If you only remember one test from this whole series, make it this one. Every counterfeit, sooner or later, does something to Jesus. It cannot help itself. He is the center of the genuine article, and you cannot move the center without moving Him.
So ask any teaching, any movement, any book, one question. What does it do with Christ?
For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it!
2 Corinthians 11:4, NKJV
The genuine article
Who is the Jesus the apostles preached? Not a vague figure. The New Testament is specific, and it is specific in two directions at once.
He is fully God. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians 2:9). Thomas touched His wounds and said, my Lord and my God, and Jesus did not correct him (John 20:28). He is the One by whom all things were made, the exact image of the Father, the Jehovah of Isaiah 45 to whom every knee will bow, which Paul applies to Jesus by name in Philippians 2.
And He is fully man. Born of a woman, tired at a well, weeping at a tomb, tempted in all points as we are, dead on a Roman cross and raised in a body Thomas could touch. Hebrews says He had to be made like His brethren in all things (Hebrews 2:17). Not a costume. Not an appearance. Flesh.
| Term | Original | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| allos | ἄλλος | G243 | another of the same kind, a second one |
| heteros | ἕτερος | G2087 | another of a different kind, a different sort |
| theotes | θεότης | G2320 | deity, the state of being God, the divine nature itself |
Paul’s Greek in 2 Corinthians 11:4 is careful. He says another Jesus with allos, another of the same kind, a Jesus who is presented as the same Jesus. Then he says a different spirit and a different gospel with heteros, another of a different kind. The counterfeit Jesus comes in looking like the real one. Same name, same stories. But the spirit behind him and the gospel he carries are of a different kind altogether.
And he is the reason John gave the church a fingerprint test. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God (1 John 4:2). Full deity, full humanity, one Person. Get that right and you are handling the genuine article. Get it wrong and nothing else matters.
The counterfeit
There are only two ways to counterfeit Jesus, and every false teaching in history has done one or the other. It either shrinks Him or it uses Him.
Shrinking Him means making Him less than God, less than man, or less than the only way. A great teacher. A created being, the highest of the angels. A spirit who only seemed to have a body. One path among many. A brother rather than the Lord. The shrunk Jesus is always easier to manage than the real one, which is why the shrinking happens. A Jesus who is not God cannot demand your whole life.
Using Him means keeping His full title and turning Him into a means to something else. He becomes the way to get healthy, wealthy, influential, or spiritually elite. The gospel stays in the vocabulary, but the goal has moved. Jesus is the ticket and the destination is somewhere He is not. Paul saw this too. He warned about men who suppose that godliness is a means of gain (1 Timothy 6:5). The used Jesus is still called Lord, but He is working for someone.
A counterfeit either shrinks Jesus or uses Him. The real one is too big to shrink and too much the point to be used.
How to tell them apart in the hand
Listen to a teaching for an hour and ask three questions.
Is He God? Not is He called Lord, is He treated as the One who made everything and holds it together. If the teaching would work just as well with a very good man in the middle, it has shrunk Him.
Is He the point? Or is He the doorway to the real point, which is something you get? If the sermon ends with what you will receive rather than with Him, He is being used.
Is He enough? The genuine article says Christ is all and in all (Colossians 3:11). The counterfeit always has an addition. Christ plus this practice, this leader, this experience, this revelation. Anything that says Jesus is necessary but not sufficient has replaced Him with a smaller one who needs help.
The heart of it
Here is why this test works for teachers who have not been born yet. Movements change their names. Their doctrines get rewritten. Their leaders come and go. But the pressure to make Jesus smaller or to make Him useful never changes, because it comes from the same place it always has, the human heart that would rather have a manageable God.
The real Jesus is not manageable. He is God in flesh, He is the whole point, and He is enough. Know that Jesus. Know Him from the Gospels, from Paul, from John, from the Hebrews letter that will not stop saying He is better. When you know Him that well, another Jesus will not fool you for long, no matter what coat he is wearing this year.
Going deeper
Read Colossians 1:15-20 and 2:8-10 and list every claim Paul makes about who Christ is. Then read 1 John 4:1-6 for the test of the spirits. Finally read Isaiah 45:22-23 beside Philippians 2:9-11 and see what Paul did with Jehovah’s name.
An exercise. Take a teaching you have heard recently, any teaching. Ask the three questions. Is He God? Is He the point? Is He enough? Write down the answers.
Discussion questions
- Why would Paul say the Corinthians might well put up with another Jesus?
- Which counterfeit is more common in the churches you know, a shrunk Jesus or a used one?
- What would change if the real Jesus, God in flesh, the point, and enough, were the center of everything you heard taught?
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