1 John 4

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¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ✦ ²By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, ✦ ³and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. ✦ ⁴You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. ✦ ⁵They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. ✦ ⁶We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. ✦ ⁷Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. ✦ ⁸He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. ✦ ⁹In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. ✦ ¹⁰In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ✦ ¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ✦ ¹²No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. ✦ ¹³By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. ✦ ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. ✦ ¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ✦ ¹⁶And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. ✦ ¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. ✦ ¹⁸There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. ✦ ¹⁹We love Him because He first loved us. ✦ ²⁰If someone 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? ✦ ²¹And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

In this chapter

Concept Love

Where this chapter connects

1 Jn 4 ·30 1 Jn 3 ·22 1 Jn 2 ·17 John 3 ·9 Rom 8 ·8 John 15 ·8 1 Jn 5 ·7 John 10 ·6

Christ at the center

Jesus is the Word of life made manifest, the propitiation for our sins, the Son in whom is eternal life — 'that you may know that you have eternal life.'

How 1 John 4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

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★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — 1 John videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on 1 John 4YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — 1 John 4David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on 1 JohnMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — 1 John 4Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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