⁴For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. ⁵Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Being born again, loving God, and loving others with the same kind of love with which God loves us, are intertwined. Added to this mix is successfully overcoming the world. Some call this living the victorious Christian walk or the successful Christian life. We are overcomers. The apostle John expects this of all genuine believers.

John is not promoting a “health and welfare” gospel, as if the goal of our faith is financial wellbeing or a lucrative retirement account. The Bible does not promise success in all our endeavors or victory over poverty. To be sure, the book of Proverbs speaks about the earthly benefits of wise living, and through faith in Jesus Christ, we are more inclined to trust in such biblical teachings and therefore prosper in our daily dealings of life. However, wise living is not the exclusive domain of Christians, for even nonbelievers will thrive when they embrace wisdom, whether found in the Bible or elsewhere.

The victory and overcoming that John writes about, which is the unique domain of Christianity, comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Notice the emphasis on His sonship. John is thoroughly trinitarian. In other places, he writes of the Holy Spirit (e.g., 1 John 3:24), and here he writes of the Son. Overcoming the world, for Christians, involves the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and at the center of this is the belief that Jesus is the Son of God. We saw in chapter 4 that false prophets have “gone out into the world” and that they need to be tested whether they confess that Jesus has come in the flesh. But we believe that “[t]he Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Therefore, our overcoming the world comes through our faith that Jesus is the incarnation of God in human form, as we believe He is the Son of God.

Overcoming does not happen automatically, though. The faith that brings us to salvation also is the faith that continues us in the victory that overcame the world in our lives. In other words, our new birth is the first (and greatest) victory over the world’s pull away from Jesus, God’s expressed presence in the world. God has won the battle for our souls, and He did it through our faith in Jesus! God has established in us a beachhead against the world. This is a massive victory for God and for us. John encourages us to continue walking in victory over worldliness. This victory comes by faith.

Lord, help me continue living in victory over the world, its ways and its influence.