Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
The Spirit of the Antichrist
1 John 4:3
3 and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God; and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already. · WEB
The test's negative half is given, and the letter locates the thing the readers were taught to expect in the present rather than the future.
One verse, and it completes the test by stating the failing case: every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not of God. The letter offers no third result. A spirit either makes the confession or does not, and there is no category for one that is undecided or partially right.
Then the identification: this is the spirit of the antichrist. It is the fourth and last use of that word in the letter 1 John 2:18 1 John 2:22, and the shift to spirit of is worth noting. Earlier the term was applied to people who had gone out; here it names the animating principle behind them, which explains how many individuals can share one label.
The next clause is a reminder rather than news — of which you have heard that it comes — so the expectation belonged to the readers already and the letter is not introducing it.
And the last clause is the correction the whole passage exists to make: and now it is in the world already. Something the congregation had been treating as future is stated to be present. That is a considerable pastoral move. It removes the comfort of postponement, and it also removes the fear of an unrecognizable horror to come, because the letter has just handed them a test that identifies it by what it will not say.
What the letter does not do is supply a name; the test it hands over makes one unnecessary.
held with reason What this mark means