1 John 5:4-5

1 John 5:4-5. For whosoever is begotten of God a new form of words, the ‘we' of the previous verse with ‘that which is born of the Spirit' (John 3:6) overcometh the world: is victorious over the kingdom of evil generally, and particularly that sphere of the natural man and of self in the atmosphere of which the commandment of brotherly love weighs heavily.

And this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith. Not love here, for faith is the leading thought: faith IS the victory, its strength for that habitual overcoming of every obstacle to obedience which was in it as an original germ, and of the final attainment of which it is the pledge. The past and the present and the future are really here; but the stress is on the present. How it conquers, not in an ideal but a present and perfect victory, then follows in a sentence which takes a negative form but includes the positive reason.

And who is he that overcometh the world, but for no other can, ‘he and only he' he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? He who in union with ‘the Son of God' the name that always opposes Him to the world and its prince, partakes His victory: ‘I have overcome the world' (John 16:33). So much for the words: theology both dogmatic and practical takes them up, and finds in them its richest material. Observe that the discussion of our external relation ends here: the apostle's warning against love of the world, and his encouragement of opposition to the errors in the world, closes with finished and abiding victory over it.