First John 5

Overcoming the world (5:1-5)

For the sake of clarity, let's strip John's argument down to its bare essentials by highlighting the key verses.

1. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God (v. 1)
2. Whatever is born of God overcomes the world (v. 4)
3. Therefore, who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (v. 5)

The argument then is focused on answering the question in verse 5, "Who is the one who overcomes the world?" Answer: the one who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who came by water and by blood.

Now why would this question be so vitally important to the Christians living in Asia Minor under John's pastoral ministry?

Well, remember that the context of 1 John is a spiritual and doctrinal conflict between the false teachers who had departed and the disciples who remained within the Johannine community - the authentic, apostolic fellowship. When the false teachers departed from the apostolic fellowship they did so in a manner that had the effect of raising deep doubts in the minds of the disciples who remained concerning their spiritual status.

Although we do not have firsthand information, when we read between the lines we get the impression that when the false teachers departed they did so with a bitter, divisive, and partisan spirit. They claimed to have the light, and they judged the Johannine Christians as in the darkness. They claimed to be the sons of God, and the Johannine Christians were the sons of the devil.

In this judgmental spirit the false teachers separated themselves from the Johannine fellowship in a schismatic and disruptive manner that left the remaining disciples demoralized and lacking the assurance that they were indeed God's children. "Perhaps those other teachers were right after all? How do we know if we really are the sons of God? Maybe it is they, not we, who possess the truth?" they may have thought.

John therefore is a wise pastor and he addresses these self-critical doubts by encouraging them that they do indeed possess the truth that by faith they, not the false teachers, are the spiritual victors in this conflict.

The terms victory and overcome are crucial to this whole passage. They occur 4x in vv. 4-5. In Greek they noun "victory" and the verb "to overcome" are related (nike - nikao). Thus a better translation of v. 4 would be: "This is the conquering power that has conquered the world - our faith."

"Conquering" seems to be a favorite Johannine term because he also uses it in his gospel and in the book of Revelation.

John 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

Revelation 2:7 "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God."

Revelation 5:5 "And one of the elders said to me, "Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals."

Revelation 12:11 "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death."

These texts are crucial for a proper understanding of 1 John 5 because they establish the proper theological framework for understanding the nature of this overcoming.

1. The victory of the saints over the world and the Devil is grounded in the victory of Christ, decisively achieved through his cross
2. The victory of the saints, like the victory of Christ, is a paradoxical victory achieved by means of apparent defeat
3. The victory of the saints is therefore not an earthly exercise of power in this age but persevering in faith in spite of persecution and opposition

In other words, the saints defeat Satan by participating in the very sufferings of Christ himself. As we persevere in our confession of faith in Jesus Christ, and as we suffer as a result of that confession, leading in many cases to death itself, we are by this very persevering faith victorious over the enemy.

How would the enemy be victorious? Only if his opposition and threats caused us to give up our confession of faith in Christ. Therefore, if we hold fast the testimony of Jesus we come off victorious even though outwardly in the eyes of man we appear to be defeated.

"The patient endurance and faith of the saints" (Rev. 13:10)

"The perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (Rev. 14:12)

"The tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus" (1:9)

1 John 5 teaches the same paradoxical view of spiritual victory. The false teachers have split the church. Perhaps we may speculate that they took a large number of disciples with them, leaving a struggling band of stragglers behind. Outwardly you may feel that you have been defeated. But spiritually you have proven yourself to be the victors in this conflict by virtue of your persevering faith in Jesus. You didn't give in to their blandishments. You weren't taken in by their metaphysical gnostic speculations. You persisted in holding on to the only Savior from sin, even Jesus the Son of God who came by water and by blood.

5:1-3

"Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." This statement is very important theologically. It implies that no one can exercise faith in Christ unless he or she has first been born of God. Regeneration is the cause of faith. We do not become born again by making a so-called "decision for Christ." Faith is a gift of sovereign grace as Paul clearly teaches in Eph. 2:8: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God."

How could it be otherwise? As those who were dead in trespasses and sins who were living under the sway of the powers of darkness and spending all our energy fulfilling our sinful desires, how could we have believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ unless God had first made us alive together with Christ and given us a new heart, and renewed our wills to embrace Jesus as he is offered to us in the gospel?

So the first premise in John's argument is that faith itself is a gift of God a result of the new birth. Now that is significant because it means that the very fact that you confess Jesus Christ is a sign that you are different. Something has changed that sets you apart from the rest of the world. Your faith is evidence that you have been begotten of God. You have been reborn spiritually.

Oh how we belittle faith and consider it to be of no account! When in reality it is a most precious and rare jewel. Faith is the result of a divine miracle, the miracle of the new birth. Let us look at our faith as something a most precious God-given quality.

But you object, "Many people in the visible church profess faith in Christ – but we know that many of them are tares whose profession is not genuine." John does not deny this. Indeed, the false teachers at one time had been a part of the church and therefore presumably their profession had at one time been credible. What, then, distinguishes the faith of the disciples from the unbelief of the false teachers? Well, John has labored at length to give a comprehensive answer to this question in the preceding chapters, but in our text he simply refers back to what he has said: orthodoxy (Jesus is the Christ) and love (the new commandment).

So the first step in the argument is that if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, a belief that is proven to be genuine by its orthodoxy and the fruits of love, then you may be assured that you are born of God.

5:4

"Whatever is born of God overcomes the world." The Greek word "whatever" is a neuter participle and this seems to be important. John does not say, "whoever" but "whatever." Why? Because your victory over the world doesn't depend on any quality found in you. The new birth itself is what conquers the world, not your ability to conquer. It is not the person but the divine nature itself that conquers.

Surely, whatever is born of God overcomes the world. That is an indisputable fact. Nothing that is the offspring of God could ever conceivably be defeated by the world. The divine cannot be defeated by the demonic. So you see how John is arguing you into submission. You cannot escape the steel trap logic of his argument. You believe in Christ, but that belief is not the result of your own will but a supernatural product of your having been begotten of God. But that which has been begotten of God cannot, by its very nature as the offspring of God, be overcome by the world. Well, then, if you believe in Christ, you are supernaturally victorious, in spite of all outward evidence to the contrary.

5:5

Therefore, who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? Notice that the confession that "Jesus is the Son of God" is fully equivalent to the confession in v. 1 that "Jesus is the Christ." Indeed, as Peter confessed, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

The water and the blood (5:6-9)

Verses 6-8 expand on what this confession entails in relation to the work of Christ - by water and by blood. There are several possible interpretations of the water and the blood:

1. The two sacraments (Luther and Calvin)
2. The spear thrust (John 19:34-35)
3. The baptism and the death of Jesus (Tertullian)

The water here refers to the baptism of Jesus at which point he was declared to be the Son of God and anointed with the Spirit as the Christ in order to accomplish salvation by means of his death. The baptism of Jesus was his Messianic commission.

The blood refers to the death of Jesus, when the Messianic commission of Jesus reached its fulfillment, for it was at the cross that the obedience of Jesus to the Father was completed in both the active and passive aspects.

John's point is that there can be no separation between Jesus and the Christ.

Irenaeus versus Cerinthus

"In Asia Minor a certain Cerinthus taught that the world was not made by the Supreme God but by a power that is quite separate and distinct from that Power which is above all."

Comment: the physical creation cannot be associated with the Supreme God because the physical creation is evil and eternally opposed to the divine nature.

"He taught that Jesus was not born of a virgin, for that seemed impossible to him; rather Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph conceived like other men."

Comment: there can be no real incarnation, if the physical flesh is inherently evil.

"Jesus is thought to have outdistanced all others in righteousness, prudence, and wisdom; and after his baptism, the Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler."

Comment: When John affirms the equation, "Jesus is the Christ," he is pinpointing this very error which separated Jesus and the Christ, making the Christ a spiritual being who indwelled the flesh of Jesus only temporarily but not in the sense of a genuine incarnation.

"Then Jesus proclaimed the unknown Father and performed miracles. In the end, however, the Christ withdrew again from Jesus, and Jesus suffered and rose again, while the Christ remained impassible (unable to suffer), inasmuch as he was a spiritual being."

Comment: the Christ came by water only but not by water and by blood.

To be saved means to become a partaker of the Spirit, the Christ, but this occurs only by means of enlightenment, because the redemptive work of Christ on the cross has nothing to do with it.

In addition to denying the separation between Jesus and the Christ, John also rejects the separation of the Spirit and the cross. The Spirit is given and enjoyed only by means of the cross (John 7:37-39).

That Spirit who was the reward purchased by Christ on account of his obedience unto death testifies not to a Cerinthian Jesus whose death was of no more significance than a pin prick but to the Johannine Jesus who was God in the flesh shedding his blood to save our souls from hell.

The outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost is an objective testimony to the reality of Christ's incarnation. For if the Christ departed from Jesus before his death, then the death and resurrection of Christ have absolutely no saving significance. But the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost demonstrates that the death and resurrection of Christ were absolutely essential for our salvation and procured for us the gift of the Holy Spirit on the basis of Christ's meritorious obedience.

5:9

The testimony of God concerning his Son refers back to vv. 6-8 - the water, the blood, and the Spirit. The whole triune Godhead was acting in the baptism of Jesus, in the death of Jesus, and at the ascension of Jesus and pouring out of his Spirit at Pentecost.

This is possible not only because of the deity of Christ but because of emperichoresis by which the acts of one person of the Godhead are the acts of all three. Examples of emperichoresis: the Father and the Son (John 10:38; 14:10-11); the Son and the Spirit (John 14:16, 26). Who sends Spirit? The Father (John 14:26) and the Son (John 15:26).

God the Father is the one who is testifying to our faith by means of the testimony of the water and the blood and by means of the testimony of the Spirit.

Interestingly, the Son is the object of both the Father's and the Spirit's witness. The Son does not testify to himself. He is testified unto by the Father and the Spirit

Baptism: Father and Spirit are present (John 1:29-34) Death: Father and Spirit are present (John 12:27-28; 19:34-35) Pentecost: Father and Spirit are present (John 7:37-39; 14:26)

Objective aspect of all three witnesses as historical evidences: Baptism, Death, Pentecost. Why resurrection omitted? Because it is logically included in the Baptism and Pentecost.

Subjective aspect of all three as confirming faith.

Baptism: Jesus stepped forward and took my place in the Jordan.

Death: As my substitute, he bore my guilt and God's wrath.

Pentecost: The confirmation of the completion of his work and its acceptance by God the Father, was the gift of the Spirit.

The term "witness" brings to mind evangelistic witness to the lost and such a meaning is common in the gospel of John, but in 1 John the witness or testimony is for us, the people of God, that we might have assurance.

We must allow the testimony of God to his Son and the testimony of the Spirit to the Son's finished work to have its full sway in our hearts, producing confirmation, certainty, full assurance. "We receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater." Cp. Hebrews 6:13-18.

In effect, there are three witnesses, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses everything might be confirmed.

Life in the Son (5:10-21)

5:10-12

The purpose of the testimony is to evoke and strengthen faith in Christ. To accept the testimony of God (v. 9) and to believe in the Son of God (v. 10) are virtually synonymous expressions.

Verse 10 deals with the contrast between belief and unbelief. "In himself" = in his heart by the Spirit. "Made him out to be a liar" = apostasy, rejection of God. John makes a stark contrast here between faith and unbelief in order to prevent us from taking the pious middle ground of uncertainty. You either believe the gospel or you reject God as a liar.

When did God give us eternal life? When he gave us his Son, who is Eternal Life (v. 20; 1:2). Jesus is the objective Life-giver

Eternal life is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and nowhere else. It is impossible to have eternal life apart from Jesus Christ. The exclusive message of the gospel is a scandal in today's pluralistic culture. But it has always been that way (1 Corinthians 1:18-25).

5:13

This confirms the present aspect of eternal life, for how can we possess eternal life and not know that we possess it?

Isn't it presumptuous to have full, infallible assurance of salvation? This is the Roman Catholic doctrine: assurance is dangerous because it removes the only motivation for godliness. So God only gives assurance to a select few who are extraordinarily pious and "able to handle it" without abusing it.

But the NT clearly teaches that infallible assurance is the norm in the Christian life, not the exception (Rom. 4:21; Col. 2:2; Heb. 10:22).

Westminster Confession 18:1-2 teaches that there are three grounds of assurance:

1. The objective promises of the gospel
2. The fruits of faith
3. The inner testimony of the Spirit

All three grounds of assurance are taught in 1 John:

1. The promises - 2:23-25; 5:11-13
2. The fruit of faith - love for the brethren - 2:3; 3:14
3. The confirmation produced by the inner testimony - 2:20; 4:13

These three must be taken together. A three-fold cord is not easily broken. Combination of faith and love - 3:23-24; 4:15-16 ("Faith expressing itself through love"). When these two means of assurance are working together, then the Spirit bears witness with our spirit to confirm that this faith and love are indeed the result of God's grace operating in our lives (cp. 5:1).

5:14-15

Assurance of eternal life (v. 13) applied to confidence in prayer. Cp. John 11:41-42; 17:1-5. Jesus' confidence of being heard by his Father. Christ's confidence is the basis of our confidence before God. This is the reason we must always make our requests to God "in the name of Jesus Christ," never in our own name.

Confidence in Greek is parresia. It has two related meanings, both of which are applicable in prayer. First, "plain, open, or frank speech." E.g., Mark 8:32: "Jesus was stating the matter (about his impending death) plainly." When we pray, we can speak freely and openly to our heavenly Father about our wants, desires, needs, and concerns. We can give honest expression to our feelings.

Second, it also has the connotation of "boldness, confidence." E.g., Hebrews 4:16: "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." When we pray, we need not fear that our heavenly Father will despise us, or scoff at our requests. He "hears us."

What do we do with the seemingly unconditional promise in v. 15? Has God indeed guaranteed to give us whatever we ask? Passages like this must be read in light of the rest of the teaching of Scripture concerning prayer.

James 4:3 "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures."

1 John 5:14 "And this is the boldness we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us."

This is why the Lord's prayer is so helpful because it directs us to those things which are according to God's will. But there are many other prayers that we do not know what God's will is: the salvation of a family member, recovery from a life-threatening illness, to find employment. In these cases, we cannot pray with the certainty that God will give us what we have requested. We must always add, "if it be your will."

Prayer is not a demand that God do x, y, or z. It is a humble petition on the part of God's servants that God would do so and so because, from our vantage point, it appears that this would bring glory to God.

God does not disregard the desires of his servants. He wants us to be involved in his kingdom plan as God's fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9). 1 Peter 3:12: "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer." God informed Abraham of his plan to destroy Sodom (Gen. 18). "I will not from Abraham what I am about to do," thus prompting Abraham to intercede on behalf of righteous Lot and his family.

Prayer is not a farce. It is wrong to think, "Whatever happens, it's already been decreed, there is no use praying about it." Philippians 1:19: "for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ."

So we should pray with confidence that our heavenly Father is a good and gracious Father whose ears are attentive to the prayer of the righteous and who wishes to bless his servants when they pray for that which will glorify him.

Often God seems distant, as if he has forgotten about us and doesn't care about us. The Psalms are full of laments expressing this feeling. E.g., Psalm 27:9: "Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior." Such times of seeming abandonment by God are his providential discipline in our lives to force us to get down on our knees and seek his aid.

Often when things are going well in our lives our prayer life seems to wither away and we lose that sense of constant dependence upon God's fatherly care and supply of all our needs. Trials and tribulations are an opportunity to pray and renew our fellowship with God.

5:16-17

John now applies the encouragement to pray to a specific type of prayer - intercessory prayer for those who having fallen into sin. This is the beginning of John's conclusion and the argument flows nicely from this point to the end.

We need to remind ourselves of the context. The false teachers have been purveying a false gospel and a false Christ, and therefore they themselves are called Antichrists. The false Christ they have been preaching is not the eternal Son of God who became flesh. He did not die on the cross to be the propitiation for our sins and he is therefore not our divine-human Savior. These false teachers have created a schism in the church and this has shaken the faith of many of the disciples. Indeed, we can assume that some of them have been deceived by the heretics and led away into error. Others may not have been deceived completely but the stability of their faith has been replaced by doubt and possibly they have even forsaken the assembly of the church in corporate worship.

John therefore encourages the believers who remain and who are strong in their faith to pray for the sheep that may be in this state of indecision and spiritual warfare. He wants to clarify, however, that he is not asking them to pray for those who are clearly apostate, who have renounced the apostolic faith altogether. Thus, the sin that leads to death is the denial of that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh to die for our sins.

This is the meaning of the distinction between the sin that leads to death and the sin that does not lead to death. It is not, as the Roman Catholic church teaches, a distinction between mortal and venial sins. Grace is like the water in the bathtub. Some sins are less serious. They are like poking holes in the side of the bathtub. Other sins, mortal sins, are damnable. If you commit adultery or murder, for example, it's like pulling the plug and letting all the grace drain out. This whole scheme is connected with the idea of purgatory. If you die in a state of mortal sin, without having done penance, you go straight to hell. But if you die in a state of venial sin, as the vast majority of Catholics do, then you must go to purgatory to pay off the extra guilt. None of these ideas are anywhere implied in our text. Roman Catholic theologians have simply read their whole system of grace and sin and purgatory into the text and twisted it to support their erroneous theology.

The sin that leads to death is the sin of apostasy. Apostasy is more than willful rejection of the gospel. It is willful rejection of the gospel on the part of someone who had formerly confessed faith in Christ and had become a member of the body of Christ.

Even then, we can still pray for the salvation of apostates in the same way that we pray for the salvation of all men. Notice that John does not forbid that we pray for apostates. He simply states that we cannot have the assurance from God that such a prayer will be answered. For, as Hebrews teaches, repentance and restoration are not easy to come by for those who have once been enlightened, but who have trampled the Son of God under their feet and have despised the blood of the covenant. Yet repentance is not absolutely impossible, as 2 Timothy 2:24-26 teaches: "The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition [like Hymenaeus and Philetus], if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will."

This is very different from those who are living in unrepentant sin or who have become temporarily entangled in a false church. Jude 20-23: "But you, beloved, building up yourselves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire."

What is meant by "God will give him life." It could refer to a renewed infusion of divine grace that leads to repentance. It is more likely, however, that John is speaking eschatologically. God will give the promised resurrection life to sinning Christians who repent.

The prayer that John envisions here is not the prayers of individual Christians praying for fellow Christians who are in sin. It is the corporate prayer of the church interceding on behalf of its own members who are on the fringes of the congregation or who have been disciplined or left the church.

We should always pray for one another, but it is even more important that the church lift up the erring, the sinning, and the wandering sheep to the throne of grace, praying for their restoration to the fellowship of the church and their ultimate entrance into eternal life at the end.

5:17

"All unrighteousness is sin." This is simply meant to correct a possible misunderstanding. In making the distinction between the sin of apostasy that leads to death and sins that do not, John is not denying the reality of sin.

We must never assume that the ordinary sins of believers, sins that fall short of the heinous crime of apostasy and covenant-breaking, are somehow unimportant in the sight of God or not really reckoned as sin. John preached against this type of thinking in ch. 1 where he rejected the idea that Christians are without sin and where he exhorted us to confess our sin and to be cleansed in Christ's blood.

5:18-19

Having spoken of the possibility of apostasy the most heinous sin that leads to death John now wants to reassure his hearers that they are not apostates, that indeed, they are protected from apostasy by union with Christ.

No one who has been born of God sins, that is, can commit the sin leading to death. On the contrary, the new birth comes by means of union with the Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Since we are united to the One who was eternally begotten of God, we are given an eternal and unforfeitable new life in him.

The One who is begotten of God = Jesus Christ. He is the one who keeps us and preserves us so that no one can snatch us out of his hand. In that secure place we are totally shielded from the Evil One. Satan may rage against us outwardly and seek to destroy us with fire and sword. He may rage against us inwardly by shooting his fiery arrows of the Law at our conscience. But all he can do is rage. He cannot break through and steal. Indeed, he cannot even touch us, John says. Thus, while the whole world lies in the power of the Evil One (v. 19) we are of God, begotten of God through God's eternal Son.

5:20-21

A marvelous summary of the whole epistle. Both verses must be taken together, otherwise v. 21 seems like a rather odd way to conclude the epistle. The contrast between the true God and the idols. The true God has been revealed in Jesus Christ, his Son who came in the flesh and died on the cross to save us from sin. The idols are a false God revealed in a false Christ who neither came in the flesh nor truly died upon the cross.

Let us be on guard against idols, that is, against false Gods and false christs. John 17:3: "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." We must be on guard, because many Antichrists have gone out into the world posing as messengers of the true faith. Let us not be deceived by any gospel, or any teaching, which would take us away from our simple whole-hearted devotion to Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who became man in these last days and accomplished our salvation not in some ethereal spiritual realm of ideas but in space and time, outside the city gates of Jerusalem 2000 years ago (cp. 1 John 1:1-4).