Lecture 3.docx

I'll say two things. One, you probably get this this time of year when people come from other parts of North America to teach here, but I just went outside and I just want you to know you don't deserve this. You know? This is this is this is baseball weather. So that's the first thing. And glory to...

I'll say two things. One, you probably get this this time of year when people come from other parts of North America to teach here, but I just went outside and I just want you to know you don't deserve this. You know? This is this is this is baseball weather. So that's the first thing. And glory to God for such a wonderful day. Second thing is, you know, doing your worksheets, going over this stuff. I remember my Spanish teacher in high school saying, repetition is a form of learning. It's the only thing she ever said in English. And you know, she was right. And not a lot of you are going to become Greek teachers. And there'll be a lot of pressure on you to forget things, especially that are kind of hard to put in there and to retain it all. It's called tissue rejection. And so, you know, it does happen that people work hard enough to pass their Greek and Hebrew requirements, but then five years later, it's all gone. I don't know if there's a guarantee against that happening in any given case. But one thing that can minimize it happening is if you you over learn in the three years, four years you've got you're doing your M.Div. In other words, you go over and over things so many times that if you hadn't gone over them that many times, you would have forgotten. You know, and there's a zone in which you've learned something and you think, why am I doing this again? I already know it. But after you do it five times or ten times, you know, on your deathbed, you would still be able to parse that verb or know that construction. So I just want to encourage you, I know this is First John. This isn't like Hebrews or something exotic in the New Testament. This is a book that often we study at the end of first year Greek. I must say every time I go over it, you know, and take any time, I still see things I didn't see before. And I've been going over First John since 1977. So there's still a lot to learn. But even just from, you know, the direct result, the direct reason why you're here in seminary, which is not to get credits to graduate. I mean, that's a means to an end. But the end is to get tools that three years from now, five years from now, ten years from now, are going to continue to be working on you. And, you know, changing the way you look at the Word of God and giving you more options than you would have had to be a servant of the Word. So especially for this week, I mean, I hope a lot of you aren't working 40 hours this week if you have to find, but I hope a lot of you have time, you know, in the afternoons to, you know, prepare maybe your worksheet for the next day. Read Stot, read Lou. I treat these weeks as a spiritual retreat. And they are. And I do this mainly overseas. You know, when I went to Romania, I don't know, 26, 28 times in the span of about 15 years, I would teach 30, 35 hours a week. I'm only teaching 28 this week, I think. But teaching, you know, teaching a lot of hours. And I realize it's hard on students. It can also be hard on teachers. But on the other hand, it's not hard on us in terms of the intentions because of which we come to a place like this. We come to be changed by God. And so getting a little monastic, you know, and getting a little over the edge, you know, and kind of going beyond what we would normally do. I'm not saying now, don't watch the football game tonight. I'm not saying that. You may not watch all the football game tonight. Because who knows? You may say, you know something? It's a blowout in the first quarter. And I'll look at it in the fourth quarter or something like that. I wasn't really intending to go anywhere on the football game tonight. I'm just saying, you know, don't be afraid to over learn 1 John. Because the more stuff you over learn, that'll be stuff that's like bedrock. And you know, you can build all your other knowledge of Greek on something. And there'll always be a certain amount that's in atrophy. But if you're renewing your knowledge, do we have any pastors here who actually do continue to use Greek in your ministry? Okay. To what do you attribute that? You just graduated last year? I took a year in college at Masters College. It took the two years here at the seminary. And then over the years, periodically, I'll reread through mounts and matron just almost devotionally, just a little bit at a time, and I'll go over parts. So I wouldn't say I'm as proficient as current students right now. But I definitely understand everything you're talking about. And I passed the quiz. So another another testimony. Yeah. So how long since you graduated? Six, six. And I had some families approach me and asked me if I would teach them Greek. So I had to by others asking me to do so. And so this is my second time teaching mounts through 12, 12 units. Okay. And you probably know it better now than you did when you were in seminary. Even the second time around better than the first time around. Every time it gets better. Yes. I graduated in 95. And the reason why I still know my Greek and Hebrew is because I'm still single. Bless me with a wife or children. So I spend my time. Second, I also teach there have been lay Christians who have asked me because they're interested in Greek and they're interested in Hebrew. So I continually teach first year Greek first year Hebrew and that has allowed me to retain and sharpen my grasp of biblical languages. And third, I translate every passage I preach from to the best of time I have. And so I've sharpened all my languages. Has it made a difference spiritually for you? I feel like a closer to God when I translate. Anybody else? Well, I think that makes the point. Thank you. Okay. Let's have Ryan. You lead off and then you alternate with Matthew. Will, excuse me. Will, is it Will Matthews? Matthew, no, okay. Will Peterson. All right. Thank you. Okay, guys. Two, three, three, five, three, ten, eleven, five, I think eight, eleven, ten, three, five, two, five, nine, one, two, two, two, and four. Maybe I added an extra two in it. Well, let's think about your chi there. I changed it to an eight based upon the discussion we had in verse one, two, chapter one. So I took a stab at that in class. It may be a ten. I don't know. Well, you translated as an and, which is a ten. Did you change that in your final translation? No, I did not. It was simply as I was reviewing and I saw that the, those two conjunctions there. So, well, I think in this case, because the second junction here is not another and, it's an if. Okay. So we can quibble maybe about whether it should be and, because it may be an adversative conjunction. It might be but. But I don't think we can quibble with your ten. Okay. So the devil must have made you do it. Or just fear. Okay. The cross references, can you see that in my other turn? You're getting there. Cross reference I have is John 14, 16. It says, I will ask the father, he will give you another hope. It's the same word as advocate in this, in chapter two, verse one. And we can see that the word parakleton is used both to describe Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The commentary interaction is, not only does this verse state the purpose of why John is writing and writing these things so that you may not sin, but we can also see according to stock that John's purpose is to prevent sin as well, is to prevent sin and not just condemn it. There's a symmetrical construction that comes in, this is quoted from him, chapter one, verses nine and ten, unless it should be thought that the frank admission and forgiveness of sins allows us to think lightly of them, instead of adding if as he does in verses nine and ten. It says, so if we confess our sins. And then the second one is, if we say we have not sinned, John begins this new sentence in order to enlarge on the subject of sin in the Christian. And he does this by first stating it negatively so that you may not sin and then positively if anyone does. Can you bring your first sheet back down just for a second here? On the cross-reference analysis, because somebody brought up, somebody who's been doing some of their commentary reading, brought up an article that C.H. Dodd wrote in the late 1940s in which, for English language readers, he sort of put out there right in the open a whole bunch of arguments for the stylistic differences between John's gospel and the epistles and argued that they had to be different writers because of stylistic differences. And you'll get that, a sample of that when you read Stott, because Stott mentions Dodd's article, then who was I talking to about that? I think I said T.W. Manson. I think it might be W.F. Howard. It might have been W.F. Howard that replies to Dodd. But this is one of the points that Dodd makes. He says in John's gospel, the paracletos is the Holy Spirit, but in 1 John, the paracletos is Jesus. See? Different writers. So I, you know, this, some people are not going to be very, find that very compelling logic. Is it possible maybe that the word could refer to both and that Jesus could have called the Holy Spirit the paracletos and John can call Jesus the paracletos? Is it possible? You know, and that, so it's not necessarily two different writers. I just thought I'd, you know, throw that out there and inspire you to read Stott's introduction. My final translation is, my children, I'm writing these things to you in order that you do not sin, and if anyone sins, we have an advocate from the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. And then the, my insight, the dual purpose of John's letter is both meant for instruction and encouragement, and it can echo Paul's words in Romans 6, 1, and 2, that if anyone should continue sinning, and it's clear that John's desire for his readers is to understand the grace and mercy of the Lord while at the same time not driving them to anti-nominism. Isn't it meta to patrosse? Can I see your Greek text again? Or pros, pros ton, okay, pros ton patera. And you translate pros from. Why do you translate pros from? Did you find from as a lexical meaning of pros somewhere? No, it was, it was a mistake. Because you, I mean, what did you learn the definition of pros when you took Greek? To toward. To toward, with, but I don't, I doubt you're going to find any where pros means from. So maybe this is the one place that needs to be translated from, but you need a, you need a special warrant to translate pros as from if you can't find it in a lexicon. Yeah, that was just the first mistake. So that's not to say that he's not from the father, but his, see the stress here is, and of course he shares with other New Testament writers, and we confess it in the Apostles Creed, he's at the right hand of God, and he's making intercession for the saints. So he's an advocate in the presence of pros. It's the same word, of course, that's in John 1, 1. In the beginning was the word, and the word was pros tan thean, was with God. It might even sort of be calling forth that idea of the son being with the father, which is a very powerful idea. So you really trashed this verse, didn't you? All right, we have an advocate with the father. Okay, next verse, thank you, Ryan. You'll get another chance in verse three, okay? We just lost one in the enrollment of the seminary, you know. I realize that my printer kind of smashed things together, so it's, I try to draw a line to differentiate between the words there, but the numbers are 10, 3, 2, 5, 9, 1, 2, 3, 11, 9, 1, 3, 10, 8, next line, 10, 8, 9, 4, 1, and 2. Any questions? Not only did your printer kind of smash together, but it moved everything, like, to the right. U periton hemeterone De is a 10. Monon, and you said monon is what? 8? Yes. Okay, any questions on the number? Yes? Could you zoom in a little bit, make it a little bigger? Zoom a bit. A little bit. Other way. Even more. Okay, then you can look at your monitor, and that'll tell you what we can see. Thank you for the suggestion. Okay. All right, cross-reference analysis. Paul uses the same elasmos in Romans 325. He talks about God putting Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood, and which that propitiation is received by faith. Commentary analysis. When comparing the two commentaries on the word elasmos, it becomes quite clear that the authors have two different views. While Stott launches into a full on explanation of Christ as a sacrifice for our sin, Lou writes, there is no reference here to Jesus' blood or death in no hint of a sacrificial framework. And I wrote this to maybe try to give her a little bit of credit. If we were to look only at this verse, that might be or could be a legitimate statement, though the word itself carries with it the concept of Jesus' death. However, a quick glance at the near context of chapter 1 verse 7 clearly shows the sacrificial scene which John pictures. In regards to the phrase the whole world, John cannot mean that all we need is your sheet pushed up. And you know, over this a little bit. This is an example of why it's so interesting to read commentaries. Because you know, people say sometimes the most bizarre things. There's no reference here to Jesus' blood or death and no hint of a sacrificial framework. In the first place, it's debatable. In the second place, now this is going to cut closer to the bone, it's very common in our circles to hear people make points from the text based on what it doesn't say. That's what it doesn't say. Now it doesn't say. And it doesn't say. What do we call that kind of an argument? An argument from silence. So you know, be very careful about using arguments from silence because they'll come back and bite you. Because you can prove almost anything based on what the Bible doesn't say somewhere. But the point is what it does say, not what you can imagine it would have said, but didn't say. And actually watch for this in Lou. Lou uses this argument a lot. That it doesn't say this and doesn't say that. And often what she says it doesn't say is what Christians have always thought it said. Alright, that's just an observation. So you know, thanks for pointing out that particular passage. Because as I said before, while I think God is light is sort of the, it's close to a controlling metaphor for God that we find in 1 John. And I think God is sovereign for the writer of 1 John. The light of God is seen, and here you go to chapter 4, where he talks about God's love. God is love, in this is love. Not that we love God, but he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation. In other words, who God is, whether you want to talk about love or light, we know God in his incommunicable attributes. Foremost, through the death of Christ. Because if it weren't for the death of Christ, we would be in no position to come into fellowship with God, and even get to first base in beginning to behold his holiness. You know, it's a lot harder to come into God's presence than we think. We're all born Gnostics. You know, and we live in a society of Gnostics. People think that spirituality is something that you just kind of intuit, or you meditate, or you take this class, or you follow this life philosophy. And it's a cerebral, or an intuitive, or an emotional, or a sensual experience. You know, you learn about God by experience. You don't get anywhere as a sinner approaching God and his holiness by your experience, or by your intellect, or anything. We've got a sin problem. We are locked up in darkness. It's like we're in chains in a dungeon. I love that line in, and can it be? Long my imprisoned soul, long my, somebody quote it. Lay fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off. My heart, my soul was free. I rose, went forth, and followed thee. And that was an Armenian that wrote that. You know? I mean, how much more would a reform thinker see the tie between the light of God and our deliverance from darkness? So what's your next insight? What are you waiting for? In regards to the phrase the whole world, John cannot mean that all sins are pardoned automatically because of what Christ did. Just a few verses up he explained that whoever continually walks in sin will claim to have fellowship with God as a liar. Only those who acknowledge their sin and need for an advocate can have true fellowship with God. Therefore this means as Stott writes, a universal pardon is offered, offered universally but not applied universally. Final translation is, and he is the propitiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also for the whole world. And this is a case where if you wanted to throw the himself in, you know, you probably would have justification. Grounded insight, Jesus Christ is a Christian's advocate before the Father because he is the propitiation for our sins. And the only way he could be the propitiation for our sins is by living a righteous life, which references back to the verse just before this. John's pointing to the righteous life, the atoning death, and the current ministry of Jesus Christ. Yeah, he is propitiation. I mean propitiate, it focuses on the atoning and especially on the satisfaction of God's wrath. But of course he wouldn't have been in a position to do that if he hadn't lived a righteous life. And John's not making a historical point that he died on the cross. He's making a current point, the abiding significance of Jesus' death for our sins. Yeah? Would you agree with Scott's comment that this is a universal offer being made here? Well, of course that's not, he doesn't have that in quotation marks. So that's kind of your paraphrase of what he said. Universal pardon is offered in quotation marks. It's sort of like the psalmist saying that God's glory has gone out over all the earth. It's promulgated everywhere. So it depends on what you mean by offer, I guess. How would you interpret that Christ is the propitiation for the whole world? Well, you know, I spent two, three, four pages of my commentary trying to discuss that. And I do believe in a particular atonement. I grew up just assuming unlimited atonement because that's all I ever heard. But I don't think that's what scripture teaches. I think we should preach the gospel to every living creature. But what I said in my commentary, and it could be wrong, I related what John says, first of all, of course, to the salvation of the elect. He's the atonement for our sins. The our meaning John, the apostles, Israel, the Gentiles, everybody who is in the people of God, they're saved by Christ's propitiation. But then he makes the point not ours only, but for those of the whole world. And some want to say he's speaking there as a Jew, and he's saying not just for us Jews, but for the elect of all nations. That's probably a major option in interpreting. For whatever reasons, over the years I have been moved by, I think it's Romans 3, talks about God overlooking the sins that were committed in the past. Acts 13 talks about the times of ignorance that God overlooked. Acts 17 at Athens, Paul talks about the times of ignorance that God overlooked. And I've often thought about how could God wait so long and do so little for the sins of so many? And I guess I've always suspected that what we call common grace, God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. I guess you can just say common grace is just the overflow of God's goodness to everybody. But in my commentary I suggest that common grace draws on the efficacy of Christ's death for sin. In other words, Christ satisfied God's wrath to an extent that God could pass over the sins formerly committed in antiquity, all through the eons of antiquity knowing that his wrath was going to fall on Christ. And that's propitiation is about wrath. Maybe that's implicit in your remarks, but I want to hammer on that. Because the other word that gets used, and there's a long discussion, maybe you've done term papers on this, but the word that the RSV translate this word as expiate. And expiate means to dismiss. And expiation came into the RSV because the people that translated the RSV were mainline scholars, mainly Protestants in the 40s and early 50s, a couple of Roman Catholics, a couple of Jews, but almost all Protestants. And they had really bit hard on the notion of God being a God of universal love and wrath being sort of a superstitious notion of the past. So God just dismissed sin. Why? Because he's the God of love. And he doesn't punish sin. That's kind of a barbaric notion. But the problem is the word propitiation in its pagan usage and also in its Old Testament correlates, it has to do with God's decreed punishment for sin, namely death, with God's wrath for sin being placated, being satisfied. And the analogy that I use is if you go out here after a lunch and on this freeway, or not freeway, the boulevard here, the speed limit is 35, which means probably 55, and you see a child out there wander into the street. And so you spread out because you've got a child. And so you have compassion. If you don't have children, you think, well, there's a dumb child. If you've got a child, then you've got compassion on children. And you run out there and you grab the child and you push them out of the way. But unfortunately, there was a truck coming. And the momentum of that truck, just the physics of it, were that if it hit that kid, it would have flattened it. But you got the kid out of the way, unfortunately not fast enough. So you absorbed the physics of that situation. You propitiated the truck. The physics of the situation being what it was, the tonnage and the force and all that sort of thing, your body was a propitiation for the physics of those circumstances that were set in motion. And when we sin against God, when we break God's law, there are some things that are set in motion. The wages of sin, if you want to use a payday metaphor, the wages of sin is death. And death is God's hot displeasure. When sinners stand before an angry God, it's not good news. The good news is that Christ propitiated God. He propitiated the wrath of God. You can say God or you can say the wrath of God, however you want to term that. And C.H. Dodd argued in the 40s and early 50s that it should be expiation. And it was especially Leon Morris who responded to Dodd and showed that you cannot translate propitiate as expiate and not be honest lexically with the data. So, again, I could be wrong, but my proposal was that when he says those of the whole world, is he's simply saying there's like a piece of energy. There's a superfluity to the atonement. It doesn't save the unregenerate or doesn't save the non-elect, but it makes it possible for God to have a day like this over all L.A. despite all the stuff that's going on here that someday will incur his wrath. One reason I'm told that I'm not staying at the hotel they first booked me in here in Burbank, are we in Burbank? I don't know. They said your hotel during the week you're there is hosting an adult entertainment convention. I thought, well, I'm an adult. Ah, but then I realized what they were saying. I mean, that's L.A., isn't it? I mean, think of all the corruption, but then think of how idyllic California is and how good God is year after year, decade after decade, and he doesn't lower the boom. It's kind of like the Canaanites from the time of Abraham until the time of Joshua. God didn't give Abraham the land when he promised it to him. He said the time of the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full, so he gave the Canaanites 400 years more with Melchizedek and whoever else was around there to repent before he lowered the boom on them with Joshua and the children of Israel. So I don't know if that's right, and I've had people say to me, you can't do that. You cannot have one smidgen of efficacy for the non-elect in Christ's Death on the Cross. If Christ's Death on the Cross does anything for the non-elect, then it's a universal atonement. I'm a New Testament person. I'm not a theologian, and so I haven't spent years and years reading on theories of the atonement and knowing what I think about whether I've given away the story by making this proposal. But that's my proposal, is that God can do good things for everybody because Christ's Death bought time. It bought time for the world. It doesn't mean his wrath is not going to fall on all the non-elect. But it does mean because in Old Testament times he knew nobody was getting by with anything. Sodom and Gomorrah weren't getting by with anything. Saul was not getting by with anything. All the false prophets in the Old Testament, they weren't getting by with anything even though maybe when you read Proverbs, you read all about how the wicked prosper. Why did the wicked prosper? Well, because God's wrath was so totally satisfied in his Son that he could allow people to live and die and be wicked and be prosperous on God's tap. But don't worry, when the sinless Son of God atones for sin, he's going to justify the largesse of God to everybody, but also reinforce the justice in the non-elect eventually getting their eschatological dose of God's disfavor. So I try to put that into words in the commentary. Thank you. Are you making deals with your friends so that they'll ask me questions and so I don't ask you parsing and stuff like that? Yes? I have a quick question on why he didn't use the article for Chilasmos. That's a case where the anarthris noun, it could be because Jesus is so definite and his office of propitiator is so definite that it would just be felt as the propitiation. And so it's not wrong to translate it with a definite article. Especially when our option in English is either the propitiation or a propitiation as if there could be six or eight of them. So your decision as a translator, do I want to give the idea that in Greek it's definitely indefinite? See what I mean? Because if you put A, then you're saying the Greek says not the. So this is, you know, I'm going to guess that some translations somewhere put A. But I think it would be more correct just because of the specificity of the son and of the office he fills there that in Greek it would be felt as a definite article. Chapter two, verse three. Ten, nine, three, five, ten, five, three, three, one, two, three, five. Cross references is 1 John 5, two. So it says, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe his commandments. John again reiterates the command that was first given here in chapter two, verse three, demonstrates that he does not move beyond the basic command that we are to keep his commandments. So you mean the basic command here. Yeah. And by the way, we don't go through all this verbal stuff, but you as you're watching, keep your eye on that. And if you see an error, you know, throw your hand up so we can correct the person who's presenting. Are there errors? Well, you don't have an accent on Te Reo. So, I mean, I wasn't thinking about errors, but now you bring it up. Let's see here. Present act of indicative, first person, genusco, present act of subjunctive, first person, plural. So, yeah, it looks all right. Yeah, there's no accent. I could not figure out an accent. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Commentaries, Stott states that the phrase we know that is a characteristic phrase of this letter. The repetition of this expression in the letter shows that the author's purpose is to supply tests for which the genuine Christian may discern the superior and vice versa. Here in verse three, we receive the first test. A believer can be seen through his actions of keeping the commandments. Final translation. Please pop up your... There you go. In this, we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. Now... Sir. And in this, we know, are you referring to keeping his commandments? Yes. Then you probably want a colon here. Okay. Because you're saying, this is how we know that we're going to know him, colon, if we keep his commandments. If that's what you're saying. Yes, it is. Because the way you have it here with the comma, it makes it sound... It's possible that the en-auteu refers to stuff before it. Yep. And then this is the condition that we know that we've come to know him through what has come before it. Okay. So you've got to... Many of you know that the en-touteau by this in 1 John sometimes is anaphoric and sometimes it's cataphoric. Sometimes it points up, sometimes it points down or ahead in the context. So in your translation, you want to try to... If you think you know which way it's pointing, say in English what you have to to make that clear. If you think it's ambiguous, then leave it ambiguous. But by putting the colon, you make it definite. This is how we come to know him or know that we come to know by keeping his commandments. In the grounded insight, the simplicity of the test, keep his commandments, must not cause us to have an apathetic view towards John commands. John is clear that a true spiritual awakening will bring about change because of our transformed nature. This change does not occur. It gives grounds to doubt the genuineness of that awakening. This command echoes the words of Christ in Matthew 17. You will know them by their fruits. Okay. I think there's a lot more to say about this, but let's go to the next verse. One, six, ten, five, three, ten, one, two, three, eleven, five, two, five, ten, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty, twenty three, one, two, eleven, five. On the first line you've got tas ento las autume teron. You got that as a five. Is that a five? It's a participle. So that should be, that should be a six. Right over there, that five. Five, so six, there you go. Then two, five. Ten, nine, three, one, two, eleven, five. Any other questions about the numbers? Okay. Cross reference, first John 322. The keeping of God's commandments results in answered prayer. So John just continues with the keeping of God's commandments, but then this time applies it to getting what you asked for in the grammar. By the way, notice how this comes into augment sincerity. You know, for John, commandments, keeping commandments are very important. A straight, this commentary interaction grammar is, this is a straightforward verse, both commentators point out the negative example here, contrasted with the positive in the previous verse. Final translation, the one who says he has known him and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. Grounded insight, yet again John points out that lack of obedience to God proves a lack of knowing God. If one makes this claim in such circumstances, he is a liar and bears no truth whatsoever. Okay, go back to your Greek text. And we don't have your parsing here, right? So can you parse Egnoka, fourth word? Can anyone parse Egnoka? First singular, perfect active indicative. In your translation you've got third singular, right? You say the one who says he has known him. But it says the one who says that I have known him. So a couple suggestions. One might be that that Hati, it's the least common use of Hati, but there are three basic uses of Hati. One is causative, because, one is continuative, that. The third is, are you saying quotational? Okay, quotational. You need to use a vague Latin sounding word, that makes you sound like a scholar. Recitative, Hati recitative. Okay? I mean, what are you paying tuition for except to use unusual Latin words? But that's the third, I mean, most grammars will say Hati recitative, which means quotational. But I mean, quotational is not really a word in English. And what it does, it serves as double quotation marks. The person saying comma quotation, I, and I'm going to suggest we translate that, really know him, or I have come to know him, because it's perfect. And on older accounts, perfect means the continuing effect of a past action. Verbal aspect theory today is going more along the lines, that it stresses the settled state without prejudice to some action in the past. And they call that stative. That when you get a perfect like this, it's a stative connotation. It's emphasizing the enduring condition of the verbal action implied in the verb. So the one saying comma quotation, I have come to know him, or I really know him, comma close quotation. And or you could also make that chi and verse of but is not keeping his commandments. He's a liar. However you do it, you've got to change it to I. The one who says, and this is a good paraphrase, but you've got to account for the first person plural, or first person singular. So you can't have he here. So I think the only way to do it is with a quotation mark. The one who says comma quotation mark, I, if you want to say have known him, comma quotation mark, and does not keep his commandments. This is where the parsing is a good check. Because if you translate third singular, but your parsing is first singular, then you know you've got a problem. Insight? Did you already give the insight? Yes you did. Okay. Last verse of this section. Yes. Would you place, is it legitimate to place emphasis on the present tense there as this is a current state of how this person is living out their life? It's probably not wrong to explain it that way. You've got somebody saying, but not keeping. So it does tend, it has the feel of a chronic situation. This is their MO. They go around saying, hey, you know, I've come to know the Lord. And they're not keeping his commands. Well I know a lot of people, that's not a problem. Because that's what grace is for, right? I mean there's a very, very common strand of understanding of grace. Is that that's what God is there for. And we call that sin management technique. And there are people wanting to come to church for your help in their managing their sins. They're not going to give up their sins. In fact they don't even think they're sins. Because God's grace is so large and God is love and that means that as believers we really, we don't have the consequences of sin in our lives. Why? Because we're believers. Isn't it great that we sin, sin, sin, sin, sin? And God forgets, forgets. God forgets, forgets. We do our job, he does his job. But obviously that falls way short of a belief in the Christ who died and rose. And Paul stresses in Romans 8, 11 that Christ's death can give life even to our mortal bodies. Granted our bodies are mortally, deathly, mortal. They tend to want to let us down, they tend to betray us. Our bodies want to sin. But because Christ rose from the dead in this life, here and now, we can get the upper hand experientially over that downward pull. By this way you get the ongoing, by the ongoing infusion. We can be keeping his commandments. We're not going to be perfect. But John uses a lot of that perfecting language. That Christ perfected both himself and that he fulfilled what he was called to do. And through faith he perfects those who are united with him. And that's, you know, there's a dynamic process going on there. So yeah, I think that's part of, I think it's a valid observation. And it's going to come into play when we get to no one who's born of God's sins. Alright? 3, 10, 11, 5, 3, 1, 2, 8, 9, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2, 5, 9, 2, 5, 10, 9, 3, 5. Anybody got a suggestion on the numbers? Second line and 2 toe. 2 toe. 3. The cross reference. John 14, 21. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father. And I will love him and will disclose myself to him. The love of God is given to us as a gift and blessing from the Lord when we keep his word. Commentary. Stott declares that by this we know points back to the preceding principle. The litmus test continues with the command that those in Christ keep his word. This is the second principle which John gives to better illustrate those who have come to know him. The Christian is committed to keep and conform to God's word. My final translation. But whoever keeps his word, in him the love of God has truly been made perfect. As we know that we are in him. Grounded insight. The response of keeping God's word is an active illustration of God's love and work in your life. In his final commander test, John is emphatically declaring that God's love is evident on those who keep his word. And whoever comes to know him will keep his commands and his word and will be blessed by the perfect love of God. Let's give a hand to those presentations. In some ways, if... And I'm not saying you have to believe what I say, but I'm here this week in part to announce that God is light. And to call us to a new appreciation for God. Which, if in eternity... I think our theory is, when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise when we first begun. I don't think it's because we go brain dead and we're just like locked in place. I think the idea is God is so magnificent that we will never be able to exhaust the wonder at his excellence. It's like an expanding universe. There's an expanding grandeur to God that will never exhaust. And I think the apostles had begun to see that and that's why they talk so much about God. And not just the blessings of God, but God himself. The other thing that I try to stress in my thinking about 1 John is that actually in John's rhetorical world, he probably talks a lot about knowing God. And to know God, you have to move from unbelief to belief. Or maybe false doctrine, Jesus is not the Christ, to true doctrine. Or maybe from a deficient knowledge of God to a sufficient knowledge of God. And I call that the Pistic Trajectory. John writes to call us to believe. However, also in John there's an ethical trajectory. Those who don't know God disobey God. They don't keep his commands and so forth. So to know God, there's the midpoint of this line, you've got to move past the deficit side of this. You've got to move from disobedience to obedience. So now we've got two trajectories. We've got the Pistic and we've got the Ethical. And those trajectories could suggest to us a picture of the saving knowledge of God like this. If we disobey and we don't believe, we're in big trouble. If we believe, but we disobey, we're still in big trouble. That's what he's just been addressing in these verses. We might be ethically very ambitious, but be unbelievers. This would describe good works people. They do good works, but they don't believe in Christ. So it's really only in Quadrant One that we can locate authentic Christian life and confession. Where there is a belief in the authentic apostolic teaching, what the Bible says. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. And that belief is authenticated by obedience and good works. The problem comes when you study the Scriptures. And also, actually it wasn't study the Scriptures that first alerted me, it was pastoring. And I was in so many church settings, and especially with church leaders. Who, for example, there's no way to finesse it. They were racists. And I couldn't challenge them on doctrine. They were great on their doctrine. And I couldn't challenge them on their ethics. They weren't robbing banks. They tithed. They knew how to walk the Christian walk. But hard-hearted? Whoa! And hard-heartedness is never a good sign in the household of God. And there are a lot of people, I found out. They'll pass your doctrinal test. They believe in all things they're supposed to believe. And they live pretty good moral Christian lives. But they're not losing any sleep over the lost. They're not heartbroken over sometimes very, very flagrant sins. They've made their peace with God in their hard-heartedness. And it was with this stewing that I read Matthew 7, probably for the 20th time. And Jesus said, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, there's the Hebraic doubling. That's a confession of faith, isn't it? Lord, kurios, kurios. If you confess Jesus as kurios, did we not do great works in your name? And they list some of them. And Jesus says, I will say to them, depart from me, you evildoers, I never knew you. And that brings in the agapic dimension. Love, interpersonal knowledge. And so now we have eight octants. And if you can think of a horizontal plane, four boxes above it, horizontal plane, four boxes below it, you've got eight different boxes. And you can trace this out. I won't do it all. But you can have authentic belief, appropriate obedience, and authentic relationship. That's where X, Y, and Z are all positive. That's what John in 1 John is calling people to. He's calling people to a transformation through the gospel message that makes believers out of them, that makes doers out of them, and that makes God lovers out of them. And God lovers in such a way that it affects also how they regard other people. In other words, it makes sinner lovers out of them too. We tend to love people that we think are okay, at least they're enough like us that we can accept them. But then we don't like people that are ehh. But God, again, he causes rain to fall in just the other. And I know we're out of time. But I'm just introducing you to something that I wanted to revisit and think about all week. Because it's very easy to say, okay, you've got to believe, but then you've also got to obey. You've got to believe, but then you've also got to obey. That's really easy to condition people to do. You can condition people to think and to act like Christians. But how many people are going to stand before God and say, look, I went to church, I confessed, I knew, I understood, and I lived like a Christian. And he's going to say, I never knew you. Who are you? You know, that interpersonal knowledge of God that caused Jesus to say that, that's something that we need to work on this week. And all three of these. Because you know what a lot of people want to say is, well, you know, you're into love, I'm into obedience, and you're into doctrine, whatever. And it's really easy to be good at two and say, well, I'm not so strong on obedience. I'm not so strong on love. And God is so overwhelming in his light and so good, it's all or nothing with God. He calls us to trust. He calls us to response. And he calls us to the transformation of our affections.