Discovery Box1 John 4:3-4 
Context4:3 but 1 every spirit that does not confess 2 Jesus 3 is not from God, and this is the spirit 4 of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.
4:4 You are from God, little children, and have conquered them, 5 because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
1 tn The καί (kai) which begins 4:3 introduces the “negative side” of the test by which the spirits might be known in 4:2-3. Thus it is adversative in force: “every spirit that confesses Jesus as Christ who has come in the flesh is from God, but every Spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”
2 tn Or “does not acknowledge.”
3 tc A number of variants are generated from the simple τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν (ton Ihsoun), some of which turn the expression into an explicit object-complement construction. ᾿Ιησοῦν κύριον (Ihsoun kurion, “Jesus as Lord”) is found in א, τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν Χριστόν (ton Ihsoun Criston, “Jesus as Christ”) is read by the Byzantine minuscules, τὸν Χριστόν (“the Christ”) is the reading of 1846, and ᾿Ιησοῦν without the article is found in 1881 2464. But τὸν ᾿Ιησοῦν is well supported by A B Ψ 33 81 1739 al, and internally best explains the rise of the others. It is thus preferred on both external and internal grounds.
4 tn “Spirit” is not in the Greek text but is implied.
5 sn Them refers to the secessionist opponents, called “false prophets” in 4:1 (compare 2:19).
