Slides: Spiritual DNA Testing

Spiritual DNA Testing
by David Feddes

Who’s the father?
Call 1-800-DNA-TYPE

Who’s the father?

• “born of God” (5 times in 1 John)

• “children of God” (6 times in 1 John)

• “know” (29 times in 1 John)

Spiritual DNA Testing

• Belief test: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. (5:1)

• Attitude test: Everyone who loves has been born of God. (4:7)

• Action test: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (2:29)

1. The belief test

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. (5:1)

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. (4:15)

Whoever knows God listens to us [apostles]; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. (4:6)

Accurate belief in Jesus

Jesus is "the Christ" (5:1), "the Son of God" (4:15). "He is the true God and eternal life" (5:20). He "has come in the flesh" (4:2) to die as "the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (2:2) and "to destroy the devil's work (3:8).

 Negative belief test

Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. (2:20-22)

Every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of antichrist. (4:3)

Belief shows spiritual DNA

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. (4:15-16)

2. Attitude test

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. (3:14)

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love... Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (4:7-8,16)

Positive attitude test

If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (4:12)

Negative attitude test

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (4:20)

3. The action test

If you know that [God] is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (2:29)

We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God [Jesus] keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him. (5:18).

 Misreading the action test

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us... If we claim we have not sinned, we make [God] out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1:8,10)

 Positive or negative action test

He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. (3:8-10)

 Are test results consistent?

• Belief test: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. (5:1)

• Attitude test: Everyone who loves has been born of God. (4:7)

• Action test: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (2:29)

Born of God

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome  the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.  (1 John 5:1-5)

Why spiritual DNA tests?

1. Testing your own spirit

  • Strengthen assurance or

  • Discover need for new birth

2. Testing other spirits

  • Bond with brothers or

  • Resist fakes and antichrists

Strengthen Assurance

We know that we have passed from death to life… This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. (3:19-20)

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. (5:13)

Discover need for new birth

Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test? (2 Corinthians 13:5)

Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” (John 3:3)

Bond with brothers

• Brotherhood appears 13 times in 1 John

• If a test of others’ spiritual DNA shows God is their father, then they are your brothers and sisters, despite differences on some matters.

May God… give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus… Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (Romans 15:5-7)

Resist fakes and antichrists

Even now many antichrists have come. (2:18)

This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. (3:10)

Dear friends, 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. (4:1)

Applying test results

1.  Testing your own spirit

  • Strengthen assurance or

  • Discover need for new birth

2.  Testing other spirits

  • Bond with brothers or

  • Resist fakes and antichrists

Spiritual DNA Testing

• Belief test: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. (5:1)

• Attitude test: Everyone who loves has been born of God. (4:7)

• Action test: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him. (2:29)