Spirit of Truth and Spirit of Deceit (1 John 4: 4-6)

SPIRIT OF TRUTH AND SPIRIT OF DECEIT (1 JOHN 4: 4-6):

After differentiating between Spirit of God and Spirit of Antichrist, Apostle John continues to write to let the believers know about the Spirit of Truth and Spirit of Deceit. Apostle John address the believers as little children as they are the children of God, and Apostle John would have felt that they are ignorant of the things that are addressed. He writes to them that they are from God and have overcome the Spirit of Antichrist, because He who is in them is greater than he who is in the world. Apostle John tells the believers that they had received the Spirit of God once they had repented and started believing the Lord with the true heart, to reconcile with Him. Spirit of God instructs and condemns the wrong for He knew everything, even the depths of God as well as human beings. So, the Spirit of God is greater than anyone or anything in the world, especially the devil who seeks the opportunity to snare the believers.

Apostle John further writes that the Antichrist is from the World and therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them. The principles and the teachings of the Antichrist is not from Word of God and thereby not from God, who is the source and solution for everything in the world. The Antichrist belongs to the world and they speak something that is connected to the worldly knowledge, pleasures and gratifications that are immediate but temporary, and thereby the people of the world easily accepts and follows it without checking out its values that lasts forever.

Apostle John again stresses that the believers are from God, by including himself among believers. No one could proclaim Jesus as Lord unless they are from God, knowing His attributes and need of the self. Apostle John further writes that whoever knows God, listens to the apostles and whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to apostles. The Apostles teach about Jesus Christ who came into the world to save all from sinfulness, and there is no great hope for mankind other than accepting, believing, and committing their life to Jesus, to escape from the constant glitch of sin and to reconcile with God genuinely. Only those who from God, could listen and humbly accept the sacrificial death of Jesus and follow his footsteps in the walks of life by listening to the Apostles, as they alone know the truth and have the Spirit of truth. People who want God just for fulfilling their own desires don’t humble themselves before God by acknowledging their weakness and ideal nature of God, thereby doesn’t listen to them as they are captured by the Spirit of error.

Stimulations for Self-Reflection:

1.      How the author addresses believers? Why?

2.      Where the believers are from? How?

3.      What the believers had overcome? How?

4.      Who is the one who is in the believers and who is the one who is in the world? Who is greater? How?

5.      What does the antichrist do?

6.      Why the world listen to the antichrist?

7.      What does one who knows God do? Why?

8.      What does one who is not from God do? Why?

9.      How the Spirit of truth and error could be known?

10.  How we can overcome the worldly things and be in truth?