Passage

1 John 4.2

Book: 1 John · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

◎ See this page's graph and discover linked topics →

Setting

• Speaker: The letter is formally anonymous. Early and unanimous tradition assigns it to John the apostle (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.5 and 3.16.8, c. AD 180), and its vocabulary and style are closely shared with the Fourth Gospel.
• Audience: Churches in Roman Asia, addressed after a secession: "they went out from us, but they were not really of us" (1 John 2:19). The departing teachers denied that Jesus is the Christ (2:22) and that He has come in the flesh (4:2).
• Location: Traditionally Ephesus, the center of the Johannine circle in Asia Minor.
• Time period: c. AD 85-95, late in the apostolic period. The stated purpose is assurance: "these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13).

Theological reading

"By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God."

A doctrinal test for spiritual claims. John gives a criterion that can be applied without access to anyone's inner life: what is confessed about Jesus. Power, sincerity, and religious impressiveness are not on the list.

The grammar carries weight. Iēsoun Christon en sarki elēlythota, Jesus Christ having come in flesh, with elēlythota a perfect participle. The perfect denotes a past action with abiding result, so the confession is not merely that the Christ appeared in flesh at one time but that the incarnation stands. That distinction is precisely what a docetic or separationist Christology denies, and the tense is doing the work.

The error in view. The secessionists (1 John 2:19) denied both that Jesus is the Christ (2:22) and, on the evidence of this verse, that the Christ came in flesh. Irenaeus associates the Johannine writings with opposition to Cerinthus, who is said to have taught that the Christ descended on Jesus at the baptism and left before the crucifixion. The confession John requires excludes that.

Why the incarnation is the test. In this letter the incarnation is not an isolated doctrine but the point where everything else is fastened: it is how love was manifested (4:9), the ground of the atonement (4:10), and the content of the eyewitness testimony (1 John 1:1). Deny it and the letter's argument has nothing to stand on.

See Incarnation and Incarnation.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

• G3670 - homologeo, homologeo, Strong's G3670
• G4561 - sarx, sarx, Strong's G4561
• G1097 - ginosko, ginosko, Strong's G1097
• G4151 - pneuma, pneuma, Strong's G4151
• G5547 - christos, christos, Strong's G5547
• G2424 - Iesous, Iesous, Strong's G2424

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

• Jesus Ate Food Therefore Contingent Objection Defeater
• Muhammad as Paraclete Refutation, via 1 John 4.2-3
• Nag Hammadi Suppressed Gospels Objection Defeater, via 1 John 4.2-3
• Satanic Fabrication Objection Defeater, via 1 John 4.1-3

Concepts:

• Astral Projection, via 1 John 4.1-3
• Christian Discernment, via 1 John 4.1-3
• Christianity, via 1 John 4.1-3
• Egregore, via 1 John 4.2-3
• Engaging the Conclusion-Fixed Skeptic, via 1 John 4.1-3
• External Sources of Thought, via 1 John 4.1-3
• Incarnation, via 1 John 4.2-3
• Lesson 2.4, Christology in One Lesson, via 1 John 4.2-3
• Plasmoid Sentience Hypothesis, via 1 John 4.2-3
• Prophet, via 1 John 4.1-3

People:

• John the Apostle
• Polycarp of Smyrna, via 1 John 4.2-3

Lexicon:

• G1253 - diakrisis, via 1 John 4.1-3
• G3669 - homologia, via 1 John 4.2-3
• G3670 - homologeo, via 1 John 4.2-3
• G4561 - sarx
• H1320 - basar, via 1 John 4.2-3

Passages:

• 1 John 1.1-2
• 1 John 1.1-3
• 1 John 1.2
• 1 John 1.6
• 1 John 2.13-14
• 1 John 2.15
• 1 John 2.15-17
• 1 John 2.16
• 1 John 2.18-27
• 1 John 2.28
• 1 John 2.3-4
• 1 John 3.10
• 1 John 3.14
• 1 John 3.17
• 1 John 3.19-21
• 1 John 3.8
• 1 John 4
• 1 John 4.1-3
• 1 John 4.14
• 1 John 4.16
• 1 John 4.7-8
• 1 John 4.9
• 1 John 4.9-10
• 1 John 5.1-12
• 1 John 5.11-12
• 1 John 5.11-13
• 1 John 5.13
• 1 John 5.14
• 1 John 5.7-8

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

• ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
• WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
• KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
• YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.