{"id":1984,"date":"2016-10-13T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielgoepfrich.com\/?p=1984"},"modified":"2022-08-29T17:41:12","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T21:41:12","slug":"1-john-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/1-john-4\/","title":{"rendered":"1 John 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Chapter four<\/strong> picks up on John\u2019s mention of the Holy Spirit in 1 John 3:24. Paul wrote that the Spirit is God\u2019s seal of salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14) and assurance of our relationship with God (Romans 8:16); John agreed. The Spirit is the internal evidence of knowing God, while our obedience is the external (3:24). One of the primary ways the Spirit works is that he changes our understanding and beliefs. In 1 John 4:1-3, John gave the test of \u201cwho Jesus is\u201d as proof of the Spirit\u2019s indwelling. Only a believer can fully agree with Jesus\u2019 full deity and full humanity, and John wrote that anyone who fails that test comes from a spirit of antichrist, not the Holy Spirit. Our basic beliefs reveal our spiritual state (1 John 4:6).<\/p><p>Coming back to the theme of loving one another, John gave another proof of genuine salvation. Only those who are God\u2019s children can exhibit God\u2019s love (1 John 4:8). The reason is that, because a person cannot give what he does not have, and only a believer has experienced God\u2019s love and grace (1 John 4:10), only a believer can share it. Thus, because we are recipients of God\u2019s love, we are obligated to share that with fellow&nbsp;recipients (1 John 4:11). Not only is hating a fellow believer likened to murder (3:15), this ungodly action proves to be a lie, because we cannot love God while&nbsp;hating his family (1 John 4:20). Again, this is the standard that God calls us to, even though we do not always fulfill it faithfully. So, following the stark ideal, John couched it in language of obligation: <em>\u201cthe one who loves God <strong>should<\/strong> love his fellow Christian too\u201d<\/em> (1 John 4:21).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chapter four picks up on John\u2019s mention of the Holy Spirit in 1 John 3:24. Paul wrote that the Spirit is God\u2019s seal of salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14) and assurance of our relationship with God (Romans 8:16); John agreed. The Spirit is the internal evidence of knowing God, while our obedience is the external (3:24). One [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[15,31,35],"class_list":["post-1984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-studies","tag-1john","tag-ephesians","tag-romans"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"gutentor_comment":0,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"widget-thumbnail":false,"rpwe-thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_thumbnail":false,"woocommerce_single":false,"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Daniel Goepfrich","author_link":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/author\/dgoepfrich\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Chapter four picks up on John\u2019s mention of the Holy Spirit in 1 John 3:24. Paul wrote that the Spirit is God\u2019s seal of salvation (Ephesians 1:13-14) and assurance of our relationship with God (Romans 8:16); John agreed. The Spirit is the internal evidence of knowing God, while our obedience is the external (3:24). One&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologyisforeveryone.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}