In the very last verse of last week’s reading, the apostle John introduced the Holy Spirit for the first time. He wrote, “Whoever [cherishes his expectations (my translation)] abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” God has given us the Holy Spirit, by whom we know that God abides in us. As Scripture says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Scripture also refers to the Holy Spirit as “the guarantee—the down payment—of our inheritance.” St. John will speak more of the Holy Spirit in the remainder of this letter, since His purpose is that we have unity and fellowship with God the Father, Jesus God’s Son, and Jesus’ Church—a unity and fellowship which can only come through the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Since John has gotten on the subject of the Holy Spirit, he warns us not to assume that every spirit comes from God, but to test them to see if they are from God. There are a couple ways this could be faithfully interpreted. One could understand the word spirit as referring to creatures without flesh and bones such as angels or demons and their spiritual influence on people or one could understand the word spirit as referring to a person in his inner spiritual character.

With either interpretation, the testing has to do with determining whether a person by his words and conduct belongs to God or belongs to Satan. For even though God desires to be in unity and fellowship with the world through faith in His Son who cleanses from sin, Satan desires to disrupt and break that fellowship and unity from happening through lies, deceit, and false teaching.

So, we test what we hear and see from others. Does a person confess Jesus and confess God’s Word and does he cherish God’s expectations? God’s expectations include the cherishing of His Word, the confession of sins, and faith in the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sins. So, does a person’s words (does a person’s ideas) align with God’s Word? Does a person’s conduct align with God’s Word? Again, not that the person is perfect—because part of words and conduct aligning with God’s Word involves repentance of sins and faith in Jesus.

God’s children “test the spirits.” We see where people—especially those who are or claim to be shepherds and teachers in the church—align with or contradict God’s Word. Scripture commends the Bereans, because when Paul came preaching the Gospel, they didn’t just believe it because it sounded so good, but they tested Paul’s preaching against the Old Testament and found Paul to be preaching the truth. We compare what people say with what God’s Word says.

In the context of John’s letters, there was a man named Cerinthus who was teaching all kinds of false things about Jesus. He said that Jesus really wasn’t God the Son and therefore His death on the cross didn’t do anything. Certainly, these false teachings stirred up a lot of strife in the churches being deceived by them. Cerinthus and his followers seemed to have left the church, but his group was still trying to entice faithful believers away from faith in Christ and unity with God and Jesus’ Church. One can imagine many lies and slanderous things being said in false witness against the church by Cerinthus and his followers, that revealed a lack of love and a hatred toward God’s people.

In our own day, John’s exhortation for us to test the spirits is vitally important because there are false teachers and errors being spread everywhere. The “spirit of the antichrist” is alive and well. It invades churches that don’t believe sin matters all that much. It invades churches that confess God’s Word with their lips, but deny it in practice by denying God’s teaching on Baptism and Holy Communion. It invades churches that are so busy fighting one another and everyone trying to have things their way that they forget to love one another. The spirit of the antichrist invades anywhere—whether in a church building, in a book, on tv, or on the radio—where the cherishing of God’s Word, the confession of sins, and trust in the cleansing blood of Christ crucified and raised for our sins is kept hidden or is outright denied, and where the world’s ideas and values are proclaimed and practiced. So, we test the spirits, comparing what people say and do to the truth of God’s Word. And thus, we learn from God’s Word whether a teaching is truly from God or from the world.

To help us remain firm in Christ, John reminds God’s children of who we are in Christ. He says, “You are from God and have overcome [conquered] them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” What a tremendous comfort to be reminded that we are from God, and that we have overcome the false teachers in the world because Jesus and His Word have overcome the lies and deceptions of the devil, the world, and even our sinful natures.

Knowing and trusting that we are from God—that our fellowship and unity is with the Father and His Son Jesus and Jesus’ Church joined together in the Holy Spirit—we are energetically encouraged to love one another. John says this is who we are—God’s people. As God’s people this is what we do—love one another. The greatest fruit of the Spirit is love. The two great things God expects us to do as His beloved children is to love Him entirely and to love our neighbors—especially our brothers and sisters in Christ—as ourselves. Do we—who claim to love God and Jesus—also love others whom God loves and whom Jesus laid down His life to redeem? Because if God loves a person and I refuse to love that person, then I reveal by my refusal to love that I’m not born of God, and therefore, I’m not in unity and fellowship with God, with Jesus, or with His Church—and the Holy Spirit would not be in me.

And yet, love is hard—even impossible—for sinners, as we are conceived in this world locked into our own selfish wants and desires. We are conceived in this world looking out for ourselves. We are conceived in this world curved in on ourselves. If others are happy, that’s fine so long as I benefit from it somehow. That is the natural sinful order of things. And so, to break from that—to truly love—is impossible for sinners to do. As sinners, we wouldn’t even know what love is, except, God has revealed love to us.

“We love because He first loved us.” As sinners, on our own, we are totally incapable of showing actual, real love to God and to one another. Love would not be a concept on the radar of mankind, except, God has shown us love.

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.” We sinful humans often mistake love as a feeling. Sure, feelings may be involved but feelings don’t define love. That’s part of what the “love is love” crowd misunderstands. They assume that feelings automatically have to be true. Feelings can be deceiving. Feelings can grow and fade and grow and fade and grow. The world says, “Listen to your heart.” Scripture says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.” Love is much more than a feeling; it’s an action. God showed His love for us not through warm fuzzies that felt sorry we were on our way to hell. God manifested His love by sending Jesus so that we might live through Him—though faith in His death and resurrection for our salvation from hell. God has shown us that love is sacrificial and for the benefit of others.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Sinful mankind can’t begin to love on our own, because sinful mankind only knows selfishness. Love begins with God. Love begins with Jesus shedding His own blood on the altar of the cross, making satisfaction for our sins, through which we are set free from slavery to sin and empowered to actually love by laying down our lives in service to one another every day.

In the portion of First John we heard today, John writes, “By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.” When doubt assails us, we can remember that we have been given the Spirit. When is the point in time we can concretely know that we received the Spirit? Baptism. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is a blessed gift by which the Lord gives us forgiveness, rescue from death and the devil, and eternal salvation through Jesus’ cleansing blood.

Having been given the gift of His Spirit, God’s children will, as John wrote earlier in this letter, “walk in the same way in which Jesus walked.” It’s the natural result of those who are in Christ. Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in Him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” We heard today, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” For again, as Jesus says, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Baptism into Christ brings us into life and unity and fellowship with God and Jesus’ Church.

John recalls that no one has seen God the Father. And yet, “If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.” We can’t see God with our eyes; we walk by faith and not by sight. Similarly, we can’t serve God directly. God’s perfect love abiding in us leads us to serve God by loving one another. Jesus said, “Whatever you did to the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” And Jesus says that the opposite is also true. “Whatever you did not do to the least of these my brothers, you did not do it to me.” So then, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” But to love our brothers and sisters in Christ whom we have seen shows a love for God whom we haven’t seen. 

One who has been baptized into Christ, who confesses his sins, who trusts the cleansing blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, who seeks to walk in the light as He is in the light, who seeks to abide in love, God abides in him and he in God. God desires that we firmly believe the love He has for us in Christ Jesus, that we fear not eternal punishment, but seek to live in His perfect love of God. So then, we don’t love one another out of fear of God’s wrath, but we love one another out of a godly desire to love one another. The love of God given to us and working in us bears this inevitable fruit in His children: we love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is something God expects of His people; and by His Holy Spirit within us, trusting the love of God in Christ for us, confessing our sins and failures, receiving His cleansing forgiveness, we do love one another as the family of God that we are. Amen.