1 John4chapter 4

1 John 4:1-3

Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits sets discernment as a standing duty in a church that expects the Spirit to speak: dokimazo is the assayer's word, testing metal for the genuine, and the church tests utterances the same way rather than either believing every voice or silencing all of them. The test itself is narrow and Christ-centered: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, the present tense guarding an ongoing incarnation against Cerinthus's teaching that the Christ-spirit departed before the cross. The spirit of antichrist was already abroad in John's own day, even now already is it in the world, the docetic denial named as the letter's live target and the essentials flag planted at the point of contact.

1 John 4:4-6

have overcome them: Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them states victory already won over the false prophets and their spirit, because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world, the indwelling Spirit set directly against the spirit energizing the deceivers. The false teachers speak of the world and the world heareth them, message and audience of one nature, while we are of God gives the apostolic circle the opposite mark, he that knoweth God heareth us. The test closes on the two spirits by name, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error, discernment measured by whether a voice draws its hearers toward the apostolic gospel or away from it.

1 John 4:7-8

let us love one another: Beloved, let us love one another moves from the truth test to the love test, the second of the letter's tests run in this chapter's own pass, and grounds the command in its source, for love is of God, love not a human achievement but a divine origin. Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God ties love to the new birth as directly as 5:1 ties faith to it, love the family likeness rather than a separate virtue tacked onto belief. He that loveth not knoweth not God states the negative with equal force, for God is love, the letter's second great is-statement paired with God is light at 1:5, each naming what God is rather than merely what he does.

1 John 4:9-10

In this was manifested the love of God toward us states the proof before the definition, God's love shown in an action rather than argued from a feeling: he sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him, the incarnation aimed at life rather than mere example. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us corrects every reading that starts with human affection, God's love the first move and man's the answer. He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins, hilasmos, the same word and the same scope question as 2:2, the readings on the world's extent named with their holders there and standing unchanged here.

1 John 4:11-12

Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another draws the ethical conclusion from the doctrine just stated, obligation following gift rather than preceding it. No man hath seen God at any time answers a real difficulty, how the invisible God is loved and known, and gives the answer in the church's own life: if we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us, love among believers made the visible proof of the invisible God. Teleioo, perfected, is completion toward its intended end rather than sinless flawlessness, love reaching the goal for which it was given.

1 John 4:13-15

Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit answers the assurance question with the Spirit's own presence, the indwelling itself the witness rather than a feeling reasoned toward, continuationist ground running through the letter's whole hereby-we-know vocabulary. We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world states the apostolic eyewitness claim first sounded at 1:1, seeing and testifying joined as one office. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God returns to the confession test of verses 2 and 3, the same mutual indwelling now tied plainly to the same christological confession.

1 John 4:16

God is love: We have known and believed the love that God hath to us names knowledge and faith together as the ground of assurance, not feeling alone. God is love repeats the letter's central sentence for the second time in the chapter, love not merely an attribute among others but a definition of what God is. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him makes love the dwelling place itself, the mutual indwelling of verse 13 restated in its simplest terms.

1 John 4:17

Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment names the aim of a love reaching its intended completion, confidence rather than dread when the books are opened. Boldness, parresia, the same free-speech word used of prayer at 3:21 and 5:14, here reaches forward to the final assize rather than the present throne of grace. Because as he is, so are we in this world grounds the boldness in union with Christ, the believer's standing before the judgment already secured by likeness to the Judge himself rather than earned on the day.

1 John 4:18

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear names torment, kolasis, the same word used of eternal punishment at Matthew 25:46, as fear's own content, dread of the very judgment just named in verse 17. He that feareth is not made perfect in love states the converse plainly, fear and completed love occupying the same space only until one displaces the other, the fear not sin itself but evidence that love's work is unfinished. The verse gives assurance its emotional ground, not a demand to manufacture fearlessness but a promise that love, allowed to grow, drives out dread on its own.

1 John 4:19-21

We love him, because he first loved us closes the causal chain the chapter has run since verse 10, love always responding to a prior love rather than originating one. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar exposes a false profession by a visible test, the seen brother made the proving ground for the unseen God, since the man who cannot love whom he hath seen has no ground for claiming to love whom he hath not seen. The commandment closes the chapter where it opened its love section, that he who loveth God love his brother also, the two loves bound together as one indivisible command rather than two separate virtues.