Born to Overcome
After Pastor Emilio Ramos preached this past Sunday on “The Children of God & What They Do” from 1 John 5:1-5, he wrote the following:
Some people seem to have been born for a specific purpose in life. Whether it’s to excel in sports, music, art, or a career, these individuals are simply natural at whatever it is they put their hand to. As Christians, we have been born to overcome. There are various ways in which Scripture speaks about the victory of believers. Ultimately believers will overcome death and the grave, hell and the final judgment (Rev. 21:7).
In 1 John 5:1-5, the believer finds that the language of overcoming is not just relegated to the future eschatological victory that awaits believers on the last day, but that victory – because it is inextricably connected to the nature of salvation – can be “already” experienced here and now. John encourages the church by emphasizing the need to love and obey God as well as loving the ones born of God. Even in the face of a loveless and disobedient world the believer has been born to fulfill these biblical demands because we have been born or born again to “overcome the world”.
The object of faith [Jesus Christ] giving faith its potency
The glory of this victorious experience in the believer’s life is that it emerges from our union with Christ which is by faith. For this reason John can say, “this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith” v.4 (emphases added). Verse six begins to take us in another direction, a more Christological direction. This shift in the text leads to the object of the believer’s faith versus the experience of faith. The object of faith giving faith its potency, the believer is made to conquer because Christ conquers. Jesus said,
John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Paul said,
1 Corinthians 15:57–58 “but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
John wrote,
Revelation 12:10–11 “Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”
We can overcome the world…
United to Him by faith, we cannot fail! We can overcome the world that would have us hating one another and disobeying the commandments of God because God has given us this faith by His free and sovereign grace to escape the defilements of the world. The victory which belongs to Christ – which Christ has wrought – is ours to claim. Spurgeon expounded on this great truth with penetrating vivid and lucid penmanship which only the prince of preachers could,
“The great betrothal of the Prince of Glory is ours, for it is to us that he is affianced, as the sacred nuptials shall ere long declare to an assembled universe. The marvellous incarnation of the God of heaven, with all the amazing condescension and humiliation which attended it, is ours.—
The bloody sweat, the scourge, the cross, are ours forever. Whatever blissful consequences flow from perfect obedience, finished atonement, resurrection, ascension, or intercession, all are ours by his own gift.” (Spurgeon, C. H. (2006). Morning and evening: May 9th.)
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