What Does 1 John 5:9 Mean?
If we take in the witness of people, the witness of God is greater, for this is what he has witnessed concerning his Son.
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
If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.THE KEY
English gives us “witness” and “testified,” but the Greek keeps both in one word-family: testimony is bound to the act of bearing witness.
THE MEANING
The testimony you receive from people is real, yet God’s testimony about the Son is greater. God has testified, and that witness still speaks to you with greater weight than every human report. The verse centers that testimony on the Son, not on an abstract claim about God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief undone is that human testimony is the highest authority available, with God’s witness merely one opinion beside it.
THE ROOT
μαρτυρία
martyría
GROWS FROM
μαρτυρ-
martyr-
The Greek word-family of bearing witness and giving testimony.
“witness” in this verse is martyría. The noun μαρτυρία (martyría, testimony) and the verb μεμαρτύρηκεν (memartýrēken, has testified) share the same stem. English gives them different forms, while Greek keeps the testimony and the act of witnessing joined.
ALSO GROWS
mártys: Witness; a person who bears testimony.
μάρτυς
The same word-family names both the testimony and the one who bears it.
martyreō: To testify or bear witness.
μαρτυρέω
The verb translated “hath testified” grows from the same stem as “witness,” joining God’s testimony to God’s act of bearing it.
THE PATTERN
A testimony’s weight is disclosed by its source and by what bears it out.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any crookedness, or for any falling short, in it he misses the mark; upon the mouth of two witnesses, or upon the mouth of three witnesses, the word shall stand.But I have a greater witness than that of John, for the works which the Father has given me to finish, these same works that I do, bear witness about me, that the Father has sent me.God also bearing witness alongside them, with signs and wonders, and with many-colored powers, and portions of the Set-Apart Breath, according to his own will.THE THREAD
The one who leans their full weight into the Son of God holds the witness within themselves. The one who does not lean their weight on God has made him a liar, because they have not leaned their weight into the witness God has borne concerning his Son.In the next verse, the Greek μαρτυρία (martyría, testimony) appears where the KJV says both “witness” and “record.” The greater witness named here is also described as present within the one who trusts the Son.
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