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1 John 4
1 John 4 is the fourth chapter of the First Epistle of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The epistle is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle from early date, although there remains an open question about the authorship.

Text
The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 21 verses.

Textual witnesses
Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:
 * Papyrus 9 (3rd century; extant verses 11–12, 14–17)
 * Codex Vaticanus (325–350)
 * Codex Sinaiticus (330–360)
 * Codex Alexandrinus (400–440)
 * Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (ca. 450; extant verses 1–2)
 * Papyrus 74 (7th century; extant verses 1, 6–7, 12, 18–19)

True and False Confession (4:1–6)
The problem to tell "the spirit of truth" from "the spirit of falsehood" was not new, as there were false prophets in the Old Testament period, and in the New Testament times, Paul wrote a ruling on 'when a person was speaking "by the Spirit of God"'.

Verse 1

 * Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.


 * "False prophets have gone out into the world": compared to Matthew 7:15; ; . The phrase "gone out" can mean that they were church members, but then left the church.

Verse 2

 * By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,


 * "In the flesh": stresses 'the reality of the incarnation', that Jesus not merely took human nature, but flesh (cf. John 1:14; ), although 'the human Jesus is nothing less than the divine Christ'.

Verse 8

 * He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.


 * "God is love": is considered as 'one of the greatest statement in the whole Bible', means not simply that 'God is loving' or 'God sometimes loves', but because it is 'his nature to love'.

Verse 20

 * If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

John made the distinction between the love to a 'brother who is seen and God who is not', because to affirm love to the unseen while failing to love the seen is a fantasy.