John mentions the Spirit of God in 1John 4:2, but what does this mean? If God **is** Spirit (John 4:24), what is **his** Spirit or the Spirit **of** God, through which he quickens our mortal bodies (Romans 8:11), strengthens our inner man (Ephesians 3:16), and reveals his mysteries or secrets to men (1Corinthians 2:9-10)? What is the Spirit of the Spirit who is God (1John 4:2; cp. John 4:24)?
No man has ever seen God at any time (John 1:18; 1John 4:12), nor would man be able to see him or even approach him, if that could be done physically (1Timothy 6:16). God is Spirit (John 4:24), and no one is able to see what is spirit. God is Light (1John 1:5) and light is spiritual. No one has ever actually seen light. What one sees is what light reveals or reflects. Light cannot be seen with our eyes. God is Love (1John 4:8), and love is a spiritual matter. One cannot hold love in one’s hands or see it with one’s eyes. It is understood through experience, as is light. So, what about spirit? Are we able to experience spirit. Of course, we do, but we don’t experience it through the normal five gates of our experience: sight, sound, touch, taste or scent. Both love and light are spiritual matters. They are experienced, but not directly through any of those five gates of our reality. We are able to witness and understand their effects, and they are objectively discerned. However, the spirit of man and the Spirit of God are subjectively discerned (1Corinthians 2:11). This is why the natural man is unable to discern the Spirit of God, which is experienced only by his children.
Paul seems to define the Spirit of God in the context of his letter to the Corinthians as the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16). It is the mind of Christ that reveals what “eye hasn’t seen or ears heard” (1Corinthians 2:9) and searches the deep things of God (1Corinthians 2:10), and this Spirit or mind of God / Christ enables the believer to judge all things, but how is the natural man able to judge spiritual matters, which he doesn’t know or hasn’t ever experienced (1Corinthians 2:14-15)? While he is able to witness the effects of light and love, because they are objective matters, how is he able to judge what is experienced by others only subjectively?
So, how would we know or understand the Spirit of God (1John 4:2), in the context of John saying “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (1John 4:1)? He tells us that we are able to discern between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man through understanding the message. If the message is, “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” that message or spirit is of God.
If the message doesn’t show “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” (1John 4:3), it is not a message from God. Rather, it is a message from men (cp. John 5:39-43)! Men are prone to believe such a message, because folks naturally want to believe they are able to save themselves by following rules of behavior, which they claim come from God for that purpose. This is the spirit of antichrist.[1]
During the first century AD, this was the new doctrine of Judaism that was developed by the Jerusalem authorities to counteract the Gospel of Christ. Today, it appears in many forms, but all forms deny that the power of Christ in the believer (Colossians 1:27) is enough to save him and able to teach the child of God what is necessary for his life and walk with God. All forms of the modern spirit of antichrist will preach something other than Christ is needed for salvation. It might be their church, their message that must be believed, or their laws that must be obeyed,[2] and the list goes on.
In fact, the modern antichrists have convinced many believers that antichrist is someone or something that will come in the future, but John told the believers in the first century AD that antichrist existed then, in their day, and, indeed, many antichrists went about to deceive many believing communities (1John 4:3; cp. 1John 2:18). The point is, this is a spiritual matter that is experienced and spiritually discerned and is understood only by believers, i.e. those who have the Spirit of God (the mind of Christ). It is a spiritual struggle to discern between the truth of God and the lies of men, but the Lord has given his children the means to confidently face the antichrists without fear and be victorious in the battle for the truth.
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[1] See my previous studies: The Myth of the Unsuccessful ‘Messiah’ and The False Argument of Blamelessness! and Antichrist – Salvation Without Christ.
[2] Of course, they preach that the laws required for salvation are the Laws of God (found in the Mosaic Law), but the Old Covenant has been abolished in favor of the New—which is Christ in you, your hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). And, Christ has only two laws: love one another as he has loved us, and believe him, that he was sent from God. Anything more than this is antichrist.
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