1 John 4:4
One of my favorite praise songs as a kid had this title and it basically just said it over and over. I don’t know why I enjoyed it so much, because the tune was very simple and the words not at all complex, but I loved it. I remember having a sense of how amazing that it was that Jesus was inside of me and that He was greater within little old me than anything else in the world. That sense of wonder and awe has never really left, and I hope that it never does!
John promises a few important things in this verse, all of which deserve a second look:
1. “Ye are of God” – He just told us in verse 2, “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God”. Notice that he emphasizes ‘Christ’, not just ‘Jesus’. To admit that the Christ has come is to acknowledge the cross and the work that Jesus accomplished there. It makes Jesus more than just a man, a teacher or a historical figure; it makes him the Son of God. You see that and you are “of God”. What a high honor!
2. “little children” – John reinforces sonship, an important characteristic of Christianity. We are not mere slaves or servants to a higher power somewhere. We are sons and daughters of the living God, adopted into His family. The phrase first appears in this book in 2:1, where John tells us what we are to do when we sin (go to our advocate Jesus), as opposed to what a sinner does when he gets saved (confess your sins – 1 John 1:9).
3. “have overcome them” – The ‘them’ here is the false prophets of verse one and the spirit of anti-Christ of verse 3. This spirit of anti-Christ has nothing to do with the Anti-Christ of the Tribulation period, but with a general doctrine that lessens the power and authority of the finished work of Jesus. Even in John’s day, the word was out that Jesus had not accomplished everything at the cross. He warns us of this, and promises us that we have overcome.
4. “because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” – Our overcoming is not wrapped up in our faith, church attendance, Bible study or prayer life, but in the one who lives within each one of us. It is not “greater am I than the world”; it is “greater is He”. All things point to Jesus and His greatness.
Paul made a similar promise in Romans 8:31 when he said, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” How true! If God is on our side, having known us in our sins and loved us anyway, who could ever raise a statement of accusation against the beloved? In every one of our issues and difficulties, “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (Romans 8:37).
One of my favorite praise songs as a kid had this title and it basically just said it over and over. I don’t know why I enjoyed it so much, because the tune was very simple and the words not at all complex, but I loved it. I remember having a sense of how amazing that it was that Jesus was inside of me and that He was greater within little old me than anything else in the world. That sense of wonder and awe has never really left, and I hope that it never does!
John promises a few important things in this verse, all of which deserve a second look:
1. “Ye are of God” – He just told us in verse 2, “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God”. Notice that he emphasizes ‘Christ’, not just ‘Jesus’. To admit that the Christ has come is to acknowledge the cross and the work that Jesus accomplished there. It makes Jesus more than just a man, a teacher or a historical figure; it makes him the Son of God. You see that and you are “of God”. What a high honor!
2. “little children” – John reinforces sonship, an important characteristic of Christianity. We are not mere slaves or servants to a higher power somewhere. We are sons and daughters of the living God, adopted into His family. The phrase first appears in this book in 2:1, where John tells us what we are to do when we sin (go to our advocate Jesus), as opposed to what a sinner does when he gets saved (confess your sins – 1 John 1:9).
3. “have overcome them” – The ‘them’ here is the false prophets of verse one and the spirit of anti-Christ of verse 3. This spirit of anti-Christ has nothing to do with the Anti-Christ of the Tribulation period, but with a general doctrine that lessens the power and authority of the finished work of Jesus. Even in John’s day, the word was out that Jesus had not accomplished everything at the cross. He warns us of this, and promises us that we have overcome.
4. “because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” – Our overcoming is not wrapped up in our faith, church attendance, Bible study or prayer life, but in the one who lives within each one of us. It is not “greater am I than the world”; it is “greater is He”. All things point to Jesus and His greatness.
Paul made a similar promise in Romans 8:31 when he said, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” How true! If God is on our side, having known us in our sins and loved us anyway, who could ever raise a statement of accusation against the beloved? In every one of our issues and difficulties, “We are more than conquerors through Him that loved us” (Romans 8:37).
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