Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.The above is for testing spiritual beings encountered as well as false prophets.1Jo 4:2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
1Jo 4:3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1Jo 4:2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
1Jo 4:3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the worldThe above is for testing spiritual beings encountered as well as false prophets.
Glad I ran a comparison. Quite a number of translations leave this part out:
KJV
1 John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
Clarke's Commentary:
Verse 3
Verse 1 John 4:3. Every spirit — Every teacher, that confesseth not Jesus, is not of God - has not been inspired by God. The words εν σαρκιεληλυθοτα, is come in the flesh, are wanting in AB, several others, both the Syriac, the Polyglot Arabic, AEthiopic, Coptic, Armenian, and Vulgate; in Origen, Cyril, Theodoret, Irenaeus, and others. Griesbach has left them out of the text.
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/acc/1-john-4.html
Looks like it's pretty important because without it, "every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God" could be used to legitimize any so-called Jesus. Get enough people on board with a fake Jesus and bad things happen to those who refuse to accept the popular "Jesus".
Could be that the test is to observe and 'flesh out' just these sorts of issues.
Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind without seeing death, but then returned as a new baby named John.
Matthew 11:14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come.
If there were any fake Elijahs/Eliases running around at the time, they might have presented themselves as the "right age", and taken on the original name/alias of the prophet. That's what their marks would have been expecting.
Obviously there are simple, ingenious, out-of-left-field ways to outwit the frauds in ways that they would never anticipate.