A new look at this passage shows that St. John says “Be Catholic!” 4 times! “How,” one must ask, “could anyone read this passage and not be Catholic?”
1 Jn 3:22–4:6 “Beloved: We receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit whom he gave us.”
First, we are commanded to believe in Jesus and love one another. Then, he uses the plural: “Those who keep His commandmentS remain in Him, and He in them, and the way we know that He remains us is from the Spirit Whom He gave us.” The truly obedient understand that “We remain in Him, and He in us”, by receiving Catholic Communion, His Actual Body and Blood. The only way we may obey His commandment “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood you do not have life in you.”is to receive Catholic Communion, in which He is in us and we are in Him, within The Church, The Body of Christ on earth.
Those who do not believe that should have enough sense to pray to be led to do so! Their immortal soul is on the line.
Then, St. John shows us how to tell if a human spirit is really a true believer or someone who is pretending to be a Christian, living a lie of the devil:
“Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God.”
This is the key point: “Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh” includes those who recognize His Presence in every re-presentation of The Catholic Mass since The Last Supper. “Every Spirit that does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ come in the flesh” when He appeared AND at the Mass does not belong to God.” How do we know that? He uses the verb “come”, in the present tense. If St. John wanted to teach us that appeared among us one time, during His earthly life, he’d have said “came”, as “He came in the flesh”.
What of any given person who does not “acknowledge Jesus Christ come in the flesh”? John describes what possesses those poor souls: “This is the spirit of the antichrist who, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world.”
St. John then says of those who obeyed His commandmentS: “You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, (We who receive Communion have conquered those people ruled by lying spirits and deny that Jesus come in the flesh.) for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” What does St. John go on to say of those who do not “acknowledge Jesus Christ come in the flesh”?
He tells us they do not belong to God. “They belong to the world; accordingly, their teaching belongs to the world, and the world listens to them.
We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.”
The spirit of truth leads to Catholic Communion. There, we receive The Body and Blood of Christ, transformed from bread and wine by a priest ordained in a living link with the Apostles whom Jesus ordained.
If we read St. John and ignore him, our vanity destroying our eternity. We should realize, and respond “Oh, God, please! Lead me to receive your Body and Blood so that I may be humble enough to obedient enough to be saved! Bring my vanity to heel!”
Many are called. Few are chosen.
