What Does John 17:3 Mean?
And this is the life of the ages, that they might know you, the only God of truth, and Jesus, the Anointed One, whom you have sent.
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 this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.THE KEY
The life of the ages takes shape in knowing God and the one God sends.
THE MEANING
This verse names life now as knowing the only true God and Jesus, the Anointed One (Χριστός, Christos), whom God sends. The verb γινώσκω (ginōskō, “know, perceive”) points to recognition and coming to know, so this life is relational, not a stock of information. Jesus’ Hebrew name יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua, “deliverance”) carries the movement from constriction into spaciousness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that the life of the ages is only a future stretch of time: here it is knowing God and Jesus now.
THE ROOT
αἰώνιος
aiōnios
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
Age, era, or span of time.
“the life of the ages” in this verse is aiōnios. The Greek word rendered “eternal” grows from aiōn, “age.” Paired with ζωή (zōē, “life”), it is life of the ages, and this verse defines that life through knowing God and the one sent.
ALSO GROWS
aiōn: Age, era.
αἰών
This noun is the seed carried by αἰώνιος, showing the age-language beneath “eternal.”
aiōnes: Ages.
αἰῶνες
The plural makes the root’s horizon visible as ages, rather than a bare measure of duration.
γινώσκωσιν
ginōskōsin
GROWS FROM
γνο-/γνω- (gno-/gnō-)
To know, recognize, or come to know.
“know” in this verse is ginōskōsin. The verb describes knowing the only true God and the one sent by God. Its focus here is recognition and living acquaintance, not merely having facts about them.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: Knowledge.
γνῶσις
This noun shares the knowing-root and helps show that the verse speaks of knowledge whose object is God, not information detached from God.
epiginōskō: Recognize, come to know.
ἐπιγινώσκω
This related verb makes the movement of coming to recognition audible in the root family.
ἀπέστειλας
apesteilas
GROWS FROM
ἀποστέλλω
apostellō
To send out, dispatch, or commission.
Jesus is named here as the one God sends. The sending root also names the sent messenger, connecting the life described in this verse to the one who comes from God.
ALSO GROWS
apostolos: One sent, an envoy or messenger.
ἀπόστολος
This word makes the sender-and-sent relationship explicit in the same root family.
apostolē: Sending, mission.
ἀποστολή
It names the act of sending itself, sharpening the verse’s emphasis on Jesus as the one God sends.
THE PATTERN
Scripture depicts knowing God as lived relationship that gives shape to life, rather than information held at a distance.
But let the one who boasts boast in this, that he discerns and perceives me, that I am the LORD who does faithful love, judgment, and alignment in the earth. For in these things I delight, says the LORD.I am the good shepherd. I perceive my own, and my own perceive me.And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us a mind, so that we may perceive the true one. And we are in him, in his Son, Jesus, the Anointed One. This is the true God and the life of the ages.THE THREAD
For God so loved the world that he gave his only-born Son, that everyone who leans their full weight into him should not perish, but have the life of the ages.John 3:16 repeats the phrase ζωή αἰώνιος (zōē aiōnios, “life of the ages”) and sets it beside “not perish.” John 17:3 reveals the texture of that life: knowing God and the one God sends.
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