Testing the Spirits

…choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living.  But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord [Yahweh] (Joshua 24:15). 

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 Jn. 4:1).

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At any given time, there are three spirits in operation:  the spirit of man, the Spirit of God, and the spirits of evil.  It seems to me to be important that we are able to distinguish which spirit is operating in ourselves, in other people, and in circumstances.  Fortunately, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the ability to discern the spirits.

If we cannot discern the spirits, as John instructs us, we cannot know the truth or deception behind the voices we hear.  In the Old Testament, the prophets were challenged by false prophets, confusing the people as to who was speaking the truth.  In 2 Chronicles 18, we see an example of lying spirits trying to deceive, “in the name of the Lord.”  In the New Testament, Jesus was teaching through the Holy Spirit, while the Pharisees were teaching out of their own spirits (Mark 7:13).  The confusion that results from such a mixture of voices requires discernment from the Holy Spirit. 

When Jesus’ disciples wanted to call down the fire from heaven on the Samaritans who rejected them, Jesus told them, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of” (Luke 9:55).  But later, in the Acts of the Apostles, we see a major outpouring of the fire of the Holy Spirit in Samaria – the disciples wanted judgment, but Jesus’ plan was to send the Holy Spirit.  He was able to ‘test the spirits’ and rebuke the spirit of man in favor of the Spirit of God.

So how do we know which spirit is speaking to us through the circumstances around us or through other people?  Fortunately, John tells us plainly how to test the spirits.  Actually, the whole book of I John, if studied slowly and reflectively, can tell us how to “test the spirits.”  I would have to copy his whole book to do justice to John’s thought here, but it is more profitable for someone to read the Scripture than to read my paraphrase.  So, regretfully, I must skip most of the first chapter of I John.

Explicitly, John’s direction on testing the spirits begins with v. 20 of Chapter 1:  But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.  Who is the liar?  It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ…No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

John teaches us two things here:  (1) we have an “anointing,” or witness within, from the Holy Spirit, and (2) the spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.  There is an internal and an external test here – one within our hearts and one from without. 

John says further, “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.”  At one point, someone asked one of the Saints, “What should we believe?”  “That which has been believed from the beginning,” answered the Saint.  If we study Church history from the beginning, if we read the fathers of the Church – that generation which immediately followed the Apostles – we will begin to know what has always been believed about Jesus Christ.  If someone in the 20^th century “discovers” something that was never before “known” about Jesus Christ, and that discovery negates 2000 years of what the saints and prophets have believed, that discovery cannot be true. 

John goes on to say, “This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood…we are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us…they are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.”  Actually, John is echoing Jesus’ own words to the Pharisees here.  He told them that the reason they did not believe Him was that they did not belong to God, “for the one who belongs to God hears the words that God speaks.” 

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God (I Jn. 4:15)….Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God…(5:1)….and it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth (5:6)….anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart (5:10).

…the whole world is under the control of the evil one…[but] the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.  And we are in him who is true—even in his Son, Jesus Christ.  He is the true God and eternal life.

 Those who believe that Jesus is the Christ may disagree on minor points – even vehemently.  They may belong to different denominations and reject the teachings of a church not their own.  But still, they may have “fellowship with one another,” in the words of John, and with the Father because they are brought together in the Person of the Son, who “breaks down the dividing wall” between us. 

If we love one another and walk in the light, the Spirit of God will teach us all truth.  I have experienced this fellowship with many, many Christians not of my own denomination.  A priest who once experienced a Full Gospel service in another church could not wait to get out of there (his own human spirit was operating), until the Holy Spirit spoke in his heart:  Ask them about Jesus.”  After the service was over, he began to ask individuals who Jesus was to them.  The answers he received convinced him that the Holy Spirit was operating in that church, and he repented of his own judgment.  There were two “witnesses” operating here:  the witness within his own heart and the witness without – the testimony about Jesus Christ.  Fortunately, both spirits overrode his natural ‘human’ spirit.

The next time we are tempted, or led, by our own spirits to follow another god, we need to pull back a moment to listen to the Voice within and to the voices without:  Who do you say Jesus Christ is?  If the voice without echoes what has been believed from the beginning about Jesus Christ, if the Spirit within us testifies to the truth, we will know whether the other spirit has come from God or from somewhere else.