A Study of 1 John 5:4-12
Introduction
When I was in college, I was introduced to what was called the Victorious Christian Life. The idea was that God didn’t intend for His children to live defeated lives. We shouldn’t be overcome again and again by sexual sin, discouragement, greed, bitterness, and frustration. We shouldn’t have a Christianity that only comes alive on Sunday. We shouldn’t go around feeling Satan has the upper hand. We shouldn’t be useless or unproductive in the work. Instead, we can let Jesus Christ live His life and do His work through us by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Christ can be the Lord of everything in our lives. We can walk with Him in conscious joy every day. We can be overcomers.
Recently I was talking to someone about this, and he said that even in Bible schools and colleges, the professors and faculty feel the Victorious Christian Life is an archaic term. It is dated. It points back to a movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, and we need new packaging for these concepts. The idea of victory doesn’t resonate with people anymore.
I would like to remind those professors and faculty members of the verse we’re coming to today: 1 John 5:4: “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith.”
I’m not sure what has happened to the idea of victory. Even our American government seems to no longer believe in victory. The Greatest Generation does. They fought until their enemies yielded in absolute surrender. Since then, our leaders seem to want to fight to a stalemate or even to grudging defeat.
I’m reminded of what General Douglas MacArthur said in his famous farewell address to Congress: “Once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War’s very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war,” he said, “there is no substitute for victory.”
The same is true for us personally every day. In the Christian life, there’s no substitute for victory. So let’s look at this powerful passage in 1 John, chapter 5, beginning with verse 4.
Scripture
4 …for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
1. Faith is the Victory (Verse 4)
When John said, “This is the victory,” the Greek word he used was nika (ni-kay). There’s a popular brand of shoes that chose this word for their branding—Nike. If you visit the Louvre in Paris, you can see one of its famous exhibits—Nike of Samothrace, the winged goddess of victory. In the Gospel of John, there was a man named Nicodemus. His name literally meant “Victorious One.” Our English names Nicolas or Nick come from this word.
The Bible teaches that durable and personal victory in life is only possible through the spiritual resources God offers. In verses 4 and 5, John said: …for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
In what way is faith the victory?
I want to take you to an obscure Old Testament passage that many people skip over. The first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles are made up of genealogies. The author of 1 Chronicles wanted to preserve the major lines of Jewish lineage, and so he devoted chapter after chapter to giving us one list of names after the other. But occasionally he stopped to make an additional comment about someone or some group—and these comments are very insightful. So look at 1 Chronicles 5, beginning with verse 18:
The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh had 44,760 men ready for military service—able-bodied men who could handle shield and sword, who could use a bow, and who were trained for battle. They waged war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish and Nodab. They were helped in fighting them, and God delivered the Hagrites and all their allies into their hands because they cried out to him during the battle. He answered their prayers because they trusted in Him.
Here were men going into battle, and they were well-trained. But they trusted in God and their faith in God gave them the victory. Faith was the victory.
In our own lives, we face a lot of struggles. We struggle with anxiety, with fear, with discouragement and depression, with opposition from non-believers, with temptation and with attacks from the devil. We face criticism and marginalization. We have emotional struggles.
We don’t have enough wisdom, strength, or authority to overcome all the forces arrayed against us, but we cry out to God and trust Him. And somehow Jesus comes and brings to us the victory.
It’s not that we have faith in faith; it’s that the Lord is the object of our faith.
My friend, the late Robertson McQuilkin, wrote a book entitled Victorious Christian Living, in which he said, “God Himself is the key to successful Christian living, and both He and His resources are available only to the person of faith. By faith alone we end and maintain a personal relationship that releases an unending flow of grace. This biblical faith is both a choice and an attitude. The choice is to obey; and obedience begins with repentance, continues with a yielded spirit, and proves itself in aggressive participation in using the means of grace and in eager affirmative action to be all that God intends.”
For me as a pastor, one of the biggest challenges for the first half of my ministry was wondering if my sermons were any good and if they were doing any good. I’d work all week on a message, preach it the best I could on Sunday morning, and another message on Sunday night. Going home, I would be tired. At one point, I was preaching three times every Sunday morning and a new message during the evening service. I didn’t really mind, but in my fatigue I often felt a sense of failure and defeat. “I can’t preach very well,” I’d tell myself. “In fact, that sermon was awful. I’m so embarrassed.” I’d always pelt my wife with questions about how she thought I did. And then with sheer determination I’d get up on Monday morning and start preparing two new messages—only to end with the same result.
That’s not exactly a picture of overcoming victory! Yes, I was faithful and hardworking, but defeated and crestfallen, week after week.
Then I found some great Bible verses God had placed in His Word thousands of years ago just for me. I found a lot of them, but for the sake of brevity I’ll just quote one—1 Corinthians 15:58 (NKJV): Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
The Lord said, “Robert, are you steadfast?”
Yes.
“Are you immovable?”
Yes, I think so.
“Are you always abounding in the work of the Lord? Are you joyous, confident, and positive?”
Well, maybe not so much.
“Do you know that your work done in the power of My Spirit in accordance with My Word is never in vain? Not a single sermon, not a paragraph, not a sentence is wasted, even if you butcher every word and lose your train of thought and mix up your syntax and put old man Crocket to sleep? Do you really believe it’s not your ability but My power?”
Well, Lord, when you put it like that…
“Why aren’t you trusting Me and My words? Don’t you know that everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”
Then I slowly began to learn to do my best, leave it with the Lord, rejoice that He uses me despite my limitations, and I pursued my ministry with a sense of victorious joy.
I don’t know if you can relate to that if you aren’t a preacher, but the general principle is true regarding every aspect of life.
In Romans 8, the apostle Paul wrote:
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
The phrase, “more than conquerors,” is one Greek word, and if we transliterate it into English it is the word hyper-nika. It means to be hyper victorious or totally victorious. And Paul went on to connect this victory with faith—he used the word “convinced”—when He said: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2. Our Faith Must Be Christ-Centered
(Verse 5)
And Paul’s last statement—Christ Jesus our Lord—brings us back to the first letter of John. In the passage that starts with 1 John 5:4, the first thing John says is that faith is the victory. Now he is going to advance his argument a bit and remind them that our victorious faith must be centered on one Jesus Christ.
Look again at 1 John 5, verses 4 and 5: …for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
If you’ve been following this podcast series from 1 John, you know that John was writing to his church members who had been troubled by a group of deserters who had left the church. In chapter 2, John said, They went out from us, but they did not belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us.
These were people who rejected the Christology that John had articulated in His Gospel, the Gospel of John. So here in chapter 5, John was saying, “The ones who left us are the defeated ones. But you who have remained true are the overcomers. Don’t be intimidated by the false teachers and those who ridicule you. You have overcome the world by placing your full faith in Jesus Christ. Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God can overcome the world.
3. Our Christ-Centered Faith is Verified by Each Member of the Trinity (Verses 6-9)
So first John tells us in verse 4 that faith is the victory. Then in verse 5, he tells us that this faith must be a Christocentric faith.
Now, as only he can do it, the apostle John is going to tell us that our Christocentric faith is based on the powerful testimony of the three most unimpeachable witnesses in the history of jurisprudence—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. To keep the full context in mind, let’s read the passage from verse 4 to verse 9:
4 …for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
What did John mean by verse 6? He wrote, This is the one who came by water and blood.
It’s really not a hard verse to interpret. The word “water” is clearly a reference to the moment when Jesus appeared at the Jordan River and He was baptized by John the Baptist. That’s when the Holy Spirit descended on Him, He was anointed for His ministry, He received the Holy Spirit without measure, and He began His three years of work.
In his Gospel, John used this same Greek phrase—by water or with water—to refer to Christ’s baptism. He used this phrase three times.
- John 1:26: “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know.”
- John 1:31: “I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.”
- John 1:33: “And I myself did not know Him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”
When Jesus was baptized with water, the Holy Spirit came down and anointed Him, serving as the official beginning of His ministry. Now, think with me. What significant event occurred at the baptism of Jesus? At that very moment, God the Father picked up the heavenly microphone beside the throne and broadcast a message to earth. Matthew 3:17 says, “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”
Mark 1:11 said, “And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with You I am well pleased.”
Luke 3:22 repeats the same words.
In John’s Gospel, he adds an additional insight. God the Father spoke to John the Baptist, telling Him, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” John Baptist said, “I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
So the baptism of Christ is the event in which God the Father verified the divine and supernatural identity of the Son of God.
First John 5 continues: This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood.
Just as the ministry of Jesus Christ began with water, it ended with blood—His crucifixion for the sins of the world. Jesus Himself testified by the laying down of His own life. The water signifies the testimony of the Father; and the blood signifies the testimony of the Son.
Now, John adds the testimony of the Holy Spirit, saying: 6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.
At the baptism God the Father testified to the Son. By His death and resurrection, Jesus testified to Himself; and in the inspired writings of the apostles, the Holy Spirit testified—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and all three are in agreement.
If you have an older version of the Bible such as the King James, which I used for many years, there is an extra verse in this chapter—verse 7, which says, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word [or Christ], and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.”
That verse isn’t in our newer versions. Apparently at some point in the transmission of the Latin Bible, a scribe or scholar thought John’s words were a bit difficult for laymen, and so he inserted a parenthetical verse of explanation, which wasn’t in the Greek manuscripts. This verse only showed up in later Latin manuscripts. This simply tells us that the understanding of church history has been that John is referring here to the testimony of Three, of the Trinity.
Our Christ-centered faith is confirmed by the testimony of three witnesses—the three most unimpeachable witnesses in the history of jurisprudence: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
4. This is Why We Have Full Assurance of Salvation (verses 9-12)
As we wrap up the passage, notice again its progression. Faith is the victory. This faith is centered in Christ. Our Christ-centered faith is affirmed by Father, Son, and Spirit. And finally, he ends his discussion by telling us this is why we have full assurance of salvation. Look at the remaining verses in this paragraph, starting with verse 9:
9 We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.
10 Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.
11 And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Conclusion
As a young adult, the ministry of the Navigators got me into Scripture memory. I would still recommend their Topical Memory System. I purchased a little packet of cards in a plastic holder that slipped into my back pocket, and every spare moment I pulled it out and studied the verses on the little cards.
Their key verse for assurance of salvation was 1 John 5:11: And this is the testimony. These are the facts. This is the truth. God has given us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life—eternal life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Faith is the victory. It’s a Christ-centered faith, verified by every member of the Trinity. And that is why we can have confidence before God. That is why we have assurance of salvation.