How is faith the victory that overcomes the world (1 John 5:4)?

Whatever is born of God overcometh the world (Ver. 4), but not by the sole fact of a divine nature, but because this nature has an object. (Ver. 3.) A creature cannot suffice for itself; it must have an object. God alone suffices Himself; if I have this object, Jesus the Son of God, the flesh, Satan, and the world have nothing for me. If one is not nourished by the Lord Jesus, life remains shut up and feeble. Law does not give life nor force nor object; Christ gives me life and force, and in Him I have an object. Liberty is to be freed from sin, from Satan, from the world and from myself.

But we have a second thing in 1 John 5. The victory that overcomes the world is "our faith." As the next verse shows, the allusion here is to the Christian faith that "Jesus is the Son of God." Jesus is indeed the Christ, but our faith travels beyond that to the glorious fact that He is the Son of God. John wrote his Gospel that our souls might be established in that faith, and 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 is he that gets the victory over this world but he that has by faith discovered the Centre of a very much brighter and better world than this? It is not a question of having the Sonship of Jesus as an article of our creed, of accepting this truth theologically, but of having it as a vital power in our souls.

We may call attention to yet another mark of God's children. "Whatsoever is born of God," the apostle says, "overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" The Father and the world are ever in opposition. All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, is of the world. Born of God, and having the same nature therefore, how could we love that which is in antagonism to the Father? And that antagonism has been demonstrated, and demonstrated in a way which stamps for ever its utter enmity and hostility to God; viz., by the rejection and crucifixion of God's beloved Son. James therefore writes "that friendship with the world is enmity with God." The two can never be reconciled. But there has been One in this scene who could say, for the comfort of His own, "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." Hence we read indeed here, "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith;" for this faith declares that Jesus, whom the world refused, is the Son of God. Herein lies the secret of victory over the world. For how could the world allure a soul who was living in the power of the faith that Jesus is the Son of God? Nay, with this belief fortifying our hearts, the cross forms an insuperable barrier between the world and ourselves. We have then God's own thoughts about it, and He charges it with the murder of His beloved Son. As He said to Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" so He today asks the world, "Where is my only-begotten Son?" The guilty Jews cried before Pilate, "His blood be on us, and on our children;" and His blood, in this sense, is on the world, and as such is the foundation on which by-and-by judgment without mercy will descend upon it. Believers, having a divine nature, holding that Jesus is the Son of God, are waiting for Him from heaven; and while they wait they show that they are not of the world, even as He was not of the world. They overcome it by their faith — faith in Christ, in what He is in Himself, and in what He has done.

It may be quite true that many a believer fails practically to overcome the world. But this is outside of John's subject. What he shows is, that it belongs to those who are born of God, who believe that Jesus is the Christ, and the Son of God, to overcome it. If they fail therefore, 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 Ghost. For if, as already explained, we are children of God, and are dominated by the truth that Jesus — the rejected Jesus — is the Son of God, we must be victors over the world. Practically our victory over it will be displayed just in proportion as we take the ground of the apostle, when he says, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." The cross reveals the character of the world, and the fact that the One they crucified upon it is the Son of God constitutes their utter condemnation. It was thus that the Lord Himself said, in the anticipation of His death, "Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out." (John 12:31.) On this is grounded the absolute statement of our scripture — "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world."

The great difficulty is the world; but faith vanquishes it. "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." There is a nature we have received which belongs to a system which is not of the world at all. "Ye are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." "Ye are from beneath, I am from above." This world, as a system, is of the devil - not of God at all. All that is in it, "The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." The Father is the head, and source, and blessedness of a great system to which the world is entirely opposed: and therefore when the Son came into the world, the world rejected Him, and this has put the world, as a tested world, in perfect antagonism to the Father. We always find that it is the flesh against the Spirit, the world against the Father, and the devil against the Son. "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." It is truth which sanctifies. The difficulty is the world. We look on the things that are seen, and not on the things that are not seen, and therefore we are weak. The victory that overcomes the world is our faith.

In the case of the Lord Jesus, in John 11, they sent to Him, saying, "Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick," but He abode two days still in the same place without stirring. He had not a word from His Father to move. God was letting Lazarus die that He might shew the power of resurrection over death. "Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God." "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God." Presently, nothing will stop Him. "The Jews of late sought to stone thee; and goest thou thither again?" But that was no hindrance. We find the true principle of Christian obedience which makes it a perfect law of liberty (and yet it is obedience) because the new man delights in it. Quite true, of course, that a great deal of breaking down has to come in, because of our actual state; whenever self works, it must be judged and broken down, for the true spring and motive of our conduct must be that God has a will. It is a terrible thing whenever the flesh is not so broken down as to have no will. Flesh does not like that. Flesh will reason, 'Am I never to do anything to please myself, what a God you have got?' Ah! that betrays where the heart is. But it is perfectly natural to the heart, and therefore His commandments are grievous to the flesh. The way obedience is made a delight and a blessing to us is, "His commandments are not grievous, for whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world." It is what is in the world that makes it difficult, but "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." It is subjective, for it is a life in us; but it is also objective, for Christ is its object. That is where the heart of the Christian is set. The new man born of God cannot live on itself, it must have some object. As the apostle says in Galatians 2: "I am crucified with Christ," there is the end of the old man for faith; "nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God." That is what he lived for, and upon, too. And that is what Christian life is, but the way by which it lives is by an object which is not in the world at all, it is Christ.

But how are we to overcome the devil's snare of the world? Chapter 5 of the epistle brings us to the resources to enable us to do so. And first (1 John 5:4), "Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world": by the very life and nature we have received from God we have a principle of victory over the world. "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, our faith:" that is, by the object presented to faith. "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" If it be a question of who is my brother that I am to love (1 John 4:21), the answer is, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God" (1 John 5:1) — the Spirit goes down to the feeblest apprehension of His glory, even as a few might believe on Him as the Messiah. This suffices to mark one begotten of God. But more was needed for victory over the world. Nothing short of the full glory of His person as the Son of God sufficed for that: we need the full shining before the opened eyes of our faith of His infinite glory as Son of God to give us victory over the poor unreal tinsel of this world and its shams. Then shall we know something of a heart so filled with Him for worship and service that, as with the Lord when He was here, there shall be no room for any object of Satan's world.

"This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." Faith does not look at outward circumstances, at what is possible or not possible; faith disregards what seems, and looks at God. People all about, on every hand, will tell us what it is necessary to do, and not to do, here among men, for what suits man is their standard and measure; but the child of God walks right along, paying no attention to what they say, for what suits God is His standard and measure. They have the way all marked out as plain as can be, and perfectly reasonable and satisfactory, but that is nothing to one who walks by faith; he knows that whatever is universally agreed on as the right way must be wrong (Luke 16:15), that is the broad way.

The first thing I point out is that, "Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world." Some of you may have been thinking that victory belongs only to the older and more advanced Christians, but this word applies to all of us. It is a wonderful fact that, if you are a Christian, you have been begotten of God, and hence you have a nature which is in keeping with God who is love, and which is entirely out of keeping with the world — which is in fact entirely superior to the world — so as to get the victory over it. The world has vast attractions for the old nature; it has none whatever for the new.

Some of you may take up this statement and reason from it backwards, in a way I used to do myself. The statement alarms you, because you say to yourself — I do not overcome the world, therefore the inference is that I am not born of God. Now as to that I must remind you that in our Bible Readings on this Epistle we repeatedly dwelt upon the abstract nature of the statements which the Apostle John makes. This is one of them. The Apostle is like an analytical chemist, but of a spiritual order. He is resolving things into their primitive elements and he is showing us what are the essential properties of those elements. He is not asking us to think of all the combinations and mixtures in which the elements are found in the ordinary way. The essential property of the new nature found in those who are begotten of God is this — it gets the victory over the world.

We gladly recognize every true believer as our brother, inasmuch as he is begotten of God. Now, in verse 4 we discover that another feature marks him — he overcomes the world. Moreover, this victory over the world is connected with our faith. "Faith" here, we believe, is not merely that spiritual faculty in us which sees and receives the truth, but also the truth which we receive — the Christian faith. The very essence of that faith is that Jesus is the Son of God, as verse 5 shows us.

The change in 1 John 5:4 from "whosoever" to "whatsoever" is peculiar and to be observed. The life given of God, whoever may be the recipent of it, is looked at abstractedly, 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 desires of the two natures, being opposed, are never in agreement; and the power of the Spirit is on the side of the "spirit." The world is a system ordered by "the prince of the world" to suit the flesh (11-16). "Whatsoever is born of God" — the life given of Him — "overcometh the world," acting on His judgment of even its best; for "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15). Practically and experimentally the victory is gained by faith, and here pointedly called "our faith," not the faith of the most eminent saint before the cross. There the world was finally judged morally (John 12:31-32), as it will be judicially on the appointed day, by Him Who was hanged on it (Acts 17:31).