What Does John 8:41 Mean in the King James?
Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse sets a claim of family beside the deeds that reveal whose pattern is being carried out.
THE MEANING
They deny being born of fornication and declare God as their one Father, while Jesus points to their deeds as evidence against that claim. The verse places declared origin beside visible action. It asks what a claim of belonging looks like when it takes shape in what a person does.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Claiming God as Father, by itself, does not prove that one’s actions reflect God’s way.
THE ROOT
γεγεννήμεθα
gegen ēmetha
GROWS FROM
γενν-
genn-
Beget, bring forth, give birth.
“born” in this verse is gegen ēmetha. The birth word belongs to a family that also names origin, kind, and lineage. That makes the speakers’ claim about where they come from ring against Jesus’ claim about the source their deeds reveal.
ALSO GROWS
genesis: Birth, origin, beginning.
γένεσις
It ties being born to the question of where a life takes its shape.
genos: Kind, family, offspring.
γένος
It links birth with the kind or family to which someone belongs.
ἔργα
erga
GROWS FROM
ἐργ-
erg-
Work, action, what is carried out.
The word for deeds belongs to a family centered on work and working. The verse makes the father’s pattern visible in the actions being carried out, not only in the name claimed.
ALSO GROWS
ergazomai: To work, perform, or accomplish.
ἐργάζομαι
It keeps deeds close to the work a person does.
energeō: To work, act, or be active.
ἐνεργέω
It shows the same root at work in the activity that produces an outcome.
THE PATTERN
A claimed identity becomes visible in the actions and fruit that express it.
Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right.Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.THE THREAD
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.John 3:6 uses the same Greek birth verb found in “we be not born.” It draws the question of origin further into view by naming what each source brings forth.
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