On Denying the Incarnation

4 Dear friends,^(A) do not believe every spirit,^(B) but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.^{(C) 2} This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh^(D) is from God,^{(E) 3} but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist,^(F) which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.^(G)

⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us.^(A) This is how we recognize the Spirit^[a] of truth^(B) and the spirit of falsehood.^(C)

God’s Love and Ours

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another,^(D) for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God^(E) and knows God.^{(F) 8} Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.^{(G) 9} This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son^(H) into the world that we might live through him.^{(I) 10} This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us^(J) and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.^{(K) 11} Dear friends,^(L) since God so loved us,^(M) we also ought to love one another.^{(N) 12} No one has ever seen God;^(O) but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.^(P)

¹³ This is how we know^(Q) that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.^{(R) 14} And we have seen and testify^(S) that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.^{(T) 15} If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,^(U) God lives in them and they in God.^{(V) 16} And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love.^(W) Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.^{(X) 17} This is how love is made complete^(Y) among us so that we will have confidence^(Z) on the day of judgment:^(AA) In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,^(AB) because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹ We love because he first loved us.^{(AC) 20} Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister^(AD) is a liar.^(AE) For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen,^(AF) cannot love God, whom they have not seen.^{(AG) 21} And he has given us this command:^(AH) Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.^(AI)

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it^(A) is the Lord of heaven and earth^(B) and does not live in temples built by human hands.^{(C) 25} And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.^{(D) 26} From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.^{(E) 27} God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.^{(F) 28} ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’^[a](G) As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’^[b]