This text shows (1) that the highest pretensions may be hypocritical, and therefore mere profession amounts to nothing; (2) that all pretensions should be submitted to trial, and therefore to shrink from trial is to confess incompetence and immorality; (3) that God Himself is the true standard by which to try all men. One man is not to be compared with another; each man is to be judged before God. The fulfilment of this exhortation would be followed by three results: (1) Spiritual adventurers would meet with proper condemnation. All lackadaisical sympathy would be destroyed, etc. (2) The highest piety would be realised, the piety which lives upon God, and seeks truth at all costs, etc. (3) The multiplication of needless and vexatious sects would be arrested. Little nests of quacks and mutual flatterers would be broken up. Men who live in God despise the concealment of obscure theories and the ostentation of pretentious technicalities. The fulfilment of this exhortation would not, on the other hand, secure monotonous and insipid uniformity of thought, expression, and social development. God's ministry in nature is various, yet nature is one. The illustration applies to the highest life.
Parker, City Temple,vol. i., p. 60.
I. There are questions relating to spiritual influence in which we all, each for himself, ought to have the very deepest interest. For the most persistent sceptic that ever lived cannot deny the fact of spiritual influence. All the influences which proceed from mind to mind are spiritual influences. By certain spiritual or, if you like, mental influences, our conduct is determined, and our characters formed. The Spirit of life, and order, and growth to perfection; which works in the world of matter and also in the mind and soul of man, in the Bible is said to be the Spirit of God; and, on the other hand, all that is evil, and degrading, and dividing is said to be the working of a spirit of disobedience. So that the saving and destroying forces of the world are in perpetual activity.
II. Let me give you one test by which you may try the spirits whether they are of God. We are told in the Bible that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of adoption. And this is the uniting and converting power of the world. (1) It is the converting Spirit, not the spirit of fear and intimidation, not the spirit of the devil and his angels, not the unprincipled spirit of management and of making things easy all round, so that under all circumstances self may be triumphant, but the Spirit which rises up now and then with its saving regeneration in the heart of the cold and bad, the seducer and the faithless, saying, "I am a child of God; shame on me that I have stooped so low and forgotten who I am and what is my birthright," the Spirit which stirs in a man, and floods him over with penitence, and from his crossness and cruelty, his deep commonness and sinfulness, makes him get up and shake himself free. (2) And the same Spirit is the Spirit of unity. The Spirit which tells us we are sons of God tells also that we are brethren, and its word of command is, "Let brotherly love continue."
W. Page Roberts, Law and God,p. 89.
References: 1 John 4:1. W. L. Alexander, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 309; J. Kennedy, Ibid.,p. 206; A. M. Brown, Ibid.,vol. ix., p. 152; J. G. Rogers, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 391. 1 John 4:1; 1 John 4:2. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 331. 1 John 4:2. H. Scott Holland, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxxiii., p. 49. 1 John 4:3-7 . Church of England Pulpit,vol. iv., p. 195. 1 John 4:6. E. White, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 328; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 297.