What Does John 16:3 Mean?
And these things they will do to you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.
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
And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.THE KEY
Hostility carried out in God’s name can reveal that the one acting does not know God’s nature.
THE MEANING
When someone acts against you with religious certainty, this verse names a hidden cause: they do not recognize the Father or Jesus. Knowing here is recognition through encounter, not simply having religious facts. The verse holds knowing the Father and knowing Jesus together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Religious certainty does not prove that someone knows God; a person can claim to serve God while failing to recognize the Father or Jesus.
THE ROOT
ἔγνωσαν
egnōsan
GROWS FROM
γινώσκω (ginōskō; stem γνω-)
To come to know, recognize, or perceive.
“known” in this verse is egnōsan. This word family points to knowing as recognition, not merely possessing information. Here the same knowing reaches both the Father and Jesus, so the verse describes a failure to recognize their nature.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: knowledge, knowing
γνῶσις
The noun shares the verb’s root, keeping the act of knowing connected to what is called knowledge.
gnōstos: known, familiar
γνωστός
This branch carries knowing into familiarity: the verse’s absence is a failure to recognize who the Father and Jesus are.
THE PATTERN
The absence of knowing God becomes visible in how people treat one another.
Hear and respond to the word of the LORD, you children of Israel, for the LORD has a quarrel with the ones who settle in the land, because there is no truth, nor faithful love, nor knowledge of God in the land.The one who does not love has not known God, for God is love.And now, brothers, I know that you did it without knowing, as your rulers also did.THE THREAD
Then they said to him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, You have not seen me or my Father; had you seen me, you would have seen my Father also.John 8:19 uses the same Greek word family for knowing and brings the Father and Jesus together just as John 16:3 does. It makes the connection explicit: recognition of Jesus opens onto recognition of the Father.
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