Lecture 8.docx

It's a great thing that somehow God has marked us. God has slathered something on us. The word chrismah, you know, anoint, that's kind of a pretty formal word. When do you use anointing unless you're talking religionese? It really means to smear, to smear something. We're smeared. Or, you know, in t...

It's a great thing that somehow God has marked us. God has slathered something on us. The word chrismah, you know, anoint, that's kind of a pretty formal word. When do you use anointing unless you're talking religionese? It really means to smear, to smear something. We're smeared. Or, you know, in the old Ghostbusters movies, we're slimed. You know? God has slimed us, because He's like moved over us with something. And whether it's the Spirit or whether it's the saving word, it's life and light. And it's why there's any hope in the world. So as we think about our day and think about praying... We want to do so with an air of gratitude because God has touched us in this way. Most people relate this somehow back to the upper-room discourse when Jesus says various things to his disciples about the parakletos. I noticed I've got my old New American Standard with me this week. The New American Standard translates that as helper. I think the NIV goes in the direction of comforter, which is entirely too much like an undertaker to me. That word paracletos has a wide semantic possibility. I don't really like comforter. Encourager I would like maybe more, or fortifier. But I don't deny... Obviously, the necessity of the Holy Spirit. And while, of course, I wrote several pages on this in my commentary, which has the definitive answer to your question, Darrell, the main point I want to make is an understanding of this charisma, which minimizes the cognitive component of the knowledge of God. I think it is. It cannot be sustained from the Bible. And there are a lot of helper passages, but one of them I want to single out just to remind us that John 13 through 17 does not apply in the first instance to anybody in this room. The helper. The Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Jesus never said anything to you. He said things to the eleven. And all the helper passages have their first application to people like John. who, yes, was anointed with the Holy Spirit, but he was anointed by the Spirit in such a way that it would open up the things of Christ to him, which he personally experienced and saw and heard and touched and then was commissioned to pass along to other people. In other words, John's reception and commission was cognition rich. Cognition rich. And in the commentary, and we don't have to ask which commentary, the commentary, I've got a table on page 151 in which I lay out all the uses of oida, 15 times in 13 verses in 1 John. The anointing has a prominent cognitive dimension. You all understand. And really the core, Darrell, of the reason why I go in a word message, gospel direction with this is because the link here between chrismas and whatever it's related to is an understanding link. And there is a widespread idea that somehow the Holy Spirit relieves us of responsibility of the hard work of knowing things, the hard work of learning things, the discipline of submitting to the teaching of somebody that has been gifted in ways and has paid dues to come to understand things. That they need to beat into our skulls. That describes the eleven in the upper room. Jesus was with them for eleven years, or excuse me, for three years. And had to teach them many things and teach and teach and reteach. And then after he rose and ascended, they kind of had to learn it all again. Learning is an arduous process. And if you want a good example of how arduous it is, I don't think anybody on the face of this earth had more of the Holy Spirit than the Son of God. But the core of his teaching in his earthly days, the core of his teaching was the revealed written scriptures as they existed at that time. He interpreted himself with respect to the written word of God. On the road to mass, he opened their minds to understand all the scriptures. So for Jesus, who I think if anybody was smeared with the Spirit, he was, there's no shortcut for Jesus. He just can't like download, you know, a new packet of knowledge for the day. He's a man of prayer. You know, he's a man of being still and knowing. God the Father in the demands of the day and of going forth. And some days the power is present to heal, some days he has to trust God. But most of all, by his own witness, he's negotiating his walk before the Father and doing the things that please him in the light of the Word of God, which he has read and which he has celebrated in the synagogue. On the cross he is quoting until his dying hour. From his temptation when Satan comes at him and Jesus keeps saying, it is written, it is written, it is written. To the cross, I don't doubt that it is the Spirit that is enabling him in all this. But the means that the Spirit uses to point to Christ is the Word of God. So, you know, I like Marshall's suggestion that... the chrisma, you know, it's spirit and word, and in a sense when you have the word, in Christian understanding, you have the spirit because the word comes by the spirit. It's inspired by the spirit. So in saying, in putting the emphasis on the word of the message here, in my mind, I'm not saying this has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, but I still feel, although I can easily doubt myself here, I still feel on the whole... when he says, you, and I think this is emphatic here, you yourselves have an anointing, and of course anointing is in an emphatic position, an anointing have from the Holy One, and you know all things. And the an there could be, so you know all things. The anointing they have is the message they've received. Of course the Holy Spirit has to apply that message. But what I hear too often is the idea that the anointing basically, we don't need the word. We don't need to learn. And a rather extreme example of this. In the commentary, as I studied this out... As you go down the passage down to 27, kind of restates and extends things. I'll start with 26. These things I have written to you concerning those who are deceiving you. And or but you, could be emphatic, you yourselves, the anointing which you received from him, it abides in you. And you do not have need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, in contrast to the deceivers, and just as it taught you, remain in it, or abide in it." Now, I'll just read a little bit here. I want to get to a footnote. The verb adidocs, then, taught probably refers to an earlier period when John's readers were taught and confirmed in the faith. Each of the 11 times that this verb occurs in the Aristotelian Dictative in the New Testament, it refers back to a particular event. Three of these passages refer specifically to the didactic grounding of new believers. Anointing is intertwined with instruction. Out of this activity grows the potential for those who receive John's message to remain firm in it, to abide in Christ, or to abide in the anointing. And I comment here, it's not clear how Rensberger finds... a powerfully anti-authoritarian, nearly anarchic concept of the church and of Christian doctrine in this section, with John declaring that the only teaching needed is that which comes directly from the Holy Spirit. See, that's where a lot of people go with this. They pit word against spirit, and they say, what John is doing here is turning loose the community just to kind of... Kind of free associate, you know, let the Holy Spirit guide you because that's what it's about. It's about trusting yourself, trusting your inner intuition. If John really believed that, his letter would have been superfluous along with his appeals to God, Jesus, and commandments. It would also seem to reduce the meaning of their vaunted anointing. to a charismatic individualism hard to square with John Summons to shared particular beliefs and behaviors throughout the epistle. So I refer you to the broader discussion, but my argument's cumulative. It just seems overall to do much more justice to the totality. Of the letter, and if you go from 20 to 27, those are kind of bracketed by mentions of charisma. It just seems to do better justice to the semantic situation if we relate the charisma to the saving message and its effects, rather than to the Holy Spirit, sort of irrespective of any particular written definition of it. That simply creates a lot of exegetical difficulties. And in recent years, many excesses can be associated with people wanting to cut loose from the scripture because of the new direction. that the Holy Spirit is taking us. I mentioned earlier in the week, being part of a mainline church, and that mainline church was grappling with the hierarchies in church, the hierarchies moved to sort of normalize homosexual behavior. And their main argument was, this is how the Holy Spirit is leading us. I mean, it's not that we're going to do something evil and we think we can get by with it. It's a quite sanctimonious argument. It has to do with God and the Holy Spirit. And very noble rhetoric, which makes people who think that the Holy Spirit has something to do with the scriptures sound very archaic and almost diabolical and out of step. With the new breath and breeze of the word of God. And there's probably some of that going on in the background here. I think John is calling them back to the message that has been received more than a Holy Spirit which cuts them loose to sort of come up with new things that make it unnecessary for them to learn anything because they got it more or less by autopilot. Let us pray. Lord, for all of Your blessings, both in and among us by Your Spirit, and before our eyes by Your Word, we give You thanks and praise. We're reminded that faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God, and we thank You for the work of Your Holy Spirit to open our eyes and our hearts and to convict us and to make us desire belief. We thank you for the word that informs us so that we know what to put our trust in. And we thank you for the ongoing work of the word as it goes forth in all the world at all times. Lord, we pray today, your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We also pray, Maranatha. We pray, Lord Jesus, come and come quickly. And Lord, until you come, we ask that you would stir us up to seek faithfulness in all of our dealings and that we would be faithful before you in all of our dealings this very day and in this very class. We pray for your church in every corner of the globe in this hour. We think especially of countries where believers are being arrested and where people languish in prison cells as we speak. Lord, comfort them. Fill them with the assurance of your light and your hope. Make them strong for the demands that they face this day. Help their witness to do its powerful work in the lives of their accusers. My Lord, we pray that you would bring... the designs of the evil one to not in their circumstances and that you would clearly be seen in your glory and in your goodness at every turn. Thank you for your everlasting kingdom. Thank you for your call from darkness to light. And thank you for your assurance to be with us in all that we do today. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. The numbers would be 11, 5, 3, 10, 11, 5, 1, 2, 10, 10, 5, 3, 10, 10, 4, 2, 9, 1, 2, 11, 5. Alright, good. We're good there? On the cross reference, the one that brings it home with what you call it, the... The major one with the explanation point on it? The mother load was John 6, 69. Where John writes, we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God. Interesting, the strongest reference there uses Gnowsko. It's the way that the difference of warm up to know. And 2 Peter 1, 12 says, therefore I will always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth that is present within you. So I saw that the emphasis analysis was that it was on what we know. The emphasis of the reference versus word. And so the commentary interaction. Luke 21-20, what we know is from God. True gospel is my only thing in there. Possession of true understanding, she says, protects them against the believers that John is writing to. Protects them against the lie of the Antichrist. Stop rope, John is confirming them in the truth they already know, and also that they know the character of the truth that no lie comes from. My final translation is, I have not written to you because you don't know the truth, but because you do know it, and that every lie is not of the truth. I have a question for you. In the Greek, as I would translate the Greek. They come across a lot and I'm not sure how it becomes of the truth instead of from the truth. I'm trying to get this out of the way. On the prepositional phrase, heck, we have a problem. Each time that I... that I come to that I'm not sure how, you know, as I look at how some people translate it. Just a question I had. You know, so I understand how it goes of the truth instead of from the truth. Well, let's just take your verse for an example. You've got Every lie is not ectase aletheas. Not out of the truth, not from the truth. It really, I think it kind of boils down to which is smoother English. Out of, of, from. It's, out of is probably the most distinctive and you'd have to have, it might sound a little peculiar, out of the truth. From the truth. Is that what you said? Well, I had from changed it to... Oh? To... I don't think it makes a big difference. Because they all convey the basic idea of x. X is the origin of it. So it's just a better grammar thing. Right. It just helps people to... Yes. Grounded inside I wrote, all believers know the truth about Christ and it has continually results in their life. God cannot lie against this truth. Scripture does not contradict itself. That is the character of truth. That belongs to the truth of Christ. The liar, the antichrist is lying against the truth of Christ. And those that believe know what he's emphasizing, that Christ is Lord and Savior and God will not lie against it. Okay. Good. Yes. Three, five, one, two, ten, eleven, one, six, ten, two, eleven, five, one, two, three, five, one, two, one, six. One, two, ten, one, two. Numbers look fine. Prophets reference analysis, Matthew 10, 33 says, but whoever denies me, put in Christ is saying this, Jesus, before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. The analysis is emphasizing is not accepting the truth of Christ or not. Denying Christ, accepting the truth of Christ. That's where the emphasis from the cross-reference point, commentary and interaction. Stott wrote, the nature of the lie is revealed, which is to deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God from the Father, divinity as I wrote. This is the truth that we know by revelation. He said it on page 114. And Luke wrote, the antichrist rejects the confession of Jesus which, in the following verse, is to reject God altogether. The final translation is, who is the liar but the one denying that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one denying the Father and the Son. The insight that I put down to the personal object of our faith is Jesus Christ, God the Son, or the Son of God, the one sent by God the Father, faith in the truth of Jesus Christ is what saves. And it would be seeing if you hear that John is emphasizing the lie is that Christ doesn't save. It's not who he is, what he did in the morning. Can you back up to your Greek? Many of you struggled in translating this or at least realized that it's kind of tricky. Who is the liar, Amy, if not except the one denying that Jesus is not the Christ? That's what it says, right? So it appears to say the opposite of what the translations say. And one explanation is that Greek uses the double negative, even the triple negative, routinely. And when we translate Greek double negatives, we translate them as single negatives, because we don't use double negatives in English. That's one explanation. The explanation which I think I lay out in my commentary is that the Hathi is a quotation mark Hathi. It's a Hathi recitative. And just as we could use the word affirm, he affirmed comma quotation mark, then have a quote. That this use of Arneomai in the participle there should be understood as someone denying. Who's the liar except the one who denies my saying comma quotation mark, Jesus is not the Christ. So that's a direct quote. It's a denial. Who's the liar except this person? Comma quotation mark. So that's another way to take that. With the Hati recitative, it's not a double negative, it's actually a quotation of the person who denies that Jesus is the Messiah. Yes? Is that because there's a question about the double negatives in the Greek or is that just a better way to take it? Like honoring the Hati in the quotational. Well, when I looked up Arnaumai and did lexical work on that and contextual work in other settings, it seemed to me that it just works better with Arnaumai to understand it as leading into like affirms. It's not an issue of double negatives in the Greek text. No, because Greek does that all the time. And most translations don't make it into a quotation. But I think they could. Well the way you read it, when you were reading it to us, you put an emphasis that it was like a statement. So it doesn't do that at all? You can do that with the word deny. Or now Oh My does that in other settings. That's my only point. Next verse. 23 Numbers are 4, 1, 6, 1, 2, 11, 1, 2, 5, 1, 6, 1, 2, 10, 1, 2, 5. Cross reference. Again, the mother load is, is, has the cross reference. 1 John 4.15, whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he and God. Again, abiding, connected to believe in the truth of Christ. Emphasis from the reference. Commentary interaction, Lou writes. Confessing is acknowledging all that Jesus is. Failure to do so, fail to do so and you don't have him or the Father also. She also says to have, the word to have is a distinctive form of relationship with God. From the reference of John 1, 5, or 6, page 17, Stock wrote, The verb have is about possession. We cannot possess, i.e. have fellowship with the Father if we do not confess the Son. Confession in Christ is possession of Christ, possession of the Father. It comes from God. Grounded in sight, there is no relationship saving with God the Father. Did you hear the translation? Oh, I did not, sorry. Are you trying to hide something here? No, just move on to the next. Translation, whoever denies the Son has the Father. The one who is confessing the Son has also the Father. Now I just will observe there that you say whoever and that introduces just a little note of sort of universality. When you actually look at the Greek construction, pas ha. or numinous, that's a little more definite. It's everyone who denies rather than whoever denies. That would be Hasean or Hassan. You have to have that alpha nu particle in there somehow to give the sense of indefiniteness. But this is sort of generic, but it's very definite. everybody who rather than whoever. Slight difference but you know that's you want to translate as much as we can we want to translate exactly what we're looking at. And so it's everybody who. With it being singular you wouldn't want to say all. You'd want to say everyone who. Yes. Anything else? You say the one who's confessing the son? Yeah, that's fine. Who is confessing, who confesses, pretty close, same thing. Inside there's no relation to our red dot. Read it again. There is no relationship, saving relationship with God the Father except through confession of the Son. This is what we know from verses 20-21. I'm not emphasizing that. False teachers, those who left us, don't confess this truth. Or when you study these things out a lot of times you find they don't deny this directly. But de facto they deny it because they bring in something alongside of it. You shall have no other gods alongside of me. I think for example that Galatia where there's no indication that the Galatian troublemakers were denying the atonement or the nature of Christ. But they were bringing in requirements for the reception of the promise of the gospel that de facto were canceling out the sufficiency of Christ saving work. So indirectly they were denying Christ. Same thing with Colossians. And this is very, it makes the pastoral task difficult sometimes because there are people we live in a syncretistic age that's what makes me a little nervous about the commentary that was being reviewed that you know the guy that you just want to keep Oh yeah, this and this and it's all true. Well, maybe like word and spirit in 220. Maybe we can say charisma is both word and spirit. Okay, sometimes it works. But, you know, that, that, I'll try to provoke you to keep you awake here, you know. That California spirit, you know, where everything is good, if it's good for you, it's good for you. Yeah, I believe in Christ and I believe in Krishna and I believe in, I mean Mitt Romney is a great guy. I believe in, I mean, and look what Mormonism does for the family. I like Mormonism and, you know, it's all good. If it works, it's good. That is definitely a question in the church. There's people in the church, you know, a thought and even a question. Well, Mark, they're good. You know, that's a thing of like, saving faith is in the truth of Christ, Lord's sake. I mean, so, so, I mean, is John being... You know, what he's talking about in a way that doesn't emphasize the Lord and Savior of Christ, the absolute truth of Christ. He does emphasize that very much. And that's part of what you're tapping into here. I mean, this very passage. He's talking about the sole exclusivity of Jesus functioning in the way that God sent him to function and being. who he testified himself to be. And lots of people, in fact most people, high view of Jesus is great, the Koran, yeah, Jesus is great. But if you start saying, OK, you mean Jesus is the son of God, and the Muslims say, no, God has no sons. And if you say to the California antinomian, you mean the Jesus who said observe all the commands that I've taught? No, no, we don't believe in the commands of these ancient people. Very quickly you get a different Jesus. So this is a plenary Jesus. It's a full package. And that's the problem. It's probably the problem for John. These people are denying, they're not denying he existed, they're probably not denying his importance, but they're denying the full package. And we have an all or nothing God. He's a jealous God. And Jesus is his son. Jesus is his mediator, he's his representative. So a lot of people don't like that because they don't want God to be like that. It brings a question to my mind. As we read, 1 John, you're going to see John emphasizing it is, in a sense, it's an all-and-nothing guy. Don't be deceived that it isn't. That's the deception of the lie of the world. In a sense in our day, John is okay with everything that we do. It's because we trusted him. He's okay with everything we do. John is really emphasizing, no, he has the commandments in the way that he wants us to live like we do. Yep. He remains faithful to himself. 3, 3, 5, 9, 2, 9, 3, 5, 11, 9, 3, 5, 3, 9, 2. 5, 10, 3, 9, 1, 2, 10, 9, 1, 2, 5. Any problems with the numbers? Yeah. That could be a conjunction or a particle. Okay, cross-references. If, in your bides, how much you have been getting, also you will abide in the son and the father. So you don't want to quarrel with the ten there? Does anybody want to quarrel with the ten there? Did you translate that 10? Did you translate the chi near the end as an and? Yes. Why did you say an and and a 5? No, the one before that. I know an and also. So you want to change that to an 8. Okay. Oh, not there. Not there. Okay. Next, the line above, there you go, eight. That make you happier? Everybody? Anybody else awake here this morning? You know, I expect revolution when there's a wrong number up there. You know, I want some zeal for truth out here. You know? Cross-reference analysis, 2nd John 9. Anyone who does, anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teachings of Christ, does not have God. The one who abides in the teachings has both the Father and the Son. Again, the analysis emphasizes abiding in what the truth of Christ teaches. You can see that in the text in 2nd John. Commentaries, start wrote. What we have heard from the beginning is the gospel, the truth of Christ, the original message, which has been what has been preached or proclaimed, and he wrote it never changes. The also wrote Christians must see that it abides in them, and the result is verse 25, which has been stayed by the God of life and made into coffee. Considerations like this, again, I think speak, they support the idea that the charisma being word, message, truth. That continues to be the stress through all this. Not a spiritual blessing that... is independent of or in addition to this truth. Well, you're speaking as a Protestant. A lot of people don't see it that way. But I mean, I agree with you. And I think John agrees with you, but a lot of people don't agree with you, and they don't think, they don't see John that way either. You know, the prominent theory in mainline academic analysis of the Christian phenomenon, historically speaking, if we go back into the late 1800s in Germany, the whole notion, I'm thinking here of Adolf von Harnack and others, the idea... the thing that explains the rise of the early church, it's a mass people movement and it's small c charismatic. At that time, late 1800s, the charismatic movement hadn't arisen yet. But before it did arise, in academia, like in Berlin with Harnack and then over in the United States, there was this idea that early Christianity was never about doctrines. It was never about teachings. It was never about the Gospel message per se. It was just this sort of inexplicable intuitive spiritual consciousness that swept across the Roman world. And in fact, the doctrinal side and the idea side, that is a Hellenizing. That's bringing Greek philosophical notions of rationality into something. that was about intuition and feeling. And if you study history, you can see German Romanticism, and you can see philosophical idealism, and you can see Hegelian thinking, which was big in the universities, and you can see anti-Christian doctrine. Because in this understanding, Christian doctrine is a devolution from the higher purity of people just getting in tune with the... a charismatic consciousness of God. So we think intuitively, in a place like the Master Seminary or for myself in the Westminster tradition, the Reformed tradition, we think intuitively Christianity first of all about teachings and claims about Jesus dying and rising and if Christ is not raised our faith is in vain. We highlight all those ideas. There's another approach to all this that says... you know that was then and there. God is living and what matters is the unfolding of human consciousness of God. Even if it was that way then, people were doctrinally conscious, that was their culture. That was their time. We live in our time and culture and now we have a different spirit. Our spirit is a spirit of more of sort of mass intuitive cognition. We network and we sort of feed off the energy. It's kind of a synergy. It's a group dynamic. It's the community. Truth lies in the community. I can spout slogans all day. We don't really need this model. We don't need seminaries anymore. People learn language. Why do you need to know Hebrew and Greek? Why don't you just trust the Spirit and get on with helping people? Make the world a better place. Love one another. Should I give an invitation yet? I'm just trying to highlight how much out of Spirit, how much out of sync John, as we're unpacking him, how much he is with another whole. take on this. It's one reason why the charisma interpretation is so important to some that it be the Holy Spirit. Because you can't define the Holy Spirit. But you can define the message. You can define the word. And whatever John is doing here, it's definition rich. John's working with a lot of definitions. He's working with definitions of sin and righteousness and commands and Christ. and faithfulness and denying and you know he's got a micrometer you know and he's he's assessing things and he's saying yay and nay and yeah that's that's repugnant to the spirit of religion in our day and age but this is the question do we believe in Jesus or not and John says you better believe in Jesus everyone who denies this approach to God the approach that Jesus pioneered and validated, that person's denying God. Pure and simple. So these are, and you know, if you look at this, and for those of you who know Greek, the better you know Greek, the more you can see it. If you sweep through some of these verses, the Germans would say hinken, they limp, or use a baseball image, it's like crow hopping. If you look at verse 24, which is this one we're doing, you, that which you heard from the beginning, in you or among you, let it abide. It's very halting and I think it's halting because it's emphatic. He's trying to say a whole bunch of things all at once and so it comes out not very smooth. It's rather rough. And I think it's because there's strong conviction behind this. Because this is really a crux point, rhetorically, in his whole presentation. But I agree with you. So what's your translation? Final translation. To you, let that abide in you, which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning of my team wait wait what you start with to you That's who makes that's a nominative It's it's not a dative. So you don't you don't want the two you just want you And we'll see if you let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you Yeah, you're smoothing it out, but that's okay you let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning But don't let go of what you heard from the beginning. I agree. I agree. You've moved the command right up to after the humes, which makes for better English and maybe the best strategy. But when you look at the Greek, you can see he separates the you, the vocative, from the imperative by all these other words. You, that what you heard from the beginning. In you or among you. Let it abide. So there's some emphasis going on here. Yes. Is appropriate to say what you heard from the beginning must remain in you? You know, I don't like that because it changes the imperative mood to the indicative mood. Must is indicative. And I know a lot of translations do that. And some grammars now are kind of teaching that these third person imperatives can be changed to must. But I think that's a mistake. The let just sounds more permissive rather than... It can. But this is where you, as a teacher of scripture in the church, you just have to explain to people, this is not a permissive let. Alright? It's like... Let him be executed. Let it abide in. You must make room for it. And you can use the must verbally, and it's clear what you're saying. You can make an emphatic out of a must, but it's easy to lose the imperative feel when you put an indicative on the page. It's more just descriptive of what people must do. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the sun and in the fall. One more time so we can follow the Greek. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the sun and in the fall. And notice again the emphatic word order. If in you abides. that which from the beginning you heard. So the contrast might be here in you as opposed to the ones out there who are denying. You know, in the community that is remaining here if what you heard from the beginning, notice it, what you were taught, what you heard, what you received, hang on to that. don't let it get compromised, don't let it get swept away. If you hang on to it, you will abide in the Son and the Father. It's very important that they not start tampering with what goes back to John 13-17. Jesus, what he grounded in the 11, and then what they were commissioned to take out into the Greco-Roman world. Very important that we remain the integrity, we keep the integrity of that. There's a hand, yes. Is it fair to consider that as an emphatic which adds to the kusate? So what you heard, so really emphasizing that piece of it rather than making it a bopper? There's no one over the boffins if you have punctuation after it, like brothers, comma, whatever follows. Well, I wouldn't be averse to having a you and a comma. You, comma, that which you heard. You could also just translate it, that which you yourselves heard from the beginning. So it's a judgment call. Grounded insight. Grounded insight. Being a command to let and abide emphasizes, allow it. The truth of Christ, to carry your life, to dictate your living, don't leave it. He's emphasizing there's a shift from proposition to exhortation. Proposition, if you do this, don't do this, it's an exhortation to do what you already know what to do. To abide in Christ, if you want to put it simply, to abide in his truth, do it. It is to you, he writes, those that have the son, that have the father, they are to abide in God's truth. Thank you. Let's get our last verse. In the context of this particular discourse, the connotation of abide sort of takes on a feel of stand firm. Don't be swept away or dislodged. A lot of times the abide and the remain language moves over into sort of a devotional. Spiritual idea, a mystical abiding. And I want to take that away from the Johanian discourse, but I don't think that's the feel of it here. I think the feel of it here is there are people that want to move on from what was originally taught. You stick with where you started. Where you started. 5, 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 3, 1, 2, 1, 2. Ionian at the end? 4. 4. Eternal adjective. 2, 4, 2, 4, right? No, just a 4. An adjective. Because it's modifying zoane. Transition to the X-axis. Cross-reference analysis, verse John 1-5. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. Second Timothy 1-1. All the apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. Titus 1 verse 2. In hope of eternal life which God never lies promised before the ages began. And the analysis was this message is the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ that God promised upon the Lord. Commentary or grammar interaction. According to Stock, the result of our loyalty to the son is our enjoyment of the promise of eternal life. And quote, the awful consequence of the heretical denial of his son was a loss of life, as well as the father. And Lew reminds us of John's switch to emphasize it is us who received the promise, a change from the direct you he's been appointed previously. Final translation. And this is the promise which he himself announced to us, eternal life. So you take the altos is emphatic. Yes. And can we go back to your verbal analysis? Epongelemi. I translated it as announce, but it can be promised too. Like I promise, and the promise is what? Did the lexicon say both promise and announce? I didn't look it up. Anybody look it up? Promise or offer? Promise or offer? Did anybody find announce? As a lexical meaning. When I roll over in Logos, I know people in the bottom, there's a list of about six. Okay. Soft, I mean, it's fine to get, if you access BDAG or something in Logos, but remember software glosses. Is everybody listening? Software glosses are not lexical meanings unless you can verify them in a published lexicon. The people who are putting software out, they're trying to make a living like all of us. And they're getting stuff out and it's excellent. But you've got to find published lexica where scholars have had time to sift through meanings and decide, you know, do we open up the semantic range of this word? Dyswide, dyswide, dyswide, dyswide. Because the word promise, it could mean, like if you go to Roger's thesaurus, you might have 30 words under promise. But that doesn't mean the Greek word epongelmi, which may mean announce. I don't know. I'm looking it up here. And if anybody's got BDAG, what does it say? The second definition is, the best lay claim to give oneself up and the next for them. And it's got this word under common fall. Okay. So, you know, I would stick, this is the promise which he himself promised to us. And I know that's a little bit bad English, but as your cross references. Relate promise and eternal life. Eternal life and promise. Promise, life, and message. That's a little bit of an outlier. But I think we all know how important promise is to Christian theology. So the promise of eternal life, I think, is we want to stay in the semantic. range of promise here. So you want promised rather than eternal life, or rather than announced. Grounded insight. Up to this point, John is reminding the church that God has announced a promise to us, the promise of eternal life for those who profess Jesus as the Christ. This is our life, remaining in the Son and the Father by remaining in what we have heard. So I kind of consolidated the last five verses. The other question as to the altos or the he himself, is that referring to the father or the son or even possibly both? From the previous verse, we remain in the son and in the father. And this is the promise which he himself promised to us. because in Titus 1 and 2 it's the father who made this promise long ago. And if you go back up to your Greek this is not going to be conclusive, but in general when you're trying to ask that question, what's the antecedent of Auteus? Then it's just a mechanical process. You go back to 224 and the first masculine singular noun that you run into on paper is the most likely to be the antecedent. And what do you run into first? You run into patras, right? So on that, the basic rule says that he's referring to the Father. Now since it's John and he heard the Son and Jesus promised things in the name of the Father, you can't rule Jesus out. And since the Father and the Son are pretty closely related in John, it could be sort of a joint effort. But the promise of eternal life for a Jew primarily comes from God the Father. And it goes especially back to Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy, probably a dozen times or more, promises life. And it's obviously not just biological existence. It's shalom life. Which is what eternal life is in John. So I tend to say it's probably God the Father. If you had to walk a plank for something, I'd walk a plank for God the Father.