1 John 5:1 - Meaning and Application

The apostle had already urged Christian love for two reasons: it fits our Christian calling, and it agrees with God’s command. Here he adds a third reason, our fellow believers are closely related to God, because they are his children. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God” (1 John 5:1). The Christian brother is first described by his faith. He believes that Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah and Prince, the Son of God by nature and by office, the one anointed above all others, and fully fitted for the whole work of saving sinners. He gives himself to Christ’s care and direction.

He is also honored by his birth. He is “born of God” (1 John 5:1). This faith, and the new nature that comes with it, are given by the Spirit of God. So belonging to God’s family is no longer limited to Abraham’s physical descendants or ancient Israel. All believers, even those who were once Gentiles by birth, are spiritually descended from God, and so they are to be loved. That is why John adds, “Everyone who loves the Father loves the child born of him” (1 John 5:1). It is natural that the one who loves the Father should also love the children, especially those who resemble their Father and are loved by him. We must first and mainly love the Son of the Father, the only-begotten Son, the Son of his love, and then those who are freely born again by the Spirit of grace.

John also shows how we can tell whether our love for God’s children is true and gospel-shaped. The root of it must be our love for God, whose children they are: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God” (1 John 5:2). Our love for them is genuine when we do not love them merely for worldly reasons, such as wealth, learning, personal kindness, or party spirit. We love them because they are God’s children, because his grace is at work in them, and because his image is on them. In loving them, we are loving God himself. This is the kind of love for the brothers that this letter keeps pressing on us: love for them as the children of God and as the adopted brothers of the Lord Jesus.

John then shows how we can tell whether our love for God is real. It shows itself in holy obedience: “When we love God and keep his commandments” (1 John 5:2). We truly love God in the gospel sense when we keep what he commands. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3). And keeping his commandments means having a heart that is ready and glad to obey. Then his commandments are not heavy or hard to bear. Or, to put it another way, this is the love of God, that by it we are moved to obey, and God’s commands become easy and pleasant to us. The one who loves God says, “Oh, how I love your law! I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:32). That is, when you widen my heart with love, or with your Spirit, which is the spring of love.

John also tells us what new birth should produce, and what it does produce, a spiritual victory over this world. “Everyone born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). The one born of God is born for God, and therefore for another world. He has a new temper and bent that reaches toward a higher and better world. He is also given armor and power to resist and defeat this world. “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). Faith is the cause of victory, the means, the tool, the spiritual armor and weapons by which we conquer. Through faith we cling to Christ, even while we turn from the world. Faith works through love for God and Christ, and so it loosens the hold of the world on us. Faith also makes the heart holy and cleanses it from sinful desires that give the world such power over souls. It receives strength from its object, the Son of God, to bear the world’s threats and its flattery. It also receives, through God’s promise, the right to the indwelling Spirit of grace, who is greater than the one who lives in the world. And faith sees that an invisible world is near, a world far better than this one, and it keeps the soul ready to enter it.

So the apostle concludes that the true Christian is the real conqueror of the world: “Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:5). The world lies in our path to heaven, and it is the great obstacle to reaching there. But the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God believes that Jesus came from God to save the world, and to lead us powerfully out of the world and into heaven, and to God, who will be fully enjoyed there. And whoever believes this must, by that faith, overcome the world. He is convinced that this world is a strong enemy to his soul, his holiness, his salvation, and his happiness. He sees that a large part of the Savior’s work, and of his own salvation, is to be rescued from this evil world. He sees in the life of Jesus on earth that this world must be denied and overcome. He knows that Christ conquered the world, not for himself only, but for all who follow him, and they must seek to share in that victory. He is taught by Christ’s death to be dead to the world and nailed to it as well. He is born again through Christ’s resurrection to a living hope of a blessed world above (1 Peter 1:3). He knows that the Savior has gone to heaven and is preparing a place for true believers (John 14:2). He also knows that the Savior will come again, end this world, judge its people, and bring believers into his presence and glory (John 14:3).

The one who has this new birth and faith has a spirit and a heart that cannot be satisfied with this world. He looks beyond it and keeps pressing toward the world above. That is why Paul says, “In this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven” (2 Corinthians 5:2).

So Christian faith gives its followers a kind of worldwide victory. The Christian message is the great means by which the world is conquered and another world is gained, one that is pure, peaceful, blessed, and eternal. In that message we see the cause of the conflict between the holy God and this rebellious world.

There we find doctrine, both about truth and about duty, that is completely opposite to the spirit and direction of this world. Through that doctrine, a new spirit is given that stands above the spirit of the world. There we see that the Savior himself was not of this world, that his kingdom is not of this world, and that his people must be separated from it and gathered out of it for heaven and for God.

There we also see that the Savior does not mean for this world to be the inheritance and portion of his saved people. Since he has gone to heaven himself, he assures them that he is going there to prepare a place for them, because he means them to dwell with him forever. He also lets them know that if they had hope in Christ only for this life, they would be the most miserable of all people.

It is in that revelation that the blessed world to come is made most clear, and set before our love and pursuit. It is there that we are given the best weapons against the attacks of the world. It is there that we learn how to turn the world’s own weapons back on itself, and how its opposition, attacks, and persecutions can help us conquer the world and rise toward the higher heavenly world.

There we are encouraged by a whole army, a cloud of holy believers, who in their own times and places overcame the world and won the crown. The true Christian is the real hero, the one who defeats the world and rejoices in a complete victory. He does not mourn that there is no other world left to conquer. Rather, he lays hold of the eternal world of life, and in a holy sense takes the kingdom of heaven by force too. Who in all the world, except the believer in Jesus Christ, can overcome the world like this?