered to false prophets in Deuteronomy 13:1–5; 18:15–22.
4:2 To know that a prophet has the Spirit of God, that is, if his message is truth from God, we must discover if he acknowledges that Jesus Christ became a human being. A true teacher of God believes that Jesus of Nazareth as revealed in the Gospels is the Messiah of God, God’s only and unique incarnation of himself. A true teacher must also teach that Jesus became a man with a human body. God the Son is forever fully God and fully man, though in immortal, incorruptible flesh. A teacher who denies Jesus’ full and true humanity proves that he is not from God.
4:3 The false prophets claimed to speak by the Spirit’s inspiration. In this context, refusing to acknowledge Jesus means denying Jesus’ true person as both God and man. Those who do that are not from God. Therefore, there is only one other source: the spirit operating in the false prophets is the spirit of the Antichrist (2:18), the spirit of deception (4:6). Pronouncements about false teachers, false messiahs, and the coming of the Antichrist should not have been news to Christians, for they had heard that these people were coming. Jesus had warned the disciples (Matthew 24:15, 24–26); the apostles, in turn, had warned the believers about false teaching (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3–12; 2 Peter 3:3–7).
The spirit of the Antichrist is already here refers to the hostile attitude of those who were denying that Christ had already been present. John does not seem to have been saying that the final Antichrist had come (see 2:18). As Paul wrote in 2 Thessalonians 2:7–8, the man of lawlessness has not yet been revealed, but his spirit is at work.
4:4 In contrast to those who are against God, John reassured his readers that they belong to God. Though these believers may have been feeling weak and confused, they had remained true to the faith and so had already won their fight with these false prophets. They had not been won over to the false point of view, nor had they abandoned the church. Christians don’t have to overpower false teachers to conquer them; rather, they can overcome false teachers and their teachings by recognizing them and then refusing to follow them. These believers had already done this; they had not succumbed to the false teachers. They had done this by the power of God’s Spirit within them, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world (referring to the Devil who inspires false prophets in their work of deception, see also 1 Timothy 4:1).
The Deceitful teachers will also….
2. Distribute Worldly Viewpoints
4:5 These people are the false prophets who belong to this world and not to God. In John’s Gospel and letters, the term world describes the world system of beliefs and the community of those who stand in opposition to God (see 4:3). The false teachers, being a part of the world system, speak from the world’s viewpoint and so find acceptance by the world that listens to them. False teachers are popular with the world because, like the false prophets of the Old Testament, they tell people what they want to hear. John warned that Christians who faithfully teach God’s word will not win popularity contests in the world. People don’t want to hear their sins denounced; they don’t want to listen to demands that they change their behavior. A false teacher will be well received by non-Christians.
The last test or what we can know about the deceitful is that they…..
3. Do not Listen to God
4:6 The we primarily refers to the apostles, who were the first true teachers of Christ, followed by many others who taught the truth of the gospel. The world gladly accepts and listens to false teachers, but the apostles found another audience—those who know God or were open to knowing God. The world, or those who do not belong to God, rejected the apostles’ message.
This provides another way to determine who has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception. According to the Gospel of John (John 14:17, 26; 15:26; 16:13–15), the Spirit of truth is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God and teaches the truth about Christ (see also 1 Peter 2:20, 25). All who are indwelt by the Spirit of truth and anointed by the Spirit can know the truth; God did not reserve that truth for only a special few. The spirit of deception comes from Satan, the “father of lies” (John 8:44), and leads people into error. Believers can distinguish between these “spirits” by the character and message of the one speaking.
In a world full of demonic false teaching, believers must constantly test the spirits to discern what is from God and what is not. Using the tests that John has outlined here, they can discern true spiritual gems from doctrinal “fool’s gold.” Like the noble Bereans, today’s saints are called to compare every spiritual message they encounter to the revealed standard of Scripture (Acts 17:11). Only then can they obey Jude’s admonition to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). By faithfully guarding the truth in the present, believers will preserve it in purity both for themselves and for future generations.
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