1 John 4 1 John 4:1–6 The apostle warneth to try by certain rules the spirits that pretend to come from God. 1 John 4:7–21 He presseth the obligation of mutual love upon Christians from the example and commandment of God.

Believe not every spirit; i.e. not every one pretending to inspiration, or a revelation; spirit, whether good or bad, being put for the person acted thereby.

He here gives them the general rule, both affirmative and negative, which would suffice them to judge by in their present case; this being the great controversy of that time with the Jews: Whether Jesus were the Messiah? And whether the Messiah were as yet come or no? And with the Gnostics: Whether…

But on the contrary, concerning them who against so plain evidence denied him to be so come, the case was plain; as with the Jews, John 8:24, and with the present heretics, who denying the true manner, could not but deny the true end of his coming; and who also lived so impure lives as imported the…

Their being born of God, and their participation of a directive and strengthening influence from him, kept them from being overcome by the plausible notions, the alluring blandishments of the flesh and sense, the terror of persecution used towards them by these antichristian or pseudo-christian…

He giveth here a further rule whereby to judge of doctrines and teachers, viz. what they severally savour of, and tend to. The doctrines and teachers whereby these Christians were assaulted and tempted, were of an earthly savour and gust, tending only to gratify worldly lusts and inclinations, and…

Beloved, let us love one another: in opposition to the malice and cruelty of these enemies to true and pure Christianity, he exhorteth to mutual love, not limited to themselves, as undoubtedly he did not intend, see note on 1 John 3:14; but that they should do their part towards all others, letting…

Yea, since love is his very nature, and that God is love, those that love (upon the account and in the way above expressed) are born of him, partake from him that excellent and most delectable nature, know him by a transformative knowledge: but they that love not, they are mere strangers to him,…

There could be no higher demonstration of his love, John 3:16.

In comparison of this wonderful love of his, in sending his Son to be a sacrifice for sins, our love to him is not worthy the name of love.

We discover little sense of this love of his to us, if we do not so.

The essence of God is to our eyes invisible, incomprehensible to our minds; but by yielding ourselves to the power of his love, so as to be transformed by it, and habituated to the exercise of mutual love, we come to know him by the most pleasant and most apprehensible effects, experiencing his…

The near inward union between him and us, is best to be discerned by the operations of his Spirit, which is the Spirit of all love and goodness, 1 John 3:24, Eph. 5:9.

He here signifies we are not left at any uncertainties, touching that matter of fact, wherein lies this mighty argument for the exercise of mutual love among Christians, God’s having sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world; for, as he again inculcates, we testify upon eye-sight, having beheld…

This discourse is most studiously and observably interwoven, of these two great things, mentioned 1 John 3:23, faith in the Messiah, and the love of one another, as being the principal antidotes against the poisonous insinuations of the apostates. Of confessing: See Poole on “1 John 4:2”.

Inasmuch as the transformative efficacy of God’s love upon us depends upon our certain apprehension of it, he doubles the expression of that certainty: We have known and believed, i.e.

And by this means (viz. of our inwardness with God) doth our love grow to that perfection, that we shall have the most fearless freedom and liberty of spirit in the judgment day; our hearts no way misgiving to appear before him as a Judge, whose very image we find upon ourselves, he having…

That he proveth from the contrary natures of fear and love. The fear which is of the baser kind, viz. that is servile, and depresses the spirit, hath no place with love, but is excluded by it, by the same degrees by which that love grows up to perfection, and shall be quite excluded by that love…

His is the fountain love, ours but the stream: his love the inducement, the pattern, and the effective cause of ours. He that is first in love, loves freely; the other therefore loves under obligation.

The greater difficulty here is implied, through our present dependence upon sense, of loving the invisible God, than men that we daily see and converse familiarly with.

Both ought to be conjoined, being required both by the same authority.