1 John 4:1 (NKJV) 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.
This admonition in our day falls on the deaf ears of the post-modernist. “Test the spirits? What makes you think anyone can test anything and arrive at ultimate truth?”, they argue. But, again, that is the clear command of the Scriptures as we are exposed to false prophets (cf. Matthew 24:11; Galatians 1:6-8; 2 Peter 2:2; Jude 3). John’s call to test the spirits is a call to the church of his day to understand that false prophets are the mouthpieces of hellish demonic forces and teachings and in particular in his day the heresies of the Gnostics. This is not a battle over intellectual ideas discussed over a cup of coffee at Starbucks but rather a fierce battle in which we face the most dangerous of foes who seek to destroy the very souls of men (Ephesians 6:12). This is a life and death battle of such proportions that it is hard for us to comprehend its scope. This is certainly not arguments over pendantics (how many angels can sit on the head of a pin) which have little to no consequence in light of eternity.
The Gnostics of John’s day taught that all that is physical is evil and only that which is spirit is good. They further taught that new truth could only be known piecemeal through spiritual emanations and that Christ was a spirit being, revealing himself as one such emanation in a spirit body with further truth about the spirit realm. John saw the errors of the Gnostics as an attack upon the person and work of Christ. He argues in verses 2 and 3 that those who deny the incarnation of Christ are deniers of the full humanity of Christ and therefore leaving the work of Christ on the cross ineffectual since a spirit being would be incapable of suffering and dying as our substitute for the penalty of sin.
The Apostle Paul dealing with the Gnostics in the book of Colossians also attacks the Gnostic idea that Christ is only a partial revelation of who God is, answering that Jesus Christ was in His incarnation the full revelation to man of who God is and thus Deity Himself not some emanation (Colossians 1:15). He is the creator of the physical and spiritual realm (vs.16) and in the end and in all things takes the preeminence (vv.17-18).
Neither Paul nor John got caught up in arguments that didn’t matter. They understood the battle and saw Gnosticism as an assault on the person and work of Christ. They understood the message of both the Old and New Testaments concerning God’s redemptive plan and the centrality of Christ in that plan as the message of both Testaments (Hebrews 8:5; 10:1; Colossians 2:17). We also see that during Christ’s ministry, the heart of conflict revolved around who He claimed to be (John 10:19-20; cf. Matthew 16:13-19; Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20).
The point is simple; all true Christian doctrine supports, explains, and exalts the person and work of Christ. So the test for all true doctrine is, will it stand the serious scrutiny of the person and work of Christ? Does the teaching in question diminish in any way the person and work of Christ? This is no general testing as all true Christian doctrine affects in some manner or other the person and work of Christ. The Greek word for “test” (dokimazō) means “put them to the acid test of truth as the metallurgist does his metals. If it stands the test like a coin, it is acceptable (dokimos, 2 Corinthians 10:18), otherwise it is rejected (adokimos, 1 Corinthians 9:27; 2 Corinthians 13:5-7″ (A.T. Robertson’s Word Pictures of the New Testament Vol. 6). If the teaching or doctrine set forth by any teacher cannot stand up to that kind of testing it is to be rejected out of hand as it misrepresents Christ and the Gospel message.
Most often doctrinal error is covert (under the guise of orthodox and/or Evangelical Christianity) and will have a form of godliness but it will in the end be a denial of the real power of the Gospel message (2 Timothy 3:5; Romans 2:20). As I mentioned, this is to be a serious scrutiny, like that of the Bereans (Acts 17:10-11), as if your spiritual life depended on it! Don’t be fooled by the seeming simplicity of the test.
-Michael Holtzinger