The Holy Spirit, Spiritual Gifts, and Discernment — Unit 8: Discernment: 1 John 4, 1 Thessalonians 5, and Edwards' Marks

Key Verse

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1 John 4:1, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain why a church that expects the Spirit to speak must also learn to test what it hears.

2. State the commands of 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 and explain why Paul gives them together.

3. List the tests of 1 John 4 and the community tests of 1 Corinthians 14.

4. Name Jonathan Edwards' five positive marks of a work of the Spirit and say what he taught about signs that prove nothing by themselves.

5. Apply a simple checklist to a prophecy or manifestation in a local church, and answer the objection that testing quenches the Spirit.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the classical Pentecostal tradition, for students who belong to it. It is conservative and Trinitarian. We believe that the Holy Spirit still speaks, gives gifts and moves among His people. For that very reason we must learn to tell the true from the false. Spirit baptism and its evidence are taught in Course 2, Units 4 and 5, and we do not repeat them here. Other evangelicals see some of these matters differently, and we state their views fairly and then give our answer.

Why a Spirit-Filled Church Needs Discernment

Pentecostals believe that God speaks today. He speaks through the Bible first of all. He also speaks through gifts such as prophecy, tongues with interpretation, and words of wisdom and knowledge, and through the quiet leading of the Spirit in prayer. This is a great blessing. It also carries a risk. If we expect God to speak, we must also expect that other voices will try to speak in His name. Such a voice may come from the enemy, from the pressure of a crowd, from a speaker's own wishes, or from an honest mistake.

The New Testament does not hide this danger. Jesus warned of false prophets who come dressed as sheep (Matthew 7:15). Paul warned the elders of Ephesus that wolves would rise even from among their own number (Acts 20:29-30). John says that "many false prophets have gone out into the world." None of these writers answers the danger by closing the door on the Spirit. They teach the church to test.

There are two ways to fail. A gullible church believes every word that is spoken with confidence, and its people are wounded. A suspicious church believes nothing and permits nothing, and its people are starved. Discernment is the road between the two. The word means telling things apart: the Spirit of God from other spirits, the true word from the mixed word, and what builds up from what tears down.

Two Commands Given Together: 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

Paul writes to a young church that has received the Spirit with joy: "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good." He continues, "Abstain from every form of evil" (1 Thessalonians 5:19-22).

Notice how the verses fit together. To "quench" means to put out a fire. A church quenches the Spirit when it shuts down what He is doing, perhaps because of fear or because of an earlier bad experience. To "despise prophecies" means to treat them as worthless. But Paul does not stop there. In the same breath he says, "Test all things." The word covers prophecies and also teaching, preachers, experiences, music, and our own feelings. Then he says what to do with the results: keep what is good, and let go of every form of evil.

The lesson for pastors is that Paul gives both commands to the same people. He does not say, "Test, and so expect little." He does not say, "The Spirit is in it, and so do not test." A healthy church welcomes and examines. When we do only the first, we become careless. When we do only the second, we become cold.

The Tests of 1 John 4

John writes to churches troubled by teachers who had left the fellowship and were teaching wrongly about Jesus. Scholars discuss exactly who these teachers were. Many think they denied that the Christ truly came in a human body, or that they separated the man Jesus from the divine Christ, and some link them to early forms of Gnostic thought. Others stress different details. We do not need to settle every point of that debate, because John's tests are clear, and they stand whatever the exact form of the error was.

The test of Jesus Christ. John says that every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not is not from God (1 John 4:2-3). This means more than repeating words. It means holding the whole truth about Jesus, who is fully God and fully man, who died for us and rose again. In a Trinitarian church the Spirit always points to the Son. Jesus said of the Spirit, "He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14). A message that puts the speaker, an angel, a place or a new teaching at the center fails this test. Paul teaches in the same way in 1 Corinthians 12:3.

The test of apostolic teaching. John says that those who know God listen to the apostles (1 John 4:6). The apostles' teaching now lives for us in the New Testament. So every word, however moving, must agree with Scripture. The Bereans are our model. They "received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11).

The test of love. John says that the one who loves is born of God, because God is love (1 John 4:7-8). A word or a manifestation that produces hatred, pride, contempt for other believers or division in the church does not bear the mark of the Spirit.

These tests judge the message and its fruit. That is why John gives us several tests and not one.

The Community Tests of 1 Corinthians 14

Paul gave the Corinthians rules for the meeting. "Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge" (1 Corinthians 14:29). Testing is not left to one person. The congregation, and especially its mature members and leaders, weighs what is said. This protects the church, and it also protects the speaker.

Paul adds, "And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (14:32). A person who speaks is not carried away like a leaf in a storm. He can wait his turn and stop. No one can say, "I could not help it." And the whole meeting should reflect the character of God: "Let all things be done decently and in order" (14:40).

Paul also gives the purpose of prophecy: "But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men" (14:3). That purpose is itself a test. Does this word build up, encourage and comfort? Or does it frighten, shame and control?

Scholars disagree about how to describe New Testament prophecy. Some evangelical scholars say that congregational prophecy could be a mixture of what God gave and what the speaker added, which is why it must be judged. Others, including many Pentecostals, say that a message may come from God and still be wrongly heard or wrongly spoken. Pentecostals agree with cessationists that no prophecy stands beside the Bible as Scripture. In each of these views the command is the same, and in each of them Scripture is the final judge.

The Gift of Discerning of Spirits

Paul lists "discerning of spirits" among the manifestations of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10). Christians understand it in different ways.

Many Pentecostals teach that it is a special gift, given to some believers at certain times, to recognize whether a message, a person or a manifestation comes from the Spirit of God, from an evil spirit, or from the human spirit. Some other evangelicals think it is not a separate gift but the wisdom that every believer grows into by knowing Scripture. Cessationists generally say that the miraculous form of this gift has ceased and that what remains is ordinary doctrinal judgment.

Our answer is that Scripture lists it with the other manifestations, and that all of them are given "for the profit of all" (1 Corinthians 12:7). We receive it with thanks. When Paul recognized the spirit working in a slave girl at Philippi, and acted, we see this kind of discernment at work (Acts 16:16-18). But there is a warning. The gift never replaces the tests. A person who says "I just know" and cannot show the matter from Scripture is the very person whose word must be tested. The gift works inside the body, and is itself subject to the judgment of the others (1 Corinthians 14:29). It is also not the same as suspicion.

Jonathan Edwards and the Marks of a Work of the Spirit

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was a Congregational pastor in Northampton, Massachusetts, and one of the leading minds of the Great Awakening. He was not a Pentecostal and did not teach our doctrine of Spirit baptism. We use him because he was a careful pastor who defended a revival while examining it closely. In 1741 he published The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God. He wrote in the middle of a quarrel. Some critics, such as the Boston minister Charles Chauncy, saw in the revival only excitement and disorder. Some enthusiasts believed that every impulse and every strong feeling must be from God. Edwards answered both, and he built his answer on 1 John 4.

What does not decide the matter. Edwards taught that certain things, taken by themselves, do not prove a work is false. They are the unusual or surprising nature of the events, strong effects on the body, strong feeling and a stirred imagination, the influence of other people's example, and the presence of error or sin in some who take part. These things do not prove the work is true either. For Pentecostals this is very helpful. A loud meeting is not proof of God. A quiet meeting is not proof of God. Shaking, weeping or falling may happen when the Spirit works, and they may also happen from other causes. The question is never "How strange was it?" but "What is it doing, and what does it point to?"

Five positive marks. Edwards found five signs, taken from 1 John 4, that the Spirit of God is at work.

1. It raises people's esteem of Jesus Christ.

2. It works against sin and worldly desires, and so against the kingdom of Satan.

3. It increases people's regard for the Holy Scriptures.

4. It leads people into truth and not into error.

5. It produces love for God and love for other people.

These are the same tests John gave, set out as a pastor's checklist. Historians and theologians differ in how far they apply Edwards to later movements, and he held views we do not share. But we welcome the five marks because they agree with Scripture. A manifestation that fails them should be set aside, however impressive. A work that passes them should be received, however unusual it looks.

A Simple Checklist for the Local Church

Here is a practical set of questions for any prophecy, vision, or strong manifestation. They are drawn from the passages above.

1. Does it honor Jesus Christ?

2. Does it agree with Scripture?

3. Does it build up, encourage and comfort?

4. Does it produce love, holiness and good fruit in the speaker and in the hearers?

5. Is it spoken in order, and under the oversight of the church's leaders?

6. Is the speaker humble, accountable to others, and ready to be corrected?

7. Does time confirm it? Moses taught Israel to watch whether a prophet's word came to pass (Deuteronomy 18:22).

A word of counsel belongs here. A personal word should never be the only reason for a major decision, such as marriage, a move, a large gift, or leaving a church. Pray, wait, search the Scriptures and ask wise elders. A true word will survive waiting. When a word is not confirmed, correct the speaker kindly and in private where possible.

Objections and Our Answers

Objection 1: Testing quenches the Spirit. Some Pentecostals fear that questioning a word shows a lack of faith. Our answer is that Paul gives the command to test in the same sentence as the command not to quench. The Spirit has nothing to fear from the truth. What is true will be stronger for being examined.

Objection 2: Pentecostals trust feelings, and the safe course is to close the door. Cessationists, many of them godly pastors, say that the danger of error is so great that the gifts of prophecy and tongues should not be practiced at all. We honor their concern for the authority of Scripture. Here we answer that Scripture, and not feeling, is the judge in our churches. We also answer that Paul met the real disorder in Corinth not with a ban but with order: "Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. Let all things be done decently and in order" (1 Corinthians 14:39-40). The abuse of a gift is a reason for care, not a reason to discard the gift. Unit 10 returns to this question.

Pastoral Application

A visiting speaker gives personal words at a midweek service. To a young wife he says, "The Lord says your husband is not the man for you." Her husband is sitting beside her. The room goes silent, and she begins to cry.

The pastor first calms the meeting. He thanks the speaker for his willingness and says, as the church does with every word, that it will be weighed and not accepted at once. He then meets the couple and the speaker privately. He asks the questions of the checklist. Does the word honor Christ? It does not agree with Scripture on marriage, which calls a husband and wife to keep faith with each other. Does it build up? It has wounded. He tells the couple plainly that the word is not confirmed, and prays with them. With the speaker he speaks kindly and firmly, and asks who oversees his ministry. He sets a rule for the church: from now on, visiting ministers share any personal word with the pastor before they speak it.

Summary

A church that expects the Spirit to speak must test what it hears. Paul commands us not to quench the Spirit and not to despise prophecies, and in the same breath to test all things and hold fast what is good. First John 4 gives the tests of Jesus Christ, apostolic teaching and love. First Corinthians 14 adds the judgment of the congregation, the self-control of the speaker, order and edification. The gift of discerning of spirits is a real gift, but it never replaces the tests. Jonathan Edwards taught that unusual events, bodily effects and strong feelings prove nothing by themselves, and gave five positive marks: honor to Jesus Christ, opposition to sin, regard for Scripture, a movement toward truth, and love. A church that welcomes and examines will be both open and safe.

Further Reading

• Jonathan Edwards, The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God (1741), a primary source.

• Gordon D. Fee, God's Empowering Presence (1994).

• Max Turner, The Holy Spirit and Spiritual Gifts (1996).

• Wayne Grudem, ed., Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views (1996).

• B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (1918), a cessationist argument.

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