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1 John 5

Chapter 5 in 30 seconds

Faith in Jesus overcomes the world, and John writes so you can know you have eternal life. Pray with confidence. Then one last line, like a dad at the door: little children, keep yourselves from idols.

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In this chapterThe Big Question · Christians disagreeThe Missing Words · after verse 21 The Big Question · Christians disagreeThe Sin That Leads to Death · after verse 21 The Big QuestionWhat Polycarp Wrote · after verse 21 The Big QuestionWhat Irenaeus Wrote · after verse 21 The Big QuestionWhat It Tells Us · after verse 21

Overcoming the World

¹Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him. ²By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep His commandments. ³For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome, ⁴because everyone born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.

1JN 5:4[NOTABLE]Faith in Jesus is the win.

⁵Who then overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. ⁶This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ—not by water alone, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies to this, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷For there are three that testify [in heaven: The Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And there are three that testify on earth:] ⁸the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and these three are in agreement.

1JN 5:6[FULFILLS]In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness ← ZECH 13:1
1JN 5:6[NOTE]WATER AND BLOOD. Many read it as His baptism and His death, against Cerinthus. Others see John 19:34.
1JN 5:7[NOTE]THE MISSING WORDS. The [bracketed] words are in no Greek copy before about AD 1300. See The Big Question pages.

God’s Testimony about His Son

⁹Even if we accept human testimony, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony that God has given about His Son. ¹⁰Whoever believes in the Son of God has this testimony within him; whoever does not believe God has made Him out to be a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about His Son.

¹¹And this is that testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. ¹²Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1JN 5:11[NOTABLE]Written so believers could be sure.

Effective Prayer

¹³I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. ¹⁴And this is the confidence that we have before Him: If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. ¹⁵And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we already possess what we have asked of Him.

1JN 5:14[NOTABLE]Bold prayer lines up with what God wants.

¹⁶If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he should ask God, who will give life to those who commit this kind of sin. There is a sin that leads to death; I am not saying he should ask regarding that sin. ¹⁷All unrighteousness is sin, yet there is sin that does not lead to death.

The True God

¹⁸We know that anyone born of God does not keep on sinning; the One who was born of God protects him, and the evil one cannot touch him. ¹⁹We know that we are of God, and that the whole world is under the power of the evil one. ²⁰And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true—in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

1JN 5:18[DEMONIC]The evil one cannot touch him
1JN 5:20[NOTE]THE TRUE ONE. He may mean Jesus, John 20:28, or the Father. The Greek allows both.

²¹Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

1JN 5:21[DEMONIC]Little children, keep yourselves from idols

The Big Question · Christians disagree

The Missing Words

Three That Testify in Heaven

1 John 5:7 to 8 · KJV · Matthew 28:19 · 2 Corinthians 13:14

WHAT IT SAYS: The KJV reads: For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood. Most Bibles today print only: there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water and the blood. Scholars call the extra words the Johannine Comma. Comma here means a short phrase.
THE GREEK COPIES: There are more than 500 Greek copies of 1 John. The extra words are in fewer than ten, all made after about AD 1300, and in several they are only written in the margin. None of the old Greek Bibles, like Sinaiticus, Vaticanus or Alexandrinus, has them.
THE CHURCH FATHERS: In the 300s, when the church argued fiercely about the Trinity, no Greek writer ever quoted these words, though they would have been perfect proof.
THE LATIN TRAIL: The words first appear in Latin. A Spanish writer, Priscillian, has a form of them about AD 380. Augustine read the Spirit, the water and the blood as a picture of the Trinity, and a note like that seems to have slipped from the margin into the text. The oldest Latin Vulgate copies, from the 500s and 700s, do not have them; many later ones do.
ERASMUS: In 1516 Erasmus printed the first Greek New Testament, without the words. Critics attacked him. Then a Greek copy that had them turned up in England, now called Codex Montfortianus, made about 1520. Erasmus added the words in his third edition, 1522, while writing that he suspected the copy was made to fit the Latin.
INTO THE KJV: Later Greek editions kept the words, and the KJV translators of 1611 followed them. In 1897 the Catholic Church's Holy Office said Catholics could not deny the words were genuine; in 1927 it allowed scholars to study the question freely.
IN THIS BIBLE: This Bible prints the words in [brackets], the way it marks every passage missing from the oldest copies. The next page gives every view.

Every View · The Case Each Side Makes

1 John 5:6 to 9 · Matthew 28:19 · John 1:1 · Acts 5:3 to 4

A LATER ADDITION: Almost all scholars, Protestant and Catholic, say John did not write these words. Best case: no early Greek copy, no early translation outside Latin, and no Greek church father has them, even when they needed them most.
JOHN WROTE THEM: Some defenders of the KJV say the words are original and were lost by accident or removed by heretics who denied the Trinity. They point to the grammar of verse 8: three is masculine in Greek though Spirit, water and blood are not, which they say fits better if the Father, the Word and the Spirit came first. Best case: the grammar question is real, and the words are very old in Latin.
A PREACHER'S NOTE: Many think a Latin reader wrote a note in the margin explaining the three witnesses as the Trinity, and a later copyist put it into the text. Best case: it explains where the words came from and why they show up first in Latin.
WHAT IT DOES NOT CHANGE: The Trinity does not depend on this verse. The Father, Son and Spirit are named together in Matthew 28:19 and 2 Corinthians 13:14; the Word is God in John 1:1; the Spirit is God in Acts 5:3 to 4. The church taught the Trinity for over a thousand years before Erasmus printed these words in Greek.
WHAT ALL SIDES AGREE ON: God gives testimony about His Son, 5:9, and whoever has the Son has life, 5:12. That is John's point in this chapter, with or without the bracketed words.

The Big Question · Christians disagree

The Sin That Leads to Death

What Is It?

1 John 5:16 to 17 · Mark 3:28 to 29 · Hebrews 6:4 to 6 · 1 Corinthians 11:30

WHAT JOHN SAID: There is a sin that leads to death; I am not saying he should ask regarding that sin. All unrighteousness is sin, yet there is sin that does not lead to death, 5:16 to 17. John never names it. His readers must have known.
PHYSICAL DEATH: Some believers sinned so badly that God took their life as discipline, like Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5:1 to 11, and those who abused the Lord's Supper, 1 Corinthians 11:30. Best case: brother in 5:16 suggests a believer, and death can mean the body.
WALKING AWAY FROM JESUS: The false teachers in this letter denied that Jesus is the Christ and left the church, 2:19 and 2:22. Rejecting Jesus for good leads to eternal death. Best case: it fits the whole letter's fight. Compare Hebrews 6:4 to 6, see the Hebrews pages.
BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE SPIRIT: Jesus said one sin will never be forgiven, Mark 3:28 to 29. Some think John means the same thing. Best case: both speak of a sin beyond prayer.
MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN: The Catholic Church teaches that a grave sin done with full knowledge and consent is mortal, killing the life of grace, while lesser sins are venial, Catechism 1854 to 1864, which cites these verses. Mortal sin can still be forgiven through repentance and confession. Best case: it takes John's two kinds of sin at face value.
THE EARLY CHURCH: Tertullian, about AD 210, used this verse to say some sins, like idolatry, murder and adultery, could not be forgiven by the church. Most other churches disagreed and welcomed sinners back after repentance.
WHAT ALL SIDES AGREE ON: Every sin is serious, 5:17. Christians should pray for each other, and God gives life when they do, 5:16. Anyone worried that they committed the sin that leads to death is showing a tender heart, which is a good sign.

The Big Question

What Polycarp Wrote

The Oldest Quote of 1 John

Polycarp, To the Philippians 7 · 1 John 4:2 to 3 · 2 John 7

WHO POLYCARP WAS: Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna, a city near Ephesus. His student Irenaeus says Polycarp was taught by apostles and knew John. He was burned alive about AD 155, at 86 years old, after saying he had served Christ 86 years and would not deny Him.
HIS LETTER: Polycarp wrote to the church at Philippi, in Greece, about AD 110 to 135. In chapter 7 he warns against false teachers using words that come straight from 1 John 4:2 to 3 and 2 John 7. It is the oldest quote of 1 John that we have.
WHAT HE WROTE: Here is the whole of chapter 7, in the English translation by J. B. Lightfoot, 1891.
TO THE PHILIPPIANS 7: For every one who shall not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is antichrist: and whosoever shall not confess the testimony of the Cross, is of the devil; and whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts and say that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the first-born of Satan. Wherefore let us forsake the vain doing of the many and their false teachings, and turn unto the word which was delivered unto us from the beginning, being sober unto prayer and constant in fastings, entreating the all-seeing God with supplications that He bring us not into temptation, according as the Lord said, The Spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.
COMPARE: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, 1 John 4:2 to 3.

The Big Question

What Irenaeus Wrote

John and Cerinthus

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4 · 1 John 2:19 · 2 John 10 to 11

WHO IRENAEUS WAS: Irenaeus grew up in Smyrna, where as a boy he heard Polycarp teach. Later he became bishop of Lyons in France. About AD 180 he wrote Against Heresies, a long book against the false teachers of his day.
WHAT HE WROTE: Here is the whole passage, book 3, chapter 3, section 4, in the English translation by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut, Ante Nicene Fathers, 1885. Words in [square brackets] were added by the translators.
AGAINST HERESIES 3.3.4: But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic Churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time,—a man who was of much greater weight, and a more stedfast witness of truth, than Valentinus, and Marcion, and the rest of the heretics. He it was who, coming to Rome in the time of Anicetus caused many to turn away from the aforesaid heretics to the Church of God, proclaiming that he had received this one and sole truth from the apostles,—that, namely, which is handed down by the Church. There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, “Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within.” And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, “Dost thou know me?” “I do know thee, the first-born of Satan.” Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says, “A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.” There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth. Then, again, the Church in Ephesus, founded by Paul, and having John remaining among them permanently until the times of Trajan, is a true witness of the tradition of the apostles.

The Big Question

What It Tells Us

The Fake Jesus

1 John 2:22 · 4:2 to 3 · 5:6 · 2 John 7

A CHAIN OF WITNESSES: John taught Polycarp, and Polycarp taught Irenaeus. So Irenaeus is only two steps from the apostle who wrote this letter.
WHO CERINTHUS WAS: Irenaeus says Cerinthus taught that Jesus was just a man, the son of Joseph and Mary, that the Christ came down on Him like a dove at His baptism, and that the Christ left Him before the cross, so only the man Jesus died and rose, Against Heresies 1.26.1.
JOHN'S ANSWER: That sounds like the teachers John fights: they denied that Jesus is the Christ, 2:22, and that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, 4:2. John insists He came not by water only, His baptism, but by water and blood, His death, 5:6.
SEEN AND TOUCHED: Others, later called Docetists, from the Greek word for to seem, said Jesus only seemed to have a body. John opens the letter with we have seen Him and touched Him, 1:1.
THE BATHHOUSE STORY: Irenaeus heard it from people who heard it from Polycarp, so it is secondhand. Many scholars think it is true to John's character; some think it grew in the telling. Either way it matches 2 John 10 to 11: do not welcome false teachers.
FIRST BORN OF SATAN: Polycarp used the same words for false teachers in his letter, chapter 7, and Irenaeus says he called Marcion that to his face. It is strong language, borrowed from John: the one who practices sin is of the devil, 1 John 3:8.
WHY IT MATTERS: Within a lifetime of John, his student was quoting his letter and his student's student was telling stories about him. 1 John was known and used very early.

1 John 5

Overcoming the World

God’s Testimony about His Son

Effective Prayer

The True God

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