I was sitting on the bus one day and this young, highly enthusiastic, African-American brother (in the LORD) boarded and started speaking in favor of Jesus, publicly and boldly. I was impressed by his unflinching zeal to speak about Jesus knowing how controversial the topic of Christianity can be. 

However, the Bible informs us not to believe every person who preaches. In fact, it instructs us to “try the spirits” [1 John 4:1]. The Greek word which is translated “try” is defined as “to test”, according to the Strong’s Concordance1.

How do we “test” a messenger of God to see if they are truly given a message from God? Well, in the very same chapter of 1 John 4, we are given one of those tests. Let’s read this passage in context:

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 

1 John 4:1-2

John warned his readers that many false prophets have gone into the world. This was a problem even during his time when Christianity was, comparatively, pure. And, the distinguishing line between a false and true prophet was based on a particular doctrine. 

A true prophet will preach a true doctrine and a false prophet will preach a false doctrine. This may sound simple but I’ve heard many people try to discredit the importance of someone’s doctrinal belief system. However, that very belief system is an indicator of their status as a false or true messenger of God.

The doctrine that John emphasized was the incarnation of God. Essentially, Jesus Christ, who is our Creator, was born into a physical, non-eternal, human body. This has many layers, but two consequences of this “incarnation” are as follows.

  • God, who could never die, became a man that could die [Hebrews 2:9].
  • God, who can never be tempted to sin [James 1:13], was in flesh that was able to be tempted to sin [Hebrews 4:15]. 

The matter of Jesus coming in a physical, mortal form versus a spiritual, immortal form has far-reaching implications.

The manner in which Jesus came to this earth to be our sacrifice for sin is a testimony to the love, justice and mercy of God. In itself, it is witness to the fact that God loves the sinner but hates sin and is completely fair in His approach of dealing with the physical and spiritual salvation of men and women.

In order for Jesus to be an acceptable sacrifice for the human race, God chose some conditions to be met.

  1. Jesus had to come to earth, live as a man in our conditions (both physically and spiritually) and overcome sin. One sin on His record would have cause the whole plan of salvation to fail. Just one. To add more depth, Jesus didn’t come to earth in Adam’s perfect nature. He came in our fallen nature, adding even more difficulty to the task. And, He even grew up in Nazareth, a city known for being evil [John 1:46]. So, He wasn’t afforded a “proper” Christian environment.  
  2. After living a pure Christian life and spending 3 1/2 years in, completely selfless, missionary service, Jesus had to struggle against the powers of darkness by giving up His pure life as an offering for our impure lives. To make the challenge of His love even more pressing, the Father allowed Christ’s disciples to forsake Him, Peter to deny Him 3 times with swearing, His betrayer to be one of His chosen apostles and the “high priest” of His own religion to be the one asking for His death. 

Every point of temptation we face He was allowed to endure more severely than any of us will ever experience. And, they came back to back to back for Jesus. The three days from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Cross was the most agonizing experience a mortal has ever faced and will ever face. 

To preach that Christ came as a spirit removes any possibility of Christ suffering temptation and overcoming sin through that suffering. And, it removes the possibility of Christ dying a sinner’s death with all its pain and suffering. To preach that Jesus didn’t come in the flesh paints God as an unfair Judge as well. It is to say that Jesus didn’t really suffer temptation when overcoming sin and He didn’t really experience death in our place. Finally, it is to say that God is a liar.

I hope it’s clear that doctrine is important. Our doctrines actually express greater truths that are hidden in layers. And, above all else, our doctrines say something about the Creator we are attributing them to.

  1. dok-im-ad’-zo – From G1384; to test (literally or figuratively); by implication to approve:- allow, discern, examine, X like, (ap-) prove, try.  ↩︎