Narrative Commentary for Sunday, 27 July 2014 with Scriptures 1 John 4:1-6 & John 14:15-17

Narrative Commentary for Sunday, 27 July 2014 with Scriptures 1 John 4:1-6 & John 14:15-17
Scripture Texts:
1 John 4:  Don’t Believe Everything You Hear
1 My dear friends, don’t believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.
2-3 Here’s how you test for the genuine Spirit of God. Everyone who confesses openly his faith in Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who came as an actual flesh-and-blood person—comes from God and belongs to God. And everyone who refuses to confess faith in Jesus has nothing in common with God. This is the spirit of antichrist that you heard was coming. Well, here it is, sooner than we thought!
4-6 My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world’s language and the world eats it up. But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception.
John 14:  The Spirit of Truth
15-17 “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!
Preaching text: 1 John 4:1-6 - Testing the spirits
Gospel: John 14:15-17 - The Spirit of truth
In the context of 1 John, there were many ways to be spiritual. The basic issue, according to chapter 4, is whether spiritual claims are centered in the Word that Jesus embodied. For the writer, the incarnate Word cannot be reduced to spiritual abstraction. Divine love is not simply an idea. It takes tangible form in the life Jesus lived and the death that he died. In John’s gospel and epistles, the death of the human being named Jesus is the most radical expression of divine love for the world. If God’s Word was not embodied, there is no reason for faith to be embodied.
The writer uses the word “antichrist” for the view he opposes. In the popular imagination, the antichrist is a political figure who is coming to dominate the world at the end of the age. But in 1 John, that is not the case. The Greek prefix “anti” means both “against” and “substitute for.” The writer uses the term “antichrist” for a form of the gospel that circulated in his own time. It is “against” Christ because it offers a thoroughly spiritualized “substitute for” Christ. And the writer notes that the world finds the disembodied message more appealing than the incarnate one.
Yet the passage says that believers “overcome” or “conquer” the power of the antichrist. Note that there is no description of apocalyptic destruction. Instead, victory is won wherever faith is professed and lived out in love (1 John 5:1, 4).
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John Wesley’s Notes-Commentary:
1 John 4:1-6
Verse 1
[1] Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
Believe not every spirit — Whereby any teacher is actuated.
But try the spirits — By the rule which follows. We are to try all spirits by the written word: "To the law and to the testimony!" If any man speak not according to these, the spirit which actuates him is not of God.
Verse 2
[2] Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
Every spirit — Or teacher.
Which confesseth — Both with heart and voice.
Jesus Christ, who is come in the flesh, is of God — This his coming presupposes, contains, and draws after it, the whole doctrine of Christ.
Verse 3
[3] 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.
Ye have heard — From our Lord and us, that it cometh.
Verse 4
[4] Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
Ye have overcome these seducers, because greater is the Spirit of Christ that is in you than the spirit of antichrist that is in the world.
Verse 5
[5] They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
They — Those false prophets.
Are of the world — Of the number of those that know not God.
Therefore speak they of the world — From the same principle, wisdom, spirit; and, of consequence, the world heareth them - With approbation.
Verse 6
[6] We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.
We — Apostles.
Are of God — Immediately taught, and sent by him.
Hereby we know — From what is said, 1 John 4:2-6.
John 14:15-17
Verse 15
[15] If ye love me, keep my commandments.
If ye love me, keep my commandments — Immediately after faith he exhorts to love and good works.
Verse 16
[16] And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
And I will ask the Father — The 21st verse, John 14:21, shows the connection between this and the preceding verses.
And he will give you another Comforter — The Greek word signifies also an advocate, instructer, or encourager.
Another — For Christ himself was one.
To remain with you for ever — With you, and your followers in faith, to the end of the world.
Verse 17
[17] Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
The Spirit of truth — Who has, reveals, testifies, and defends the truth as it is in Jesus.
Whom the world — All who do not love or fear God, cannot receive, because it seeth him not - Having no spiritual senses, no internal eye to discern him; nor consequently knoweth him.
He shall be in you — As a constant guest. Your bodies and souls shall be temples of the Holy Ghost dwelling in you.
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