What does it mean that whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world (1 John 5:4)?

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).

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.

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.

241 It is not merely a nature that is given to us, but as creatures we must have an object for this nature and this is the Lord. I must have the true object, and therefore, "Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" He is occupied with something. When I find that the One whom the world has spit upon and crucified is the Son of God, I say such is what the world is. And therefore when my faith really rests upon Jesus as this despised One, the Son of God, I have done with the world; I overcome it as an enemy.

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."

“For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Love is the very spirit of overcoming; and the soul born of God possesses that blessed energy of God’s pure love that surmounts all the world’s barriers. This love is not defeated by the obstacles that an unbelieving world, a world of sight and sense, erects with the very intention of discouraging faith. Every believer is in principle an overcomer, because he has the root of the matter in him. Let us therefore be overcomers in practice also. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world, with its innumerable temptations. Since we possess faith, let us therefore use it consistently. If unbelief argues that the difficulties in the path of faith are too great, faith simply responds, “I believe God.” Thus faith and love work hand in hand: they are a team of living joy and of strength.

“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” Thus the faith of which he is speaking is no mysterious, elusive thing that only some unusual saints are able to grasp. It is quite simple and real: it takes facts as they really are: it believes truth because it is truth: it believes the revealed word of God preeminently concerning His Son, Who is the very Touchstone of all truth. There are no involved, specious reasonings here, but plain facts which faith in the living God gladly receives. And the believer in Jesus as the Son of God, overcomes the world. Of course, the eternal Godhead glory of the Lord Jesus, without beginning, without end, is fully implied in this blessed Name, Son of God, as the epistle has already taught us. Overcoming then is vitally connected with the Person of Christ, based upon the fact of Who He is, and of His having overcome the world (John 16:33). In every moral respect the world was under His feet: His entire path was one of overcoming: no temptation by the world could draw Him in the least degree from the path of faith in the living God. Here is overcoming in its sublime principle and in every detail of practice. Faith in Him therefore is the very principle of overcoming, a principle certainly which is for practical application.

We turn to 1 John 5 : 4, 5 : "For whatsoever is born of God 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?" Here we have the divine description of an overcomer: it is the faith in every one that is born of God — faith in Jesus the Son of God — that overcomes the vast hostile system called "the world."

Earnest religionists, in their endeavours to flee from the flagrant corruptions of the world, have often fallen into worse forms of lust and pride by entering monasteries and nunneries. The true believer in the Son of God, on the other hand, is to be “in the world” and yet “not of the world.” The place of the children of God, as regards the world, is the same as Christ’s, “the world knows us not because it knew Him not.” They are known in the matters of everyday life, but in their true nature and relationship with the Father the world is incapable of rightly knowing them. It is because of this nature and the faith which belongs to their new relationship that overcoming the world marks them. “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” (1 John 5:4: N.Tr.). This is the one place where the Spirit uses the word “faith” by John. It is “our” faith, and it is centred in the Sort of God.

While the world remains in ignorance of the children of God in their new relationship, it has its religious leaders and teachers today just as distinctly as it had in Judaism. Of them we are told in 1 John 4:5, “They are of the world, for this reason they speak as of the world, and the world hears them;” and in verse 19 an arresting contrast is given, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked one;” but this need not cause despondency to God’s children, for we read “Ye are of God, children, and have overcome them, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (4:4). The nature, the faith, the Son of God on Whom they believe and the Spirit given, all unite in securing victory for them, through the water and the blood which flowed from the Saviour’s side. And what a present abiding place is theirs in the Father’s love! “Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God” (3:1).

But then it is faith in His Son Jesus Christ which overcomes the world. “This is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith” (N.Tr.) I take our faith to be that which is presented to us in testimony. The Son of God is the One who is preached as glad tidings. The victory of God is presented to us in Him. In Him I am face to face with that which has obtained the victory over the world. He could say to His disciples, when going out of the world, “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” It had exercised no influence upon Him. He learned nothing from it. Its principles were abhorrent to Him. He passed through it dependent upon the Father who sent Him. It knew Him not, and it hated Him with all its heart; but neither its hatred nor its friendship could cause Him to turn aside out of the path traced for Him by the will of God. He was the One righteous Man in a world of sinners. He loved righteousness, and hated lawlessness, and was thus the contrast of every other man. And His death was the crowning act of His obedient life. He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And because of this God has highly exalted Him. And He it is who is preached to us as glad tidings; and “who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”