Chapter 4
Chapter 4 — Exposition of the Fourth Chapter
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this is the Spirit of God known: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is of God. Having gone through his discourse concerning love toward one’s neighbor, and having declared this to be the mark of the abiding of the Spirit, which we received, he now adds also a discrimination between those who are truly brethren and one’s neighbors, so that, while keeping this love, we may not, on account of the commandment concerning love, fall in with false brethren and false apostles and false prophets [1] — thereby procuring for ourselves the greatest harm. For if we attach ourselves to those of like ways, we shall first of all harm ourselves, sharing the word of the faith unreservedly with the impious and setting holy things before dogs;[2] and then we shall harm also those who look to us. For our love toward them will persuade many to take them as teachers and to believe unguardedly the things spoken by them, being stolen away from their fellowship with us. And what is the mark of these men, but this? “Every spirit” — that is, every dignity of prophecy or of apostleship — “which confesses the Lord Jesus to have come in the flesh, is of God”; but that which does not confess this is not of God, but its dignity is from the antichrist, “of whom you have heard.” When? In what he said a little before, that “there are many antichrists in the world”[3] — that is, the forerunners of the antichrist. And he says that the confession of Christ’s coming in the flesh is made not by the tongue but by works, as the blessed Paul says: “Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be made manifest in your body”[4][5] He, therefore, who has Jesus working in him, and has died to the world and no longer lives to the world but to Christ, and carries Him about not only in the flesh of Christ but also in his own flesh — this man is of God. But he who lives not to Christ but to himself and to the world — that is, to the pleasures of the world — such a one is not of God. Wherefore Paul again says: “For where there are strifes and divisions among you, are you not carnal and walking according to man?”[6] And he who walks according to man does not have the Spirit of Christ; and he who does not have the Spirit of Christ — that is, he who does not live according to Christ — this man is not Christ’s. [7]
2 And every spirit that does not confess Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that of the antichrist, of whom you have heard that he is coming, and now he is already in the world. — He said, he says, that the antichrist is in the world, not bodily, but by reason of the false prophets and false apostles and heretics who prepare the way for his coming. And this antichrist will be a man who carries Satan about within him, exalting himself above every god or object of worship [8][9] that is named. Wherefore he will also set at naught the worship of the idols (whom he signified by “those called gods”; and by “object of worship” he signified Christianity), and will undertake to declare himself alone to be god.
3 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are of the world; therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us. He who is not of God does not hear us. Having, through the things set forth beforehand, made known the prophets and apostles of the Lord, he adds: But you, being of God, little children, have overcome them — that is, the false prophets. How? Because the God who is in you is greater than he who is in the world, according to whom the false prophets chose to live. Then to these things he adds yet another mark of the false prophets, one which especially grieved also the simpler among the faithful. For it was likely that some of these were even distressed, seeing those men eagerly sought after by the many, while they themselves were despised. And he says: Do not be grieved if you are despised by many, while those men are received by these; for like runs to like. “They are of the world, and speaking of the world” — that is, teaching according to the carnal desires — they have these men as their hearers, the perverse hearkening to the perverse. But we, inasmuch as we are of God and estranged from the desires of the world, are rendered unacceptable to them. But that man hears us who lives soberly and on that account acknowledges God, ready to lend his ear; which Christ also says: “He who has ears”[10][11] …prepared, bearing witness to that man, and the ears…
4 By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; and everyone who loves has been begotten of God and knows God. He who does not love has not known God, because God is love. In this was the love of God made manifest in us, that God has sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Having distinguished, by the things he has already said, those to whom one must hold fast and those to whom one must not, he goes on to add, as a seal upon what has been said, that by this we know those who have the Spirit of truth and the deceiving spirit, that of false prophecy; and after this he takes up again the discourse concerning love. For having shown whom one must love — namely, those of like character — he holds thereafter to his first points, saying that both love is of God, and that the one who loves is begotten of God, and — and he alone who loves — knows God;[12] while the one who does not have love is ignorant also of God. But how is it that he who does not love has not known God? He establishes this thus: God is love. From what is this plain? He sent His only-begotten Son into the world, that He might furnish us with true life, and that we might live through Him. For just as He is called goodness, because through goodness He gave subsistence to the intelligible world and to the sensible; so also, through His love toward us, by giving His only-begotten Son into the world, He showed by this too that He is love. Wherefore he himself adds: “In this is love” [that is, in this it is shown that God is love]. Then, exalting the goodness of God’s love, he says: Not because we loved Him did God do this, in giving His own Son for us, but rather, taking the initiative of His benefaction toward us through love, He sent His Son; and not only did He send Him, but also that He might make propitiation for our sins through His own blood. If, then, says he, God so loved us, even though we share nothing with Him in nature, how much more ought we also to love our kinsmen, and, having come to know the good that comes from love, to minister this also to others. For just as it is a reproach to him who does not choose what is to be chosen, so it procures praise for those who love the ones worthy of love, because they are beloved. And being so disposed, we have both: that we are beloved, because we are loved by God and received by Him; and that we are loving, through our love toward our neighbors.
5 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever beheld God. For if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. — We have said before this that it is the custom of this blessed one to take up the same matters concerning the same subjects. Employing his discourse in this same manner now also, he says: “No one has ever beheld God.” For since, in making his discourse concerning the love of the brethren, he had brought forward God as an example, who gave His only-begotten Son unto death because of His love for us — it would follow that someone might say: And how do you say this concerning things unseen? Concurring, then, with those who so speak, he himself also says that no one indeed has ever beheld God — this I myself affirm too; “but from our love toward one another,” he says, “we know that God is in us.”[13] And he says this well; for many of the things unseen by us we apprehend from His workings. Indeed, just as no one has ever seen the soul, yet from its workings and movements it is perceived that it is in us and dwells within us, so also we know His love toward us as though through a certain movement and working. And if this is not outside what is reasonable, neither does this divine man show, contrary to reason, that God is, and is in us, from His working. And what is the working? Our pure love toward our neighbors. This is the mark both of our abiding in Him and of His abiding in us, and that, he says, He has given us this of His Spirit; for the pure One lends things pure and undefiled. Since, then, through pure love we have fellowship with Him, from this we too, he says — we who have beheld Him according to the flesh — have known and bear witness that the Father has sent Him to be the Savior of the world. But besides our knowledge, He Himself also expounded it, bringing us more perfectly into such knowledge: at one time saying, “I came forth from the Father, and have come into the world”[14] — this concerning the sending down from heaven of His only-begotten Son into the world for the sake of love toward us. And again, through other words, more plainly: “For God so loved the world,” he says, “that He gave His only-begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him should not perish”;[15] and, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”[16] We have, therefore, both from the eyewitness sight itself, he says, and from the exposition of the Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, as is said in the Gospels,[17] and from the working through our love toward one another, that God is in us, and has given us of His Spirit, and that we have fellowship with Him.
6 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love which God has in us. God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. — This refers back to what was said a little before, namely, that “every spirit that confesses the Lord Jesus as having come in the flesh.” For since he had sufficiently shown that they are both children of God and that God abides in them — and he showed this through their love toward one another, that the Holy Spirit was given to them — he brings the discourse back again to those points, and says: Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him; just as he said above, that “every spirit confessing Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is of God.” But the discourse disclosed yet another thing: that those who confess these things and have the Spirit — that is, God — abiding in themselves, themselves also abide in God. And how is this? Through their love toward one another. And having made mention of love, he adds also all the things concerning love which he has said, furnishing much confirmation to his discourse concerning love.
7 In this is love perfected with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because, even as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. — God is light, and His saints are light in the world, according to the Gospel,[18] and there is in them no fear of punishment, because they abound in the love of God. I wish, he says, that you be perfected in love, that we may have boldness toward God in the day of judgment; because He Himself also is the one who judges, according to His own declaration, that “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.”[19] And that the boldness will be toward Him who became man for us, he made clear through what follows, saying that “even as He is, so also are we in this world” — meaning this: It having been shown beforehand that God is in us and we in Him, we bear witness, he says, to the perfection of love in ourselves as well. As, therefore, He was without blemish and pure in the world (wherefore He also said: “The ruler of this world is coming, and in Me he will find nothing”[20] ), so also shall we be in God, and God in us. If, then, this is so, He is the guide and bestower of purity to us; and so we also carry Him about in this world purely and cleanly, always bearing about His dying in the body. [4] And living thus, we shall have boldness toward Him, and shall then be free of all fear. For, being perfected in love through good works, we shall be far from fear. And to these things he adds, as a confirmation, that “perfect love casts out fear.” But what kind of fear? He himself says: the fear that pertains to punishment. For it is possible for some even to love through fear of being punished; but this fear is not perfecting — that is, it does not belong to perfect love. Having said these things concerning perfect love, he also shows constrainingly that we ought to love God, because He Himself, he says, first loved us. And we ought — toward Him who takes the initiative of good toward us — to press the more earnestly to the requital of this. But certain ones have inquired: How is it that, when David says, “Fear the Lord, all you His saints, for there is no want to those who fear Him”[21],[22] how is it that now this one says, “Perfect love casts out fear”? For surely the saints of God, to whom fearing is enjoined, are not perfected in love? We say, then, that fear is twofold: the one preliminary, which has punishment as its companion, and which arises because of the dreadful things he has done — the one who approaches God being afraid, and on this account approaching, that he may not be punished; and this is the preliminary fear. But the perfecting fear is freed from such dread, wherefore it is also called “pure, and enduring unto ages of ages”[23].[24] What, then, and on what account, is the perfecting fear? It is that, because of one’s being taken up perfectly into love, one is anxious lest he fall short of Him in any of those things which it is fitting for one who loves exceedingly to perform. [25]
8 Because fear has punishment. And he who fears has not been perfected in love. We love Him, because He first loved us. — Here he calls fear the preliminary one. He, then, who genuinely loves God does the things pleasing to God not on account of the threat of punishments, but by the allurement of virtue and by his love toward God — securing himself, moreover, by the genuine fear[26], which is the desire of the good. Or again, the fear that does anything for the sake of not falling into punishment is the same as the former; wherefore he adds: “Fear has punishment.”
9 If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? — Having shown constrainingly that love must be transmissive — both from God toward us, and from us toward Him — and having added this again, that, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another; and once more bringing the discourse back to this, he says: Since it lies upon us as a debt to love our brother, from the example of God’s love toward us — which, by rendering and repaying it back to God in turn, we shall be fulfilling the debt — it is necessary, he says, to love one’s brother without postponement, as the most perfect mark of love toward God. For if not this, neither would our love toward God be preserved, since the debt toward one another, which we have received from our love toward God, would be falling away. And he adds also this most evident argument for the refutation of those who attempt to adulterate divine love, saying something of this kind: Love is in every case constituted out of mutual familiarity, and familiarity has as its consequence the seeing of one’s brother, and by this especially being bound together unto love of him; for sight is a thing that draws toward love. And if this is so, the one who counts as nothing what draws all the more toward love, and does not love his brother whom he has seen — how, while claiming to love God whom he has not seen, when he is neither familiar with Him nor apprehensible by any single sense, would he be detected as speaking truly? If, then, someone should shamelessly say, he says, that he loves God but hates his brother, not only does he adulterate divine love, but he is found besides to be a transgressor of His commandment, which says, “By this shall all know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.”[27] He, therefore, who loves God and strongly maintains that he is His disciple, loves also his brother according to His commandment.
10 And this commandment we have from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.