test Archives - Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling https://nouthetic.org/tag/test/ Welcome to the Mid-America Institute for Nouthetic Studies, founded by Jay Adams. INS provides training and resources for biblical counseling. Wed, 09 Nov 2022 12:44:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.2 https://nouthetic.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/cropped-Favicon-32x32.png test Archives - Institute for Nouthetic Studies | Biblical Counseling https://nouthetic.org/tag/test/ 32 32 The Test https://nouthetic.org/the-test/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-test https://nouthetic.org/the-test/#respond Wed, 09 Nov 2022 06:00:56 +0000 https://www.nouthetic.org/blog/?p=5239 There are so many “false prophets” in the church today that unless one knows (and applies) the biblical test for determining who is (is not) one of them, he is quite likely to be deceived by their teaching. What is the test? In 1 John 4 we find it plainly spelled out—yet wrongly understood. The ...

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]]> There are so many “false prophets” in the church today that unless one knows (and applies) the biblical test for determining who is (is not) one of them, he is quite likely to be deceived by their teaching. What is the test?

In 1 John 4 we find it plainly spelled out—yet wrongly understood. The apostle wrote

Test the spirits to see whether they are from God .  .  . 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.

So, many go ahead and try to determine whether or not a group is Christian by asking whether they believe Jesus came in the flesh which (of course) is the wrong approach. By that test Romanism is a true religion!

“Wrong? How could that be wrong? Isn’t that the test John just set forth?”

No. It isn’t.  The flesh test is for Gnosticism and similar errors. These people denied the physical existence of Christ’s body—claimed it was a phantom.

“Well, then, what is the test?”

It is found later in the passage:

. . . whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

The first test is the specific application of the general test to a particular heresy (Gnosticism), of which the latter (v. 6)  is the general test that applies to every heresy.  The test is, then

WHETHER OR NOT ONE LISTENS TO THE APOSTLES

Today, that means, whether they agree with the apostolic Word (in the Bible) on any given issue. When the apostolic Word is applied to Gnosticism this doctrine is proven false (see John 1:14;  1 John 1: 1,2).

 

 

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