THIS IS THE VICTORY

One of the best-known brand names in the sports world is Nike, and if older readers do not recognize the name, the younger ones certainly will! The name is actually a Greek word, pro­nounced ‘nee-kay’, and used only once in the Bible. That occurrence is in verse 4 of our reading today and is translated ‘victory’. Scholars would instruct us that the word properly means ‘the means of success’, and this translation helps our understanding of the verse.

The way of the ungodly is to instinctively turn away from God, His word and His people. The Lord Jesus was shunned because He was the light of the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, John 3. 19. Now, as an old man, John is writing his epistles and identifying the dis­tinctive features of a believer in the Lord Jesus. ‘Every one who is born of God knoweth God’, 1 John 4. 7; ‘loveth God’, 5. 1; ‘doth not habitually sin’, 3. 9; 5. 18; and ‘overcometh the world’, 5. 4, 5. If the dominion of sin is the cause of man’s love of darkness and his instinctive turning away from all that pleases God, what is it that enables the Christian to subdue those things and live a life that honours God? The answer, says John, is a power imparted through new birth appropriated by faith. Notice that there is some thing that overcomes the world in verse 4, and some one who overcomes the world in verse 5. The power of the Holy Spirit, imparted to the believer at new birth, is able to overcome (that is, to subdue) the world system. The means by which that power is obtained, the means of success, is our faith. So we can paraphrase verse 4, ‘that which is born of God is able to subdue the ungodly world system, and the means of success in subdu­ing the world system is faith’. The tense would suggest that the faith here is that act of faith by which we believed the gospel and by which we were saved. The moment we were saved, the power that overcomes was imparted to us and John therefore says, ‘Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?’ v. 5. Through saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a sinner becomes an overcomer empowered by the Holy Spirit.