18Οἴδαμεν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει, ἀλλ’ ὁ γεννηθεὶς ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ τηρεῖ ἑαυτὸν καὶ ὁ πονηρὸς οὐχ ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ. 19οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐσμεν καὶ ὁ κόσμος ὅλος ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ κεῖται. 20οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ἥκει καὶ δέδωκεν ἡμῖν διάνοιαν, ἵνα γινώσκωμεν τὸν ἀληθινόν, καὶ ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
— 1 John / 1 Ιωάννη 5:20.
This, he adds, is the real God. In strict grammar, the word 'this' should refer to the last person named. Some commentators accordingly take the sentence we are considering to mean, 'This Person, namely Jesus Christ, is the real God.' It is more likely that the word 'this' has a wider and vaguer reference. The writer is gathering together in his mind all that he has been saying about God--how He is light, and love, how He is revealed as the Father through His Son Jesus Christ; how He is faithful and just to forgive our sins; how He remains in us--and this, he adds, is the real God, the one eternal Reality of which the mystics talk, though they do not know Him as He is known through Christ. And this, he also adds (meaning now the knowledge of the Real God of which he has just spoken) is eternal life. For illustration of this we need only recall John xvii. 3: This is life eternal, that they know Thee, the only real God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ. But it is also worth while to recall that the maxim that eternal life comes by knowledge of God, or of the Real, was a religious commonplace of the time. The new thing distinctive of Christianity is the revelation of God in a human life, with all that that involves.
* Charles Harold Dodd,
The Johannine Epistles
[Οι Ιωάννειες Επιστολές],
Hodder and Stoughton, 1966,
pp./σσ. 140, 141.
οὗτος
Ιωάννης/John 1:40, 41· 1 Ιωάννη/John 2:22· 2 Ιωάννη/John 7·
Πράξεις/Acts 4:10, 11· 7:18, 19.
Ιωάννης/John 1:40, 41· 1 Ιωάννη/John 2:22· 2 Ιωάννη/John 7·
Πράξεις/Acts 4:10, 11· 7:18, 19.
2 comments:
Interesting quotes on 1 John 5:20:
“The Greek of [1 John] 5:20 has only the true (one) and reads literally: we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding 'so that we know the true (one) and we are in the true (one),' in his Son Jesus Christ. 'This (one) is the true God and eternal life.' It is clear from this that 'the true (one)' is God [the Father] throughout. Christ is his Son. In the final sentence this (one) most naturally refers still to God, not to Christ, as some have suggested.”
William Loader, “The Johannine Epistles,” Epworth Commentaries (London: Epworth, 1992), 79.
"[T]he Son of God has come…he has given us understanding, to know him who is true (vs.20). The idea is that by his coming and continuing presence the Son of God has given to the children of God insight that enables them to know God who is the true One (contrasted with the idols and false gods). And we are in him who is true is a declaration of the unity existing between God and the children of God...John assures his readers that they are also in his Son Jesus Christ, which is quite in keeping with the prayer of Jesus: “that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us” (John 17:21). This is the true God and eternal life refers to him who is true."—
The Broadman Bible Commentary, 1972, Volume 12, in loc. Cit.
"As far as the grammatical construction of the sentence is concerned, the pronoun [houtos, ‘this one’] may refer to ‘Him that is true’ or to ‘Jesus Christ.’ The most natural reference however is to the subject not locally nearest but dominant in the mind of the apostle (comp[are].) c[hapter]. ii.22; 2 John 7; Acts iv.11; vii.19). This is obviously ‘He that is true’ further described by the addition of ‘His Son.’ Thus the pronoun gathers up the revelation indicated in the words which precede…This being — the One who is true [the Father] who is revealed through and in His Son, with whom we are united by His Son — is the true God and life eternal."—
Brooke Foss Westcott, The Epistles Of St. John: The Greek Text With Notes And Essays, London, Macmillian And Co., 1883, p. 187.
"Him that is true (ton alethinon) [“the true (one)”]. That is God, Cf. 1:8. In him that is true (en to alethinoi) [“in the true (one)”], In God…in contrast with the world “in the evil one (verse 19). See John 17:3. Even his Son Jesus Christ (en toi huioi autou Iesou Chrisoti) [“in the son of him Jesus Christ”]. Hence this clause in not in apposition with the preceding, but an explanation as to how we are ‘in the True one’ by being ‘in his Son Jesus Christ.’ This (‘houtos’) [“this (one)”]...Grammatically houtos may refer to Jesus Christ or to ‘the True One.’ It is a bit tautological to refer it to God, but that is probably correct, God at any rate, God is eternal life (John 5:26) and he gives it to us through Christ."—
A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, Vol. VI, p. 245.
"We know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us insight to know Him who is the Real God; and we are in Him who is Real, even in His Son Jesus Christ” (Moffatt)....All other gods so-called are figments of the human imagination; cf: 1 Cor. 8:4-6. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Real God (Jn. 17:3), and to be in Him is to be in the realm of life, the life that is unfading and Testament The Epistles of James and John”, 1954, pp. 224, 25. That we may know God, as truly real, as a truly real being, ‘the Real One’, apart from whom all things and persons are shadowy and unreal; that is in the first instance, he purpose for which his Son Jesus Christ is come,…Jesus Christ...coming forth from the True One in whose bosom he dwells reveals the True One to us...It is a great thing to know God as he is here named -- the True One -- to know Him as true and real; no imagination or mere idea, but true and real."---
Robert Candlish, The First Epistle of John, Grand Rapids, Zondervan Publishing p.554.
"The KJV by adding here the word 'even', implies that him that is true now refers to Christ. This leads to the view that the following words, this is the true God, refer also to Christ. This gives one of the most explicit statements in NT of the deity of Christ. Theological controversy has long raged about this passage. But the natural sense of the passage and the characteristic thought of the epistle and the Gospel preclude this interpretation. It is through Christ that we are in God. This God so known is the true God. The thought centers in God from Vs. 18 on, and the contrast with idols in the last verse confirms it. This God so know also means eternal life.” (Italics added)
—The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. XII, p. 301.
The ‘true God’ is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ps. 83:18). The Son is not called ‘God’ in this verse of Scripture. We are in the true God by being in the Son of the true God, Jesus Christ. The True God referred to in 1 John 5:20 (and other scriptures) then must be the Father, Yehovah. (John 17:3)
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