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1 John 4:4 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
⁴You are from God, little children, and have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

You are from God. You are of his family; you have embraced his truth and imbibed his Spirit.

Little children. Τεκνια. This is such language as an aged apostle would be likely to use when addressing a church, and its use in this epistle may be regarded as one evidence that John had reached an advanced period of life when he wrote the epistle.

And have conquered them. Have triumphed over their arts and temptations; their endeavors to draw you into error and sin. The word ‘them’ in this place seems to refer to the false prophets or teachers who collectively constituted the antichrist. The meaning is that they had frustrated or thwarted all their attempts to turn them away from the truth,

Because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. God, who dwells in your hearts, and by whose strength and grace alone you have been enabled to achieve this victory, is mightier than Satan, who rules in the hearts of the people of this world, and whose seductive arts are seen in the efforts of these false teachers. The apostle meant to say that it was by no power of their own that they achieved this victory, but it was to be traced solely to the fact that God dwelt among them and had preserved them by his grace. What was true then is true now. He who dwells in the hearts of Christians by his Spirit is infinitely mightier than Satan, ‘the ruler of the darkness of this world,’ and victory, therefore, over all his arts and temptations may be sure. In his conflicts with sin, temptation, and error, the Christian should never despair, for his God will ensure his victory.

By Albert Barnes and Edward D. Andrews