Apostle John instructed all Christians "Beloved" to be wary of all teachers coming in the name of Jesus Christ and to test them. This is a study of what is that test. This test can be applied to all teachers and/or organizations. For this study I will be focusing on the organization of "La Luz Del Mundo."
Testing the spirits
(1 John 4:1-6)
What does La Luz Del Mundo Teach who Jesus Christ is?
La Luz Del Mundos’ doctrine teaching of Christ, or its Christology, is that the Spirit of God, the Word, came down to earth and entered into the body of man named Jesus at the time of his baptism by John the Baptist. They teach that at his birth, a baby was born such as Moses. One destined to serve God, but not God in the flesh. Just a man, and this man’s name was Jesus.
Jesus was raised and lived like any other human being and at his baptism God send his Word into the human, Jesus, (so in other words Jesus, the man, was a human host for the Word of God to come to mankind here in earth). For the next three years the Word, in Jesus’ body now Jesus Christ, spread his ministry of the Kingdom of God. At the end of his three years of ministering, the Word in Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross. Jesus Christ said, ‘It is finished’, and gave up the Spirit or the Word, returning Jesus Christ to the man Jesus.
The body of Jesus was taken down and placed into a grave but the Word was not with Jesus. The Word was among us on earth and was seen as a vision of Jesus for forty days before ascending into heaven. Since that day and to this one, the Word of God in Spirit is with the Father in heaven. La Luz Del Mundo teaches that just like in the days of Moses, God needs a human host on earth for his Spirit - the Word - to indwell in and give power for forgiveness of sins and for salvation to all of mankind.
God needed Moses’ body for his Spirit the Word to do his work here on earth. God needed Jesus’ body for his Spirit the Word to do his work here on earth. After nearly 2000 years of non-salvation to mankind, God needed Eusebio Joaquine Gonzalez’s (Aaron) body for his Spirit the Word to do his work here on earth. And now God needs Samuel Joaquin’s body for his Spirit the Word to do his work here on earth and it is through him that God’s Spirit flows to all mankind, he is the “Light of the World”, the “Fountain head of the Spirit”. This is the Christology of La Luz Del Mundo.
Let’s see how La Luz Del Mundo’s Christology stands up when you but it to John’s test in “testing the spirits.” The test for testing the spirits comes from (1John 4:1-6).
The fourth chapter of John's epistle the subject in the opening six verses is to test the spirits. You see that in verse 1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits." John understands how important it is to realize that you can't believe everything you hear, you can't believe everyone that is purporting to come from God, and you can't believe everything that is supposedly biblical. You are not to believe all teachers of religion(s), you cannot believe all Christian preachers, or Christian evangelists or teachers. You cannot believe all who claim to speak for God and claim to have a prophetic voice that is set loose in the world.
You'll notice at the end of verse 6 the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. It either comes from the Spirit of truth, who is the Holy Spirit, so called by our Lord Himself several times in the upper room in the gospel of John. There is the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, and there is the spirit of error who is Satan and his demons. All Spiritual truth either comes from a divine source or a demonic source. And we know that God speaks truth and reveals truth and Satan speaks a lie and is a deceiver and so it is very important that we are able to tell the difference.
In this book here in chapter 4, John commands believers to test the spirits. This is necessary if you're going to tell the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. You have to know whatever information is coming to you by where it is coming from. Error is not benign (not deadly), it is malignant (deadly) . It is not human, it is demonic. Spiritual truth comes from the Holy Spirit and it is life-giving, life-sustaining, life-producing, God-glorifying, or it comes from demons. It is either the doctrine of God or the doctrine of demons. It is either that word which is sent and powered by the Holy Spirit, or it comes from seducing spirits. There is no grey area here, only white or black. Teachers are either the true teachers of God, or hypocritical liars, espousing the doctrine of demons fostered by seducing spirits. We must know the difference because truth gives life, error kills.
First, John gives us a command to test. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God." There is a spirit behind every teaching. Be skeptical to discern whether it is the truth or error that is being taught, whether it comes from the Spirit of God, or a demonic spirit. That's the command to test.
Secondly is the reason to test. And the reason is at the end of verse 1, "Because many false prophets have gone out into the world." It is a huge problem and those who have not allowed themselves to be educated by the Holy Spirit are victimized. Those who call themselves spiritual teachers, religious prophets, and gurus, are false teachers, because they point to themselves as the source of knowledge and not the true source, the Holy Spirit.
False teachers of religious systems and cults that claim to know Christ and to represent Christianity are hypocritical liars teaching doctrines of demons motivated by seducing spirits. The world is literally drowning in a sea of demonic lies! We live in a time then when we must be educated by the Holy Spirit and by him alone. We are commanded to be so and the reason is because this false teaching is so common. Not get me wrong here; I am not saying that we should not lessen and study with Christians whom are more mature in the faith then we are. We are commanded to meet together for the sake of the body of Christ. We just need to make sure that like the Bereans of (Acts 17) that we study all things for ourselves.
Now that brings us to the emphasis on the way to test, or the means to test. The command, we've seen. The reason, we've seen. And now here is the means, or the way to test and that comes from verse 2 down through the remainder of this paragraph, verse 6. The simple way to sum it up is to give you three perspectives on this. But let's look at verse 2 just to get the introduction. "By this you know the Spirit of God." Now here comes the means by which we can test. We need to know how to know that something comes from the Spirit of God. And he tells us, "By this...” and then goes on to identify what "this" refers to. Here is the positive test that will reveal rather if something is coming from the Spirit of God and not a demon spirit.
Verse 2 again, "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God." There's one thing demons will inevitably deny in all their demonic systems, and that is they will deny the deity of Jesus Christ. They will deny God in human flesh. In a word, they deny the incarnation. So let’s make this very clear -the spirit of anti-christs’ number one mission is to get mankind to believe the lie that Jesus was just another man, the Spirit of God came down to earth and indwelled with in the human body of a man named Jesus at the time of his baptism by John the Baptist. And it was at this moment that Jesus became the Christ (Jesus Christ) for the next three years of his ministry. When Jesus Christ, while on the cross, said “It is finished” and he gave up his Spirit. The antichrist wants mankind to believe that Jesus went back to being just another man and the Spirit of God left its bodily host for the next three days. During the 40 days that Jesus Christ is record in the gospels and Acts as beginning among us, he was just a heavenly Spirit in the image of Jesus who ascended back to heaven. When someone comes and affirms that Jesus Christ is God in flesh then they are not falling for the lie of the antichrist and will not be swayed to believe more false teachings.
So the test that you want to perform for any teacher; is what is their definition or how to see Christ. This is called their Christology, their doctrine of Christ which presupposes the doctrine of the Trinity. If you have somebody who denies the Trinity, you have a problem because they are teaching that Jesus Christ cannot be God come in the flesh (John 1:1-2, 14), the second person of the Trinity in the fullness of what the New Testament teaches about Him if in fact there is not a Trinity. So in other words if Jesus was just a normal human man and not the very perfection of God himself, then his blood was not perfect and did not have the power to cover all of the past, present and future sins of mankind to those who call on his name. Because only the perfection of God in the flesh can remove the sin that Adam brought to mankind by the sacrifice and shedding of His perfect blood, be raised from the dead in the “first fruit” immortal body, to ascend into heaven in the flesh and as a man to be the true and perfect High Priest for us in heaven at the right hand of God the Father (Hebrew 1), Amen.
But John doesn't get into all of the nuances here. He's just very simple says to test the validity of any teacher and you will see rather they are truly from God teaching the doctrine of Jesus Christ – God in the flesh. In fact, back in chapter 1 John says in verse 1, "That he beheld, and actually touched, the Word of life." That is a term expressing the very deity, the very Godliness of Christ, for Christ emanates from God as His living Word. He was in verse 2 with the Father, One with the Father, sharing the same essence with the Father and dwelling in the perfect light with the Father before He came to earth. He was manifested to us. The end of verse 3 tells us that our fellowship consequently is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
John states a very simple and definitive Christological statement in his epistle (1 John), that Jesus Christ came “in” the flesh and not “in to” the flesh. This is the whole point of the virgin birth. The Holy Spirit conceived its self into a virgin girl, Mary, so that a male child could be born with out the sin of Adam that is past down by the seed of man. God is the father of himself the Word. This is the only way the God could make the perfect blood to sacrifice and remove the sin of Adam upon mankind. This is why we have such a detailed telling of the birth of Jesus Christ and the wise men that came to worship him, a baby! They were declaring to the entire world that this baby is the King of Kings. In the world of royalty the rules are very clear, you do not address a man King until his has been anointed and becomes the King. Jesus Christ was already the King of Kings at the time of his birth into the world, up to his baptism, at the cross, in the grave, during his 40 days among us, at his going to heaven, and at this very moment in the flesh seated at the right hand of God the Father! It is amazing how non-Jewish wise men knew the Hebrew Scriptures better than the Jews themselves, so much that they very clearly understood that this baby boy is God in the Flesh.
"Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ, the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son doesn't have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also." And here again John emphasizes the deity of Jesus Christ that He shares the same nature as the Father, you can't honor the Father without the Son because they are in essence one sharing the same divine and perfect nature.
Well, I think you get the message how very, very important one's Christology is. And if one error on the identity of Jesus Christ, this is not from the Spirit of God and every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ, God, has come in the flesh is from God. That's the first proposition about Jesus, that He is God, He is the eternal life that came from dwelling in the very presence of God the Father and God the Spirit down to earth. You're confessing that Jesus Christ is a person and not just a Spirit that came to earth, dwelled in a man’s body, left that body and returned to heaven. You're confessing that Jesus Christ as a person is God in human flesh. You are saying He is come from God. That is implying the necessity for Him to come into this world in human form to carry out His redemptive work as a substitute for men. We believe then that the human Jesus and the divine Christ are one and the same. When someone has that Christology, they are speaking a message that comes from the Holy Spirit.
It doesn't mean that everything they say is accurate, but if they get this right, they past the test. But there's another element to it. It is not just confessing Jesus Christ has come in the flesh that saves; demons recognize that Jesus Christ is God in human flesh. The other element comes out of (Romans 10:9), “9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Demons recognize His deity. There are others who would recognize or affirm His deity. But it is absolutely critical that one confess Him as Lord.
Jesus is the litmus test of reality for people. You have the right view of Jesus, you have the right beginning. (Luke 10:16) "The one who rejects Me rejects Him who sent Me." You reject Jesus, the true Jesus, the one and only, and you are rejecting God, no matter what you think. Anybody who rejects Christ rejects God. You honor the Son and the Father or neither. And the idea today is that other religions worship the same God. They don't. You reject Jesus as God in human flesh, you reject Jesus as the God/Man, fully God, fully man, who came as a substitute for sin and you don't know God no matter what you think. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me." Jesus said to the Pharisees in (John 8:42), "If God were your Father, you would love Me." And so John says in chapter 2 verse 23, as we read, "No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." We all like to make everybody in their religion feel good, but if they reject the deity of Jesus Christ, they do not know God at all.
It says in verse 2 that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, not into the flesh. As if Christ just came down and temporarily went in to some man, stayed there for a while and then left. It doesn't say that He came into the flesh; it says that He came in the flesh. He didn't descend into an already existing man, He came and was born. He came and actually indwelt that little tiny baby in the mystery of the incarnation in the very womb of Mary and was framed and formed there into the God/Man. Jesus Christ also is full of meaning. Jesus, Greek form of Joshua, means Jehovah saves. Christ means the Anointed One, the King, the Messiah. So you have to confess that this is the God/Man who came as God's chosen King and Messiah and took on flesh to be a substitute for sinners. And on the other side of that, verse 3, "Every spirit that does not confess Jesus in this way is not from God."
Here's the bottom line. When you meet these teachers, and they come with their teachings, you test their Christology. What's their doctrine of the incarnation? This is the very foundation of their faith. They may tell you everything about everything correctly, but if they are hiding a false teaching about Jesus Christ then all is corrupted. You can have the most perfectly designed and constructed building, but if the foundation is not correctly constructed per the design, the perfect building with fall and will destroy all who dwell within it. Then verse 6 closes, "By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error."
(Jude 2), "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Fight to guard the truth for certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."
So, I leave you with this question – Is La Luz Del Mundo, under the authority of Samuel Joaquin, under the control of a seducing spirit or is lead by the Spirit of God – The Word?
And I thank you for having the interest and for taking your time to read and think upon this study.
God’s Blessings in our Lord and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
