1 John

Chapter 4

Testing the Spirits and Love Comes from God

1 John 4 joins discernment and love by showing that true fellowship with God requires both right confession about Jesus Christ and genuine love for one another. John begins by warning believers not to believe every spirit, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. The decisive test is Christological: the Spirit of God confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, while every spirit that refuses this confession belongs to the antichrist spirit already at work. Yet believers are not left vulnerable, because the One in them is greater than the one in the world. John then turns to the nature of divine love. Love comes from God, reveals knowledge of God, and is most clearly displayed in the Father's sending of His Son to be the atoning sacrifice for sins. Because God has loved in this way, believers must love one another. That love becomes a sign of God's abiding presence, grounds confidence for the day of judgment, drives out fear, and proves the sincerity of claims to love God. The chapter ends with the uncompromising command that loving God necessarily includes loving one's brother.

As the fourth chapter of 1 John, this passage is crucial because it holds together two tests that can be wrongly separated: doctrinal discernment and brotherly love. John refuses a sentimental religion that emphasizes love without truth, but he also rejects a merely polemical orthodoxy that lacks love. The first half of the chapter shows that true spirituality must confess the incarnate Son and remain aligned with apostolic testimony. The second half shows that true knowledge of God expresses itself in love because God Himself is love and has revealed that love in the sending of His Son. The chapter also develops one of the letter's major pastoral aims, namely assurance. Abiding in God's love creates confidence rather than fear before judgment, because perfected love reflects the believer's participation in God's own life. 1 John 4 therefore serves as one of the New Testament's clearest statements that truth and love must remain inseparable in the church.

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1 John 4

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vv. 1-6

Testing the Spirits

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B¹eloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. ²By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and which is already in the world at this time.

⁴You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. ⁵They are of the world. That is why they speak from the world’s perspective, and the world listens to them. ⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.

vv. 7-21

Love Comes from God

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B⁷eloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. ¹⁰And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.

¹³By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

¹⁷In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him. ¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹We love because He first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.

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