Albert Barnes and Edward D. Andrews write,

1 John 5:1 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the one^[14] loves whoever has been born of him.

^[14] That is, the Father

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ. Is the Messiah, the anointed of God. On the meaning of the word Christ, see Matt. 1:1. Of course, it is meant here that the proposition that ‘Jesus is the Christ’ should be believed or received in the true and proper sense in order to furnish evidence that anyone is born of God. Comp. 1 John 4:3. It cannot be supposed that a mere intellectual acknowledgment of the proposition that Jesus is the Messiah is all that is meant, for that is not the proper meaning of the word believe in the Scriptures. That word, in its just sense, implies that the truth which is believed should make its fair and legitimate impression on the mind or that we should feel and act as if it were true. If, in the proper sense of the phrase, a man does believe that Jesus is the Christ, receiving him as he is revealed as the Anointed of God, and a Savior, it is undoubtedly true that that constitutes him a Christian, for that is what is required of a man in order that he may be saved. See Acts 8:37.

Is born of God. Or rather, ‘is begotten of God.’ See John 3:3.

Everyone who loves the one. That loves that God who has thus begotten those whom he has received as his children, and to whom he sustains the endearing relation of Father.

Loves whoever has been born of him. That is, he will love all the true children of God, all Christians. See 1 John 4:20. The general idea is that as all Christians are the children of the same Father; as they constitute one family; as they all bear the same image; as they share his favor alike; as they are under the same obligation of gratitude to him, and are bound to promote the same common cause, and are to dwell together in the same home forever, they should therefore love one another. As all the children in a family love their common father, so it should be in the great family of which God is the Head.^[1]

Daniel L. Akin,

John states that all who believe that Jesus is the Christ (i.e., the Messiah) have been born of God. As the book has already indicated, this requirement includes believing specifically that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (4:2), that he is God’s Son, and that he is the Savior of the world (4:14–15). One should not think that John is promoting mere intellectual assent as the requirement for being a child of God, since the second half of the verse indicates that Johannine faith includes an ethical dimension. That is, faith and love are inseparable (cf. 3:23).[2] The phrase “Jesus is the Christ” corresponds to 2:22 and is possibly an early creedal formulation.

The text goes on to declare that those who have faith in Jesus as the Messiah are “born of God.” Thus faith is a sign of sonship. John has previously mentioned the theme of sonship in this epistle. He states that being born of God leads to right behavior (2:29), prevents one from habitually sinning (3:9–10), and causes one to love others (4:7). In the fourth Gospel we read that faith is not only a sign but also a condition of the new birth: “To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Marshall writes: “Here, however, John is not trying to show how a person experiences the new birth; his aim is rather to indicate the evidence which shows that a person stands in the continuing relationship of a child to God his Father: that evidence is that he holds to the true faith about Jesus.” The perfect tense of the verb gegennētai suggests a past action with results that continue in the present. In other words, Smalley concludes, “The regenerate Christian (past) must constantly live out (present) his faith in Jesus as Messiah, and also give his sustained allegiance to the love command.”

Having already stated that the true believer is a child of God and therefore has God as his Father, John now declares that the believer will not only love God but also God’s child or offspring. That is, he will not only love the parent but also the child of the parent. Plummer offers two syllogisms to help understand John’s logic:

A. Every one who believes the Incarnation is a child of God.

   B. Every child of God loves its Father.

      C. Therefore every believer in the Incarnation loves God.

      C. Every believer in the Incarnation loves God.

   B. Every one who loves God loves the children of God.

A. Therefore every believer in the Incarnation loves the children of God.

The Greek term translated “father” (NIV) is literally “the one who has begotten” (gennēsanta), and “his child” is literally “the one begotten from him” (tov gegnnēmenon ex auto).[3] John is stating that a believer must love his heavenly Father and the other offspring of his heavenly Father (i.e., Jesus and/ or his brothers and sisters in Christ).^[4]

SCROLL THROUGH DIFFERENT CATEGORIES BELOW

BIBLE TRANSLATION AND TEXTUAL CRITICISM

BIBLICAL STUDIES / INTERPRETATION

EARLY CHRISTIANITY

CHRISTIAN APOLOGETIC EVANGELISM

TECHNOLOGY

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY

CHRISTIAN FICTION

^[1] Albert Barnes, Notes on the New Testament: James to Jude, ed. Robert Frew (London: Blackie & Son, 1884–1885), 336.

[2] Strecker states, “In the Johannine writings, dogmatics and ethics cannot be played off against one another; instead, every faith statement has an ethical quality” (Johannine Letters, 174).

[3] The verse can be translated literally as follows: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been begotten of God, and everyone who loves the one who begets, loves the one who is begotten of him.”

^[4] Daniel L. Akin, 1, 2, 3 John, vol. 38, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001), 189–190.

Brooke states, “Every one who loves the father who begat him naturally loves the other children whom his father has begotten.… Those who are ‘born of God’ must love all His children, as surely as it is natural that any child should love his father’s other children” (Johannine Epistles, 127–28).