Overcoming the World through Faith and Love: Commentary on 1 John 5:1-5

The following brief commentary from the First Letter of John, Chapter 5:1-5 is excerpted from the book, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: James, First, Second, and Third John, by © 2017 Daniel A. Keating and Kelly Anderson, published by Baker Academic, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. While it was written from a Roman Catholic perspective, the material can be beneficial for Christians from other traditions as well. – ed.

This section of the John’s First Letter speaks about faith as the foundation of love. It is here that we see most clearly how John weaves together faith or believing and love. Love was the central theme of the last section; now faith comes to the fore as the foundation for our life in Christ. At the same time, John interweaves previous themes in new ways: keeping the commandments of God, overcoming the †world by our faith, and seeing eternal life as the central goal. By believing and loving, we participate in the very life of God, which is eternal life.

Children of God Living in Faith and Love (5:1–5) 

¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the father loves [also] the one begotten by him. ²In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. ³For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, ⁴for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. ⁵Who [indeed] is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

OT: Deuteronomy 30:11, 15-16

NT: Matthew 11:29-30; John 14:15; 16:33; Acts 15:10; 2 John 1:6; Revelation 2:7 

John opens with two parallel statements that sum up the main theme: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God, and everyone who loves the father loves [also] the one begotten by him.How are the two statements (“everyone who believes,” “everyone who loves”) related? John is uniting two of his major themes in the letter: faith in Jesus Christ and love for one another. The one who truly believes that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, shows that he or she has been begotten by God. This faith is evidence that the seed of God is active and producing its fruit in the believer. Then John adds, literally, “Everyone who loves the one begetting loves the one begotten from him.” Is John making a general reference to the begetting of offspring? Yes, in the sense that he is using a human example to illustrate the essential link between love of God and love for our brothers and sisters. John is assuming that his readers understand and accept this principle: if we love the father (the parents), we will love the offspring as well. “Love” here is not an emotion but practical love in action. John then applies this to God the Father, as the one who has begotten us to a new life in Christ. The “one begotten by him” could refer to Jesus the unique Son, but the context shows that John has the Christian in mind. The one who believes is begotten of God, and so if we love the Father, who begets, then we should also love those begotten of God. John is giving here a further rationale for what he said in John 4:21: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

Now John reverses the logic of his claim. Previously, he said we know that we love God because we love the brothers and sisters; now he says, In this way we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. Is John confused here, giving a circular argument, proving A from B and then turning around and proving B from A? In fact, he is not being illogical, because he is grounding both claims on the reality that we are begotten of God and abide in him. If we truly abide in God, then we will love God and love the brothers and sisters—these always occur together.¹ Each one becomes a kind of demonstration for the reality of the other. 

For John, loving God consists primarily in keeping his commandments: For the love of God is this, that we keep his commandments. This mirrors 2 John 1:6: “This is love, that we walk according to his commandments.”² We also hear an echo of Jesus’ words: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). What are his commandments? Certainly the †Decalogue is included here, but for John the primary commandments are summed up in 3:23; “We should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us.” Faith and love sum up the primary obligations of the Christian life.

John then adds, And his commandments are not burdensome. The mention of burden brings to mind Jesus’ words in Matthew 11:29–30: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (NRSV). Peter speaks of the burden of the Old Testament law in Acts 15:10: “Why, then, are you now putting God to the test by placing on the shoulders of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?” Are the commandments of God intrinsically burdensome? No, but because of the power of sin living within us, we are not able to keep the commandments from the heart. For Christians, however, because they have been begotten of God and have his Spirit living within them, the commandments of God “are not burdensome” (see sidebar, “The Burdensomeness of the Law”). As Peter Jones says, “With great confidence in the power of the new birth, the apostolic writer sees the keeping of the divine commandments as doable.”³ This does not mean the elimination of all difficulty in living the Christian life and following the call of God (see Matthew 16:24; Mark 14:36; Hebrews 5:7), but it does mean that as we live in Christ through the power of the Spirit, following God’s way is not a burden for us. 

Biblical Background: The Burdensomeness of the Law

The commandments to love God and one another are already found in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18), and Moses tells the people of Israel that the commandment of God “is not too hard for you” (Deuteronomy 30:11 NRSV). In fact, living by the law of God was intended to be a source of life and blessing for God’s people (see Deuteronomy 30:15–16). 

Why and in what way did the commandments become burdensome”? There are several reasons why the law proved to be burdensome, but two stand out. First, the commandments of God became burdensome in part because of the way that they were interpreted and applied. Jesus critiques the Pharisees in his day for applying the law of God in such a strict way that they lay burdens on the people: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Matthew 23:4 NRSV). 

But the deeper reason for the burdensomeness of the law is uncovered by Paul: because the power of sin is living within us, we cannot keep the law even when we desire to. The law itself is “holy and just and good” (Romans 7:12 NRSV); the problem lies within ourselves. Christ has set us free from the power of sin, and through the indwelling Spirit we are now capable of keeping the commandments of God (see Romans 8:3–4). 

The victory that conquers the world is our faith

John now returns to the theme of Christians overcoming the †world: whoever is begotten by God conquers the world. Because we have the power of Christ at work within us, we can “conquer” the world and its desires (see 2:16; see also commentary on 4:4–6). But now John makes a new connection between conquering and our faith: the victory that conquers the world is our faith.⁴ How is this so? Is it not Jesus himself who has conquered the power of the world and its desires through his death on the cross (John 16:33; 1 John 2:1–2)? Yes, but we share in this victory and become conquerors of the world and its desires through our faith in him: Who [indeed] is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?⁵ This is another case of †Johannine shorthand: by “faith” and “believes” John sums up all that comes through this faith—confession of Jesus as the true Son of God, abiding in Christ, the life and witness of the Spirit within, and the power of God through our fellowship with him. It is by our faith that we are enabled to overcome the disordered desires of the world, to proclaim the †gospel, to endure persecution, to love our enemies, even to change the world. As Revelation 12:11 says, “They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb / and by the word of their testimony; / love for life did not deter them from death.”

Reflection and Application (5:1–5) 

The call to love all those begotten of God (1 John 5:1) has important ecumenical implications for today. †Ecumenism is the effort put forth by all Christians to make “the partial communion existing between Christians grow towards full communion.”⁶ Recognizing the action of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church embarked on a new path toward Christian unity  at the Second Vatican Council and embraced Christians from other churches and ecclesial communities as brothers and sisters in Christ: “For men who believe in Christ and have been truly baptized are in communion with the Catholic Church even though this communion is imperfect.”⁷ The Church continues to call all the faithful to participate in this embrace and to work to increase the unity that we share with other Christians: “For that reason, all the faithful are called upon to make a personal commitment toward promoting increasing communion with other Christians.”⁸

The first and crucial step in this process is to see other Christians as genuinely begotten by God, as really and truly our brothers and sisters in Christ. For example, in our relationships with non-Catholic Christians, our first goal should be to find what we have in common, to discover the koinōnia, or †fellowship, in Christ and the Spirit that we already share. Perhaps this will be a common concern for the protection of human life, or a common love of the word of God, or even our personal love for Jesus and prayer. When trust has been established and we have gained a mutual recognition of one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord, then we can have fruitful discussions about the matters in which we differ. The second step is to gain the wisdom we need so that our efforts at promoting greater unity are guided by the Spirit and faithful to the Church’s teaching.⁹

In all this, we place our hope in God: “Human powers and capacities cannot achieve this holy objective – the reconciling of all Christians in the unity of the one and only Church of Christ. It is because of this that the Council rests all its hope on the prayer of Christ for the Church, on our Father’s love for us, and on the power of the Holy Spirit.”¹⁰ 

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Top image credit: Heavenly cross and blue sky, from Bigstock.com, © by Andrew Blue, stock photo ID: 34857998. Used with permission. Scripture quote from 1 John 5:1,4 added.