1 John 4:4

Ye are of God As in 1 John 2:20 the Apostle passes abruptly from the false teachers to his true children with an emphatic pronoun, made still more emphatic here by the asyndeton. Ye, in marked contrast to them, are of God.

and have overcome them By withstanding the seducers they have proved their superiority. In the masculine -them" (αὐτούς) the Apostle passes from the antichristian spirits to the false prophets who are their mouth-pieces. Comp. -And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers" (John 10:5): thus the stranger is defeated.

because greater is He that is in you Not in their own strength has the victory been won, but in His whose word abideth in them (1 John 2:14). It is precisely for this reason that they may have confidence against all spiritual enemies: it is not confidence in themselves (1 Corinthians 15:57 especially Ephesians 6:10-17).

he that is in the world -The ruler of this world" (John 12:31), the devil, the father of these lying teachers (1 John 3:10; John 8:44), whose works Christ came to destroy (1 John 3:8). By saying -in the world" rather than -in them", the Apostle indicates that they belong to -the world". "S. John constantly teaches that the Christian's work in this state of probation is to conquer -the world". It is, in other words, to fight successfully against that view of life which ignores God, against that complex system of attractive moral evil and specious intellectual falsehood which is organized and marshalled by the great enemy of God, and which permeates and inspires non-Christianized society" (Liddon).