NOTES for Jo1 4:1-6
The world is filled with spiritual phenomena, events, and teachings. All this is very diverse, because even from one spirit — the Holy Spirit — very different gifts and fruits can proceed. But the Holy Spirit is not the only spirit acting in the world. How are we to understand, how are we to discern, from what spirit one or another phenomenon or teaching comes?
The apostle John offers a criterion that at first glance is somewhat unexpected. Did everything that the Spirit of God revealed to people (in the Old Testament, for example) always speak of Jesus Christ? Directly, it would seem, no. But Jesus says to the disciples: "Search the Scripture, because it speaks about Me." And the apostle Paul calls the Old Testament a "tutor leading to Christ." In fact, the chain of covenants that forms the axis of sacred history gains meaning and purpose only when it leads to the fullness of the union of God and man, and therefore to the God-manhood of Christ, to the Son of God come in the flesh.
Does this criterion "work" now, when spiritual phenomena have become more diverse than ever before, and when every teaching in one way or another is forced to reckon with the phenomenon of Christianity? I think it does "work," as a necessary but not sufficient criterion. A teaching that comes from God will necessarily affirm the God-manhood of Christ, but "mimicry" is also possible, when a "spirit not from God" teaches: "Yes, Christ, of course, but we still need..." And here we cannot do without a special gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of discerning spirits.