1 John 4 Bible study: Love is of God

The chapter opens, "Beloved" (4:1), and the same verse speaks of "many false prophets" who "have gone out into the world" (4:1). It goes on, "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God," (4:2) "and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God; and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already." (4:3) "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." (4:4) "They are of the world. Therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them." (4:5) "We are of God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not of God doesn’t listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error." (4:6). These notes give this chapter as the WEB has it, explain it no further than its own words and the lexicons, and apply it to no one, no church, teacher, people or group, then or now. They name no one among the "many false prophets" (4:1), explain "the spirit of the Antichrist" (4:3) no further than the verse's own words, and apply none of 4:1-6 to any teacher, church, prophecy, gift or movement today. A line on Favor's map lands on 4:4, and the go-deeper Lines that land here names it.

2 Chronicles 32:7→leads to1 John 4:4

Hezekiah told the people, "there is a greater one with us than with him" (32:7), and "An arm of flesh is with him, but the LORD our God is with us to help us and to fight our battles" (32:8). John writes of spirits that don't confess "that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" (1 John 4:3), and tells believers, "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" (1 John 4:4). 1 John doesn't cite 2 Chronicles 32, so setting the two side by side is a reading. What they share: each tells God's people that the one on their side is greater than the one against them. Where they differ: Hezekiah speaks of the LORD with Judah against the king of Assyria and his army (32:7-8); John speaks of the one in believers against the spirit of the Antichrist (1 John 4:3-4), and joins it to confessing Jesus: "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God" (1 John 4:15). Some read the two together for that shared confidence; others keep them apart, since one is a city facing an army and the other a testing of spirits (1 John 4:1). 2 Chronicles is written in Hebrew and 1 John in Greek, and no link between their words is claimed.

ἀγάπηagapesay ag-AH-pay

Strong's: "love, i.e. affection or benevolence". "We know and have believed the love which God has for us." (4:16): behind love is this noun. 1 John has it 18 times, in 14 verses (counted in RP2018, and in all eight editions TAGNT compares).