Basket of Figs
Published 2002-01
Bud Powell
Trinity Covenant RCUS, Colorado Springs
That’s
the Truth
![MC900059739[1]](thatstru2002-01C_files/image002.gif)
Beloved,
believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because
many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the
Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the
flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ
is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist,
whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the
world. I John 4:1-3
Presumably, the Holy Spirit
was saying something meaningful when he had John pen the words, “Every spirit
that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.”
Do words mean
something? Is it possible to convey truth by means of words? John
(and the Holy Spirit) evidently thought so, for they call the church to examine
spirits by means of the words.
Satan resists confession,
for he uses words differently from God. Satan hates the wisdom and truth
of God and denies that words confess truth. “God didn’t mean you will
die,” he told Eve. Satan uses words to manipulate people away from the
truth of God. God told Adam and Eve one time that if they ate the Tree in
the midst of the Garden, they would die.
Nowadays the devil tells
folks that the story of Adam and Eve is a “literary device” – that the whole
first chapter of Genesis was a literary device, and that the days of creation
did not happen that way. This would have been too transparent for Adam
and Eve, and the devil was too subtle and clever to get caught in a lie like
that in those days. Adam and Eve knew better—they knew that they were real and
that God had spoken to them. So the devil did not question THAT God had
spoken, he simply tried to twist God’s words and deny the truth of them.
In fact, he accused God of using words to manipulate, just as the devil does.
(Gen. 3:5)
The test by which the
prophets of God are known and evil prophets are revealed is in the phrase
written by John: “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is not of God.”
I. There are evil
spirits, and they try to turn people away from the truth. They use people
to spread their message. “There are many false prophets gone out into the
world,” is the way John puts it. There is a real and present danger to
people because of these false prophets. They do not come from God, but
from another spirit, the devil, who is also called Appolyon, or the Destroyer,
according to Rev. 9:11. Those who listen to them do not follow God or
Jesus Christ and do not have salvation, but are destroyed.
II. These false
prophets are not willing to confess the truth concerning Jesus Christ.
They may speak of Christ. They may profess to love Jesus, but they deny
the truth concerning Him. They imagine another sort of Jesus Christ than
the One who is revealed by the Apostles, including Paul. Every word of
the statement concerning Jesus Christ is important in John’s test of
orthodoxy. They are just as important for us today as they were in the
day John wrote them.
III. What are the
words that John uses? What is the doctrine that false prophets reject and
show themselves to be Antichrist? “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” is
the formula. To reject the meaning of these words is to be lost and
alienated from God. These are the words, with their meaning:
A. “Jesus.” A name is used to identify a
particular person. The person that John is speaking of is Jesus of
Nazareth, who was born of Mary in Bethlehem, according to the Gospels. If
this is not the meaning of what John wrote, then words mean nothing at all.
B. “Christ” This name was rich in the
hopes and expectation of the Old Testament. The word “Christ” is the
Greek word for “anointed” and corresponds to the Hebrew word for
“Messiah.” John is simply affirming that Jesus of Nazareth was the
Messiah promised to Adam, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and throughout the
Old Testament.
C. “Is come.” Come from
where? One cannot “Come” unless He existed elsewhere, and this is simply
the truth that John teaches throughout his writings. He is saying that
the Christ, who is Jesus of Nazareth, is the pre-existent Wisdom and Word of
God, the Son of God, who was with God and who was God in the beginning, as John
affirms in Chapter One of his Gospel. Saint Paul said that He is the
“Lord of Glory” (I Cor. 2:8). Jesus Himself speaks of the glory that He
had with the Father before the world was (John 17:5).
D. “In the Flesh,” simply means that the Son,
who was with the Father before the world was, really became a true man in
history. It is not a parable, nor an allegory, but a wonderful,
incomprehensible mystery. God Himself came in the flesh, in the Person of
the Son of God, to fulfill the covenant that God had made with Abraham.
God had
promised Abraham that He, God, would fulfill the covenant Himself. In
accordance with the way covenants were made in old times, animals were divided
and the parties passed between the parts. But in the case with the
covenant with Abraham, only God passed between the parts, signifying that He
alone would be surety for the covenant. (See Genesis 15 and Isaiah
59).
Through
faith Abraham became the heir of the world (Rom. 4:13), receiving through the
Promise that which Adam had lost by his sin. This Promise is fulfilled in
Christ (Galatians 3:29). The essence of the Promise was that God would
take His elect unto Himself and be their God, would freely forgive their sins,
would give them His Spirit, would write His law upon the hearts of His people,
preserve them through the sufferings of this present life, and take them to
eternal glory and blessing when their sufferings are past. The zeal of
God Himself would accomplish these things.
