What Does John 1:3 Mean?
All things came to be through him, and apart from him not one thing came to be that has come to be.
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
All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.THE KEY
Nothing that exists lies outside the source through whom all things come to be.
THE MEANING
All things come to be through him, and your own life belongs within that all. Your existence is not self-originating; it comes through the one this verse names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that you are self-originating, or that any part of existence stands wholly independent of him.
THE ROOT
ἐγένετο
egeneto
GROWS FROM
γεν-/γιν- (gen-/gin-)
Come to be, become, be born.
The Greek form means “came to be,” presenting creation as the coming-into-being of all things through him. The same word family names origin and birth, revealing a shared language of emergence beneath “were made.”
ALSO GROWS
ginomai: Become; come to be.
γίνομαι
This is the verb’s lexical form: the verse describes all things entering existence through him.
genesis: Origin; birth.
γένεσις
This noun from the same word family names an origin or birth, linking creation’s coming-to-be with the beginning of life.
THE PATTERN
What exists comes into being through God’s speaking agency, with nothing outside that relation.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.For in him all things were created, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, the seen and the unseen, whether seats or lordships or beginnings or authorities; all things have been created through him and toward him.THE THREAD
In the beginning was the word, and the word was turned toward God, and the word was God.John names the “him” of this verse as the Word, who is with God and is God. The one through whom all things come to be is the divine Word at the beginning.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us