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Welcome to this session of More
Painless Greek, an examination of the Greek text of 1 John. And this time we're looking at
1 John 4-5. And this section of text has
149 words in the Greek text. And of those 146 are already
in our glossary, and three are new words, each
of which occur just one time in this text. One of them is
a single occurrence in the New Testament, and you may recall
that the term for that is a hapax legomena, once spoken. So this time we'll learn those
three new vocabulary words first, and then we'll work through the
Greek text verse by verse, and then finally at the end, we'll
walk through the entire passage to get a feel for the overall
flow. So let's begin with our vocabulary,
and our first word is barus, weighty, heavy, or burdensome. And this is the word that we'll
see John uses to say that our Lord's commands are not burdensome. And as an adjective, you may
recall that it can be used to describe a quality of something,
weighty, heavy, important, that sort of thing. But it can also
be used in a comparative sense, and there's a special ending
for that. And notice here that there is
one comparative use, and that is where Jesus accused the Pharisees
of neglecting the weightier aspects of the law. So same word, same
adjective as we have here, baroos. And we have Nike, victory. And it's possible that you're
wearing a pair of Nike shoes right this minute. And that company
derives its name from this ancient Greek word for victory. Now we've seen the cognate verb,
nikao, several times in First John, and it's more commonly
used. But this noun, nike, for victory
or overcoming, if you will, is only used one time in the entire
New Testament, and it's in this particular passage. We'll see
how it appears, and particularly in the context with occurrences
of nika'o, overcoming, overcome. And finally, pistis, faith. I had to double check that we
haven't already had this word in the painless introduction
to Greek class, or previously in our First John class. But here it is, 243 times, pistous,
faith. Now we have seen many times,
and we'll see also in this passage, the verb form, pistous, and we've
also seen in other contexts, the adjective faithful, which
is pistous, And so you can see those three forms are cognates
of each other, pistos, faith, pistos, faithful, faithfulness,
and pistou, I believe. So we're ready to look at our
text, beginning in 1 John 4, verse 20, and here's the first
half of that verse. So he says here, So beginning again at the first
part of verse 20, this is a conditional word, if, and it always is a
signal of the subjunctive mood to follow. So if, Tis, and remember
this is the indefinite pronoun, someone, anyone. If someone,
epe, may say. So you may recognize this is
a form of epon, second heiress of Lego. If someone may say,
and then the contents is introduced with the word hati. And in some
cases that word hati is not translated in the context of direct speech. And many people feel like it
functions very similarly to our modern quotation sign. But of course, there's no corresponding
mark at the end of a quotation. So I'll simply translate it as
that. If someone may say that, agapo
tantha'an, I love God. And you'll notice Agapó is capitalized,
and that is consistent with it being the beginning of a quotation. So someone is saying, this is
hypothetical, but John is saying, if someone might say, I love
God, and then notice in the second line, Cayetan Adelfan Altu, and
the brother of him and his brother, Misé, He hates, or he may hate,
continuing the subjunctive mood triggered by the Ekon. So if
someone says, I love God, and he hates his brother, sustes,
liar, esteem, he is. John has strong language for
someone who claims to love God, and yet, in their relationships,
they do not love their fellow believers or those who have actually
been born of God. So John is calling into question
their faith itself. Someone may say, I love God and
hates his brother, he is a liar. And then in the second part of
the verse, he explains, So notice at the beginning, again,
we have this little word, gar, which we'll normally pull out
and move to the front. For, so this is an explanatory
clause. Agapón, the one not loving. So this is a substantive use
of the participle from the verb agapó. And this is our familiar
form that we'll see several times in this text, very familiar in
1 John, a present active participle, nominative singular masculine. For the one not loving, Tanah
Delphah now to the brother of him. That is the one not loving
his brother. And notice how John qualifies
or further identifies. Han he-orak-en. Han whom and he-orak-en whom
he has seen. This is from Harappo and It's
a perfect form, you see the kappa there. The one who doesn't love
the brother whom he has seen, and then notice in comparison
in the second line, tan-te-an, tan-uk-he-ro-he-o-ra-ken. God whom he has not seen, u-du-na-tai-a-ga-pan,
not, he is able to love. So the second part again, reordered
slightly, God whom he has not seen, he is not able to love. So taken all together, John is
saying, the reason why I'm calling this person a liar who claims
to love God, but does not love his brother is a liar because the one not
loving his brother whom he has seen is not able to love God
whom he has not seen. And then he continues and draws
in these themes of love for God, love for brothers, and God's
commands all tied together like a cord of three strands. So notice in verse 21. So beginning
at the first of verse 21. This is demonstrative pronoun
and This, tein entolain, commandment,
this commandment, echamen, we have, first person plural, apaotu,
from him. And then in the middle, kinah,
so that or that, ha-agapon, same present active participle, singular,
nominative, masculine form. The one loving God, tanteton,
Agapa, now this is a subjunctive form, but it really has an imperative
feel or usage. And I think it's because we're
in the context of him explaining a command. Entole is the singular
form of command. Notice we had tein ou entolein
earlier in the verse. This is the commandment that
we have from him that the one loving God must love also. So I'm translating Caius also
in this case, also Tana Delphano too must love his brother. This commandment we have from
him that the one loving God must love his brother also. And then, crossing over into
chapter five, we notice there's a capital letter at the beginning,
but I think logically it all fits together. Again, this cord
of three strands, love for God, love for one another, God's commandments,
all woven together. So, Has, which could be each
or every, notice we have a singular form, Hapestuon. This is another substantive participle
from Pistouho. So each one believing, Hati Iesus
estin ha Christos, that Jesus is the Christ. Ectutheu gegeneitai,
tai pas ha agapon. So each person believing that
Jesus is the Christ, That is to have a full and accurate understanding
of the nature, the identity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the
eternal second person of the Trinity who was not created,
has existed for all eternity, took on a body, came to the earth
and lived a perfect life, was crucified, dead, buried, resurrected,
and ascended back to heaven. So a full understanding of who
Jesus is, the Messiah, the promised one, each one believing that
Jesus is the Christ, ectutheu gegenetai, has been born of God. So notice that's a perfect form,
gegenetai. So, It's something that has occurred
in the past, but obviously has a very significant ongoing relevance,
permanent. The person who genuinely believes
in Jesus' identity as the Messiah has been born of God. And then
continuing, kaipas agapon, and each one loving, tan gegenesanta,
So each one loving, and I'll simplify it to say the parent. We could technically say the
begetter, but that's somewhat unfamiliar. The one bringing
forth. I think it's easier to simply
consider it as parent. The one loving the parent, agapa. So here again, we have that subjunctive
form but really seems to have an imperative sense, must love
Kai also, tan gege nemenon, the one having been born ex autu,
from him. In simpler language, if you love
the parent, you must love the child born of that parent, or
in the perfect, as it is here, having been born of the parent. Each one believing that Jesus
is the Christ has been born of God. And each one loving the
parent must love also the child born, the one having been born
from him. And then continuing in chapter
five, verse two, and tuto gnoskamen hati agapomen In this, and this is familiar, we've
seen John use this introductory phrase several times, particularly
in the most recent chapters in 1 John. In this, we know first
person plural, Hati Agapomen. We know, we know that we love
Tateknatuthehu, the children of God. Here's how we know that
we love the children of God. It's not just a warm feeling,
some emotion, but rather it is based on our actions because
love translates into action. So notice in the second line,
hatan, when, or whenever, I think when works best here, hatan tan
the'an agapomen, when we love God. Kai tas entolas autu hoi
omen, when we love God and the commandments of him, his commandments,
hoi omen, we do. Seen before, and we'll see again,
that John likes to use the verb tereo, I keep, I guard, but here
he uses hoyeo, I do. So here's how we know, in this
we know that we love the children of God when we love God and we
do his commandments. And then continuing in verse
three of chapter five, haute gar estine, he agape tuthe, kinatas
entolos autu te Roman, cae, cae entoli autu, bare ai, uc asin. Returning to the start of verse
three, haute, this is another demonstrative pronoun, And notice
we have a gar, so we'll pull that to the beginning. For this
esteem is he agape to the, oh, the love of God. So here's the
love of God. Again, not simply an emotional
feeling. Second line, hinna, that, so
that, tas entolas, out to the commands of him, teromen. we may keep. So this is his use
of tereo and notice in the prior verse he used poeo here tereo. So here's the love of God that
we do we keep his commandments and then notice in the third
line chi high entolai, so plural form of entolai, high entolai,
the commandments out to of him, his commandments, barei. So here's our new vocabulary
word, barous, heavy, weighty, or burdensome. Burdensome, uke,
asin, not, they are. We're used to seeing quite frequently
the third person singular form of a me, which is esteem. And
here we have the third person plural form, eisen, they are. And the commandments of him,
his commandments are not burdensome. They're not a pain, a difficult,
a disagreeable thing. because he has given us of his
spirit and we love to do his will. Not that it won't ever
be a struggle or involve difficulty and sacrifice, but it is something
that by his grace, we enjoy doing. Then moving on to the last two
verses, chapter five, verse four, That's a mouthful. each one having been born of
God. Nika overcomes Tanqasman, the
world. And I think it's so striking
that while we might easily agree that we collectively as the church,
all the believers in the Lord Jesus Christ overcome the world,
John is emphasizing here that each one who has been born of
God, each individual one overcomes the world. And he continues,
kai haute, and this, estine he nike, this is the victory. And again, that word nike is
that single occurrence, apax legomenon, One occurrence in
the New Testament, this is the victory. And then he elaborates,
notice in the last line, he nikesasa. So this is a participle, but
used substantively. This is the victory, the overcoming,
ton kosmon, the world. Hephistos hemon, the faith of
us or our faith. So again, the all of verse four,
each one having been born of God, overcomes the world. And this is the victory, the
overcoming the world, our faith. And then finally in verse five,
tis de estin hanikon ton kasmon, e me hapistuon hati yesus estin
Ahuyastu tehu. So he's asking a question here. Notice the semicolon at the end
of verse five. So the indefinite pronoun is
used here to ask this question, who? Who is it? And we'll take the de, obviously
we need to move it forward. And we're not sure at the first,
whether it's a but, in contrast, or an and, or even left untranslated. But in this context, I think
and is the best rendering. So, and who Esteen is on Nikon
Tan Cosmo? Who is the one overcoming the
world? And then, a may, we typically
take these together and translate it, except. Now, literally, If
not, and sometimes people will speak this way, who is the victor
if not the one who believes in Jesus? That's the sense of it. So you could render it, if not,
or accept. Ame, accept. Hapistuon, the one
believing. Hatiesus estin, ahuiastu, the
one believing that Jesus is the Son of God. And again, this is
the full understanding of Jesus' identity and his work. His identity as the God, the
Son, the second person of the Trinity, existing eternally,
coming to the earth, taking on a human body, living a perfect
life that is credited to our account dying to bear the penalty
of our sins on the cross, buried, resurrected, appeared to many
and ascended back to heaven, a full understanding of his person
and his work. This is the person overcoming
the world, the one believing in the fullness of Jesus' identity,
that he is the son of God. So let's Roll through the entire
passage. If someone may say that I love
God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one not loving
his brother whom he has seen is not able to love God whom
he has not seen. And this commandment we have
from him, that the one loving God also must love the brother
of him. His brother must also love his
brother. Each one believing that Jesus
is the Christ has been born from God. And each one loving the
parent must love also the one having been born from him. In
this, we know that we love the children of God. When we love
God and we do his commandments, or this is the love of God, that
we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. That each one having been born
from God overcomes the world. And this is the victory, the
overcoming the world. our faith. Who and who is the
one overcoming the world except the one believing that Jesus
is the Son of God? Again, a good reminder of the
foundational role that our faith in the person and work of our
Lord Jesus Christ has. Thank you so much for joining
me for this session of more painless grief.
Lesson 17 - 1 John 4:20 - 5:5 (Greek Text)
Series More Painless Greek - 1 John
This is the 17th lesson in the More Painless Greek - 1 John series, working through the Greek text of 1 John. Follow along by downloading the PDF document containing the class notes.
| Sermon ID | 727242117515424 |
| Duration | 28:07 |
| Date | |
| Category | Teaching |
| Bible Text | 1 John 4:20-5:5 |
| Language | English |
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