<p>4:6 <em>We are of God. He that knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error</em>- Being &quot;of God&quot;, born of Him by the Spirit (Jn. 1:13; 3:5), is presented as being in opposition to being &quot;of the Jewish world&quot;. John himself was a Jew and was not at all personally anti-Jewish; but he clearly presents the world of Judaism, with their conscious denial of Jesus as Messiah, as being absolutely opposed to the things of God. Those who were not born of God by the Spirit would not &quot;hear&quot; the teaching of John and his team. Yet they surely had the Spirit; to refuse their teaching, which they had been taught by the Comforter, was another proof that these hearers were not &quot;of God&quot;. There is an intuitive bonding between all who have the Lord's spirit. Those who were out of step with the teaching of spirit-filled teachers like John were thereby discernible as of &quot;the spirit of error&quot;. &quot;Error&quot; is more 'deceit' in the Greek, the same word used of the spirit of deceit which the Lord would send upon the Jewish world (2 Thess. 2:11; see note there).</p>