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📚Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ 📖 is born of God 📖, and everyone who loves him who did the begetting loves him also who 📖 is begotten by him.Love obeys God’s commands
2 📚By this we know 📖 that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commands. 3 📚For this is love for God, that we keep his commands. And his commands are not grievous 📖.
Faith is the victory
4 📚For whoever 📖 is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world 📖: our faith.
5:4 God’s commands are not burdensome to believers because they have a new nature which loves God, and God Himself lives in them (1 John 4:12).⚜
5 📚Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes 📖 that Jesus is the Son of God?
How to know we have eternal life
6 📚This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies 📖, because the Spirit is truth 📖.
5:6 Matt 3:13-17; 26:28; John 19:34. In the Bible water is sometimes a symbol of spiritual life and God’s Spirit (John 4:10, 14; 7:38-39). Blood speaks of sacrifice for sin, the basis of forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:7; Eph 1:7). Christ was born of God’s Spirit, anointed by the Spirit, was full of spiritual life, and became the source of spiritual life to others. And He finished His earthly life by laying it down as a sacrifice for our sins.⚜
7 📚For there are three who testify in heaven: The Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.
8 📚And there are three that testify on earth: The Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree as one.
5:7-8 A part of these verses – “in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth” are missing from all the earliest Greek manuscripts now available, but are found in a famous Latin translation of the Greek. Erasmus, a Greek scholar of the 16th century, included them in the Greek text he published and so they came into the King James Version of the Bible. It is not impossible that they were in the original Greek manuscript, unlikely as nearly all authorities on the subject think this is. However that might be, the truth these words teach is seen everywhere in the New Testament. See notes at Matt 3:16-17.⚜
5:8 The facts of the life and death of Christ are written down and are like witnesses. God’s Spirit speaks to us of them also. All three are in perfect agreement. The inner witness says the same thing as the outer. The believer’s experience and the Bible agree.⚜
9 📚If we receive the testimony of men 📖, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God 📖 which he has given concerning his Son. 10 📚He who believes on the Son of God has this testimony in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar 📖, because he does not believe the record that God gave about his Son.
5:10 When we trust in Christ we obtain an inner conviction that the written record about Him is true. This is produced by God’s Spirit.⚜
11 📚And this is the record: God has given to us eternal life 📖, and this life is in his Son 📖. 12 📚He who has 📖 the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
5:12 Eternal life, spiritual life is obtainable only in one person – Jesus the Son of God. If we do not have Him in us we are spiritually dead (Eph 4:18). And we will not be able to obtain spiritual life from God in some other way (John 3:36). How can we expect to receive it if we reject the one and only source of it?⚜
13 📚I have written these things to you who believe on the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.
5:13 God does not want believers in Christ to be doubtful about their salvation. They have eternal life, and they should know that they have it. This is one reason why God inspired John to write this letter. How can believers be sure they are saved? What is the evidence, what are the signs to which John points? Assurance of salvation comes from the following:
By believing the testimony of God in His Word (v 9,11)
By the inner testimony of God’s Spirit (v 10; 1 John 3:24)
By relying on the promise of the forgiveness of sins (1 John 1:7-9)
By the evidence of obedience to God (1 John 2:5; 5:2)
John also gives us statements of truth which assure believers (1 John 4:15; 5:1). Full assurance of salvation is based on three things –
The written Word of God
The inner experience of believers
The outer evidence of the way they live and love.⚜
A great promise concerning prayer
14 📚And this is the confidence that we have in him: If we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us. 15 📚And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have made to him.
5:14-15 Because believers have eternal life they can have confidence in coming into God’s presence (compare Rom 5:2; Eph 2:18; 3:12; Heb 4:16; 10:19-22). Our confidence is this: God will answer all prayers if they are according to His will, and He will give us what we ask. Asking God according to our own will is a different matter. We should not expect Him to answer such prayers. Matt 6:10 gives what should always be the chief concern of every believer. But how do we know what God’s will is? The whole Bible reveals it. If we are ignorant of the Bible we will not know God’s will. But if we study it we can see what He wants to give us in answer to our believing prayer (compare Jam 1:6-7).⚜
The sin that leads to death
16 📚If any man sees his brother commit a sin which is not to death 📖, he should pray, and he will give him life for those whose sin is not to death. There is a sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray concerning it.
5:16 Praying for others who sin is a duty of believers. Compare Jam 5:16.⚜
17 📚All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin that is not to death.
5:17 See 1 John 3:4. The fact that there is sin which does not lead to death should not encourage us to sin, but should give us hope of forgiveness if we sin.⚜
Things believers can know
18 📚We know that whoever is born of God does not go on sinning 📖, but he who was born of God keeps him 📖, and that wicked one 📖 does not hold him 📖.
19 📚And we know 📖 that we are of God, and that the whole world lies prostrate in wickedness 📖.
20 📚And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding 📖, so that we may know him 📖 who is true. And we are in him 📖 who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.
The true knowledge of God rejects all idolatry
21 📚Little children, keep yourselves from idols 📖. Amen.