What Does 1 John 2:23 Mean?
Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either. The one who speaks the same of the Son has the Father also.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: but he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.THE KEY
The verse joins the Father to the Son: the one who denies the Son cannot claim to have the Father, while acknowledging the Son holds both together.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now: the Father is not held apart from the Son. Acknowledging the Son is an open affirmation that carries the Father with it; denying the Son severs that claim.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that you can reject the Son while claiming the Father as though they were unrelated.
THE ROOT
ὁμολογῶν
homologōn
GROWS FROM
ὁμός (homos, same) + λέγω (legō, say)
To say the same; to acknowledge or confess.
“speaks the same of” in this verse is homologōn. The word carries the sense of openly saying what is held in common. Here, acknowledging the Son is more than privately accepting an idea: it is an expressed affirmation that joins the Son and the Father, just as the sentence repeats “hath” for both.
ALSO GROWS
homología: Confession, profession.
ὁμολογία
The related noun names the expressed confession itself, showing that acknowledgment takes form in what is affirmed.
exomologeō: Confess openly, acknowledge.
ἐξομολογέω
This related verb makes the confession explicit; it echoes the verse’s picture of acknowledgment as an outward affirmation.
THE PATTERN
A person’s relation to God becomes visible in what they openly acknowledge about the Son.
Everyone therefore who speaks as I do before humankind, I will also speak as he does before my Father in the heavens.That if you say the same with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and trust in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be delivered.Whoever speaks the same of Jesus, that he is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.THE THREAD
Whoever speaks the same of Jesus, that he is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God.This verse uses the same word for openly confessing the Son. It makes the connection explicit: confessing that Jesus is the Son is joined to God dwelling in the person who confesses.
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