First John in Greek | Verse-by-verse Study

[00:00:00] This is the SBL Greek New Testament. It’s not public domain, but it has a really unrestricted license. That’s why I’m using it instead of Nestle-Aland or some other text. Most of my own time in study is spent in the Tyndale house, Greek New Testament simply because they have all these nice really nice additions of the Greek New Testament.

Differences from one text to the other are pretty minimal, so we’re gonna use the SBL Greek New Testament. All right, so starting chapter one, verse one of 1st John. Ὃ ἦν ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν, ὃ ἑωράκαμεν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν, ὃ ἐθεασάμεθα καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν, περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς All right, so verse one is quite a mouthful. That’s not even completing one sentence. But let’s just take this piece by piece. If you’ve been studying Greek, the [00:01:00] article is pretty familiar and it shows up over and over again. Here ἀρχῆς is beginning ὀφθαλμοῖς eyes, so O ophthalmologist is where we.

We get that word from this Greek. This Greek word ἀκηκόαμεν is we have heard this -αμεν ending here and here tells you that it’s, we is the one doing the verb, the action. So we have, we’ve heard. And we have seen, and this is our, so it’s our eyes have seen, and then here our hands have touched or have felt.

And then these two words, two different words for “see”, about τοῦ λόγου. So this is like, logos, τῆς ζωῆς. The word of life. As this, as this video goes on, I’ll, at the beginning, I’m focusing more on the vocabulary. As we go on, I will focus more on the sentence structure and the grammar. [00:02:00] Okay, let’s go to verse two.

And the life was revealed and we have seen when we testified announced to you. So ὑμῖν is You and specifically that’s in the dative case notice iota here. So this is to you, πρὸς is usually towards πρὸς τὸν πατέρα being towards the father. In this context, when you’re talking about two people, πρὸς

one another or one of them πρὸς the other is gonna be like with ἐφανερώθη so this, this eternal life, which is with the father was revealed to us. So ὑμῖν here is to you ἡμῖν is to us I also wanna mention. This word, ἐφανερώθη, so this is passive. Yeah, aorist passive. So past tense.

There’s also the word from which we get apocalypse and what’s the difference? So both mean revealed, but the, [00:03:00] this word is more like, it’s more like openly revealed. It’s like public for everyone to see. So this is like Jesus public ministry. In Judea that John was a part of, and John was a witness to all of it.

μαρτυροῦμεν here is we witnessed, so John was a public witness of Jesus ministry and of his death and his resurrection, and that’s what this word ἐφανερώθη is. Saying if it was the other word ἀποκαλύπτω. So the other word ἀποκαλύπτω

it’s like the Apocalypse of John, right? Which is the book of another name for the book of Revelation. So the Greek word apocalypse is like revelation. That word is more like it’s a revelation that’s more targeted to one person.

Maybe it’s entirely internal. I think that’s the word Jesus uses when he asks, who am I? And Peter says, you’re the Christ. And Jesus praises Peter for this and says, this [00:04:00] was revealed to you by my father. That’s ἀποκαλύπτω. Whereas in this passage, we have ἐφανερώθη, which is a word that John is gonna use over and over again in this letter.

And that’s more like a public revelation. Okay. And the life was revealed and we have seen, and we testify and announce to you the life eternal. Which was with the father and was revealed to us. So again, still the same sentence with verse one, and John is just opening this up, basically saying, I was an eyewitness of this eternal life that I’m gonna tell you about in this letter.

Verse three ὃ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπαγγέλλομεν καὶ ὑμῖν, ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε μεθʼ ἡμῶν· καὶ ἡ κοινωνία δὲ ἡ ἡμετέρα μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ·

So already in the [00:05:00] first three verses you start to see a lot of John’s style in this letter, which is he’s repeating the same ideas over and over again. He’s, he’ll often discuss an idea. Then move to something else and then he’ll circle back. You see that in English just as well as you see it in Greek. that’s just the way he writes here. So that which we have seen and that which we have heard we announced to you ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε μεθʼ ἡμῶν. Okay. This is the first time we’re gonna see this word ἵνα over and over again in this letter.

This is the first time we see it here. So this is setting up a subordinate clause, which is the fundamental meaning of this is that. Is something purposeful. So the basic meaning is it’s telling you what’s the purpose behind the verb in the main clause. So the verb in the main clause is we announce, so why are we [00:06:00] announcing, well, in order to that you will have κοινωνία.

So this is like where we get the word Koine Greek or Koine Greek which just means when we use it in Koine Greek, it’s common. So it’s like the common Greek, which was the common Greek of that era. After Alexander the Great conquered the known world, the classical or Attic Greek, began to become the universal language for the whole empire.

And that continued even into the Roman Empire. It wasn’t the classical Greek, so not as literary. And that’s where we get the term Koine Greek. Sometimes koine is used in a negative sense common contrasted with holy. But here it’s used in a positive sense.

It’s more like fellowship. So like we have things in common, we have a common purpose and a common life together. We can translate that as fellowship. Okay. So this ἵνα points back to the main verb, it sets up a [00:07:00] dependent clause that tells you the purpose behind the main verb. So the purpose of John writing is so that you the people reading this letter will have ἔχητε, is have a fellowship with us, and he doesn’t stop there.

This is an interesting piece. He goes on to say, and the fellowship, and then he has, he uses this conjunction δὲ this is the first time. And he really doesn’t use this conjunction much. It’s very, very common. If you read a narrative in Greek, it’s often using this this conjunction to move the action forward.

It’s different from καὶ, καὶ is the simplest conjunction, which is basically. Translated and or also whereas, δὲ, it could be translated and or but the fundamental meaning of it is we’re telling you there’s some kind of development, there’s some kind of new information coming. So what’s the new information?

The κοινωνία ἡμετέρα, So our fellowship [00:08:00] is with, μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς with the father, καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, so our fellowship is with the father and with τοῦ υἱοῦ the son αὐτοῦ his, so the father’s son, Jesus Christ. So this is a major development coming from this δὲ, and it stands out because like I said, John doesn’t use this conjunction very much in this letter. So it’s not just fellowship with us, our fellowship is with the father.

I’m not sure, I don’t remember how the English translates that if this, δὲ, is translated in English normally where you would see that he’s marking out, Hey, there’s something more that I haven’t told you that’s a real development. Okay, let’s go on to the next verse.

καὶ ταῦτα γράφομεν ἡμεῖς ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ἡμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη. once again, we see ἵνα and if, okay, just a side note, if you’re hearing me pronounce these [00:09:00] words and you think that I’m doing it wrong, because I’m not saying hina with the rough breathing it’s definitely true that in attic, in classical Greek, in Athens. They pronounced the rough breathing.

I think we have pretty good evidence of that. But by the Koine period, the rough breathing had mostly dropped out and people weren’t using it. They weren’t, they were still writing it. So this little mark here, they were still writing that versus the smooth breathing, like here in ἔστιν, but they weren’t pronouncing it anymore.

If they were, it was very, very subtle. The pronunciation I’m using is not erasmian. I think the people who still use Erasmian and teach it are mostly. Quite a bit older by now. If you follow anyone who’s younger, like Luke Rainieri at Polymathy, his YouTube channel or a Biblical Mastery Academy, most people who are like, forties or younger have, I think moved on either to modern Greek pronunciation.

Or a historical Koine pronunciation. And the [00:10:00] one I’m using is pretty close to modern Greek, except I am pronouncing Eta like a, because Ben Kantor’s work shows that this was probably still being pronounced in the Koine period. It hadn’t yet be started sounding like an iota like it does in modern Greek.

A huge part of a language. In a sense, a language is its pronunciation. So you want to pronounce a real language, right? You wanna learn a real language. If you’re learning Biblical Greek and you’re just looking at the printed text, then yes, it’s a real language.

But if you’re then going and pronouncing using Erasmian pronunciation, that’s not a real language. Erasmian has never been spoken by any people in the history of humanity. Except for like ivory tower, apart from reality, academics and bible college students who use this arbitrary pronunciation it’s not real, and it doesn’t [00:11:00] function like a real language.

Every, in erasmian, every letter has its own sound assigned, and you don’t really have like homophones in the normal sense. Which is just not, that’s not a real language. And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of things that era me and leaves out that don’t make any sense. Maybe sometime I’ll do a whole video or series of videos on pronunciation.

But I think if you use. Modern Greek pronunciation or historical Koine. If you use that for a while, you will find that actually reading the Greek text out loud comes much more naturally because it just sounds and feels like a real language. Whereas using erasmian, you’re just, you’re never gonna get past the point of feeling awkward because it’s not a real language

okay. Let’s go back to the text. So ἵνα once again is what’s the purpose of the main verb? We write. And then what’s the purpose with which we write? It’s that χαρὰ ἡμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη. So [00:12:00] our joy will be full oftentimes it’s used for fulfilled, like when Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament scriptures.

So this is, will be fulfilled. Our joy will be filled or fulfilled. And this is. The message, which ἀκηκόαμεν, we have heard from him and announced to you.

So this word ὅτι is also important. It’s, you can think of it similarly to ἵνα, it’s introducing a subordinate clause. So here, except it’s not really about purpose, it’s not so personal or purposeful. It’s more like this is just another fact that I’m gonna, connect to the previous fact. Sometimes that connection is causal.

And you’ll see ὅτι translated as, because many times it’s not causal, but it’s just filling in information from the first part of the sentence. And we’re, again, we’re gonna see many, many examples of both of these in this [00:13:00] text so these three conjunctions, we’ll see over and over again in First John, and really throughout the whole Bible.

So each of these has its own flavor. They’re all subordinating conjunctions. So they introduce subordinate clauses that are, subordinate clause, meaning it can’t really stand on its own. So it needs, it’s connected to an independent clause and this is a dependent clause. So ὅτι is giving you new information.

So what information? God is light and darkness in him. There is not any. What is that giving us more information about? It’s telling us the content of the announcement, and ἀναγγέλλομεν is the announcement. Then ἀγγελία, notice the parallel forms of those two words. So this is a noun, this is a verb, but if you, drop off this first part and just look to the right of the bracket there, you can see the parallel [00:14:00] forms here.

So what is the content of the message? The content of the announcement. Which we are making to you. Well, it’s that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Now ἐὰν the next verse, verse six, εἴπωμεν ὅτι κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατῶμεν, ψευδόμεθα καὶ οὐ ποιοῦμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν.

So ἐὰν is always introducing some kind of, it’s a dependent clause, but it’s like an if statement. It’s a certain kind of if statement. So let’s try to translate this. If we say that, oh, and here’s another ὅτι. Okay. So if we say that fellowship we have with him and in darkness. We walk. Yeah. So this is a big, this is a big chunk right here.

So this whole thing is the if statement and this ὅτι is pointing back to εἴπωμεν. [00:15:00] So we say, what do we say? What is the content here of what we say? So you could translate this as like direct discourse or indirect discourse. κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ αὐτοῦ. Yeah, I think it could be either one in this case.

So you can put quotes here. Maybe if we say, and then open quotes. “We have fellowship with him” and then end quotes and in the darkness we walk ὅτι is filling the content of εἴπωμεν. What is the content? We’re saying κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ αὐτοῦ. And then this quote which is ὅτι is pointing forward to. I n the darkness we walk because it’s obvious, right? That you wouldn’t say, we say that we have fellowship with him and in the darkness we walk. That’s not part of what’s being said there. You can just tell from context that the quote ends here, but it’s all part of this if statement.[00:16:00]

So it’s like an if statement with two conditions. The first condition is we say we have fellowship with him. The second condition is, and we walk in the darkness. So that’s all the if statement, which is a dependent clause, and next, a dependent clause, which is marked out by the ἐὰν. And now John is gonna tell us the independent clause which follows from the if statement.

So ψευδόμεθα καὶ οὐ ποιοῦμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν·

so we lie and not we do the truth. So if these two conditions are true, then we lie and we do not do the truth, obviously, because we’re walking in darkness at the same time saying we have fellowship with him. Okay, so just go back and review. So ἐὰν. Is the IF statement. These are all three. ἵνα, ὅτι, ἐὰν, these are all three introducing dependent clauses, but all with a different [00:17:00] twist.

So ὅτι is just telling you a fact. It’s just filling in information, which may or may not be causal. ἐὰν is the IF statement, and then ἵνα is telling us purpose. Now, one more detail here. So if you’ve learned non indicative verbs, like subjunctive is the most common one in the New Testament in Attic Greek, classical Greek, that wasn’t necessarily the case.

But by the Koine period, the subjunctive had taken over more and more of the role of the optative mood. So we see subjunctive far more in the New Testament than any other non indicative moods. And I’m going into this partly because it will help us understand this verse six a little better.

Why I put the quotes where I did. Partly it’s because of common sense, but there’s actually more than that. It’s a little more explicit. So this εἴπωμεν, if you see the lengthened connecting vowel in this verb. [00:18:00] It’s Omega instead of omicron. So that tells you this is subjunctive. Same here περιπατῶμεν

This is like peripatetic, right? Which is like involved with walking. So we walk, but this is the lengthened connecting valve omega. So these two are both subjunctive, these two verbs,

Ὅτι is usually paired with indicative verbs, and then after we exit the quotes, we go back to subjunctive. So ἐὰν, if you know the nature of the subjunctive is that it’s not just telling us facts. It’s telling us something that’s possible or probable. So it’s something that’s uncertain one way or the other.

Hey, I have fellowship with him, we have fellowship with him and is just a declarative statement.

If you’re claiming that you wouldn’t use subjunctive. You’re just stating it as a fact, even though this construction at a, at a higher level of analysis and this construction, John is [00:19:00] saying, no, that’s not a fact. I’m explaining to you it’s not a fact because it’s coupled with walking in darkness and then ψευδόμεθα.

So we lie, and this is Omicron. So as we exit the if clause, we’re going back to indicative if this uncertain condition is true, then this is not uncertain. This is certainly true. We lie, and again, this is indicative. We do not do, οὐ is not, we do not do the truth.

Okay? So ἐὰν, if clause. ὅτι, it’s just facts. ἵνα is something to do with purpose and ἵνα πεπληρωμένη. So this is the verb that comes after the ἵνα, and that is a lengthened connecting vowel. So ἵνα is usually gonna use subjunctive as well. And how does that fit together with ἐὰν? Well, subjunctive is about possibility, right?

It’s not just stating facts it’s things that are possible or probable. So the [00:20:00] purpose of that we write is that our joy. Will be filled you purpose something and you take some action. In this case, John is writing, that’s the action he’s taking his goal for that writing.

Is that his joy would be full. Our joy will be full, but he doesn’t know that’s gonna be true. It’s uncertain. The path I’m taking is to write. The end goal is that my joy would be full. I don’t know if taking this action is going to lead to my joy being full, but I think it is.

I think it’s probable, and that’s why. I’m doing it right. That’s why I’m choosing that course of action. But we mark it out in the ἵνα clause as subjunctive here, because it’s not certain. It’s not a fact. It has to do with probability. I think this will lead to the goal, but I don’t know for sure.

Let’s continue. Verse seven. ἐὰν δὲ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατῶμεν ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί, κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ ἀλλήλων [00:21:00] καὶ τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ All right. Next page. So I’ll just pause there. So if, okay, this is δὲ again. So this is some kind of development from the preceding sentence. If in the light we walk as he is in the light, so this is the if clause here. And again, notice περιπατῶμεν. So again, we have subjunctive but this ὡς also marks out, another clause as he, αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί not in subjunctive. So Jesus is in the light or God is in the light. And that’s just stating a fact with the ὡς. But ἐὰν is subjunctive and it’s conditional. It’s not for certain. So if we walk in the light as he is in the light fellowship we have ἔχομεν, so omicron means we’re back to indicative μετʼ ἀλλήλων so with one another [00:22:00] and the blood Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ.

I’m going so slow through this. We’re only on. Verse seven of chapter one. I’ll speed it up as we continue through the book. I’ll speed it up so this won’t take, this won’t take all day. So the blood whose blood? Jesus blood. Ἰησοῦ. So this is genitive, which tells possession. So Jesus blood, τοῦ υἱοῦ another genitive.

Jesus is God’s son. All that is genitive. So it’s a bunch of genitive case coming together. Καθαρίζει, so cleanse, this is like catharsis, and it comes from a Greek

so if you’re familiar with the words for us, and we, this is, if we’re the, this is we as a subject. This is our, our joy, and this is another one. This is Accusative case. So this is the direct object of the, so καθαρίζει is the verb and it’s being carried out by the blood, what’s the target of the verb or what’s the direct object?

It’s us, so we [00:23:00] are the ones being cleansed. All right, let’s move on to the next page. What are we being cleansed from? καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ so cleansed from πάσης ἁμαρτίας so all sin. Another, ἐὰν, ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔχομεν, ἑαυτοὺς πλανῶμεν καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν.

πλανῶμεν. So this is like related to the word for planet, and in the past if people looked up at the stars, they would see that the stars have a fixed position in the sky. Whereas if they look at the planets, the planets are actually moving in the sky. As the seasons pass, the planets are moving. So the planets are wandering, stars are fixed, planets are wandering celestial bodies. So this πλανῶμεν is, we, it’s like we wonder or we are misled, or we are, not stable. We’re kind of shaky. If we say that sin not, we have [00:24:00] ourselves, we lead astray. And the truth is not in us. If ὁμολογῶμεν, if we confess again, subjunctive John uses subjunctive over and over again because he keeps using these ἐὰν clauses.

If we confess the sins, ours, πιστός ἐστιν καὶ δίκαιος so faithful, he is. H e is not explicit, but ἐστιν is some kind of singular subject and in context it’s the one doing the cleansing. Faithful he is and righteous ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας καὶ καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας.

Okay. So like I said, he’s circling back to the same ideas over and over and over again. So here it was. He is cleansing us from all sin. Here he is cleansing us, καθαρίσῃ from all unrighteousness and ἵνα. So the purpose [00:25:00] of now is this ἵνα pointing to. Esteem and giving us the purpose for ἐστιν, or is it giving us the purpose for the confession?

Let’s think this through. So if we confess that our sins faithful, he is and righteous in order to cleanse us from sin and oh in order to, sorry. Forgive us the sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, Enoch can also be used as a result clause. It doesn’t have to be purpose, it can be result, and this is definitely talking a lot about the results of our confession and the results of his righteousness.

So I’m not entirely sure how to explain this ἵνα. Let’s go on. We’re almost done with chapter one. ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι οὐχ ἡμαρτήκαμεν, ψεύστην ποιοῦμεν αὐτὸν καὶ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν. So if we say that. Not, we have sinned, liar [00:26:00] we do him. Not do him here, but we make him. That’s the second most common translation of ποιέω is the most common is to do second, most common is to make. So we make him a liar. And the word his. His word is not in us. Τεκνία μου, ταῦτα γράφω ὑμῖν ἵνα μὴ ἁμάρτητε.

Okay, so why, ἵνα is answering the question, why here? Why am I writing this to you? It’s so that you may not sin. And if anyone τις anyone, sins, παράκλητον ἔχομεν. So we have a in the Book of John in the gospel, Jesus, some versions of English will translate the Holy Spirit as Paraclete. And that comes from this word, παράκλητον.

It’s like advocate. So here Jesus is the advocate, we have an advocate πρὸς τὸν πατέρα towards the father or with the father, [00:27:00] Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν. Let’s move to the next page. δίκαιον. So righteous Jesus Christ. And he is a propitiation περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. So περὶ is like perimeter. It’s like about or around. For is the normal translation.

You can just see how the Greek has a little bit different flavor than the English. So about our sins or around our sins. He’s a propitiation. Not for τῶν ἡμετέρων, not for our only μόνον like mono is one, so only, but also περὶ ὅλου τοῦ κόσμου, but also all the world. So he is not only a propitiation, ἱλασμός for our sins, but for the whole world.

And I think ἱλασμός. I think this word is only used in First John, if I’m remembering right. It doesn’t show up anywhere else in the New Testament. I took a break to get some lunch. Now I’m back. So we’re gonna jump back into John chapter two. Καὶ ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι [00:28:00] ἐγνώκαμεν αὐτόν, ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν. So what’s going on here? We have γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐγνώκαμεν. ὅτι. What is that filling in the content of? Well, it’s not in this ἐν τούτῳ, it’s γινώσκομεν. So what do we know? We know that ἐγνώκαμεν. We have known, we know that we have known him if the commands his τηρῶμεν.

Okay, so the ἐν τούτῳ, in this. Is being completed by the conditional part of this sentence. So in this we know that we know him. If the commands of his, we keep and notice these two words, they’re the same root. It’s just one is present tense.

The KA we have known, this is the perfect, this is the present ὁ λέγων ὅτι Ἔγνωκα αὐτὸν καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ μὴ τηρῶν ψεύστης ἐστίν, καὶ ἐν τούτῳ ἡ [00:29:00] ἀλήθεια οὐκ ἔστιν· The ones saying that. And then we have a quote, which the SBL Greek New Testament capitalizes this, which is telling you that they think this is direct discourse. Direct statement someone’s making. I have known him, so that’s part one. I have known him and the commands of his not keeping.

He is a liar. Who is a liar? The one saying. This statement. And in this one, the truth is not. Whoever. So this ἂν is often not translated, but it kind of means ever it’s a part of the word. This ἐὰν is εἰ ἂν, it’s a contraction of εἰ ἂν, which is like, if ever is one way to read that.

And this ἂν roughly means ever. Although a lot of times it’s not translated. So who ever keeps this is subjunctive. It’s not precise. Who is doing the keeping? This is left vague [00:30:00] τηρῇ αὐτοῦ τὸν λόγον, whoever keeps, the word of him truly in this one, the love, of God, τετελείωται.

So this is like teleological argument which is an argument from design. So this is like the designed or purposed end of something. And this specifically is the perfect. the reduplication at the beginning of the initial consonant plus the epsilon, so has been perfected or has been completed.

It’s often translated as perfected, but it’s not really perfected in the sense of moral perfection. Like in English, we usually think the word perfect is like perfectionist. Someone doing something without mistake, that’s not really the intention of this word.

It’s more like perfect in the sense of complete, whatever it is we’re talking about, has reached its designed end ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐσμεν· in this, we know that in him we are [00:31:00] so if we’re keeping his word. ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν. Okay, the one saying in him to remain is obligated just as that one John uses several times probably to refer to Jesus just as that one walked. Let me move to the next screen. He also. To walk. So he’s obligated to walk as that one walk, probably meaning Jesus. Ἀγαπητοί. So agape is love.

And then this is plural. So loved people, beloved. οὐκ ἐντολὴν καινὴν γράφω ὑμῖν, ἀλλʼ ἐντολὴν παλαιὰν ἣν εἴχετε ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς·.

These two verses are pretty confusing. So we have not a command new, but an old command, which you have from the [00:32:00] beginning. So he is not writing a new command, but an old command. The old command is the word, which you heard. But then in verse eight he says, again, a command new I write to you, which is true in him and in you that the darkness passes away and τὸ φῶς the light, τὸ ἀληθινὸν, the true light already shines or has been revealed. So this is openly appears to people. S o what is going on here? One confusing thing is this ὅτι is filling in the content of something. the darkness passes and the true light appears.

But what is that ὅτι pointing to? Is that ὅτι filling in the new command? Because this does not sound like a command, it just sounds like a statement. And we can also ask. What is this new command? Because at first he said, I don’t write to you a new command, but an old [00:33:00] command, which you had from the beginning.

Okay? But then he says, I write to you a new command. And then he seems to fill it in with something that’s not a command. Let’s go one more verse. The one saying, in the light to be, and the brother, his hating in the darkness is until now. Okay, so here’s what I think. Remember when Jesus talked about, you have heard that it was said, and then he had these different statements where he was basically raising the bar on the law.

So before it was like, don’t commit adultery, but now he’s saying, don’t even look with lust. Before it was saying, do not murder. But then Jesus is saying, don’t even hate someone in your heart, because that’s basically murder. My best guess is that’s what John is talking about here. He’s saying, there’s an old command, which is the law, do not murder, but then there’s also a new command. Which is Jesus raising the bar on the law, and he fills in the [00:34:00] content of those commands here in a not terribly precise way. So the one saying that he’s in the light, but hating his brother is in the darkness. So that’s very close to what Jesus was saying.

And that’s the new command which is actually an old command. Jesus is just bringing the fullness of it before us. The one loving his brother in the light remains and σκάνδαλον ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν. Okay, so there’s no scandal in him. This can sometimes be translated cause for sinning. You notice is a different word from ἁμαρτία, which is sin.

Sometimes it is translated as sin though, so I’m not sure exactly why. It would be interesting to do more lexical study on this particular word, but not today. ὁ δὲ μισῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ. Okay. The one hating his brother, in the…so it’s probably gonna say in the darkness, [00:35:00] right? Yeah. In the darkness is and in the darkness walks and he does not know where he goes. ὅτι, the darkness ἐτύφλωσεν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτοῦ. So the darkness is blinded his eyes. So what is this ὅτι saying here? This is actually an example of the causal ὅτι where it’s not obvious that this conjunction is giving us information to directly fill in what was in the previous passage.

Instead it’s adding an explanation for what was in the the independent clause. So he doesn’t know where he goes. Why? Because the darkness has blinded his eyes. Now this implicit why question the ὅτι answers is not the same as the implicit why question that ἵνα answers. Remember, ὅτι is just adding a fact.

Whereas ἵνα is giving us more of a [00:36:00] purpose behind behind the verb. Why was the verb done? This isn’t really purposeful, it’s just a fact about the world and the way the world works. So if someone is blinded. Then they don’t know where they’re going because they can’t see. It’s just a logical consequence.

It’s the way the world works. So we use ὅτι instead of ἵνα. Now this next section is usually, written in a poetic form in English translations. A lot of times in the Greek versions, they will not do as much formatting as in an English Bible, indenting the lines and adding a new line. To show you the poetic format, because the original Greek manuscripts were just a huge block of text. Here we do have a paragraph break that’s been added by the people putting together the SBL Greek New Testament, but that’s pretty minimal formatting compared to actually laying out this next block with, let me [00:37:00] underline that. γράφω γράφω, γράφω. This is, I write, I write, I write, and then he goes, children, fathers, and young men. Then the next section he says, I wrote, he shifts to, I wrote, this is the aorist or past tense of γράφω.

We have the augment on the front, the epsilon, and then the sigma. Is in here telling us it’s an aorist. When the sigma hits the phi, that comes out as, “ps,” this psi letter. So ἔγραψα is past tense and then ἔγραψα, ἔγραψα. So putting this in a poetic format in an English translation is not a stretch. It seems to be what he intended.

He has this parallel structure where he says, I write three times, and then here I wrote three times, children, fathers, young men. But in the original Greek text, you wouldn’t have had that. That’s why they keep the formatting simpler usually.

So what does he write? I write to you children that forgiven you the sins. Through the name [00:38:00] his, your sins are forgiven through his name. I write to you fathers that you have known the one from the beginning. I write to you young men that you have overcome or you have been victorious over the evil one.

So νική is the company Nike, which means victory in Greek. So you have been victorious over the evil one. I wrote to you children that you have known the father. I wrote to you fathers that you have known him who is from the beginning. So his statement to the fathers is exactly the same in both cases, but the children and the young men changes somewhat.

I wrote to you young men, that ἰσχυροί ἐστε, so you are strong and the word of God in you remains…and…you have overcome the evil one. Okay, so that part’s the same.[00:39:00]

Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε τὸν κόσμον μηδὲ τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν κόσμον, οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ. Okay? So this Μὴ is do not, do not love the world. Now this why is it μή instead of οὐ? So οὐ is used to negate, indicative verbs. μή is used to negate everything else. And this is a command this is imperative. So μή is used to negate it. So do not love the world nor the things in the world.

You notice there isn’t really a word for things here. It’s just τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. So we have a prepositional phrase ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. in the world, and then we have this τὰ in front of it, which basically turns the prepositional phrase into a noun, into a sort of undefined noun. So in English, things is an undefined word that we can fill in that’s approximately like the Greek here.

So nor the things in the world, if someone loves the world, οὐκ ἔστιν ἡ [00:40:00] ἀγάπη τοῦ πατρὸς ἐν αὐτῷ. Okay, not is the love of father in him. Okay, so now we’re gonna get more information about what are the things in the world. So again, ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, that same prepositional phrase that we saw here. And then again, we’re turning it into a noun by adding this τὸ in front of it.

πᾶν τὸ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, ἡ ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκὸς. So this is like sarcophagus. Which is a box where you put the body, right? The dead body. Sarcos is flesh. So the desire of the flesh and the desire of ὀφθαλμῶν, you remember that from earlier ophthalmology, ophthalmologist. This is eyes and the boasting or pride τοῦ βίου, this is almost like biology.

You can even see it in the Greek letters. Looks like bio. It’s not life. [00:41:00] Sometimes it’s translated as life, which can be misleading. So life is ζωή. Like we think of life force or living being as like ζωή in Greek, this word βίος is more like livelihood. So it’s, you know, you’re working and earning an income maybe you have a house, you have food on the table. βίου is the things of life or lifestyle. So the pride of lifestyle or the pride of livelihood, which is like your work or your accomplishments. Those three things are not out ἐκ τοῦ πατρός, out of the father, but out of the world. So part, another way to say this, ἐκ τοῦ, is like part of, it’s not part of the father, it’s part of the world, κόσμος παράγεται καὶ ἡ ἐπιθυμία αὐτοῦ, ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ μένει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.

Why should we avoid these things and avoid the the desires of the world? Because the [00:42:00] world passes away and its desires pass away, but okay, but advancing the argument here. The one doing the will of God remains forever. Παιδία, ἐσχάτη so eschatology. This is like last, so last hour, ὥρα.

Sounds like Spanish, right? Probably that word came into Spanish borrowing from Latin, from Greek. A nd just as you have heard, what have you heard? What’s the content of what you heard that ἀντίχριστος ἔρχεται. Antichrist come and now ἀντίχριστοι, plural.

This ending is plural. Antichrists, many have already come, have already arisen or appeared. Therefore, we know that ἐσχάτη ὥρα ἐστίν the last hour it is. How do we know it’s the last hour this points back and tells because these antichrist have [00:43:00] come. That’s how we know it’s the last hour. So this is usually read, therefore. The next piece is pretty interesting. So ἐξ ἡμῶν ἐξῆλθαν it’s gonna tell us more about the antichrists. They came out of us. They came but not ἦσαν. This is εἰμί or “to be” past tense form. So they were not ἐξ ἡμῶν, they were not of us. They came out of us, but they were not out of us or they were not of us. εἰ γὰρ ἐξ ἡμῶν ἦσαν, μεμενήκεισαν ἂν μεθʼ ἡμῶν. So this construction, this is εἰ, which is “if”, and then ἂν.

So these two tell us that this is a second class conditional, which is a counterfactual argument. This is just the structure of it. And in this situation, you probably won’t see the ἂν translated into English. It’s just telling us this is counterfactual logic. So if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.[00:44:00]

But they did not is the implication, but ἵνα, okay, so let’s come back to that. φανερωθῶσιν ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν πάντες ἐξ ἡμῶν. Okay, so something’s being revealed. So what is being revealed? ὅτι is telling us what’s being revealed, that all of them were not out of us or were not of us. And remember this revealed is like a public revelation that’s visible, it’s not like an inner spiritual revelation, m aybe just visible to one person or an inner awareness that one person has. This is something like very obvious and open to everyone. So what’s the ἵνα refer to here? I think it refers back to them going out of us. So this ἐξῆλθαν, so they came out of us.

Why did they come out of us? Well, so that it could be shown so that it could be revealed that they were not of [00:45:00] us. Let’s go onto the next piece. You have an anointing from…the holy one ἁγίου and you know all, I don’t write to you that you do not know the truth, but that you do know it.

And that every liar, ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας οὐκ ἔστιν, every liar is not out of the truth. So notice the parallel forms here. This ἐξ ἡμῶν and this ἐξ ἡμῶν is the same kind of construction as this ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας. So of the truth, every liar is not of the truth. It’s not coming out of the truth. τίς ἐστιν ὁ ψεύστης εἰ μὴ. So if not this is usually translated except, but if you read it literally in the Greek, it’s just, if not so who is the liar, if not the one denying that Jesus is the Christ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀντίχριστος. John finally tells us, really, what’s [00:46:00] the key thing about these antichrists? According to John, the Antichrist is the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Makes sense. And these antichrists, he’s talking about, actually, they came out from who?

From us, which is, is that the church in Jerusalem? Is that, people who used to fellowship with John the Apostle and with Peter, that’s what it sounds like. But these people’s defining feature is that they did not remain with them. They went out from them and deny that Jesus is the Christ.

Okay? And interestingly, he actually in the same this passage, which uses this word χριστος and ἀντίχριστος again and again, he uses the same root here, χρῖσμα. He’s saying you have an anointing from the holy one and you know, all, so somehow this χρῖσμα is [00:47:00] amidst all this talk about the antichrist and this anointing helps the people that John’s writing to, know the truth and know all things.

If we step back a second and look at this, he’s basically saying, ’cause John is writing to warn these people right about these antichrists who have come. But he seems to be saying, not explicitly, but with this talk about the anointing he’s not just a hundred percent wanting them to accept his authority.

He’s also saying, listen to the anointing from the holy one that’s the same word as like Holy Spirit. The word spirit is not there, but the word holy, holy one is there. So this anointing from the Holy Spirit is teaching you about all things. So it’s gonna help confirm to you that these people are antichrists, that they’re not of us, and that you shouldn’t be listening to them.

Okay, let’s go on. So this one is. The antichrist, the one denying the father and the son. Every [00:48:00] one denying the son also denies the father or neither has the father, the one confessing the son also has the Father. You have heard what you have heard. So this is ἠκούσατε, right? So this is you heard, but he adds the ὃ the article onto it, turning it into it a noun.

So what you heard from the beginning ἐν ὑμῖν μενέτω. So let it remain in you. Remain in you is a command. ἐὰν ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ ὃ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ἠκούσατε, καὶ ὑμεῖς ἐν τῷ υἱῷ καὶ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ μενεῖτε.

Okay, so if in you remains that what you heard from the beginning, also you and the son and in the father remain. So if what you heard stays in you, then you stay in the father and the son, and this is the ἐπαγγελία ἣν αὐτὸς ἐπηγγείλατο.

Okay, let’s look at this, because [00:49:00] earlier we had the same root in a very similar format. We had the noun form and then we had the verb form, but the prefix was different in what John told us earlier. Previously this was ἀγγελία message and it was ἀναγγέλλομεν alpha nu was message and announced.

Now with the EP prefix on front in front of it, it’s promise. So this is the promise which he promised to us, eternal life. This I wrote to you about the ones leading you astray. Remember the planet root. So πλανώντων, the ones wandering or the ones trying to get you ὑμᾶς to wander or to go astray. This seems like he’s again talking about the antichrist here. Again, he appeals to this χρῖσμα, this anointing that you received from him [00:50:00] remain in you. And οὐ χρείαν, so no need you have ἵνα τις διδάσκῃ ὑμᾶς, so you have no need that anyone teach you because of the anointing you have.

But as the anointing teaches you about all and is true and is not a lie and just as ἐδίδαξεν. So it has taught you just as it taught you, you remain in him. So this goes back to something, a bigger concept that I’ve talked about before. How was it that the early church could be planted? Paul or an apostle could go to a new city, plant a church, stay there for a few months, teaching them, usually at most a few months

and then leave and come back later. And the church would still be surviving. They might have issues. They may not be a hundred percent on track, but how in the world would that church still survive without [00:51:00] that leader being there? And it’s because they had the Holy Spirit and they were able to hear directly from God themselves.

This enabled the church to survive amongst, with all kinds of opposition, persecution family who didn’t understand what they were doing and what was this new thing they got into the only ways that God was actually preserving that church, and that church was walking with God day by day and living by his power.

They maybe had a scrap of a letter from Paul or something. And they didn’t have the full Bible that we have today. Think about American Christians and all the resources we have and all the support we have, and living in a culturally Christian country, although depending on where you are that may or may not still be true, but just think how hard it is still for us to live the Christian life. How did they do it without all the advantages that we have today? It’s because they had that anointing. They had God amongst them, they had God [00:52:00] within them, otherwise they didn’t have a chance. So this anointing from the holy one is teaching you, in other words, the Holy Spirit is teaching you remain in him and now children remain in him.

ἵνα ἐὰν φανερωθῇ σχῶμεν παρρησίαν καὶ μὴ αἰσχυνθῶμεν ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ. Okay, so what’s going on here? We have the word ἵνα, but we also have ἐὰν. So those are both subordinating conjunctions that I mentioned earlier, but here we have them one after another. So what’s going on? I think they’re just nested. So ἐὰν is “if,” φανερωθῇ, so if it is revealed or he is revealed, then the ἵνα is like the outer subordinating piece in order that σχῶμεν παρρησίαν that we will have. So this is future tense. We will have boldness and not, [00:53:00] shrink away ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ from him in the coming of his or in his presence. Let me finish the brackets there. Okay. So ἵνα points us to the purpose of the main verb in the main clause.

You remain in him so that if he is revealed, we will have boldness and not shrink away from him at his coming. So it’s not that this ἵνα ἐὰν is like a special construction on its own. It’s just we take them one at a time and see what is the ἐὰν referring to and then what is the ἵνα referring to?

If you know that righteous he is, you know that every one doing righteousness ἐξ αὐτοῦ γεγέννηται has been born. Okay. One doing righteousness has been born out of him.

That’s just the first two chapters. I’m gonna try to go faster.

You know what kind of love has given to us? The [00:54:00] father ἵνα τέκνα θεοῦ κληθῶμεν called, so this is κλη-, this is called. We are called and we are. So ἵνα is the purpose of the giving. The giving of what? The giving of love. What kind of love?

The purpose of the father’s giving is that τέκνα θεοῦ κληθῶμεν that we might be called children of God. And we are. So this ἵνα subjunctive notice, the connecting vow is lengthened to an omega, subjunctive after ἵνα is a statement of potentiality. This was the goal and the purpose of the father was that we would be called children of God.

Now it’s an uncertain purpose because we don’t know if it’s gonna be fulfilled. Right? Just grammatically. That’s the way it functions. But John is affirming, yeah. It’s not just potential that we would be called children of God. He’s saying we are. And we’re not just called that we [00:55:00] truly are children of God, διὰ τοῦτο, so through this, the world does not know us that, so here, this is gonna be because, so what fact is he adding on to the content that comes before it’s the cause of it. It’s not just, it’s not just another fact. It’s the cause that the world did not know him. So that’s why the world doesn’t know us.

ἀγαπητοί, beloved now children of God, we are and not yet revealed what we will be. ἐσόμεθα, future of εἰμί. Future first person, plural. We know that if he is revealed again, the he is not there, but it’s something is being revealed, something singular is being revealed, that if it is revealed we ὅμοιοι like him, we will be.

So that’s how we get the him in the revealed is from here, not not like a perfect [00:56:00] deduction, but the implication is pretty strong. We know that if he is revealed, we will be like him. That ὀψόμεθα that we see him as he is. So that’s interesting, this implication that if we see him as he truly is. We will be transformed to be like him and everyone having the hope this on him cleanses himself just as that one is pure.

Or I guess to match the Greek a little bit better, we can say purify, purifies himself just as that one is pure. Everyone doing sin also does lawlessness. Here’s another example. I said I would go faster, but it’s really hard to go faster because I just skip over, and you might as well just read the English translation if I don’t slow down and explain it.

The word καὶ here is interesting, simplest word in the Greek language, but sometimes it’s worth stopping [00:57:00] and looking at it. So usually we translate καὶ as and but this one is clearly also. So why is that? So everyone doing τὴν ἁμαρτίαν sin, it sounds like it’s gonna be okay, here’s your subject.

The one doing. So everyone doing sin and lawlessness, right? But then we have a verb. We have the verb doing so with this verb doing at the end. We can’t translate this as an and, it doesn’t make sense. It’s also, so it’s everyone doing sin, also lawlessness does. Word order is different from English. But we would say everyone doing sin also does lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. So this is kind of an explanation. I really would’ve expected him to write ὅτι here as [00:58:00] adding another fact with a more close connection to the previous sentence. But, either way, and we know, or you know, that that one was revealed. Okay. Past tense. So previously he’s been talking a lot about if he will be revealed, but now he talks about the revelation of Jesus as if it’s already happened. So he was revealed. Why was he revealed? What’s the purpose behind it? Sin to lift. So lift to lift. Sin. And sin in him is not. Everyone in him remaining οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει does not sin. Most versions will translate this does not keep on sinning, just based on context and what John has written earlier in the letter. But the keep on there is, is something that’s read into the text based on the larger context. It’s not really intrinsically in this passage, although you could take the present tense form of the verb to be a [00:59:00] continuous action.

Yeah, that’s, that could be its whole own topic because most English translations of First John with the word to do, they will also change it into a practice of doing, which is kind of an okay translation, but it’s not the normal translation. Once again, I think it’s reading something into the text when you translate it that way.

Every one sinning not seen ἑώρακεν has not seen him nor has known him. Children μηδεὶς πλανάτω ὑμᾶς, let no one, there’s that word again. Lead you astray like the planets. The one doing righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. The one doing sin ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου.

So this same construction that we had earlier, remember the antichrists came out ἐκ, they were out of, or they were not of us, meaning John and the apostles [01:00:00] probably. But now the one doing sin is of the devil because from the beginning, the devil sins. So again, ὅτι is adding on a fact to what came before.

Sometimes that fact is just neutral. It’s just more information. Sometimes it’s completing what came before like the previous clause said, somebody spoke and ὅτι is telling you what they spoke. Whereas here, ὅτι is causal. And the interesting thing is the Greek does have specific words for that causality, which would be a stronger sense of causality.

It’s very rare for John to use those words like διότι for example. It’s rare for him to use the very explicit causality. So it gives you the sense that the Greeks did not always make the causality as explicit as we do. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, but it just wasn’t as explicit. So that’s I think, an important distinction to keep in mind. Here, the causality [01:01:00] is basically, okay, the devil was sinning from the beginning and therefore sin is from the devil.

It’s not a crazy conclusion at all. So into this was revealed, or in other words for this because of what came before, the stuff about the devil and sin, the son of God was revealed. Why was he revealed? ‘Cause we have εἰς τοῦτο here and we have ἵνα this matter of the revealing of the son of God is doing double duty.

He was, it was in order to destroy λύσῃ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου, he was revealed in order to destroy the works of the devil. And because the devil had been sinning from the beginning, that’s why he was revealed. Everyone having been born out of God, does not sin. Now again, this is where most versions would translate, does not make a practice of sinning. god’s seed in him remains and not able [01:02:00] to sin that out of God. He has been born. So you won’t see any English version. I mean, very few, at least to translate it this way, maybe Young’s literal translation, would give you this meaning. But when you see this verse, so in first John three, nine translated in English version, there’s gonna be, it’s gonna be pretty different from this because the translators reading in a lot of other material into that verse. And it’s worth thinking about why is that right?

I think there’s a pretty low standard in Christianity today as far as toleration of sin, repeated mistakes over and over again. And we don’t often, we don’t often desire the fullness of what God has for us and we’re content with sort of a…a low grade Christian existence, which is still full of fear, still full of sin, still full of, the desires of the world and the stuff we read earlier, the desires of [01:03:00] the flesh boasting of the pride of life, the desires of the eyes. And I think the standard of first John is much stronger than that. He’s pretty aggressively pointing out that, as we walk with God and as we remain in God, and God remains in us, that these things really aren’t tolerated at a certain point. And you really won’t get the force of this statement in most English translations.

Okay, let’s go on to verse 10 in this is clear. So again, φανερά is related to ἐφανερώθη, it’s that revealed word. Is made clear or is made evident the children of God and the children of the devil.

These are really strong words.

Everyone not doing righteousness is not out of God and the one not loving his brother. More strong words. The way out of this seemingly too high of a bar for the Christian life, the way out is not to lower [01:04:00] the bar, which is what we normally see the way out is to truly trust and rely on God’s power to work in us and Christ in us to fulfill, the need, the command to love one another and to love God and to practice righteousness. That’s how we do it. It’s through Christ in us and the Holy Spirit in us giving us the power to live God’s life. Like we can’t live God’s life without God in us, and we rely on him in order to allow us to meet the high standards that he has for us.

We don’t do it out of our own power because that will just lead to failure and guilt and shame. We also don’t lower the bar because then we’ll never, we’ll never come close to the fullness of life, the life more abundant that Christ has for us if we lower the bar. So it goes back to what John said earlier about the anointing.

The anointing teaches us all things, [01:05:00] and it’s not just teaching us, it’s giving us the power. He, the spirit is giving us the power to live those things out as well as to know them in our head. Okay, Ὅτι αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγγελία ἣν ἠκούσατε ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, ἵνα ἀγαπῶμεν ἀλλήλους.

This is the message which you heard from the beginning. See, he uses the same words, like I said at the beginning, the vocab list is so small for First John. He’s repeating the same concepts over and over again in order that we love one another, not as Κάϊν. So, Cain, Cain and Abel of the evil one was and killed his brother and καὶ χάριν τίνος.

So this is the word for grace, but combined with τίνος, this is an idiom. That means for what reason? So you can look up the etymology of that. I don’t remember it off the top of my head. So for what reason killed him because the works, [01:06:00] his evil were sounds like Yoda talking the word order. But those of his brother were righteous. Do not be amazed, brothers. It’s interesting, he addresses them as brothers. So earlier it was ἀγαπητοί, it was Beloved. Or as just you. But now he calls them brothers. Maybe because we’re talking about brothers Cain and Abel here. Do not be amazed if the world hates you, we know that we have stepped out of death θανάτου is death into life.

So Thanos from the Avenger movies is very close to the Greek word for death, which makes sense if you think about the story. We have stepped out of death into life that we love the brothers, okay? We know that we have stepped out of death into life because we love the brothers.

So here we have, in one sentence, we have two uses of ὅτι and one, this is a [01:07:00] good example. One is filling in the content of what we know. We know that we have stepped out of death into life because, we love the brothers. So there’s no obvious thing that this ὅτι connects back to. That’s one condition. Second condition is that it logically makes sense that this is causal. Therefore, we translate this as because.

The one not loving, the one not, okay. This sentence is a little confusing. The one not loving remains in death. So this is the main verb, and this ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν is the one not loving. So it’s a noun form, remains ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ remains in death. And then everyone hating the brother his, murderer is. So this sounds a lot like what Jesus was saying. Hate is murder. It’s exactly what Jesus was saying. And you know that every murderer does not have eternal life remaining in him. Makes sense. In this [01:08:00] we have known love that that one for us, his soul, ψυχὴν often translated as life, but it’s not life like ζωὴ. And it’s not life like βίος, it’s not livelihood. It’s his soul. He’s laid down and we ὀφείλομεν are obligated. καὶ is an interesting choice here for this conjunction ’cause it doesn’t really imply causality between the two. But causality is pretty obvious from the context.

It’s like because Jesus laid down his life for us, we’re obligated to lay down our lives for our brothers, lay down our souls for our brothers. Whoever has τὸν βίον, there’s that word βίου again, but now it’s accusative case. So whoever has τὸν βίον τοῦ κόσμου. So what is τὸν βίον τοῦ κόσμου?

So it’s the livelihood of the world. So it’s very unlikely that your English Bible will translate this βίον and the previous [01:09:00] βίου using the same word because in English it’s hard to find one word that translates in both those situations, the pride of life and the possessions of the world.

Whoever has the world’s possessions and observes his brother having a need and κλείσῃ, closes, his σπλάγχνα, which is like innards or guts, closes his guts from him. Usually this will be translated heart, but it’s not καρδία, it’s not the word for heart.

Yeah, that’s one of those cases where we just don’t have literal English translations. σπλάγχνα and καρδία will both be translated as heart, and sometimes ψυχή might even be translated as heart, whereas the Greeks would have more different words for different parts of the body that correspond to different psychological functions, whereas in English, usually we just say, oh, it’s all heart. All emotion comes from the heart and they thought of it in a [01:10:00] different way. So like closes, this is closing off his compassion. But compassion comes from the bowels or the innards.

How is the love of God in him? Children let us not love in word. So the preposition is not here. This is instrumental dative, so you can see the dative, because this subscripted iota.

Let us not love in word, or using word, instrumental dative. Okay, not in word. Nor in tongue. So γλώσσῃ is tongue, it’s also language. But in, and here he makes the preposition explicit ἐν, but ἐν ἔργῳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ. So again, both these are in dative, so ἔργῳ is like erg, a unit of energy.

So this is in work or in deed and in truth. So not love in word and tongue, but in deed and in truth. In this, we will know [01:11:00] what, ὅτι is telling us what we will know out of the truth we are.

Okay, and ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ πείσομεν τὴν καρδίαν ἡμῶν, there’s Cardian. So there’s our hearts. Earlier it was σπλάγχνα, now it’s καρδίαν. So before him we persuade the hearts ours. So we persuade our hearts that if καταγινώσκῃ so accuse us the heart so that if our hearts accuse us now another ὅτι. This is a lot of dependent clauses stacked on one another that greater is God compared to our hearts. And he knows all. So John is saying, our hearts don’t know everything.

Sometimes our hearts accuse us, which is weird to think about ’cause our heart is like a part of our ourselves, right? But if our hearts accuse us, we can persuade our hearts before him, before [01:12:00] God. What can we persuade our hearts of? Well, it seems like part of it is that God is greater than our hearts, and God knows all.

So our hearts don’t know everything. But also going back to this ἐν τούτῳ, in this, we know that out of the truth we are. So if we have loved the brothers in deed and in truth, not just in tongue and in word. Then we reassure our hearts before him I say reassure ’cause that’s how most English, or maybe that’s how the ESV and ESV is what I’ve read the most

But πείσομεν is really more like persuade. So it’s like we’re persuading our own hearts. We’re having an internal argument or discussion where we’re persuading one part of us of a truth that that part is not aware of. And we’ve all had this experience of feeling conflicted, right? Where there are different, there are many different motivations and ideas bouncing around in our…in our mind, in our heart, in our [01:13:00] σπλάγχνα, and the core person that I am has to eventually settle down with one of those parts and work to persuade all the others or else I’m not in unity. So we have to come to unity in order to do anything, at least to do anything effectively. Our entire being has to be united behind that.

And I think that’s what John is talking about. Sometimes it’s not united, but we can persuade the parts that are not united, not by force, but by truth and even by compassion for ourselves and for those parts of ourselves that are not in unity.

Okay, enough on this part, verse 21, beloved, if the heart does not accuse us, we have boldness with God or boldness towards God and ὃ ἐὰν αἰτῶμεν.

So this is “ever”. If ever we ask, but it’s turning it into a noun. So whatever we ask, we receive. So [01:14:00] once we persuade our heart and it’s no longer accusing us, then we have boldness towards God and whatever we ask, we receive from him that the commands his we keep. And τὰ ἀρεστὰ ἐνώπιον. I always had trouble remembering this phrase.

So it’s the things pleasing, the pleasing things before him, we do. So this ὅτι, what does this ὅτι refer to? I wanna say it’s a because that it’s causal, but let’s just pause and see. Does it refer back to anything else? I don’t really see what it’s referring back to in this previous clause, nor, earlier in the sentence, I just really draw a blank on what it would refer back to.

So I’m gonna say this is a because, so we receive, let’s go back. Beloved, if our hearts don’t accuse us, we have boldness towards God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him [01:15:00] because the commands. His we keep and the pleasing before him we do. Okay. So it sounds to me like this ὅτι clause is essentially circling back to the original idea.

Remember this, all this intervening material was about our hearts accusing us and what to do in that situation. Before that, he was given an example of how we should live, loving one another in deed and in truth. And if we do that, we would persuade our hearts. And now I think he’s just, he’s wrapping up this whole section by restating something that was said earlier now with, because so why do we, what whatever we ask, we receive from him, because the commands of his we keep, which is what command it was the command to, to love in deed and in truth, not in word and in tongue.

And this is his command, ἵνα πιστεύσωμεν τῷ ὀνόματι. Okay. So he’s gonna actually advance the argument [01:16:00] again. So he is connecting back to what happened earlier. And in the same sentence, he’s advancing us to a new topic. So what’s another command of his, even though he doesn’t say it’s another, he’s just, he’s kind of saying it’s all the same actually, that there’s one command, but he speaks of that one command in all these different ways.

It’s old and it’s new and it’s to love each other and it’s to trust in the name and what we’ll see on the next page. For John, I think it’s all kind of the same command. So in order πιστεύσωμεν, we trust in the name I’m trying to get, okay. There’s my annotation back.

Okay. We trust in the name. What name? The son’s name. His son’s name. Jesus Christ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. And we love one another. Okay, so the command now is trust in the name of Jesus Christ and love one another. The love one another was already stated. Now he’s [01:17:00] bringing back in the idea of trust the name of Jesus Christ.

Although this might be the first time the letter, he used the word πιστεύω, I don’t remember that before. So just as he gave command to us and the one keeping the commands, his commands in him remains and he in him. And in this we know… so ὅτι here fills in the content of what we know. What do we know? μένει ἐν ἡμῖν. Okay, this is singular in us. So he remains in us. ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος οὗ ἡμῖν ἔδωκεν. I think this is the first time he’s explicitly mentioned the spirit. In this book, he did mention earlier the χρῖσμα τοῦ ἁγίου, which is the anointing from the holy one, implicitly the anointing of the Holy Spirit. But now he is explicitly saying the Spirit, so out of the spirit who he gave to us.

Alright, so we’re now ready for chapter four.

Okay. And I’m [01:18:00] taking off another layer of shirt because my room’s getting hotter and hotter. Chapter four, beloved, not every spirit you believe, but δοκιμάζετε test the spirits. εἰ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ, if it’s of God. Because many ψευδοπροφῆται, prophet, so hear the word prophet in there.

Remember ψεύστης is a liar, and I think ψεῦδος is a lie. So ψευδοπροφῆται is a lying prophet or a false prophet. ἐξεληλύθασιν has gone out into the world. So many false prophets have gone out into the world. That’s why we need to test the spirits. I’ve been watching a series of videos recently by Mike Winger, where he’s exposing different false prophets. I definitely recommend his YouTube channel, if you haven’t seen it.

He has several [01:19:00] videos that are just, it’s crazy what some of these false prophets are doing. They’re like scraping data from Facebook. And then somebody will be at a conference and they’ll get the list of conference attendees and they’ll go down the list and they’ll search those people’s Facebook profiles and they’ll mine data from the Facebook profile.

And then at the conference, this false prophet will use that information acting like they received it as a revelation from God. They’ll use that information to, to try and say to try to pull people in and get people to say, oh, wow, like, how did you know that? And then they’ll give them some revelation or instructions and it’s just insane.

People have entered marriages because of these false prophecies. They’ve chosen their health treatment because of it, and it’s all based on a lie. So it’s extremely destructive. It’s very real.

And as I’ve watched those videos, it’s helped the Bible become alive to me because previously I didn’t realize [01:20:00] the depths of depravity that some Christian, leaders, these are like people who are main pastors of churches, sometimes really big churches, and the things they’re doing and the depth of depravity they have fallen to, it really makes this passage come alive, that there are these false spirits and false prophets in the world.

Okay? So they’ve gone out into the world. So why do we test the, because there are many false prophets that have gone out into the world.

In this, you know, the spirit of God, every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ So this is not a negative use of the flesh, like Paul used frequently.

Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ in the flesh has come out from God and every spirit that does not confess Jesus ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ out of God is not so, he is not from God, and this is the antichrist. Okay. So he is bringing back in this [01:21:00] term of antichrist yeah, that’s what he said earlier about it.

Right. That the antichrist was the one that, did not confess Jesus Christ having come in the flesh. I think that’s what it was. Let’s double check that.

I went back and checked it. So earlier he was saying the antichrists deny that Jesus is the Christ, right? That’s what it was. But now he’s saying every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ in the flesh has come out of God and every spirit not confessing Jesus is not out of God. And this is the anti-Christ. So he somehow connects that idea of Jesus being the Christ with Jesus having come in the flesh. Okay, the one ὃ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται,

The one you heard that comes and now in the world is already. Same idea he expressed earlier. You heard the anti-racist coming and actually they’re already here. You are out of God children and you have [01:22:00] overcome, here’s that word, Nike again, νική, you have overcome them. What is them? ὅτι μείζων. That greater is ὁ ἐν ὑμῖν,

so prepositional phrase in ἐν ὑμῖν, and then ὁ turns it into a noun. The one in you. So greater is the one in you ἢ like compared to ὁ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ. ἢ is comparing these two and the first one is μείζων. The first one is greater. They ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου εἰσίν.

They are of the world. Through this, διὰ τοῦτο ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου. So through this, because they are out of the world. Out of the world, λαλοῦσιν, they speak and ὁ κόσμος αὐτῶν ἀκούει. So the world actually hears them. They are of the world, and when they speak, the world hears them.

You are of God, the one knowing [01:23:00] God hears us who not is out of God, not hears us. So there’s this idea that, we only hear the ones like ourselves, right? This is the, this is the echo chamber idea. If they’re in the world, they’re like siloed in the world and they’re not able to hear from God. Whereas the one who is out of God, is able to hear from God because God is his origin. God is his source.

Okay, ἐκ τούτου γινώσκομεν τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς πλάνης. There’s the word planets again, the spirit of error and the spirit of truth. So out of this, you know, the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, we love one another because love is out of God and everyone loving out of God, γεγέννηται has been born [01:24:00] or has been conceived and knows God. The one not loving, does not know God because ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. This is a really famous phrase, right? God is love, in this is revealed the love of God in us. See the vocab, he just repeats the same vocab over and over and over again, in this is revealed the love of God in us that the sun, okay, so here before I move to the next page ἐν τούτῳ, in this.

So I think this ὅτι actually refers back to the, ἐν τούτῳ it fills in the content of this. So in this is revealed the love of God in us that, so what is revealed the love of God of in us? In that the son, his son. And then it’ll go on. τὸν μονογενῆ, the only born, the only born [01:25:00] son God has sent into the world.

Why? So ἵνα remember his purpose. So this ἵνα refers back to ἀπέσταλκεν. This is the same root as ἀποστέλλω, which is apostle. So sent one Apostle is sent one. So what’s the purpose of God sending his son? It’s ζήσωμεν, so it’s that we live through him, through his son. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us. ἠγάπησεν yeah, past tense, loved us and sent the son his. ἱλασμὸν, there’s that word again, propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if in this way God loved us, also we are obligated one another to love, to love one another. God no one ever has seen τεθέαται is [01:26:00] like theater.

Remember? So no one has seen God, ἐὰν if we love one another. Interesting thing to point out here. If you’re reading First John, it’s sometimes confusing because ἀγαπῶμεν, which comes up over and over again, is the exact same form for indicative and subjunctive verb because it’s after ἐὰν, we know this is subjunctive. Whereas other times it shows up, it’s more likely indicative. Okay, if we love one another, God in us remains and his love in us τετελειωμένη ἐστιν. We saw this word earlier. It’s like teleological argument. Perfected completed. His love has been perfected in us.

If we love one another in this, we know, okay, again, ὅτι used with a verb of knowing or speaking, it fills in the content of the knowing or the speaking. In this, we know that. [01:27:00] In him, we remain and he and us that ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος αὐτοῦ δέδωκεν ἡμῖν.

Okay, so this ὅτι, there’s not a verb of knowing or speaking or some equivalent like that coming before the ὅτι. So it’s safe to assume this is a because, so because out of his spirit, he has given us, which is basically what John was saying in the last verse of chapter three. Part of our knowing is out of the spirit he gave us and that anointing, which he referred to earlier in the book. It’s also because we see that we follow his commands and we love the brothers. Then we are reassured, Hey, I’m doing these things not out of my own power, but God’s love is in me doing those things.

Therefore. He’s remaining in me and I’m remaining in him, and we persuade our hearts of that fact. And we have seen and we testify, ὅτι. Okay, so now there’s very clear [01:28:00] content here, right? The ὅτι is pointing to, it’s what we testify and what we have seen. And I think here the, we, most of the time, John is using we in the sense of, me and you, I’m writing this letter to you, but I’m referring to both of us as we, I think in this case, he’s referring to we as the disciples who were there with Jesus and witnessed him in the flesh, and we have seen and we testify that the father has sent the son savior of the world. Although, okay, yeah, maybe you could argue this both ways, but μαρτυροῦμεν is usually more like a eyewitness testimony. I don’t know, it’s debatable who’s he referring to there, you know? ’cause even the χρῖσμα, the anointing from the holy one or the Holy Spirit also testifies and witnesses.

Even if we have not seen Christ in the flesh like the disciples had, God can [01:29:00] still testify through us about Christ’s life and resurrection. It’s just in a different sense. So this is debatable ὃς ἐὰν. This is if, right, if confess that Jesus is the son of God, but the ὃς in front modifies it.

So this is more like whoever who, if ever confesses what? What’s the content of the confession? That Jesus is the Son of God. God in him remains and He in God, and we have known and we have trusted the love which God has in us.

Okay? We’ve known the love. We’ve trusted the love. God is in us. God is love. He’s repeating the same phrase he did earlier. God is love and the one remaining in love in God remains and God in Him remains. Again, repeated ideas in case we didn’t get the point. In [01:30:00] this has been perfected or has been completed the love with us.

Now, this time he uses instead of in us, he uses the love with us ἵνα παρρησίαν ἔχωμεν ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς κρίσεως. Okay. So this is like saying what is ἵνα saying the purpose, what is the purpose of the love being perfected in us? Well, it’s so that boldness we have in the day of judgment κρίσεως sounds like crisis. It also sounds like critic.

And that root has to do with with judging. Okay. So this is similar to the earlier part about reassuring our heart before him, or not reassuring, persuading our hearts before him, that when our hearts condemn us. So now it’s the purpose of the love being perfected in us is so that we will have boldness in the day of judgment. That just as that one is also, we [01:31:00] are in the world. This world. And we could say, so what’s ὅτι here? It could be because, so it could be saying we have boldness in the day of judgment because just as that one is in the world, so are we.

Fear is not in love, but, the complete, here’s another form of that word. We saw it in verb form earlier, now it’s τελεία, so it’s the noun form. The complete love, or I guess it’s an adjective, ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη, ἔξω βάλλει. Casts out. So βάλλει is like βάλλω to throw, so throws out fear. So perfect love throws out fear. ὅτι ὁ φόβος κόλασιν ἔχει. I think this is another because, because it’s not obvious what content it’s filling in back here.

I think it’s telling us. So it’s saying perfect love casts out fear. And then there’s a question of, well, why is that? [01:32:00] Oh, it’s because fear κόλασιν ἔχει, fear has punishment or has something to do with punishment. And then he advances the argument further. This is and, but it’s advancing the argument in a new direction.

He’s telling us, so pay attention. This is not just καὶ, this is not the default conjunction, and. This is advancing the argument to a new level. The one fearing, οὐ τετελείωται ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, has not been perfected in love. He’s repeating the same concept that he said earlier, and yet he’s using this δὲ to say he’s advancing the argument.

So I might need to. Sit with this a little bit longer to see if I’m really understanding that. The one fearing has not been completed in love. We love because he first loved us. Ἐάν, so if someone says that, quotes: you can tell they want you to read quotes here ’cause they’re [01:33:00] capitalizing this I love God and the brother he hates.

So the quote should end here. Ἀγαπῶ, this is indicative, this is subjunctive. So we went through a similar case earlier. Subjunctive follows naturally after ἐάν, and then μισῇ is also subjunctive. But in the middle you have this ὅτι clause that uses indicative.

So we should see this I, I put that bracket in the wrong place. So we have this ὅτι clause and it’s nested within an ἐάν conditional sentence with two uses of the subjunctive. Okay? So whoever says. You know, I love God and his brother he hates, he is a liar for the one not loving his brother, who he has seen, God, who he has not seen, οὐ δύναται, not able, does not have the power to love. If they can’t love someone they’ve seen, they can’t love someone [01:34:00] unseen, which is God. So it’s a proof, it’s another proof or test of that.

And this is the command we have from him ἵνα ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν θεὸν ἀγαπᾷ καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ. So the one loving God, love also his brother. Ἵνα, is that telling us the purpose of a prior verb? I guess it could be ἔχομεν. Yeah, the command we have from him. So it’s like the purpose of us having this command is that we would love God and our brother. Okay. Last chapter.

Everyone trusting. Trusting what? So what’s the content of the trusting? It’s that Jesus is the Christ. And, okay, let’s bracket this because this, this is kind of confusing sentence. So all of this comes together. This is all one big phrase that functions as a noun. This noun, [01:35:00] which is everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ

so has been born or has been conceived out of God. Everyone that believing Jesus is the Christ and. Everyone loving τὸν γεννήσαντα. So this is γεννήσαντα is, has conceived or has fathered. Sometimes we would translate it has born has given birth to, but we’re using the τὸν, the article to turn it into a noun. So the one who has given birth to, ἀγαπᾷ καὶ τὸν γεγεννημένον ἐξ αὐτοῦ. Okay, so I think this αὐτοῦ, this is a confusing sentence, but the αὐτοῦ two refers back to this noun. So everyone loving the one who did the conceiving, right? So this is God, loves also, but it’s not God loves also the ones born out of [01:36:00] him.

It’s everyone loving. I think this is translated father because the Greek is reflexive and confusing. They often just simplify it by translating this as father. So everyone loving, the father loves also the the ones having been born out of the father. This is not nominative. This is not the subject, so it’s not the one doing the action of ἀγαπᾷ. That’s ὁ ἀγαπῶν. If you love, truly love your parents, you’ll also love your siblings. That’s the sense it gives me.

In this, we know, what do we know? What’s the content of what we know? That we love the children of God whenever τὸν θεὸν ἀγαπῶμεν, we love God and the commands of His, we keep. So in this we know that we love the children of God. Whenever we love God and keep his commands, it’s so circular. Like he says things one way and then brings it [01:37:00] back in the opposite direction.

We’re getting close to the end. For this is the love. This is God’s love. ἵνα τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν, καὶ αἱ ἐντολαὶ αὐτοῦ βαρεῖαι οὐκ εἰσίν. Okay. This is the love of God. His commands. We keep what’s the, ἵνα what’s the purpose here? His commands. Well, the main noun that it would point back to, if that’s the right interpretation, would be ἐστιν. The purpose of this being the love of God is his commands we keep. That doesn’t really seem to make much sense.

Sometimes ἵνα is used in different senses than this strict explanation of purpose. And that’s definitely what makes this conjunction confusing. But maybe it’s just connecting the intention of God. The intention of God is we obey his, keep his commands, and that’s connected back in intention to his love. I’m not sure.

And his commands [01:38:00] plural. This is definitely plural here. So at times John has spoken as if there’s only one command, but it has all these different facets. In this sentence, he uses commands plural. So his commands are not heavy, like heavy or burdensome.

They are not ὅτι πᾶν τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. Everyone born out of God. Overcomes the world. That’s interesting. So if that previous ὅτι is a, because it’s saying that because his commands are not burdensome or not heavy because everyone born of him overcomes the world. So it’s like a compensation.

It’s like, yeah, you need to obey these commands. Love one another. Confess. Confess that Jesus is the Christ, not just in word but in, in action by loving one another. But that’s not heavy or burdensome because we are born out of him when we do those things and everyone born out [01:39:00] of him overcomes the world, which is like a great compensation for the commands.

I’m not sure about that previous ὅτι, how to interpret it. But that’s one interpretation. And this is the victory which has overcome. The victory, which has victory over the world. So we have the noun form, this is nominative, so it’s the one doing the action.

So the victory is doing the verb victory ἡ νίκη ἡ νικήσασα τὸν κόσμον. This is the victory which has. Had victory over the world, ἡ πίστις ἡμῶν, our trust, or our faith.

τίς δέ ἐστιν ὁ νικῶν τὸν κόσμον εἰ μὴ ὁ πιστεύων ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ;

So who’s the one overcoming the world, if not the one believing or trusting that Jesus is the son of God? This one is. The one who came διʼ ὕδατος through water and [01:40:00] blood, Ἰησοῦς Χριστός. Okay. This is a poetic part, so I’m gonna read it in Greek first. Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἐλθὼν διʼ ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος, Ἰησοῦς Χριστός· οὐκ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι μόνον ἀλλʼ ἐν τῷ ὕδατι καὶ ἐν τῷ αἵματι· καὶ τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν τὸ μαρτυροῦν, ὅτι τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν ἡ ἀλήθεια. 7 ὅτι τρεῖς εἰσιν οἱ μαρτυροῦντες, 8 τὸ πνεῦμα καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ αἷμα, καὶ οἱ τρεῖς εἰς τὸ ἕν εἰσιν.

Okay, so this is saying the water and the blood and the spirit are all witnesses. These τρεῖς is three. These three are witnesses. Are testifying the spirit, the water, and the blood and the τρεῖς into one are. The three are into one. So they’re all testifying in the same direction. This reminds me of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist.

You have the [01:41:00] spirit coming down like a dove and resting on him. And then you have the water in which he’s baptized. The blood, John the Baptist says, behold, this is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And I think that’s that implies the blood here. So that scene of John baptizing Jesus kind of encapsulates all these being the witness. Not to mention that John is written about as the witness over and over again.

Okay. Then he says, if the testimony or witness of men, we receive the testimony of God or from God greater is. That this is the testimony, God’s testimony, that μεμαρτύρηκεν περὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ. Okay, again, go back to that scene where Jesus is baptized, the Spirit comes down and John is there and the water is there, and then the Father’s voice speaks. I don’t think it’s recorded in the gospel of John, but I think it’s in all three synoptic gospels.

The Father speaks, so [01:42:00] God has testified μεμαρτύρηκεν, God has testified about his son. So in that scene, God says, this is, you’re my son in whom I am well pleased. The one believing into the son or the one trusting into the son of God has the testimony in himself. The one not trusting τῷ θεῷ ψεύστην πεποίηκεν αὐτόν.

Okay. The one not trusting in God. The preposition is not there explicitly, but this is dative. So it’s pretty safe for us to fill it in, as in the one not trusting God. Liar, πεποίηκεν has made him a liar. Ὅτι, because not has trusted into the testimony which has testified God about his son. God spoke at the Jesus baptism, he said, you’re my son in whom I’m well pleased, the one not trusting [01:43:00] God’s testimony about God’s own son has said God is a liar by implication.

And this is the testimony. Okay. We kind of had the testimony already. I feel like John’s given us enough that, okay, we know what the testimony is, but now he’s going to, I think, add something else to it.

But he doesn’t say, I’m gonna add to it. He just repeats this is the testimony, and then he appends a new idea onto the testimony. Okay, so ὅτι, what is this ὅτι content referring to? This. So this, it’s not an explicit verb of knowing or speaking or testifying, but it’s this which is undefined and now it’s gonna be defined by the ὅτι clause.

So this is the testimony that eternal life God gave us and this life in his son is. Okay? So he is adding on. This is what he’s appending. God given us eternal life, this life is in his son, the [01:44:00] one having the son has life. ζωὴν.

Incidentally I didn’t mention this earlier. So ζωὴν is like zoo, right? Or zoology. That’s a place where you go to see lots of forms of life. And this word is life. The one having the son has life. The one not having the son of God, life not has. Does not have life. This I wrote to you ἵνα. So what is my purpose in writing? This I wrote to you in order that you know that life you have eternal.

Okay? So I’m writing to you this so that you know you have eternal life, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ., and then I think this. It’s not explicit what this phrase is doing, the ones trusting into the name of the son of God. If you look at this phrase, this is, there is no verb here. I know πιστεύουσιν is like a verb, [01:45:00] but it’s a participle.

It’s been turned into a noun. So this, what I’ve underlined is not a complete sentence. There’s no main indicative verb. So how does this function? I think he’s defining the you. So this, I wrote to you who believe in the name of the son of God. Why am I writing, why did I write?

So that you know that you have eternal life and this is the παρρησία, so like confidence or boldness, which we have πρὸς αὐτόν towards him or with him. Ὅτι. So what’s the content ὅτι is filling in? It’s this, this was undefined, but now he’s gonna define it. That if τι so if something we ask, according to the will of him, he hears us.

Okay, so this is the boldness we have towards him. So this is it. If we ask, whatever we ask, according to [01:46:00] his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us. ὃ ἐάν. Okay, so this is just bracket this, this is its own little phrase. It’s not opening up a whole other ἐάν, clause. It’s just this short thing.

So if we know that he hears us ὃ ἐὰν αἰτώμεθα is just the thing that we ask for. We know that we have τὰ αἰτήματα ἃ ᾐτήκαμεν. So we know that what, okay, what? What is the content of what we know we have τὰ αἰτήματα. So this is αἰτήματα is like some something that was asked for and it’s, it’s a noun. This makes it extra obvious with articles, a noun. And then ᾐτήκαμεν is basically the same root here, I think. So this is, we have asked, but it has the ἃ in front of it, which turns it into a noun as [01:47:00] well.

So we know that we have the things asked for, which is the thing we asked for. It sounds repetitive. It sounds to me like he’s saying the same thing just in a different way twice in a row.

So if we know, he hears us. Whatever we ask, we know that we have the thing that we asked for from him.

ἐάν τις. Okay. So if ever someone ἴδῃ sees his brother sinning a sin, not towards death or not with death he asks and he will give him life. Okay. So it sounds like the one seeing his brother sinning not towards death, he will ask and, he will ask and he will give. So this comma gives you the impression that it’s God will give him life.

It’s not obvious from the text to me that’s true. It seems almost like the brother’s the one giving him life, even if that’s true, the life is coming through us from God to our brothers. [01:48:00] So maybe either interpretation is okay.

Now he’s again clarifying this is the one whose sin is not towards death, which is confusing. Right? What does that mean? There is a sin towards death, not about that. I am saying that he should purpose to ask. All sin, all unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin that does not lead towards death. Yeah this passage is way too much to try to get into and interpret right now. Very confusing.

We know that everyone born out of God does not sin. Again, translations say does not make a practice of sinning. But the one born out of God keeps him or keeps himself. So if this is referring to Christ, it would be keeps him, it could be keeping himself. Or it could even be the brother who sees a brother in a sin that doesn’t lead towards death and he’s coming to keep his brother to try to, save his [01:49:00] brother in a sense.

And the evil one does not touch him. I’m getting pretty fatigued at this point. This has been quite a marathon session. We know that out of God, we are. And the whole world, the world entire, the whole world in the evil one lies.

We know what. What is the content of what we know? The son of God has come and he gave us understanding, like νοῦς is a Greek word for mind, διάνοιαν one word for understanding. There are many other words for knowledge or understanding. And why? What’s his purpose of giving us understanding? It’s so that we know the one who is true.

This is not truth. This is the true one. So I think it’s an adjective, ἀληθινόν adjective turned into a noun. So the true one, and we are in the true one in his son, so we are in the [01:50:00] true one’s son, Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος. okay this true one is the true God and eternal life.

Τεκνία, φυλάξατε ἑαυτὰ ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδώλων. εἰδώλων, idol. Children keep ourselves from idols. Interesting conclusion.

Okay. I’m pretty wiped out, so that is first John in Greek. That’s the whole book. You can see he uses the same vocabulary over and over again. He uses the same logic over and over again. He just circles back to it and sometimes he appends new things and then he circles back to the idea from the beginning.

So if you made it all the way to the end of this video, awesome. Good work. I’m kind of surprised I made it.

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The Greek text used in this video is the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT). Copyright © 2010 by the Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software. Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Full license: https://www.sblgnt.com/license/