Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel:John 5:39-47

I have been fixated over this passage for that last few days.  I’ll do a little analysis on the Greek text first, then I’ll share some thoughts on this for today’s church.

39 "You carefully examine the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life.  Those Scriptures are the ones that testify about me.  40 You don’t want to come to me so that you may have life.
41 "I don’t accept honor from people, 42 but I have known you that you don’t have the love of God within you.  43 I have come in the name of my Father, and you don’t accept me.  If another comes in his own name, you will accept him.  44 How are you able to believe while accepting honor from one another and not seeking the honor which is from the only God?
45 "Don’t think that I will accuse you before the Father.  The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you placed your hope.  46 For if you have believed Moses, you would have believed in me.  For he wrote about me.  47 Now if you don’t believe those writings, how will you believe in my statements?"

This dialog is between Jesus and Jewish leaders.  He has healed a sick person and told him to pick up his mat and go.  This was done on the Sabbath.  The Jewish leaders are so upset with Jesus, that they want to kill him.  Up onto this point, Jesus has been describing to them that he has the authority to do what he does because he is doing the works of his Father who has sent him.

Jesus starts our verse 39 with ἐραυνᾶτε τὰς γραφάς (You carefully examine the Scriptures).  BDAG defines ἐραυνάω as “to make a careful or thorough effort to learn something”.  The verb appears here in the present tense and carries a continual aspect.  Therefore, the Jewish leaders are continually examining the Scriptures.  The Jewish leaders think that they can find eternal life in the Torah.  In a bit of irony, Jesus agrees with them, but in a different way.  Jesus is the key to eternal life, not the law.  Torah did include the law, but it also contained this prophecy:

Deuteronomy 18:15 The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites.  You must listen to him. NIV11

The reason that the Jewish leaders didn’t want to get life from Jesus is because they were too busy “glorying” over other like-minded men (one another).  In verses 41-44, John uses δόξα which is normally translated as “glory”.  Here, it is being used as “honor as enhancement or recognition of status or performance”.  I’ve translated it as “honor”.  It could also be translated as “fame”.  The “honor”, “fame” or “glory” that the Jews wanted was around how well they kept the law.  They were so fixated on keeping the law, they missed Jesus.  They were only studying a part of the Scriptures; the ones that contained the law.  They missed the prophecy about the one who would have “life”.

Their hope was in Moses and his writing, but ironically, it is Moses who is continually accusing (present tense verb again) them before God.  Why?  Because they didn’t believe everything that Moses wrote, or at least they ignored some of the things that Moses wrote, thus not believing all of it.  In the Greek text of verse 46, there is an untranslatable Greek particle ἂν.  This makes the last part of the sentence contingent on the first part.  Therefore, they can’t believe in Jesus because they don’t believe what Moses wrote about him.

In verse 47, Jesus says: “Now if you don’t believe those writings (literally letters), how will you believe in my statements (words)?”  The Jews had to embrace the entire Word of God, or in this case the entire Torah, not just the parts where they could “glory” over each other for keeping.

Paul says that the Jews tried to establish their own righteousness through the law in Romans 10:3 because they didn’t submit to God’s righteousness.

Let’s fast-forward to today.  I’ve experienced many things in today’s churches.  I’ve seen many people embrace parts of the NT, but ignore much of the rest.  By doing so, have we missed Jesus?  I’ve been to conferences where the platforms were built very large to get all of the preachers up there.  It then took over an hour to “honor” all of them.  Are we receiving glory from each other over glory from the only God?  Is it fame we seek, instead of God?  Instead of “God’s church”, it’s now Bro. So and So’s church.  Instead of the Lord’s people, it’s now Bro. So and So’s saints.  A friend of mine told me one time that people sometimes worship their doctrine more than they worship God.  I’m starting to believe that!  Are we trying to establish our righteousness with our doctrines and not submit to God’s righteousness?  Have we missed Jesus?

The Dove

Genesis 8:8-12 ESV 

Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.

John 1:32-33

Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. ’

      God speaks to us about the same thing in these two accounts.  In Genesis, Noah releases the dove for a sign of dry land. The first time the dove returns empty handed. This could remind us of Adam's failure. The second time the dove returns with an olive branch. This could remind us of Israel's failure as a vessel for the Spirit. The third time the dove is released it does not come back.  It has found a place on earth.

     In John's Gospel we see the dove descend on Jesus and remain. The Spirit has at last found a twig of life in the branch of Jesse as prophesied. He is then poured out on the people as was also prophesied. 

     The water recedes around Noah and life on earth begins anew. Those that entered the ark live.

      In Revelation we find the pattern of the flood account repeated. The sea disappears and is no more. Those that entered the body of Christ will live on a new earth. 

Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel: 5:19-47

Throughout these passages, Jesus refers to the Father as “the one who sent me”.  John actually creates what I will call a “stylist word play” around two Greek verbs that mean “to send”.  The first one is πέμπω (pempo).  It occurs 4 times in our said passage.  The second one is ἀποστέλλω (apostello).  It occurs 3 times in our said passage.  In one of those uses, it refers to John.

I should also say that this is a habitual word play as it occurs throughout John’s Gospel.

Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel:5:20

I’ve argued many times that φιλέω/phleo and ἀγαπάω/agapao are used interchangeably throughout the NT.  Both verbs mean “I love”.  Most people are familiar with the cognate noun of ἀγαπάω which is ἀγάπη/agape.  Does John interchange these verbs?

Let’s take a look at John 5:20:

20 ὁ γὰρ πατὴρ φιλεῖ τὸν υἱὸν καὶ πάντα δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ ἃ αὐτὸς ποιεῖ, καὶ μείζονα τούτων δείξει αὐτῷ ἔργα, ἵνα ὑμεῖς θαυμάζητε.

20 For the Father loves the son and shows him all things which he himself does.  He (God) will show him (the son) greater works than these, so that you may be amazed.

Sometimes we have to be untaught what we’ve been taught!

Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel:5:18

There are a couple of things about 5:18 I would like to show.  

First, John uses λύω (to loose) to describe how Jesus “broke” the Sabbath.  It would be rendered: 

...because not only was he loosing the Sabbath...

I should make known that “was loosing” is in the imperfect tense and carries a continual aspect.  λύω is use in the NT to describe “breaking” from time to time.

Finally, word order in the Greek text can be maddening at times.  For instance, let’s look at the last part of 18 in the Greek word order.

...but also father one’s own was saying the God equal himself making to the to God.

Here is the sentence in readable English:

...but he was also calling (saying) God his own father making himself equal to/with God.

"was saying/calling" is also in the imperfect tense, thus carries a continual aspect. 

Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel:5:7

It is always interesting the vocabulary that is used to the NT to express certain things.  One very common verb in the NT that is used for all kinds of action is βάλλω which basically means “to throw”.  Sometimes it’s used in other ways though.

7 ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ ὁ ἀσθενῶν· κύριε, ἄνθρωπον οὐκ ἔχω ἵνα ὅταν ταραχθῇ τὸ ὕδωρ βάλῃ με εἰς τὴν κολυμβήθραν· ἐν ᾧ δὲ ἔρχομαι ἐγώ, ἄλλος πρὸ ἐμοῦ καταβαίνει. 

7 The sick man replied to him, “Sir, I don’t have a man that can throw me into the pool when the water is stirred.  Now while I go in, another one goes down before me.” 

Of course, it is never translated as such in English Bibles.  I should also add that where I have translated “the sick man”, the Greek is “the one who is weak”.  It is very common in the NT for sick people to be referred to as being weak.

Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel: 4:43-54

Back in August of this year, a controversy brew over a blog post when the author of that blog said that Jesus healed the Centurion’s παῖς (pais) in Matthew 8:5-13 and in Luke 7:1-10.  The author said that παῖς (pais) was a same sex partner.  Of course, παῖς (pais) doesn’t mean that.  In John 4:43-54, we see a similar story where John uses παῖς (pais) in verse  51.  A παῖς (pais) can be a minor child (boy or girl) or it is sometimes used as a servant.  In this case, John means “a young son”.  In fact, he creates a word play in this entire passage.  In verse 46, John writes: Καὶ ἦν τις βασιλικὸς οὗ ὁ υἱὸς ἠσθένει ἐν Καφαρναούμ. (And there was a royal official whose son was sick in Capernaum.)  Here, John uses the normal word for son υἱὸς (huios).  In verse 49, the royal official says κύριε, κατάβηθι πρὶν ἀποθανεῖν τὸ παιδίον μου (Sir/Lord, come down before my child dies).  παιδίον (paidion) is normally used for a young child.  In verse 50, Jesus replies to him: ὁ υἱός σου ζῇ (your son lives).  Finally, in verse 51 we have: οἱ δοῦλοι αὐτοῦ ὑπήντησαν αὐτῷ λέγοντες ὅτι ὁ παῖς αὐτοῦ ζῇ. (his slaves met him saying that his child lives.)

It is obvious from this context that παῖς (pais) here was the royal official’s young male child, regardless of John’s word plays.