For all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world; and this is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith.
John has been marking out the family of God: those born of Him, who love Him and keep His commandments. Here he adds the most surprising mark of all. They beat the world. Two questions follow. How can this be true of every believer? And what is "the world" that faith defeats?
Who the Statement Covers
Older translations read "whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world." That "whatsoever" is deliberate. It points at the life God gives, not at the person who receives it.
The change in 1 John 5:4 from "whosoever" to "whatsoever" is unusual and worth noticing. Here John looks at the life God gives in itself, whoever receives it, as in John 3:6. "That which is born of the Spirit is spirit," in contrast with that which is born of the flesh. And each nature seeks its own things: the flesh, the things of the flesh; and the spirit, the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5). The two natures are opposed, so their desires never agree.
So the promise leaves no believer out. Victory is not a reward for years of service.
Some of you may have been thinking that victory belongs only to older and more advanced Christians. But this word applies to all of us. Here is a wonderful fact. If you are a Christian, God has begotten you. So you have a nature that matches God who is love. That nature is completely out of keeping with the world. In fact it is far above the world, and so it gets the victory over it. The world has vast attractions for the old nature; it has none whatever for the new.
What "the World" Means Here
The world John means is a system. It has a head, and that head is not God.
The great difficulty is the world; but faith conquers it… There is a nature we have received which belongs to a system that is not of the world at all. "You are from below, I am from above." This world, as a system, is of the devil — not of God at all… The Father is the head, source and blessedness of a great system. The world is entirely opposed to that system. So when the Son came into the world, the world rejected Him. This has put the world, now tested, in complete opposition to the Father.
The Object of Faith
A new nature by itself does not explain the victory. That nature must feed on something outside itself.
Whatever is born of God overcomes the world (v. 4). It does not overcome just because a divine nature is there. It overcomes because this nature has an object (v. 3). A creature cannot be enough for itself; it must have an object. God alone is enough for Himself. If I have this object, Jesus the Son of God, then the flesh, Satan and the world have nothing for me. If a person is not nourished by the Lord Jesus, life stays shut up and weak.
The next verse names that object: the one who overcomes believes that Jesus is the Son of God. But John does not mean holding a correct opinion.
The victory that overcomes the world is "our faith." As the next verse shows, this means the Christian faith that "Jesus is the Son of God"… If He shines before our faith as the Son of God, we know Him as the One who came from that world — the Father's world — into this world. Who gets the victory over this world? Only the one who has discovered by faith the Centre of a far brighter and better world than this. It is not a matter of holding the Sonship of Jesus as an article of our creed, a truth we accept in theory. It must be a living power in our souls.
When Believers Fail
Many readers test themselves by this verse and fail. Commentators reply that the verse states what belongs to the new life. It does not measure your week.
It may be quite true that many a believer fails in practice to overcome the world. But that is outside John's subject. If they fail, it is because they are not living in the activity of the new nature, or in the exercise of faith through the power of the Holy Spirit… Our victory over it will show in practice just so far as we take the apostle's ground. He says, "far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world."
Summary
- Born — victory starts at new birth, not at maturity. The life God gives is out of step with the world, so every believer already carries it.
- Nature — each nature seeks its own things. The two never agree, so the pull of the world meets a real rival inside you.
- Object — a nature needs something to live on. Faith wins because it holds Jesus the Son of God, and beside Him the world has nothing to offer.
- World — what faith beats is a whole system set against the Father, not just a list of bad habits. It showed itself when it rejected the Son.
- Practice — failure does not cancel the verse. It shows the new nature and faith are not at work. The cure is boasting only in the cross, which has already crucified the world to us.