Spiritual rebirth & Jesus: Who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. 1 John 5:5
Published on HivePostify by @bernie2002xp · Sun Jul 05 2026
The First Epistle of John is to some extent a literary continuation of the gospel that bears the same name. The apostle, concerned about the rise of dangerous heresies during the first century after Christ, wrote his first letter to several churches in Asia Minor to explain what it truly means to follow Jesus and his teachings. This is why the First Epistle of John stands out on several central spiritual themes: the spiritual gift of eternal life, the love of Jesus, the commandments, and the spiritual rebirth. And in the thought of the apostle John, this pursues a very clear spiritual goal to show how, through the gift of faith, every believer can receive the true spiritual life, the eternal life. But the apostle taught that this faith must be united to the spirit through the sacrament of baptism because otherwise the believer cannot be in God's grace: "And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us" 1 John 4:13. And for the apostle John, this faith had to be realized in the spiritual rebirth, in the second birth, not according to the flesh but according to the spirit, to receive that expansive and edifying love of Christ, a birth that allows the believer to overcome the world, that is, to overcome everything that comes from human concupiscence, such as the love of money and lust. This is why the apostle wrote: "For everyone born of God overcomes the world" 1 John 5:4. But then John continued with his teaching and went deeper: "Who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God" 1 John 5:5. For John, everything worldly binds man to suffering, error, and hopelessness, the complete opposite of Christian grace. That is why, in John's thought, spiritual warfare takes on a dimension of great proportions. And these teachings of John are ultimately related to what Jesus taught Nicodemus: to overcome the world and be reborn from on high is to perceive the Kingdom of God with the heart. Those who perceive the Kingdom truly love God and have eternal life, and in this consists the true faith in Jesus, the apostle John taught.
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Tags: #win#spiritual#rebirth#jesus#battle