I John, 4:4-6

Alright, I guess we'll go ahead and just start with the passage, unless there's anyone who has a pre-comment. Alright, so we'll start reading together from number four. Don't read the numbers though. I haven't figured out how to do the superscript thing, but we'll figure it out. All right, ready? One, two, three, go.

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world, therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Okay. Let's charge right ahead. First word in the passage, this seems like a good place to start. You here is, who am I? In the King James Version, it's translated ye because it's a plural second person pronoun. So, in today's modern idiom, we might say y'all or all y'all or something like that, but we don't really have a proper term for the second person plural. Just odd how English used to be a great language, now it's just a pretty good language. We've kind of lost a lot of our, you know, grammatical fiber over the years. So anyway, yeah, that's talking to the group, talking to the plural.

R is este, this is the usual word for to be in the present tense in the second person, plural number and indicative mood. The present continuous tense would be a good way to render this. As in, the simple present tense in English is, I go, and the present continuous tense is, I am going. Now, the present tense in Greek is really more akin to our present continuous tense, as we all have probably heard at least once or twice here. So, we could translate it, you are right now and are continuing to be from God.

So, he's not suggesting something that is not a statement of fact. So, anyway, and then also the significance of the fact that it's in the indicative mood is that it's in the mood of truth. It's the mood of a fact. So, it's not something hypothetical, it's not in the subjunctive, but it's indicative.

It's right now, you are, as a fact, from God. Not you may be from God, not you will be from God, but you are from God. from here is ek and it can be from, of, out from, or out of. It can mean that something is locationally out of something or it can more commonly refer to, and in this place especially refer to, your place of origin. So, essentially what he's implying is that our origin as believers is from God, where we're from is from God, or of God, sorry, the believers of God, or if you like, God is his place of origin.

And I thought this idea of origins is something that's so culturally awake in us, and I don't know if that's been the case always, but I think it I think it very well has been. I think it's kind of a human thing to identify with our origin. Even today, it's an important part of our identity.

Someone will say, I'm from New York, or I'm from the South. Maybe it's from a region. In Korea, we noticed people would say, oh, I'm from this region of Korea. And gosh, the country looks so small to us as Americans. You're 35 miles west of that place and yet that specific origin means something very distinct that they're going to try to live out in their personality or try to display.

So, it'll be a part of the definition of what is acceptable and what isn't to us a lot of the time, our origins. For instance, the example used here is If you're from Southeast Asia or maybe some other places in Asia, you might think nothing of eating chilled monkey brains. But in the West, that kind of doesn't fit just right with us. So our origins will kind of define what our tastes are, what's acceptable to us.

And in our culture today, since there's really no ethnic attachment to the word American, we take our idea from our ancestors. Say, well, I'm 50% Norwegian, 25% Scottish, and 25% British, with a little bit of mutt worked in all the way through there. And for me at least, and I think for a lot of Americans, hunting down those roots and then finding out what those roots mean and what the traditions of those roots are, becomes a big part of who we are, and how we act, and what we do, and how we view our families, and how we view relationships. And I think it's a really important thing that this is the divine trump card of our origin. Our origin, we may be part Norwegian, part this, part that, or we might be all. There's a good number of people who are all Italian, and everyone all the way up their line is married Italians, kept it within or or irish or whatever You know, and that's been a big part. I mean, I think the movie, what is it, Big Fat Greek Wedding really clearly displayed how some cultures, even in America, have maintained that ethnic and purpose of origin.

Well, this is the trump card to us. We are of God, first and foremost, and we look for our culture and our standards in this book. So, I just thought it was an interesting aside. So, this verse is telling us about our position in Christ. Whereas before we operated from our flesh, now we operate from our position in Christ, resting with Him in the heavenlies. This is what is implied in our being from God. We have been crucified with Christ and made into a new creation. Now we are no longer from any earthly place, but we are of a supernatural origin.

And all these passages are just a light sampling of this idea. And I'd be remiss not to kind of hammer away at this ewer of God, because it's actually going to come back. He starts each verse that we're going to look at today with a statement of origin. So, does anyone have anything to add or any questions? I know it's something that we've covered at length in other lessons, but I just thought it was an opportune time to note it. No?

All right, little children. This is one of the things I love about reading 1 John. This is technion. It's the diminutive of the more common word or the word that we're used to seeing for children, which is technon. And that's why it's translated as little children rather than simply just children. He's saying little children.

It was a very common term of endearment. A mother would say it to her child, and very commonly a teacher would say it to his disciples, which is the relationship that's highlighted here, obviously, between John and his readers. So John's writing almost sounds like that of a doting parent. It seems sometimes, like as we read this, we only go through a couple of verses at a time, and it seems like every week, beloved, little children, my children, beloved children, just again and again and again. It's just, I mean, in our modern way, if we were writing, we'd almost feel as if we were being too redundant to say it that much. But I think that's just how much he wants to emphasize who and what they are.

Alright, so now we get to have overcome. This word is nakao, and it means to conquer or to prevail. or to come off as the victor. It is derived from the word Nikkei, or sometimes we say Nike, which is where we get the brand from, but I think the way we pronounce the Greek generally will come out as Nikkei, which is the name for the winged god of victory in Greek mythology. So it's all derived out of this idea of the god of victory. You've seen him. He's got wings on his... yeah. So he's a big guy. Big victory. This is not a soft word for victory. It doesn't just mean, you know, won or, you know, just by a hair or, you know, by a nose. But rather, in our modern day, we would say the battle is won by a landslide. Yeah. Won with a great victory.

It was also important that it's in the perfect tense, which means what? That's right. Yeah, okay, so it's a past completed action, has continuing effects on into the future and in the present. It means we're not being offered victory, but the victory is perfectly and completely won and never needs to be repeated, or in English, have overcome. is clear. That's the English version of the perfect tense. We have overcome. It is done. And not may overcome, not will overcome, not anything but have overcome. It's a finished fact. It's done. It's one for us in Christ. Let's see, I haven't been turning my pages here. And I'll just read that off, I guess.

It is also related to Hupernicke in Romans 3.37, where he says, No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. That's Hupernicke, which is like, over, the word Huper means more than or over than, makes it a superlative. So, and then this word, Nicke, conquerors. So, that's the, that's where we're working from.

So then the question is, it's the usual third person pronoun, it is well translated them, but who or what could John be talking about? Any guesses? Who do you think might be them in this situation? You have overcome them. We've got the passage here, 1 through 3 here. This is just the immediate context. Does someone want to read this either out of your Bible or off the board? Just for 1 through 3?

Beloved, 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. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. Yep, I think that's absolutely it. I think it's those false teachers.

And as Josiah so perfectly pointed out with that word that I can't pronounce, that he uses these words, the spirit of the antichrist and the spirit of God to kind of refer in retrospect to the people who are teaching these things. Does anybody recall what that word was offhand? I was writing a study and I just wanted to put it up there because it's so funny to look at a word that's so impossible to pronounce. Did anybody else like leave that day and try to pronounce that word three or four times just to see if you could do it? I couldn't.

Okay, sorry, so we'll move on to because. Because, Hodi, it's a logical conjunction that illustrates cause or reason. It is well translated because, as it is the conjunction that is describing the grounds to us the grounds on which we have overcome those who have the spirit of the Antichrist. So, I didn't do a whole lot of extra digging into the word because, because I think the word because is a good translation of because.

So, there it is. Okay, Creator, Maison. It's so funny. We do these studies in three verse sections and then we circle around and somehow I wind up getting the same words in the verses I studied last time and do them in this one. It's really cool. It's like, ah, copy-paste. Neat.

This can come, I think it was Thayer's that kind of had the shorter definition of this as greater, greatest, elder, and it is the comparative form of megas. So, megas, the word is just meaning great or very great. But if you were going to say, this is greater than that, then they conjugate it to my zone. My zone?

Yeah. No? What do you think? I like it. It'll do. I can never figure out what the carrot is for. Anyway. This is the same word we saw in 1 John 3.20. We know by this that we are of the truth and will assure our hearts before him And whatever our heart condemns us, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things." And I actually got some of 19 in there to make it all sit right so it wouldn't sound like an incomplete sentence. But I forgot to notate it up there.

Anyway, so, God is greater than our hearts. And remember at that time we said, It's not God is this much greater than our hearts, it's God is infinitely, vastly, amazingly greater. And just as God is that much greater than our hearts, so much greater is He who is in us than He who is in the world. So it's this very extreme sense of greater.

Alright, in you. This is such an interesting concept because Up until I'd been taking classes a while ago, I'd never really given this much thought about who's in you. But anyway, enhumen. It's, en here means in, and that's completely in, not partially in or sometimes in. It's the same Say conjunction. Conjunction or preposition? Preposition. Thank you.

Same preposition that we get in Ephesians 1 and Ephesians throughout the Bible, I guess, where you say, you're in Christ. You're not kind of in, you're not partially in. You're not in, but on a slope, so you might just slide out. You're in Christ. You're fixed. You're secure there. And it's full and complete. As a believer, you are fully indwelt by Him. He is fully in you as you are fully in Him. So, fully and completely, securely in you. The is, just before it, which is He who is in you. The is is... in the present tense and indicative mood. So, once again, the mood of truth and facts and He is, right now, in you. So, no question, no curiosity. So, then this idea of who is in you.

Would someone like to read John 17, 23, either off the board or in your own Bible, whatever is best? I am them, and you me, that they may be made perfectly one, and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them as you have loved me. Thank you, Voni. Would someone like to read the next verse, which is John 14, 11, 16, and 17? So verse 11, and then jump to 16 and 17 for time's sake.

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. Good. So, who is in you? Who indwells you? Anybody? From these verses at least. Now, I'm more than willing to put up with dissension or disagreement about this, but I think the answer is everybody.

You are indwelt by all three people of the Trinity. Christ is in the Father, the Father is in Christ, and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit is in you. So, I mean, I don't know, I wasn't confident to pinpoint if John was just talking about one person of the Trinity at that point. I just didn't find a really clear reading if he was just talking about the Father, or just talking about the Son, or just talking about the Spirit. But I think as we interpret Scripture with Scripture, we find that we are dwelt by all three members of the Trinity.

So, okay. We'll move right ahead. Then, he who is in the world. He who, is this in reference to he who is in the world, the devil, the government? It's actually kind of interesting. In the Greek, this he isn't there. It just reads in the Greek, and I didn't put this in the study itself, but in the Greek it just reads, greater is he who is in you than in the world.

And I almost had trouble reconciling that to all of our English translations. Every one that I read said, he who is in the world. And there is a particle there that I think they might be translating that way, the whole there, for he, which it can. So I think that's a fair translation, but anyway, we'll move ahead.

So is it the devil, the government? What is it? And I look back to 1 John 4, 3 and I think every evil spirit that does not confess Jesus is from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist which you have heard is coming and now is already in the world. So I think it's in reference to the spirit of the Antichrist. That's who it is. And it's definitely the spirit of the Antichrist is demonic in its source and finds its origin from the evil one.

But even still, I think there's no need to go around assigning new values to things when John has already pretty much laid out a subject for that. So, World. I was really tempted. When Josiah covered World at one point, he laid out all these options from Thayer's. And I was really tempted to just say, yeah, remember that time? Let's move forward. But I just thought, well, you know, it was a while ago, I'd forgotten, maybe you'd forgotten, I don't know.

So, for world here, we have one definition, and like I said, this is from Thayer's, an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, or government. Another one is ornament, decoration, adornment, i.e., the arrangement of the stars, the heavenly host. as the ornament of the heavens, as found in 1 Peter 3. The world, the universe, the circle of the earth, the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human race, the ungodly multitude, the whole mass of men alienated from God and therefore hostile to the cause of Christ,

7. World affairs, the aggregate of things earthly, and 7a. the whole circle of earthly goods, endowments, riches, advantages, pleasures, etc., which although hollow and frail and fleeting, stir desire, seduce from God, and are obstacles to the cause of Christ. So, which definition? Does anybody remember which definition Josiah used for world last week?

Because I think it hasn't really changed. Yeah, the ungodly multitude, the whole mass of men alienated from God. I think that that's a fairly good definition for this. I think my first intuition was certainly to go with just the world, the physical world. This is the definition that I think fits it best. I think it should include Satan too. The world is in the power of the evil one. So this world, the cosmos, this is his territory. As men are by his faith in Christ, they are taken out of the world and they are now seated in the heavenly. I guess maybe it included the ungodly multitude.

Well, I think also, Satan, as the prince of this world, when we use that term, Satan is the prince of this world, I think this would be the definition that we use, because... I don't know how to put it. God is glorified by nature, I believe. So when we say, if I refer to Satan as the prince of this world, I usually don't refer to the physical, the mountains and the trees and the streams and all that business, because that screams out glory to God, as Romans says, just beholding it, you have to be a fool to say there's not a God. So, when we refer to Satan as the prince of this world, I think you're right, I think the definition is lacking in omitting the demonic forces from that. Does anyone else have any thoughts on that? I couldn't agree more.

We're so quiet this morning. I don't know if I'm doing really good or really bad. You are from God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. So, um, yeah, just forgive me. I couldn't help but get a little emotional about it.

This is... Such a blessing and encouragement to me. This verse means so much to me personally as I've walked through my life, short though it may be. What a great and blessed encouragement this verse is. It tells us of our origin, our position, and also assures us against our opposition. How amazing is the assurance given to us by this verse. Another important point about this verse is to realize that the victory is already won for us in Christ.

And I definitely reference you to the parallel passage, or a somewhat parallel passage of Ephesians 6, 10 through 20, and it's talking about putting on the armor of God. And you'll notice it's almost all defensive. And the only command is not, go out and fight, go take those strongholds of evil. No, it just says stand. Stand in the victory that has been already won. We're more than conquerors, we have overcome, and not us, but Christ in us. So, yeah, at the risk of getting too involved in that, we'll move on, but... Oh, does anybody actually have any questions about that verse in general? Observations, because I know I didn't get everything.

All right. They are from the world, and therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. So, who's they in this? It's the world, the Antichrist, the spirit of the Antichrist, The context of the last few verses, I think, makes it pretty clear that the parties being referred to here are those whose teachings are from the spirit of the Antichrist. He hasn't strayed much from the passage we studied last week and the subjects from that passage. Another important point about this verse is to realize that the victory is, oops, sorry, are, is again in the present tense in the indicative mood, so once again we see that it is a statement of fact and it is something that is in the present.

Verse 5, they are from the world, therefore, oh sorry, here John is drawing a comparison between believers who have God and the false teachers who have the world as their place of origin. Just as our origin is from God Almighty, their origin is from a completely different place.

And here, I couldn't help but pick up a kind of poetic sense in John's writing. As we all know, when Verne studied Revelation upstairs, and as we read John, he's just kind of more of a musician than a scientist. I mean, he's going to write in poetry. He's going to reuse things and re-say things.

And I just love this kind of sim, You are from God, and then in verse 5, they are from the world, and in verse 6, we are from God. So he's kind of doing this back and forth, describing the origins of everyone. So now, in contradistinction to us, who are from God, they are from the world.

Therefore is a diatoutou. It's a common Greek way to say therefore. It is actually two words, unlike our English expression, but comes out to the same meaning. Did anybody have anything to add about this? about all that I really found to say about the Greek word therefore. Works like our word therefore. Why is it therefore? Okay.

So we have the word for to speak here is laleo. It's the usual word for to speak. I think Isn't it the first word you learn in the Greek book, I think, and then you unlock us later? So this is, Strong's defines it as to talk, i.e. to utter words, to preach, to say, speak, after, talk, tell, utter.

And this is distinct from the word Lego, which focuses more on the words and the meaning that is being spoken. Weiss points out that this verse is, it is as if Marjona is painting the picture that the false teacher speaks the same language as the world, as opposed to us who we speak an entirely different language as aliens and strangers in the world. So, the reason for using Laleo here as opposed to Lego is because Lego is focused just on the message, whereas this is focusing on the whole character of their speech. The whole character of their speech is different, and is comfortable and recognizable to the non-Christian, or to the world. So, now we get this term from the world. The King James Version could be misinterpreted.

I believe it says, they speak of the world, which could be interpreted to mean they speak from the point of view of the world, but could also mean they speak about the world. The Greek is pretty clear that It's not talking about he speaks about the world, it's talking about he speaks, they speak as they are from the world, with the world as their place of origin. So, they speak the language of the world, as it were. And then, the world, which is cosmos again, listens to them.

Listens here is akaro, once again, it's the normal, the regular word for to hear, or to perceive by the faculty of hearing. It also, however, can have the same meaning as to understand. And this is why some translations have it as hear and others as listen, as in this verse. I think the distinction between hearing and listening is obviously You know, you can hear someone speaking Greek or Spanish or some language you don't understand and not understand it. You'll still hear it, but you won't understand it.

And I think that this, in this context, he's definitely falling on this kind of somewhat secondary definition of understanding. They hear, they listen, they pay attention, and they understand what these are saying, what this is saying. So as we move on to the summary, this verse reinforced the origin of the false teachers and also explain why they gain such a sympathetic audience with the world. It's as if they speak the same language and the same dialect as the world, as their place of origin. On the other hand, we see clearly why the world does not understand us and what we believe. For those of the world, listening to us is like trying to understand a language that they've never heard before. So, of course, they're going to gravitate towards things that they're comfortable and obviously more familiar with.

Have you guys ever seen the greeting cards, quote Christian greeting cards sometimes? I find them, they're very, they're so misapplied. Because I gather that people are taking scripture verses and trying to make them apply and not understanding it. So they take a verse and look at that and say, I've never heard that interpreted. They'll twist it some way, they can't understand it. So I've discovered a whole side by the world trying to interpret something they don't understand. Absolutely. Just taking the words, but they're not applying them right. Something like, may God love you, or something like that. Well, we know that God loves us already. Things like that. It's kind of awkward to read it, I find. Oh, yeah.

Well, and I think also a great example of that is, you know, when you turn on the television, you see the preachers and pastors, and I'm sure there's some of them that are great, but many of those that I've heard just jump right into that prosperity gospel.

You do it, and then God will bless you. And God wants you to be blessed, and God wants you to send us money, and God wants... And they'll show you, I mean, they'll walk all up and down this book. They'll tell you this verse, that verse, this verse, that verse, and... And I think the world tunes into that and says, yeah. Yeah, I understand that. That works. And, you know, obviously it gets some sort of following. It's on television.

Even worse. And I think that they'll say that, that that's what all Christians are like, because they understand that. That's why, I mean, they almost impose their mindset upon, well, the only reason to be a Christian is for these reasons, you know, to be blessed, this, that's the only reason I'd be a Christian. So, they impose their understanding on our faith, because our faith is so far beyond their understanding. Does anyone have anything else to say? I think this is just such a fascinating point for those of us who are walking around in the world. and dealing with people each day.

I find myself baffled at least three times a day. Just in situations where it's like, I'm not going to do that. And everyone looks at you like, why? I mean, it's not really stealing or it's not really lying. I don't know, I find this to be a verse of great comfort, because otherwise I think I'd run around pulling my hair out.

Why don't they understand? Why can't they see eye to eye with me? Like, are they stupid? No, it's not that they're stupid. It's just that they can't see. So, I think this verse is a good warning to us, that if we expect people to understand us, and we expect people to see eye to eye with us about these things, then we're not going to see eye to eye with them. my dad would say, asking for it.

And oftentimes we'll get it. So, moving on to we. I love all these pronouns. I just have to spend all this time saying who the we's and I's and you's and ours and all this business. So, the question here is, we mean John, the apostles, all Christians? Who is this we in reference to?

And before we get here, I'd like to say that I I feel fairly certain about what I came to, but I'm really open to criticism because, like I say, I wasn't ridiculously convinced. I was just more sure of what I came to than the other options. The context here, to me, implies that John is speaking of himself and the apostles of the apostolic teaching. perhaps of all the true teachers, because the rest of the saints are referenced in the next clause. So, he who knows God listens to us. So, I'd say that the he who knows God is referring to the saint or the believer, and the us is the apostolic teaching, or the apostles, or the original teaching of the Word.

And that's all that I wrote there. That was my reason for for believing that that's who the we is. Because my first intuition was to say that it was believers. We, the believers, are from God, as I told you two verses ago. But, as I looked at it more, I just became convinced that the we was from John.

Does anybody have any evidence to the contrary, maybe, from the context? don't want to teach authoritatively what I still am not completely convinced of. Okay, knows. Gnosko. We've seen this word for to know time and time again in this book, and I'm sure, I actually don't have a copy of Josiah's chart in front of me, but I'm sure it's on there.

To know is, this know, I'm sorry, is experiential knowledge, and it comes from walking every day with Christ, and having been fully identified with Him. It is not something that an unbeliever could learn just from reading a book, but only from going through what we call conversion, only from belief. So, just by reading about it or reading about someone's Christian experience, it's not like most things where, you know, Roger could explain something about physics to me, If I were smart enough, I could understand it, but if we could explain our Christian experience to people time and time again, then they'll never really understand it. So, that's this, to me, that's this knowledge of God, it's a constant thing. Weiss quotes Vincent as saying, it is in reference to he who is habitually and evermore clearly perceiving and recognizing God as his Christian life unfolds.

The knowledge is regarded as progressive and not as complete." And that complete there, I'm going to take to mean not Sorry, complete in terms of it's never finished, it continues to grow, not complete in terms of right now we're incomplete in our knowledge, because obviously this is complete, but at the same time there's the experiential level at which we know Him that is constantly growing and constantly changing and doesn't perfect in its nature. by this, ek tutu, this could mean, be more literally translated, out of this, however, by this makes a little bit more sense in English. It's interesting because John has more consistently used the term en tutu, or in this, in this you shall know, in this we know, in this, and the striking difference between the two is that en tutu gives a sense of something that is abiding in truth. So in previous verses, Actually, up until now, we've only seen in this, as far as I know.

So, because he's talking about abiding truth, in this we know, in this is true. And here, he's saying ectuda, which insinuates deduction. Out of this we know, out of we are from God knows and listens to us, and then in the verse previous to this, he's saying that they are the world, therefore they speak as from the world and the world listens to them. So, out of those two things we can deduce who is of God and who is of the spirit of the world or the spirit of the Antichrist. So it had this sense more of something learned by a litmus test or by deduction as opposed to something that is just inherently and plainly true.

Does that make sense? Does it muddy the waters? I just thought that was an interesting point. As Josiah mentioned last week, or as we've mentioned, John is such a consistent author. For him to all of a sudden change from Entudu to Ektudu, and then for us to translate it the same way is almost a little bit silly, because it's not John's style to come up with a new way to say something, generally speaking.

So, now we're getting to the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. So, we've got more spirits to figure out. Last week we learned about the two spirits that were in discussion. Verses 2 and 3 tell us about the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the Antichrist. And now we see a different reference to spirits. We see here the Spirit of Truth compared to the Spirit of Error. So, anyone want to take a stab at what these spirits might be in reference to?

Apart from the context, if you think about what he's been talking about in the previous verses, the spirit of truth has a source in God, and the spirit of error has a source in the world. That kind of strikes me as a distinction. The spirit of truth comes from God, the spirit of error comes from the world.

I think you're right. No, I think you're really right on the nose. It should also be noted, and I once again didn't put this in the PowerPoint, so if you want to make a note in your notes, it's not, I mean, we say the spirit of truth, and it gives us that idea of the spirit that has a character of truth, but this is the spirit of the truth. in the Greek. The definite article taste is there.

The spirit of the truth, the specific truth of God. It's not just the general idea, but it's specifically the truth, the spirit of the truth that is only found in God, that is only found in the Word. The next logical question to ask is, are they talking about different things, or the same things? Is there another spirit of error that is separate from the spirit of the Antichrist, or a distinction between the spirit of God and the spirit of truth? And my contention would be, no. I would think that he's referencing the same So it seemed logical to say that the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Truth are both references or ways of referencing the Holy Spirit. As this Holy Spirit is referred to as such, as both, throughout the Bible.

It's actually quite interesting. Does someone want to look up, we just like pick out one or two of these just because? Okay, so does someone want to look up like Romans 5.5?

Maybe go this way and someone look up 1 Corinthians 2.14 and maybe Ephesians 4.30. Someone? No? Alright.

So, did someone get Romans 5.5? Alright. And who does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Good. And then, um, I wonder, whatever translation I looked up had, had Spirit of God in there, but it's okay. Maybe it's, I don't know, it's just a different translation. I can't remember. I thought it was, it might have been New King James, but it's of secondary importance.

1 Corinthians 2.14? So there's that Spirit of God, I think it's a pretty clear reference to the Holy Spirit.

There as well, Ephesians 4.30? And do not read the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of death. Once again, Holy Spirit of God, Spirit of God. And it's really interesting, the Spirit of Truth is something that only John, I could only find in John's writing. Only John would use the Spirit of Truth for the Holy Spirit.

And we already looked at John 14, 17, I think, was the one we looked at earlier. We don't have to necessarily dig into that because we're obviously running short of time. Although we're right to the end, so it's fairly well timed. But anyway, would anybody like to contest that? Because I want to equate those two pretty indefinitely.

I want to say that John referring to the spirit of Spirit of God and the Spirit of Truth is just Him saying, the Holy Spirit. And to me it would also make sense to equate the Spirit of the Antichrist with the Spirit of Error. rather than trying to assign a new value to it based on some other assumption. So, we could say that the spirit of error is the spirit of, you know, Satan as he roams through the earth, or, you know, other commentators say the spirit of error is this or that, but I think there's no reason for John to have changed subjects, and he didn't give us really any hints to say that he did. But, so anyway, I think that's fairly clear.

On to the summary. In this verse, John spells out the contrary of verse 5. Where the world listens to the false teachers, it doesn't listen to the apostolic teachings. To the original readers, this meant that they did not listen to the words of the apostles. However, in the modern context, could be interpreted in terms of non-believers trying to read scriptures, as we know that the New Testament scripture is apostolic in origin. One of the requirements is that they had to be an apostle. Pardon me? One of the requirements to be a writer of scripture is to be what? You had to have been an apostle.

Oh yeah? That was my understanding. Am I wrong? No. Or is Luke referred to as an apostle? How it's been explained to me is that he's an apostolic delegate under Peter. So actually, Peter was the... That's interesting. That is interesting. In view of the fact that Luke wrote quite a bit about other people other than from Peter. Does anyone else have any...? I think Mark now wrote under Peter. Ah. Okay.

But I don't think the requirement for scripture is necessarily our definition of an apostle, as we think of the Twelve, or even Paul, the Thirteen. Yeah, well, and there was also that second class, because Barnabas is also called an apostle. We have no evidence that he saw Jesus prior to being arisen, prior to being risen. I think we can assume that he might have beheld him after. We did an exercise when we were in the study of action, we can come up with around 17, I think it was. And that's right.

Her named apostles in scripture. But Byrne would take issue with that and say that the clear definition in terms of the apostles, as we think of them, would only be 12. Plus Paul. Actually, there's 13 because we lost Judas. But they added. So there's 13.

But in terms of the scriptures, I wouldn't use it. I would ask for you to check that. It had always been kind of a dogmatic part of my education that they've always said that there always had to be apostolic connection to something that would be admitted into scripture, that it was one of the early kind of tests for canonicity. Because obviously we don't, let's see how to put it, as humans we can't determine what is scripture, we can only decipher it. Like, we can't say, that is scripture. Raj just wrote an article and I think it's great, so that's scripture. but only say God makes something Scripture, and then we can only recognize it as Scripture. So, like I say, I'll definitely look into that. It's definitely one of those things I've always taken for granted. Well, that was, in fact, the last slide. So, how exciting is that, I think.

It also gives us Believers the litmus test for anything that we hear taught. If they're not heeding the Word of God, we can show that they're the spirit of error. And I liked this quote just because I think it kind of shook things up a little bit. It says, I remember one night when the Bible was the driest, darkest book in the universe to me. The next day it became entirely different.

I thought I had the key to it. I had been born of the Spirit. But before I knew anything of the mind of God, I had to give up my sin. I believe God meets every soul on the spot of self-surrender when they are willing to let Him guide and lead. And I just thought it was an interesting kind of point because I was reading through this book this week. This is from The Way to God.

And I thought it was an interesting point that even as believers, just because we're born of the Spirit doesn't mean that the Scripture is going to simply unfold to us. There's some level at which if we're living in sin it can cloud our understanding. And I think that's brought out in John's focus on fellowship. You can be a Christian and be saved and yet be out of fellowship. And this book can become dark and cloudy once more.

So, I just thought that was kind of a fun quote, I guess. Any other thoughts? Close up with a quick prayer? Alright. Heavenly Father, we praise You and thank You for this time. Come together and look into Your Word and Lord, decipher how we should then live. We praise you and thank you for the gift and pray that we could go upstairs and worship you and learn more about your wonderful word as it comes through the book of Isaiah. In Jesus' name, Amen.