Testing the Spirit

 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.  This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

     It's often times strange how the Lord works.  I had an entirely different blog planned for today, but it was accidentally deleted, right after posting, so I decided to go with something different. The above passage is from today's reading in the epistle and has a strong message for us as Christians and especially for those of us of the Orthodox Faith. In his first universal letter to the Church, John warns us of the false prophets that have gone out into the world to deceive and to destroy the faith of people who would otherwise come to a fullness of faith in Christ. He warns us that this is the spirit of the antichrist. We can see this in the world today, of how the world has turned from the Christian faith to a more occultist and demonic way of life. 

    So often today we see people denying the reality of Christ and His Church, we see people supporting ecumenism and the belief that all faiths are equal, we see people denying the virgin birth, and in some if not most protestant denominations, the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. All of these things are from the false prophets. Just as I discussed other day in a previous blog about the false teachers of the prosperity gospel and the teachers of Arianism and Nestorianism, these too are of the spirit of the antichrist. 

    Since the dawn of the Church on the day of Pentecost, the church has dealt with heresies and false teachings. Paul dealt with many in his writings to the various churches that can be found in Holy Scripture. The apostles dealt with many in Acts and the church continues to deal with them even now. What then is our response to them? We must test the spirit. I recently heard Father Peter Heers speak on this and his teachings have rang clear in my ears since then. If it does not meet the experience of the Christian witness from the time of the beginning of the church, then it is heresy. We can say this about the teachings of the rapture, which was not taught at the dawn of the church. We can say that about once saved always saved, which again was not a position of the early church and still is not a position of the church at the present day. If it does not fit with the Christian witness and the experience of the Church throughout all ages we should reject it.  

    We as Christians should have no part in heresy, we should flee from it. St. John himself did not spend time in the presence of heretics. St. Paisios and Porphyrios would not meet with the Pope when he wanted to have a meeting with them. Throughout history, Christians have not debated, argued or even conversed with heretics. Why so should we now? We should live our lives in service to Christ to the fullest so that our light shines. Jesus discusses this very thing in Matthew 5:14-16. We are the light of the world, we are not meant to be of the world, but outside the world, being the city on the hill, the light that is not hidden in a basket. 

Amen.