1 John 4
4
John Warns Against False Teachers
1My dear friends, many false prophets are in the world now. So don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God. 2This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit. One spirit says, “I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. 3Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. This is the spirit of the enemy of Christ. You have heard that the enemy of Christ is coming, and now he is already in the world.
4My dear children, you belong to God, so you have already defeated these false prophets. That’s because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5And they belong to the world, so what they say is from the world too. And the world listens to what they say. 6But we are from God. So the people who know God listen to us. But the people who are not from God don’t listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.
Love Comes From God
7Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God’s child. And so everyone who loves knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. 10True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. He sent his Son as the way to take away our sins.
11That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other. 12No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us. If we love each other, God’s love has reached its goal—it is made perfect in us.
13We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because he gave us his Spirit. 14We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world, and this is what we tell people now. 15Anyone who says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” is a person who lives in God, and God lives in that person. 16So we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.
God is love. Everyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them. 17If God’s love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus.#4:17 Jesus Literally, “that one.” 18Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is his punishment that makes a person fear. So his love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.
19We love because God first loved us. 20If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him. 21God gave us this command: If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters.
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
1 John 4
4
1Beloved, every spirit believe not, but prove the spirits, if of God they are, because many false prophets have gone forth to the world;
2in this know ye the Spirit of God; every spirit that doth confess Jesus Christ in the flesh having come, of God it is,
3and every spirit that doth not confess Jesus Christ in the flesh having come, of God it is not; and this is that of the antichrist, which ye heard that it doth come, and now in the world it is already.
4Ye — of God ye are, little children, and ye have overcome them; because greater is He who [is] in you, than he who is in the world.
5They — of the world they are; because of this from the world they speak, and the world doth hear them;
6we — of God we are; he who is knowing God doth hear us; he who is not of God, doth not hear us; from this we know the spirit of the truth, and the spirit of the error.
7Beloved, may we love one another, because the love is of God, and every one who is loving, of God he hath been begotten, and doth know God;
8he who is not loving did not know God, because God is love.
9In this was manifested the love of God in us, because His Son — the only begotten — hath God sent to the world, that we may live through him;
10in this is the love, not that we loved God, but that He did love us, and did send His Son a propitiation for our sins.
11Beloved, if thus did God love us, we also ought one another to love;
12God no one hath ever seen; if we may love one another, God in us doth remain, and His love is having been perfected in us;
13in this we know that in Him we do remain, and He in us, because of His Spirit He hath given us.
14And we — we have seen and do testify, that the Father hath sent the Son — Saviour of the world;
15whoever may confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God in him doth remain, and he in God;
16and we — we have known and believed the love, that God hath in us; God is love, and he who is remaining in the love, in God he doth remain, and God in him.
17In this made perfect hath been the love with us, that boldness we may have in the day of the judgment, because even as He is, we — we also are in this world;
18fear is not in the love, but the perfect love doth cast out the fear, because the fear hath punishment, and he who is fearing hath not been made perfect in the love;
19we — we love him, because He — He first loved us;
20if any one may say — ‘I love God,’ and his brother he may hate, a liar he is; for he who is not loving his brother whom he hath seen, God — whom he hath not seen — how is he able to love?
21and this [is] the command we have from Him, that he who is loving God, may also love his brother.
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