1 John 4
Reject False Teaching and Remain in Communion with God and One Another
In this section, John continued to urge his audience to recognize and reject false doctrine about the nature of Jesus and the believer who wishes to follow Him. Again, he emphasized that the primary mission of the Christian who desires to be ready and confident at Jesus’ return is to remain in communion with God and others.
In the face of the false teaching of the Revisionists, they (Christians) are to cling to the truth they have heard from the beginning and to allow that truth to shape them inwardly. To go the direction of the antichrists is to forfeit all the rich experience which abiding in the Son and in the Father makes possible.
God abiding in us, as well as we abiding in Him, is essential to our having boldness as we anticipate the judgment seat of Christ. - Thomas Constable
Spirit of Truth vs Spirit of Deception
Test the Spirits
Vs. 1 - Test the spirits to see if they are from God.
The mention of the Holy Spirit in 1 John 3:24 caused John to pause briefly to sound a warning. God’s Spirit is not the only spirit manifest in the world. Some people naively think that any manifestation of a spiritual presence is indication of the Holy Spirit. The apostle explained how to distinguish the Holy Spirit from other spirits at work in the world. - Thomas Constable
John is not trying to be specific; he is warning against every malevolent spirit of Satan, every human spirit who becomes his agent, as well as every manifestation of “the spirit of error” that characterizes satanic doctrine. - Zane C. Hodges
Christians should examine carefully the teaching they receive, because not all teaching is correct, in spite of speakers’ claims that they are speaking by God’s Spirit. - Don Fleming
Spirit of AntiChrist
Vs. 3 - Every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.
For John Christian belief could be summed up in one great sentence: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" ( John 1:14). Any spirit which denied the reality of the Incarnation was not of God. John lays down two tests of belief: (William Barclay)
To be of God, a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.
To be of God, a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh. It was precisely this that the Gnostics could never accept.
John’s test question whereby one can determine whether the Spirit of God or a spirit of falsehood possesses a person was this. What does the person believe about Jesus Christ? If a person denies the incarnation of Jesus Christ-a heresy false teachers were promoting among John’s original readers-he has the spirit of antichrist (1 John 2:18-27). That is, a denial of the doctrine of Christ as the apostles taught it, deviation from orthodox Christology, evidences a spirit opposed to Jesus Christ. - Thomas Constable
You Have Conquered
Vs. 4 - You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
John was confident that these Christians could, with God’s help and the Apostles’ teaching, reject the false doctrine of the Revisionists and overcome the spirit of antichrist.
From The World or God
Vs. 5 - They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.
The false teachers will neither listen to, nor accept, the truth which the true Christian offers. How is that to be explained? John returns to his favorite antithesis, the opposition between the world and God. The world, as we have seen before, is human nature apart from, and in opposition to, God. The man whose source is God will welcome the truth; the man whose source is the world will reject it. - William Barclay
Vs. 6 - We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us.
Most commentators note that the “we” John referenced was likely the apostles. John consistently reminded these Christians that the false teaching he refuted directly contradicted the truth they had heard from the apostles’ teaching.
This is one of the apostles citing the collective testimony of all the apostles and making that testimony the measure of truth and sound doctrine. - Boice
Let Us Love One Another
Dear Friends
Vs. 7 - Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God
Vs. 11 - Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.
John had affectionately addressed these Christians as brothers and sisters and children of God. Here, he used the term (Agapētoi), translated “Beloved” in many English texts, a term of endearment that was also a teaching tool. These Christians had been loved, and because of that, John encouraged them to love one another.
The ancient Greek sentence begins in a striking way – (agapetoi agapomen), “those who are loved, let us love.” We are not commanded to love one another to earn or become worthy of God’s love. We love one another because we are loved by God, and have received that love, and live in light of it. - David Guzik
Born of God and Knows God
Vs. 7 - Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Vs. 8 - The one who does not love does not know God
Vs. 20-21 - If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.
Throughout this sermon, John asserted that the evidence of knowing God and living in a right relationship with Him was loving as He loves. To love God and others was the greatest commandment, and the apostle returned to this over and over in this letter. Loved people will love people.
God Is Love
Vs. 8 - because God is love.
Here is the second of 1 John’s two great affirmations about God. The first, in 1:5, affirms that “God is light.” Now John declares that God is love. The former points to His perfect holiness; His freedom from all sin or deception. This second statement affirms that His basic nature is characterized by love. This does not mean God has no other attributes, such as wisdom and justice. But it does indicate that love is fundamental to what God is and to what He does. - Zane C. Hodges
Real love has its source from God. We only understand love because of God. Love is not natural nor innate. Love comes from God. God shows us what love is and what love looks like. - Brent Kercheville
Atoning Sacrifice
Vs. 10 - He loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
John returned here to a concept he introduced earlier (1 John 2:1). “Atoning sacrifice” referred to how Jesus became the ultimate fulfillment of the Jewish sacrificial system, the substance to which all the symbols pointed. The greatest demonstration of God’s love for us was that He sent Jesus to be this “sacrifice” for our sins.
The imagery refers back to the Law of Moses when, on the Day of Atonement, blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat, which symbolically resided on top of the ark of the covenant, and atonement was made for the sins of the people. This symbolized the removal of guilt due to sin. Atonement had been made for the people. Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for our sins. - Brent Kercheville
The picture in “propitiation” is from sacrifice and is more natural to the Jewish mind than to ours. The great basic truth behind this word is that it is through Jesus Christ that man's fellowship with God is first restored and then maintained. - William Barclay
Seeing God
Vs. 12 - No one has ever seen God.
We cannot see God, and the world cannot see God. But the world is supposed to see the love of God in us by the way we treat each other. We are convincing people that the invisible God truly exists. We prove God by the love we show for each other. - Brent Kercheville
It is by love that God is known (1 John 4:12). We cannot see God, because he is spirit; what we can see is his effect. We cannot see the wind, but we can see what it can do. We cannot see electricity, but we can see the effect it produces. The effect of God is love. It is when God comes into a man that he is clothed with the love of God and the love of men. God is known by his effect on that man. It has been said, "A saint is a man in whom Christ lives again" and the best demonstration of God comes not from argument but from a life of love. - William Barclay
Love Made Complete
Vs. 12 - If we love one another, God remains in us and his love is made complete in us.
God’s love achieves its goal and reaches its full measure in believers when that love is reproduced in them and reflected through them by loving one another. - Zane C. Hodges
Remaining in God
Vs. 16 - God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
Here, John returned again to a different tense of the Greek word (meinate), translated “remain” or “abide,” to describe how Christians should “stay” in communion with God and one another. This seems to have been the apostle’s primary purpose in writing, to remind these “friends” of how they could be assured of their communion with God and be confident at His coming.
This Is How We Know: The Spirit And The Son
Vs. 13 - This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.
Vs. 15 - Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God.
Here again (1 John 3:23-24), the apostle emphasized the reception of both the Son and the Spirit as evidence of a Christian’s communion with God the Father. In other words, these Christians could have confidence in prayer and practice, even when they experienced doubt, as they received God’s love demonstrated through the gifts of the Son of God and the Spirit of God.
No Fear In Love
Confidence
Vs. 18 - There is no fear in love
This is the third time that John has addressed fear, shame, or lack of confidence in this sermon. Because of false teaching, these Christians were apparently confused as to how they could be ready for Jesus’ return, “confident and unashamed” when He finally appeared.
1 John 2:28 - So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.
1 John 3:19-21 - This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things. Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God
Here, John answered their fear with a call to love. As these Christians received the inexhaustible love of God and reflected it in their relationships with one another, they would no longer need to fear the coming day of judgment.
Confidence is one of the great consequences of having intimate fellowship with God. - Thomas Constable
Causation
Vs. 19 - We love because he first loved us.
Human love is a response to divine love (1Jn 1:19). We love because God loved us. It is the sight of his love which awakens in us the desire to love him as he first loved us and to love our fellow-men as he loves them. - William Barclay
Our ability to love and our practice of love come from God’s love for us. We need not fear standing before our Judge because we love Him and He loves us. This verse is the climax of the body of this epistle. - Thomas Constable
