God is love: testing the spirits and loving one another

First John does not name its author. The church from the second century assigned it to the apostle John, the writer of the fourth Gospel, on the strength of shared vocabulary and themes (light and darkness, life, truth, love, abiding) and the writer's claim to be an eyewitness (1:1-3). Some modern scholars attribute the three Johannine letters to a church leader in the circle of John, whom 2 John and 3 John call 'the elder', and others defend the apostle. The letter is usually dated to the last decades of the first century, with Ephesus as the traditional setting.

The letter was written to believers who had been shaken by a split. Some had left the community (2:19), and they were teaching about Jesus and about the Christian life in ways the author considers false. Chapter 4 reflects both concerns. In 4:1-6 the issue is the confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which the departing teachers apparently weakened or denied. Irenaeus, in the second century, linked John's writing with opposition to Cerinthus, a teacher who separated the divine Christ from the human Jesus; we know Cerinthus only through his opponents, so the link is a possibility, not a certainty. In 4:7-21 the issue is conduct: claiming to know God while failing to love fellow believers.

The author writes, he says, so that his readers may know they have eternal life (5:13). Chapter 4 supplies two tests of genuine faith, belief about Christ and love for others, and shows that they belong together.

As with the rest of the letter, chapter 4 is a pastoral sermon built by repetition, not by a straight outline. The author takes up the test of right belief in 4:1-6, moves to love in 4:7-21, and returns to the test of belief in 5:1-5, so that the two themes are woven together, not placed side by side. Reading a section rightly means remembering the other. The passage on love is written to a community that is divided over teaching, and the passage on the spirits is written to a community that must also love.

The language is simple, with short sentences and a small vocabulary, but the words carry weight. To 'know' God is not mere information but a relationship, as in the Old Testament use of the word. To 'abide' is to remain in continuing union. To be 'perfected' is to reach the goal. The author sets out sharp contrasts: from God or from the world, truth or deception, love or fear.

Two cautions help.

• First, 'God is love' is a statement about who God is, read with the next verse, which says how his love was shown: in the sending of the Son. It is not a definition of love in general to which God must conform.
• Second, the 'spirits' of verse 1 are tested through the teachers who speak, since the verse goes on to name false prophets. The statements about those who do not love (verses 8, 20) describe a settled pattern of life, not a believer's passing failure.

Verses 1–3

'Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.' The background is the Old Testament command to test prophets (Deuteronomy 13:1-5; 18:20-22) and the New Testament teaching that the Spirit of God inspires true speech (1 Corinthians 12:3). The test the author gives is a confession: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. The confession is about a person: the Christ who is the Son of God truly became flesh. A spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, and is 'the spirit of the antichrist', which the readers have heard is coming and which is already in the world. Elsewhere the letter says that many antichrists have come (2:18) and defines the antichrist as the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ and the Son (2:22).

Verses 4–6

'You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.' The victory is not the readers' own but belongs to God who is in them. The false teachers speak from the world's perspective, and the world listens. The apostolic circle speaks from God, and those who know God listen. This is how the Spirit of truth is told from the spirit of deception.

Verses 7–8

'Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God.' The command is grounded in the source of love: it is from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. The Greek in verse 8 says literally 'God is love' (ho theos agape estin), a statement of what God is in himself, not only of what he does. It stands with two similar statements in the Johannine writings: God is spirit (John 4:24) and God is light (1 John 1:5).

Verses 9–10

This is how God's love was revealed: he sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. The Greek monogenes, 'one and only', stresses that this Son is unique. Verse 10 corrects any idea that love begins with us: 'not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.' The word is hilasmos, which also appears in 2:2. In the Greek Old Testament this word group is used for the removal of guilt and the turning away of wrath, in the context of the sacrifices of Leviticus 16. The cross is both the proof of love and the way love deals with sin.

Verses 11–12

'If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.' The argument turns from what God has done to what his people are to do. No one has ever seen God (compare John 1:18), but if we love one another, God remains in us and his love is perfected in us. The unseen God becomes visible in the love of his people, and his love reaches its goal when it is lived out among them.

Verses 13–16

The assurance of abiding rests on the gift of the Spirit. The apostles have seen and testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world (compare John 4:42). Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God has God abiding in him, and he in God. The passage then returns to love: we have come to know and believe the love God has for us. Whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Verses 17–19

Love perfected among us gives confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are just like him, that is, like Jesus in his relation to the Father and the pattern of his love. 'There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment.' The fear in view is the dread of condemnation, not reverence for God. 'We love because He first loved us' sums up the whole section.

Verses 20–21

The claim 'I love God' is false in the mouth of one who hates his brother. The argument is concrete: the brother is seen, and God is not. The commandment is stated as a unity: whoever loves God must also love his brother. This repeats the teaching of Jesus on the two great commandments (Mark 12:29-31) and his new commandment to his disciples (John 13:34-35).

The passage teaches that God is love, and that this love is first shown in the Father's sending of the Son. The doctrine of the Trinity is close to the surface: the Father sends, the Son is sent, and the Spirit is given to believers (verses 9, 13, 14). Augustine, in his work on the Trinity, drew on this chapter, seeing in the lover, the beloved and the love that joins them an image of the three persons. Whatever one thinks of that, the passage supports the claim that love belongs to God's own life before it is shown to us.

It also teaches the priority of grace. Love begins with God and not with us (verses 10, 19). Our love is a response, and a sign that we have been born of God. The pattern is the same in Romans 5:8, where God shows his love for us in that Christ died for us while we were still sinners.

It teaches assurance. Believers can know that they abide in God, because of the gift of the Spirit (verse 13), their confession of the Son (verse 15) and their love (verse 12). They can face judgment with confidence (verse 17), because the atoning sacrifice has dealt with punishment. And love of God and love of neighbour belong together, as in the summary of the law (Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:5; Mark 12:29-31).

The passage is Christological at every turn. The test of the spirits is a test about Jesus: whether he is confessed as the Christ who has come in the flesh. That statement joins the two truths the letter cares about most, that Jesus is truly God's Son (verses 9, 15) and truly human (verse 2). Neither can be given up without losing the gospel.

The passage also says what Christ has done. The Father sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him (verse 9), and sent him as the atoning sacrifice for our sins (verse 10). The language comes from the Old Testament sacrifices, above all the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, where blood was offered to deal with the people's sin. Romans 3:25 and Hebrews 2:17 use related words. Verse 14 adds that he is the Saviour of the world, a title the Samaritans give him in John 4:42, and that the whole mission begins with the Father's sending.

Christ's love is also the pattern of the believers' love: the new commandment of John 13:34 is to love one another as he has loved us. The unseen God is made known through the Son (John 1:18), and then through the love of those who belong to him.