The Apostle John in 1st John 5:1-5 addressed the question of: What are the characteristics of a person who has fellowship with God, or if you will, what is a Christian? These are discovered in the text under three chorus of words or phrases that John presents.
• vs 1, 4 Born of God: Here we note that the first and primary characteristic of a Christian is NEW BIRTH. A Christian is not a person who becomes one by education, environment, or effort. The only way a person becomes a Christian is by being BORN of GOD. It is supernatural! But this supernatural New Birth doesn’t make these characteristics invisible; instead, they are very visible as they show up in our TRANSFORMATION!
• vs 1-3 Loves Him/God: Second, John brought out the truth that the person who has fellowship with God will be visible in both “What they love and how they love”.
•What they love: They will awake after New Birth with a new love and that will be for the things of God and no longer a thing of the former life and world.
•How they love: But not just what they love will be visible but HOW THEY LOVE! They won’t love one another in a selfish way based upon how the person makes us feel. They will love the way God loves us!
• vs 4-5 Over comes the world: The final characteristic the apostle John points out is a simple observation that the Christian lives victoriously. Though the Christian is not immune to the difficulties and adversities of life, they nonetheless live a joy filled life. This isn’t accomplished by avoidance nor an outcome that we deem favorable. The victorious life comes about due to three truths:
• The Victorious Christian has a victory that cannot be defeated by those limitations and instead has the understanding that NOTHING will ever be successful in separating us from the only PERSON we MUST have, our Lord whom we are told will never leave us nor forsake us!
• The victory also comes by the truth that these trials are not “Random Attacks” instead they are “Planned Acts” to which we CAN rejoice in the beauty they will produce! (See James 1:2-4)
• Lastly, the truth that the three things that hinder us: The devil, the world system, and our fleshly old nature, will be defeated once for all because He has overcome them.