1 John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. A survey of history discovers to us the presence of a constant law, which may be thus described, progress through conflict. The conflict is of two kinds — physical, as where one nation hurls itself against another in war, or one party seeks to overcome another by sheer force of numbers; and moral, where the battle is one of truth against error, of righteousness against injustice, of religion against the forces of ungodliness. Corresponding to these two kinds of conflict are two kinds of victories — the one material, where present success is often on the side of the strongest battalions; and the other moral, where more permanent results are achieved by gradually transforming men's ideas, by substituting better institutions for corrupt and defective ones, and above all, by making men themselves better. Now Christianity, if it is anything, aims at being a world-conquering principle. This is its ultimate aim, but it has a nearer aim, which is really the guarantee for its accomplishing the wider result. Its nearer aim is to give the individual in his own spirit the victory over the world, to implant there the Divine principle of victory, to make the individual himself a type of that fuller victory which is yet to be realised in society as a whole. I. There is a power we are to overcome — THE WORLD. By the world, in John's sense, we are to understand a set of principles, the principles that rule and operate in godless society, and stamp their character on its thought, habits, and life; or rather, it is society itself, viewed as ruled and pervaded by these principles, and for that reason hostile to godliness. But if this is what is meant by the world, it might seem as if the task of overcoming it, or at least of preventing ourselves from being overcome by it, were one of no great difficulty. We might be tempted to despise our foe. It might seem as if all we had to do was to withdraw from the world — not to mix with worldly people, not to mind their opinion, not to follow their example. But in the first place even this is not so easy a thing to do. The slave of the world may think himself bound to it by only silken ties; it is when he tries to emancipate himself from its bondage that he finds how really they are iron fetters. There is, for example, the tyranny of public opinion. How few have the courage to go against that? There is the tyranny of fashion. Is it so easy, in circles where fashion is regarded, to emancipate oneself from its imperious mandates, and to take the brave Christian stand which duty may require; There is the power of old-established custom. What a hold there is in that! Most difficult of all to escape from is the spirit of the world. You think to escape from the world, but go where you will its dark, hostile form still confronts you. Thus far I have spoken only of taking up a defensive attitude to the world — keeping the world at arm's length — preventing ourselves from being overcome by it. We must feel, however, that the ringing note of victory in our text must mean far more than this. To overcome the world is not only to conquer evil, but to establish good. And though the effort to do this, as regards the world outside, may sometimes fail — though the world, as has often happened, may rise up against the man who seeks to make it better, and may crush him; still is he the real victor who has refused to bow his knee to the Baals that are round about him, for in his own spirit he has the consciousness of having been able to stand by the good, and withstand the bad, and whatever may be the immediate result of his witness, he knows it is that which he has contended for which shall in the end prevail. II. WHAT IS THE POWER BY WHICH WE ARE TO OVERCOME IT? It is, the apostle says, "our faith." The words in the original are even more emphatic. The passage reads, "this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith." In the power of Christian faith the victory is already won. Not that long conflict has not still to be carried on, but in principle, in spirit, in the certainty of the issue, the battle is already decided. Beliefs — I speak here, of course, of real, not merely nominal beliefs — are the most potent factor in human life, the real power that make and shape the course of history. The first apostles were men with beliefs, and as they went forth speaking out the beliefs that were in them, it soon began to be said of them, "Lo, these men that have turned the world upside down are come hither also." Columbus was a man with a belief, and this belief of his gave the world a new continent. Lord Bacon was a man with a belief — belief in a new method of science — and his belief inaugurated the new era of scientific invention and discovery. The early political reformers were men with beliefs, and some of the wildest of their beliefs have already become accomplished realities of legislation. To have in you a belief which is fitted to benefit and bless your fellow men is to be not only in your own small way a social power; it is to be in the truest sense a benefactor of mankind. But what is this belief which Christianity implants in our hearts which has these wondrous effects? The answer is given in the next verse, "who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" Now, of course, if belief in Jesus as the Son of God were only belief in a theological proposition, it neither would, nor could, have any effect of the kind alleged. But this is not its real nature. Belief in Jesus as the Son of God, in him who truly entertains it, is not belief in a theological proposition, but belief in a great Divine reality, and if we look at the nature of that reality we have no difficulty in seeing that it not only will have, but must have, the particular virtue here ascribed to it. To overcome the world, or in plain modern words, to fight successfully the battle of good against evil, there are at least necessary these conditions: First of all we must have firm faith in the reality of goodness — of that we are contending for. In the next place we must have the firm conviction that the powers working on the side of goodness in the world are stronger than the powers that can be arrayed against them. In the third place, we must know ourselves to be in our own inmost life linked with these victorious powers. And lastly, as the outcome of all this, we must have undoubting confidence in the ultimate triumph of our cause. These conditions are fulfilled in the man who believes from the heart that Jesus is the Son of God. (James Orr, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. |
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