Faith is the victory
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
John begins the conclusion to his letter with a clear summary of what he had already written. In chapter 2, John wrote that God’s love is perfected in those who keep his word. In chapter 3, he noted that keeping God’s commandments is a reflection of his Spirit in his followers. By chapter 4, John repeated the affirmation that God so loved the world and the admonition that love, obedience, and belief are the evidence of living in the Light.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.
Chapter 5 opens by synthesizing the key points of the letter: Jesus is the Christ, born of God, loving God and loving one another cannot be separated, and obedience to God’s commands is the way believers demonstrate their faith.
Spurgeon (1871) taught that faith “evidently rests upon Jesus…It is not a belief about doctrine, nor an opinion, nor a formula, but a belief concerning a person.” Jesus is the Christ, the promised redemption of Israel and savior of humanity (Genesis 3), fully human and fully divine. There was no special anointing along the lines of what people claim for Mohammah, Buddha, or Joseph Smith. “We would never say Jesus ‘has’ the Christ– Jesus is the Christ” (Guzik, n.d., emphasis in the original). When dealing with false teachers, as the early Ephesians were, Stott (1964) encouraged, “Confidence in the divine-human person of Jesus is the one weapon against which neither the error, or the evil, nor the force of the world can prevail” (174). When arguments fail, Jesus still is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Without the reality of Jesus as born of God, humans are enslaved by all that is in the world: “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life” (1 John 2:16).
John’s three tests of true teaching come together in this final chapter. The love of God that manifested in the incarnation leads those who seek God to love God and others, obey His commands, and believe that Jesus was, is, and will be exactly who he claimed to be. “Belief, love, and obedience are marks of the new birth” (Stott, 1984, 175).
In the life of the Christian, love for God and love for one another inevitably lead to obedience grounded in belief. The three are inextricably linked:
“It is as impossible to love the children of God (as such) without loving God as it is to love God without loving his children…If we truly love God, we not only love his children, but also find ourselves carrying out his commands” (Stott, p 173 emphasis in original)
Jesus invited people to give up their burdens and take up his yoke (Matthew 11), saying that his yoke is easy and his burden light. The rest he promised was not physical, but spiritual. No longer were people bound to the Law for their salvation, but rather to a person. Salvation assured, the response of believers is to keep his commandments as they love the Lord who showed mercy. To know God in Truth is to love Him and to love God is to obey Him, not out of guilt or legalism, but in joyful recognition that those born of God overcome the world.
What does it mean to overcome the world? What does it mean that Jesus’ burden is light? What does it mean that God’s commands are not burdensome?
Certainly this world is deteriorating and the burdens of living lives of faith, hope, and love grow more complicated with every election cycle. However, this world is not home to those who call Jesus, Lord. God’s Spirit, promised by Jesus and delivered to all believers from Pentecost to today, allows God’s children to persevere, knowing that there is more to this life than material success and more after this life than annihilation. Suffering is part of following Jesus (John 16:33; Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 6:4-10; 1 Peter 4:1) Accordingly, Christians can maintain strength in weakness in the power of Christ (2 Corinthians 12:9).
“The will of God for our lives is not a crushing weight. God does not build His greatness upon our smallness; He is in no sense threatened by our joys and fulfillment. God’s will is challenging because it goes crossgrain to the expectations of our age and generation” (Palmer, 74).
In the West, Christians do not face physical burdens like those of centuries past. Still, the temptations to find success in this world by wealth, fame, or influence run strong in a social media age. Blaiklock (1959) noted that
[The world] still envelopes the Christian with the subtlety of its attraction and appeal. It is not a menace backed by a hostile, persecuting state, but it is still a facet of man’s rebellion, a thrust and urge towards conformity, surrender to the secular multitude, and the death of finer things which is involved in that capitulation (24).
To acquiesce personal desires to the will of God can be hard, but those who know and love God believe that his will is both superior to theirs and that obedience is part of love’s cycle. God’s desire for his children is eternal joy, not temporary happiness. Overcoming the world through Jesus means entering that eternal joy before entering eternity. Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God have the victory that overcomes the world.
That victory binds believers together; faith is the common ground beyond culture, class, race, language, opinion, political party, denomination, or tradition. Christians are one family by virtue of being born of God, loving each other, and resting in Jesus’ complete work of salvation. Or, as Spurgeon said, “Life is the reason for love, the common life which is indicated by the common faith in the dear Redeemer is to bind us to each other.” Love God, love one another, is the great commandment of Jesus (Matthew 22:35-40), made possible by faith and the key to victory over the world.
References
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
Baliklock, E.M. Faith is the Victory. Eerdmans Publishing Company. https://archive.org/details/faithisvictory0000embl/page/26/mode/2up
Guzik, David. “1 John 5 – Born of God and Believing in the Son of God.” Enduring Word Bible Commentary, Enduring Word, https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/1-john-5/.
Palmer, Earl F., The Communicator’s Commentary Series, Volume 12: 1,2,3 John; Revelation. Word, Inc. 1982.
Spurgeon, C. H. “Faith and Regeneration. A Sermon (No. 979) Delivered on Lord’s-day Morning, March 5th, 1871.” The Spurgeon Library, 5 Mar. 1871, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/faith-and-regeneration/#flipbook/.
Stott, John R.W. The Letters of John. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 19, InterVarsity Press, 1964, 1988.
Defaulting to Grace 