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1 John

1 Johnchapter 4

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Speaks with:1 John 4×10Romans 8×51 John 3×51 John 2×41 John 5×3John 1×2

Summary

Chapter summary

'Believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world' (4:1), and the test is christological and blunt: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Ye have overcome them, 'because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.' Then the summit: 'Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God… He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love' (4:7-8), love defined not by sentiment but by an event, 'not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' 'Perfect love casteth out fear' (4:18).

Context

Epistle · John — 1 John overview

  • A. 1–6 Test the Spirits: Christ Come in the Flesh
  • B. 7–12 Love Is of God, and God Sent His Son First
  • C. 13–21 Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

The outline

  1. A.Test the Spirits: Christ Come in the Fleshvv. 1 to 6

    Read vv. 1 to 6 →

  2. B.Love Is of God, and God Sent His Son Firstvv. 7 to 12

    Read vv. 7 to 12 →

  3. C.Perfect Love Casts Out Fearvv. 13 to 21

    Read vv. 13 to 21 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

Come in the flesh

Pattern

Against teachers who denied that the Son had truly come as a man, John gives the church a confession test: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. The test names the denial antichrist and repeats across two letters.

The first great heresy the church faced denied not the deity of Christ but his flesh. John's test guards both ends: the Word made flesh is confessed, or the spirit speaking is not of God. Trying the spirits is commanded practice, because real spirits speak.

  1. 1 John 2:18

    Many antichrists already

    Ye have heard that antichrist shall come; even now are there many antichrists.

  2. 1 John 2:22

    The denial named

    Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?

  3. 1 John 4:2-3 you are here

    The confession test

    Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesseth not is the spirit of antichrist.

  4. 2 John 1:7

    The test repeated

    Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

Hereby we know

Pattern

1 John is built to give assurance, and it says so: these things have I written, that ye may know that ye have eternal life. The refrain hereby we know lands throughout, tying assurance to obedience, to love of the brethren, and to the given Spirit.

Assurance in this letter is not a feeling to work up but evidence to read: commandments kept, brethren loved, the Spirit given. The letter was written so that believers may know, and that stated purpose sets the tone for every hard verse inside it.

  1. 1 John 2:3

    If we keep his commandments

    Hereby we do know that we know him.

  2. 1 John 3:14

    Because we love the brethren

    We know that we have passed from death unto life.

  3. 1 John 3:24

    By the Spirit which he hath given us

    Hereby we know that he abideth in us.

  4. 1 John 4:13 you are here

    Because he hath given us of his Spirit

    Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us.

  5. 1 John 5:13

    That ye may know

    These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.

The world behind this chapter

1 John 4
When
The last decades of the first century · c. AD 85–95
Where
How to test a traveling teacher who claims to speak by the Spirit
Who first heard it
Households expected to give a bed and a hearing to anyone arriving with a prophetic claim

The history

Inspired speech was everywhere in that world. Oracles were consulted for a fee, ecstatic prophets attached themselves to temples, and traveling seers worked the towns. A claim to speak by a spirit was common enough that it proved nothing by itself.

The early church had the same traffic. A church-order document from around this period, the Didache, gives congregations practical rules for handling visiting prophets — how long a genuine one stays, and what asking for money reveals. John's rule is doctrinal rather than practical: what does he say about Jesus coming in the flesh.

That test is aimed at a specific denial. The teaching circulating in Asia held that the divine Christ could not really have taken a body or really have died, so John makes the body the dividing line.

The chapter's statement that God is love sits next to the definition of what love is: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as the sacrifice for our sins. The definition is an event, not a feeling.

What it meant to them

The first hearers needed a rule they could apply at their own front door, without training. John gives them one sentence to listen for.

The line about fear having to do with punishment answered people who had been made afraid of judgment by teachers claiming superior standing. Perfect love drives that fear out, and the proof offered is not an experience but the sending of the Son.

Sources cited

  • The Didache
  • Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on 1 John 4. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 18 · Written to them

Perfect love casteth out fear

topics/fear→

MannaFest topical index

This page draws on Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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