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What Is the “False Doctrine” of Only One Text of the Bible? (Part Four)

Part One     Part Two     Part Three

Most of what we believe occurs like the following.  One, we read the Bible with a grammatical, historical interpretation or hear right preaching of the Bible.  Two, we believe what we read or hear and that becomes our beliefs.  Three, we look for the fulfillment of scripture in the only world to live it, the real one here on earth.  Four, we apply the Bible by practicing it according to the right thinking of and about it.

In its context, the Bible teaches its own perfect preservation in the language in which it was written.  There really is no other kind of preservation in the Bible.  Something less than perfect is in fact not preservation.  If it is not the language in which God gave scripture, that’s not preserving what He gave.  He gave it in that language for a reason.  It would communicate what He wanted.

Preservation

Because scripture teaches the perfect preservation of this one Book and all of its individual Words, then we believe that.  Then we look for its fulfillment.  I am open to fulfillment of scripture that is not what I think, an alternative to it.  I have not heard anything close to an acceptable alternative.  The fulfillment I believe glove fits what I see in the Bible.  It happened like God said.  Sure, we’re missing some of the historical detail, but that’s normal in belief, which corresponds to faith is not by sight.

When I go to apply what I believe about the preservation of scripture, I can see that it is the Hebrew Masoretic for the Old Testament and the Greek Textus Receptus for the New Testament, based on all the scriptural presuppositions.  What Mark Ward says does not move me, because he never starts with scriptural presuppositions, even in his rare 1 Corinthians 14 exegesis, which would apply only to translation anyway, not the doctrine of preservation.

The List Again

For easier reading and review, this series left off covering the following five points, concerns expressed for awhile by Mark Ward, for which he prays for an apology:

  • One, they don’t sufficiently acknowledge archaic English in the King James Version, semantic changes, the worst of which Ward calls “false friends.”
  • Two, they say God preserved every Word in the original language text, but they won’t point out the preserved printed edition of the Textus Receptus that represents that.
  • Three, they keep using the King James Version, so making the Bible opaque to the average reader, even though modern versions from the same underlying text are available.
  • Four, they won’t admit that church men have long recognized textual variants and acknowledged their existence.
  • Five, the underlying text behind the King James Version didn’t exist in a single edition until Scrivener in the late 19th century, who himself didn’t support the Textus Receptus.

This is not Ward’s official list.  I’m making it his list from what I’ve read of him, and I’m now to number three.

Modern Versions of the Same Text as the King James Version Are Available

Ward concludes that unwillingness to embrace a modern version of the same text as the King James Version indicates some kind of deceit on the part of those who claim dependence on the underlying text of the King James Version.  If underlying text is really the issue, men can and should switch translation to a more readable or intelligible one.  Ward has a bit of a point here.  What’s with these men still using the King James Version with a hundred or more unintelligible English words?  He contends that using a definition list of the difficult words or marginal notes doesn’t cut it.

Misunderstood words is a problem for a translation.  When translators work at translating, they do have the audience in mind.  First, they try to translate exactly the meaning of the word and according to its usage in the context.  The King James translators did that, but some of the words now mean something different to a contemporary English audience or they mean almost nothing at all.

An Explanation of Translation

As a preacher of the Bible to English speaking people, I explain to my audience what the original author intended for either the Hebrew or the Greek.  Right now I’m preaching through three books:  Sunday morning, Matthew, Sunday night, Genesis, and Wednesday night, Revelation.  This is my second time in my life through Matthew, fourth through Genesis 1-12, and at least fifth through Revelation.  I’m going to give you just one sample from the texts I preached on Sunday in Genesis 3.  I talked about Genesis 3:8, which says this in the King James Version:

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.

I mention just one word — the word “cool.”  Isn’t it cool that this is the first use of the word “cool” in the Bible?  So cool.  “Cool” translates the Hebrew, ruach, which is almost always “wind.”  It is also the Hebrew word that refers to the Holy Spirit.  It does.  So is “cool” the right translation of ruach?  Did the KJV translators get it wrong with “cool.”

Ruach

The word ruach comes with an article, so it is “the cool.”  It is not “a cool.”  It isn’t just any cool at this juncture in the early history of the world.  It refers to one particular time in the day when a breeze would blow through the Garden where Adam and Eve lived.  That breeze made the temperature more cool at a particular time that Moses’ audience and people living on earth, reading this, would understand.  The sun would set, which caused a breeze.  It’s not so much to communicate the temperature though as it did to describe a time Adam and Eve would meet with God.

Shouldn’t people know that “cool” was a breeze or a wind?  Is “cool” really better?  The NIV, ESV, NASB, and the NKJV all translate ruach here “cool,” even though it is a very exceptional translation.  Would an English reader, who doesn’t look at the Hebrew, know that “wind” was involved?  I would say, “No, they would not.”  They wouldn’t know that.  This happens a lot too and far more times in an English translation than a hundred times.  Is it is sin?  Of course not.

The word God inspired is ruach, which is also what He preserved.  That’s the major issue for me.  Every translation will still require digging to understand it.  I don’t think one hundred English words now with semantical changes change the dynamics enough to merit a new translation, especially in light of the glut of English translations.  I want to explain that, as I have many times before.

Weighing Reasons

As much as semantical changes might give a reason for another translation of the same underlying text of the King James Version, reasons also exist for not doing it.  Men weigh those reasons against each other.

One, the King James Version is a standard.

Two, churches accepted and accept the King James Version for centuries.

Three, the King James Version passed the test of time.

Four, it should not be easy to change the Bible.

Five, churches are familiar with the language of the King James Version and it becomes the lingua franca of a church.

Six, churches memorize the King James Version and a new translation would upend that to a large degree.

Seven, churches who believe in the underlying text of the King James Version would agree to do that among them or from their midst (not based on critical text supporters like Mark Ward goading them).

Eight, churches would need to cohere to a monumental task to provide a new standard.

A Conclusion

Having weighed reasons, I don’t believe King James Version churches are ready for a new translation or update.  I think I would know that as well as almost anyone.  The kind of talk I have in this piece is not something Mark Ward deals with.  What I’m saying is real.  It matters.  Ignoring it is unhelpful and even condescending.  It does not smack of Spirit control.

More to Come

An Analysis of Supreme Court Overturn of Roe and the Lie of the Dissenting Opinion

Early Friday my phone notified me the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.  It brought great happiness, comparable to the 2016 election.  I knew it was happening, but it got off my radar, so when I saw it, it was adulation.  Praise God!  I looked for a copy of the decision, downloaded the pdf, and started to read.  My mind gobbled Alito’s text with delight and refreshment.  Outside of the Bible, this doesn’t happen much.

I celebrate Samuel Alito and the four other justices.  They showed great courage.  They did something that I will never forget, a highlight of my life.  I was eleven years old at the Roe v. Wade decision and did not even know it happened.  I’ve lived almost my entire life under its evil effects.

Even as I say that, the most courageous was Clarence Thomas.  I separate him from the entire group with his concurring opinion.  Same sex marriage is not in the constitution either.  He wrote (p. 119):

For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous.”

Obergefell decided same sex marriage.  The court passed that on the same basis as Roe.  On the other hand, Kavanaugh in his concurring opinion, to distinguish himself, wrote:

First is the question of how this decision will affect other precedents involving issues such as contraception and marriage—in particular, the decisions in . . . . Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U. S. 644 (2015). I emphasize what the Court today states: Overruling Roe does not mean the overruling of those precedents, and does not threaten or cast doubt on those precedents.

I hope he reconsiders this point if same sex marriage comes to the court again.

The decision showed three basic opinions, represented by a majority of five, minority of three, and then Chief Justice Roberts alone.  The majority said nothing personal about the morality of abortion.  The five wrote the Constitution says nothing about abortion and contains no right to abortion therein.  The Constitution neither commends or condemns abortion.  Roe v. Wade found a right where there was none.  It was unconstitutional.

Roberts upheld the Mississippi law as constitutional based upon a generous interpretation of Casey.  Even though the arguments required to choose one way or the other, he chose silence on an abortion right.  Roberts kicked the abortion can down the road, siding neither way on its constitutionality, attempting, it seems, to please both sides.

The minority of three wrote:

Today, The Court . . . says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs.

The Court did not say that.  These three Supreme Court justices lied.  The Court said nothing about whether a woman has a right to abortion.  It said the Constitution does not say anything about a right to abortion.  The Supreme Court does not decide what rights people have or do not have.  It does decide constitutional rights.  Is a constitutional right to abortion in the constitution?  The majority said, no.

Right now a state cannot force a woman to bring her pregnancy to term.  She can travel to another state with legal abortion and get one.  Everyone knows this.  The governor of California says it will give sanctuary to pregnant women who want to kill their babies.

As you and I read opinions such as written by the minority, perhaps you ask, “What is a woman?”  Or, “Who is ‘her’?” The three liberal judges function according to outdated language and meaning.  Doesn’t the patriarchy force its bias and its meaning of existence and reality through gendered language?

Feminists could support the Dobbs decision.  It establishes the existence of women.  For the court to force women to have their babies, there must be women.  What does that mean for transgender rights?  The Casey decision argued in 1992 a constitutional “right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”  These words followed Justice Anthony Kennedy’s now very famous sentence from the Casey opinion:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

Yes, Kennedy was apparently one of the conservative faction of justices, seen as a moderate, appointed by Ronald Reagan.  Kennedy was no conservative in the spirit of William Buckley.

Donald Trump did a better job choosing justices than Ronald Reagan, who also chose Sandra Day O’Connor.  Take a moment to thank Donald J. Trump. He picked three of these justices in the majority.  Three for threeLet’s hear it for Trump. True conservatives should give Trump credit, but many won’t.

Mitt Romney tweeted out support of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe.  Could we trust him to have made the choices Trump did?  I don’t think so, but he could impeach Trump for an appropriate call to the Ukrainian president.

The Supreme Court majority that overturned Roe was no thanks to Anti-Trumpers, who did not vote for Trump in 2016.  Most are further to blame for the horrific consequences of 2020.  This includes John Piper and David French.  I concur with this Mollie Hemingway answer to French.

George Bush selected David Souter and George W. Bush did Chief Justice Roberts.  Thankfully the latter also picked Samuel Alito, the author of Dobbs.  This decision would not have happened under Romney or McCain and didn’t under the Bushes.

Liberty Magazine writes the following about Anthony Kennedy’s words in Casey, the infamous abortion decision after Roe:

Though sounding more like a discourse on Spinozean metaphysics than on constitutional jurisprudence, this sentence has reached the level of notoriety among judicial and political conservatives that “separate but equal” once did among civil libertarians, or “material substratum” did among post-Enlightenment idealists.

No U.S. Supreme Court dictum in decades has faced such vilification as has poor Justice Kennedy’s 28 words. Robert Bork called the phrase indicative of “New Age jurisprudence”; William Bennett derided it as an “open-ended validation of subjectivism” that paves the way for drug abuse, assisted suicide, prostitution, and “virtually anything else”: George Will said it was “gaseously” written; Michael Uhlman labeled it a “thing of almost infinite plasticity”; the editors of First Things called it the “notorious mystery passage”; and on and on.

Kennedy’s take on liberty fits very nicely with a naturalist’s view of the world, turning language and meaning into one’s personal Gumby toy.

If I could brag about any one aspect of a reading of Dobbs by Samuel Alito, it’s the return to objective, plain writing.  He wrote like words meant something.  No one can follow that sentence by Kennedy, but it allowed for the perverseness we see in modern culture.  Your truth is your truth.  Your liberty is your liberty.  That’s not a baby, but a fetal, clump of cells.

The argument buttressing a right to abortion now undermines the definition of woman.  Most of those out there protesting the decision could and should protest both sides of the decision.  Both sides used oppressive and sexist language that uphold the patriarchy.  The liberal side does it in a more subtle and insidious way, thereby causing even worse damage to the LGBTQIA agenda.

The new, correct word for mother, or its replacement, abandoning the former meaning of woman, is gestator.  It’s obvious that this movement does not have everyone on the same page.  Their gender is fluid and the movement itself is too.  It’s changing and mutating so fast, it doesn’t have time to finish its handbook.  This forces liberal judges to use the outdated terms like “woman” and “her.”  You think I’m joking.

In a refreshing bit of honesty, unlike Roe and Casey, a gestator calling their self Sophie Lewis, in answer to Dobbs provides unmitigated clarity with her The Nation article:  “Abortion Involves Killing–and That’s OK!”  This entity (person, whatever) says:  “Dishonest sugar-coating did not work.  Let’s stop.  It didn’t work.  Let’s call it what it is, killing.”  Another word I would use, that Sophie did not, is “murder.”  So here we have it.  Samuel Alito was clear and so was Sophie Lewis.  Exhilarating truthfulness.

When you and I look at the protestors, they represent a profane culture.  They wear their piercings, falsely colored hair, and they speak streams of expletives and destroy private and public property.  This reflects the postmodern philosophy of Sartre, the French existentialist, who said that existence preceded essence.  Humans have no essential nature, thus no morality besides what every man makes for himself.  They don’t see themselves as accountable to God.  The appearance of Dobbs protestors mirrors this existential philosophy aligned with the Anthony Kennedy statement in Casey.  Their costumes are the uniform of their view of reality.  They define their own essence.

Not everyone will say it like Sophie Lewis, but the reason why an assassin could show up at Justice Kavanaugh’s house after the leak of the Dobbs opinion was because “killing is OK.”  That is also why a large majority of the media says little to nothing in opposition.  Their liberty allows for murder.  A baby may exist but cannot define his essence.  A critical theory justifies killing as the essence of liberty.

Since the Supreme Court announced the ruling on Friday, plain language came to the surface.  At a pro-abortion protest a man says, ala Sophie Lewis, he “loves killing babies.”  Many women call it the best decision they ever made.  Over ten years ago, I walked in a large pro-life march in San Francisco.  Those protesting the march on the side of the road were the most vile and lewd people I’ve ever seen in my life.  Their signs, language, and appearance were as bad as I’ve ever seen as an attempt to intimidate the march.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade is so good.  The war, however, is just begun.  Hopefully, it won’t be a real war with real bullets, one that the Supreme Court provided the previous day with its concealed carry decision.

In the Long Prayer of Jesus to His Father in John 17, Has “Of The World” Become Meaningless?

The model prayer of Matthew 6 and Luke 11, Jesus didn’t pray.  He was teaching His disciples how to pray.  Certain few times the New Testament records that He spoke to His Father, He didn’t ask for anything.  He prays for one thing in John 12:28, “Father, glorify thy name.”

On the cross in Luke 23:34, Jesus prays, “Father, forgive them.”  He prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26, two of which He requested essentially the same thing, and the third time it says he prayed the same thing as the first two.  In verse 39, He prayed, “Not as I wilt, but as thou wilt,” regarding His suffering and death, and then in verse 42, “Thy will be done,” which was about the same thing.We know Jesus prayed other times, but those passages don’t tell us what He prayed.  John 17 most represents what Jesus prays, because it contains more that He prayed than all the other places combined.  I will focus on one point of His requests in the chapter, which were not many, but of all of those prayers, He uses the words, “of the world,” seven times.

Jesus never, per se, prays that believers will not be “of the world.”  Not in those exact words.  However, He is asking the Father that in a practical way they will not be of the world.  Let me explain.  John 17:14-16 say (underline mine):

14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Verses 14 and 16 say something similar that lead into the prayer requests of Jesus in John 17:17-20.

17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. 20 Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word.

The Lord Jesus Christ has sent His own into the world, which not only includes His disciples at that time, but all of them into the future (v. 20).  Since they are not “of the world,” even as Jesus was not “of the world,” He prayed that the Father would sanctify them through the truth.  The prayer is that believers would live out in a practical way who they were by nature.  That would occur by sanctification through the Word of God.
Let me further elaborate.  They would be in the world, but since they were not “of the world,” Jesus wanted it to continue that way.  Not being “of the world” directly relates to sanctification.  They would need sanctification through the truth to keep them “not of the world” even as Jesus was “not of the world” (v. 14).  By nature they were “not of the world” (v. 16), but sanctification would be required for them to stay “not of the world” in a practical way or manner.
Of all that Jesus could have or may have prayed, He associated a big chunk of it with “not of the world.”  It seems that the Apostle Paul understood this when he wrote a crucial command of sanctification in Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world.”  It seems that the Apostle John comprehended it, because he wrote in 1 John 2:15-17:

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. 17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Two verses later, he connected these verses with this (v. 19):

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

“Of the world” and “of us” seem to be a contrast with the other.  If they were not “of us,” based on those previous verses, it seems that they “loved the world” and were “of the world” instead.
John says that “the lust of the flesh,” “the lust of the eyes,” and “the pride of life” are “of the world.”  This will enter into the right understanding of worldliness.  In Titus 2:15, Paul says that the grace of God teaches us to deny “worldly lusts.”
It also seems for sure that Peter understood what Jesus prayed, when he later wrote in 2 Peter 2:20:

For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

This parallels also with what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:14, “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts.”
Much more could be said about the phrase, “of the world,” since it is found in the New Testament many times.  Many related phrases also occur with the “the world” in them, that add to this overall teaching.  However, a believer being in a practical way “not of the world” was a prayer of Jesus in John 17, when coupled with His prayer for sanctification.
Since Jesus did not want true believers to be “of the world,” should we not assume that we can know what “of the world” actually means?  Since Jesus prayed for this, should we also not surmise that Satan would want believers to be “of the world,” especially since John 12:31, 14:30, and 16:11 say he is the “prince of this world.”  In John 17:15, when Jesus prays that the Father would “keep them from the evil,” this would relate to Satan, as likely Jesus was praying, “keep them from the evil one.”  This is how the adjective, used as a noun with the preposition (ek, “from”), might imply the noun, such as “evil thing,” “evil person,” or “evil business.”
What is it to be “of the world”?  If someone is not to be “of the world,” then he needs to know what “of the world” is?  Can he know?  I am contending that “of the world” has become meaningless in evangelicalism and much of fundamentalism.  People know the words, but they do not give an interpretation or an application of these words.  “Not of the world” is not some arbitrary concept.  It means something.
The adverb “worldly” can represent the prepositional phrase “of the world.”  If someone is not worldly, then he is not of the world.  What is worldliness?  When is someone worldly?  It’s nearly impossible for an evangelical or most fundamentalists to be worldly anymore, because they’ve made it meaningless.
For someone not to be worldly, which Jesus prays for all true believers, he will not think worldly, act worldly, wear worldly dress or have a worldly appearance, listen to or play worldly music, or love worldly things.  For all of that to occur, worldliness must have meaningIt does have meaning.
To love the world (1 Jn 2:15) is not the same thing as loving chocolate cake or donuts.  It is to love the world system, which results in conforming to the spirit of the age (Rom 12:2).  Those who conform to the spirit of the age love the world.  They are of the world.
A vast majority of churches today are worldly.  That means they are not “of God.”  They are “of the world.”  Because of a particular view of the grace of God, they think they are saved.  It is not the grace of God.  It is the grace of God having been turned into lasciviousness (Jude 1:4).
With worldliness having no meaning, churches can be worldly and it doesn’t matter to them.  Professing believers can be worldly and it means little to nothing.  By staying worldly, churches keep their worldly people.  Since they don’t preach against worldliness or at least explain what it means, the people most often don’t know anything is wrong.  They don’t even know that worldliness clashes with being a Christian.  If they stood and preached against worldliness, they would shrink to almost nothing.
More to Come

John 3:36, the Second “Believeth” (Apeitheo), and English Translation of the Bible

The King James Version (KJV) of John 3:36 reads:

He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

The English Standard Version (ESV) reads:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

When you read the two, you see a few differences, one major one that may or may not affect or change doctrine, that being “he that believeth not the Son” versus “whoever does not obey the Son.”  Which is the better translation or right?  Or are they both right?
When you read the English of the KJV, you might think that the first “believeth” and the second “believeth” are the same Greek words translated into the same English word.  That makes sense.  However, they are not the same Greek words.  The first “believeth” translates pisteuo and the second, “believeth not,” translates apeitheo.  For that reason, the ESV and the NASV translate it “does not obey” and the NIV translates it “rejects.”
Can apeitheo be translated “believeth not”?  Why would the KJV translators not translate apeitheo differently than pisteuo?  How much does this translational difference matter?
In a very, very long post in which he mocks those who use the King James only, Mark Ward treats the difference very seriously, like a good reason to change the King James translation.  You can know with great certainty that the King James translators knew that these were two different words in John 3:36.  They, however, still translated them the same, “believeth.”
The modern version translators also sometimes translate apeitheo with “believe” and not “obey.”  The next example of its usage is Acts 14:2 and all the modern versions translate it “unbelieving,” “disbelieve,” and “refused to believe,” the same as the KJV, “unbelieving.”  They do not translate, “not obey” or “disobey.”   The very next usage is Acts 19:9.  The ESV translates the imperfect, “continued in unbelief,” the NIV, “refused to believe,” the KJV, “believed not,” and the NASV alone, “disobedient.”
In Romans 2:8, like all the modern versions, the KJV translates it, “do not obey.”  I give you this last example because, it shows that the KJV translators knew they could translate apeitheo, “do not obey,” rather than, “believeth not.”  In 1 Peter 3:1, the KJV and the modern versions translate apeitheo, “obey not,” but the NIV translates it, “believe not.”
Here’s what Friberg Lexicon, a modern lexicon, says apeitheo means:

(1) in relation to God disobey, be disobedient (RO 11.30); (2) of the most severe form of disobedience, in relation to the gospel message disbelieve, refuse to believe, be an unbeliever.

Thayer writes in his lexicon:

not to allow oneself to be persuaded; not to comply with; a. to refuse or withhold belief

The typical or normal Greek word translated “obey” in the New Testament is hupakouo.  akouo is normally translated, “to hear,” but with the addition of the prefix hupo, it means “to obey.”  Forms of that word are translated 21 times in the New Testament.  It is the word used in Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents.”  It is always translated, “obey.”
The Greek word peitho without the “a” prefix of apeitheo is translated “persuaded” in Matthew 27:20, the first usage in the New Testament, and the KJV and the modern versions all translate it, “persuaded.”  If persuasion is negated, it would be “not persuaded.”  If someone is persuaded, he believes.  In Matthew 27:43, all the versions translate peitho, “trusts.”  “Persuaded,” “convinced,” and “trusted” are normal understanding of peitho.  You can see this in the translation in all the versions in its 55 usages in the New Testament.
When apeitheo appears in the Septuagint, the Hebrew word is translated a majority of the times “rebelled” or “rebellious” (Dt 1:26, 9:7, 23, 24, 21:20; Josh 1:18; Ps 68:18; Is 1:23, 36:5, 50:5, 63:10, 65:2; Ez 3:27), which is compatible with “unbelief.”
In the near context of John 3:36, John the Baptist preaches the superiority of the Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples, so they’ll follow Jesus and not John.  In verse 28, John says, “I am not the Christ.”  The gospel of John testifies that Jesus is the Christ.  Why?  So that people will believe that Jesus is the Christ and have eternal life (John 20:30-31).  “The Christ” is the Messiah, a Kingly figure.  John’s disciples needed to believe in Jesus Christ, that is, submit to Him, follow Him, or obey Him as the Christ.  This is the same as believing in Jesus Christ and not being rebellious against Christ.  Louw-Nida Lexicon, another modern lexicon, says concerning apeitheo:  “unwillingness or refusal to comply with the demands of some authority.”  This is not the same as “not obey.”  It is a description of unbelief, especially referring to Jesus as Messiah, the Christ, in the context.
Jesus gives testimony or witness as to why He is the Messiah.  John argues for this. He wants people to be persuaded by the testimony or witness of Jesus and his own testimony or witness.  The greatest reason is that someone is granted everlasting life if he believes or is persuaded by the evidence or testimony or witness.  In the near context, apeitheo means, “believeth not.”  It is an example of a good translation.
The greater context of John presents the plan of salvation, the gospel.  In the context of the gospel, apeitheo means, “believeth not.”  Lexicons make note of this.  Those not persuaded that Jesus was the Christ by the evidence and the testimony were not believing He was the Son, Who had come from heaven.  The Son points back to many Old Testament Messianic allusions, including Genesis 3:16, Genesis 12:1-3, 2 Samuel 7:12-14, Isaiah 7:14, and Isaiah 9:6.
When preaching, I believe it is good to let people know that the second “believeth” of John 3:36 is a different Greek word.  It expands on the understanding of the English word “believeth,” which is more than intellectual, but also volitional.  Someone cannot remain rebellious against the Son, not be submitting himself to the Son, the Christ, and have everlasting life.
If the translators had translated apeitheo, “obeyeth not,” that would have resulted in a lot more necessary explaining.  Today, it would be regularly used to argue for works salvation by those who teach that.  They would say, “You’re saved by obeying the Son. So, if you don’t obey Him, you won’t have eternal life.”  On the other hand, “believing” is not in contradiction to “obeying.”  Unsaved people are said to “obey not the gospel of God” (1 Pet 4:17), and “obey not” translated apeitheo.
I was thinking about translators translating two different Greek words with the same English word in the same verse.  One came to mind, James 1:17:  “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.”  The two words translated “gift” are two different Greek words, dosis and dorema.  They have two different nuances of meaning.  The ESV translates it identically to the KJV.  The NIV doesn’t even translate the first “gift, so it’s translation is “every good and perfect gift,” as if there weren’t even two words used.  The NASV seems to take in the difference, “every good thing given and every perfect gift.”
The difference between the two Greek words is that dosis puts an emphasis on the giving of the thing and dorema on the thing given.  The use of both words elevates the praise to the giving and gifts of and from God the Father.  The NASV tries to show that difference, but I think very few people would catch the difference in the mere reading.  There are two different adjectives used too, “good” and “perfect.”  I know that this occurs elsewhere in the New Testament, two different Greek words translated with the same English word.  I believe someone should rely on the original language understanding to define them.  It’s very difficult for the meaning to show up in an English word.  This will happen.
Ward strains so much to argue for modern versions from John 3:36, that I’m concerned he could pull or tear a muscle.  It’s not worth 9 pages and over 4,500 words, like he uses.  Let us rejoice that by the grace and providence of God the King James translators knew what they were doing in John 3:36 for the evangelism and then edification of English speaking people.  May you be edified by reading this post in contrast to the fear and unbelief caused by that of Ward.

AUTHORS OF THE BLOG

  • Kent Brandenburg
  • Thomas Ross

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