καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου (I John 4:3)

The estimated reading time for this post is 144 seconds

Title: And Every Spirit who Does not Confess Jesus From God, this is the Very Antichrist

The text is, “ καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν   ἀντιχρίστου ὃ ἀκηκόατε ὅτι ἔρχεται, καὶ νῦν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἐστὶν ἤδη.”

καὶ -> coordinating additive conjunction → and

πᾶν -> neuter, singular, nominative adjective → every

πνεῦμα -> neuter, singular, nominative noun → spirit

ὃ -> neuter, singular, nominative, relative, definite pronoun → who

μὴ -> negative particle ->does not

ὁμολογεῖ -> third person, singular, present, active, indicative verb → confesses

τὸν -> masculine, singular, accusative article → the **NRIEH

Ἰησοῦν ->masculine, singular, accusative, proper noun → Jesus

ἐκ -> preposition taking the genitive for its object word → from

τοῦ -> masculine, singular, genitive article → the NRIEH

θεοῦ -> masculine, singular, genitive noun → God

οὐκ -> negative particle → notἔστιν· -> third person, singular, present, indicative verb → is

καὶ -> coordinating additive conjunction → and

τοῦτό -> neuter, singular, nominative, demonstrative pronoun → this

ἐστιν -> third person, singular, indicative verb → is

τὸ -> neuter, singular, nominative article → the

τοῦ -> neuter, singular, genitive article → the CER* very

ἀντιχρίστ -> masculine, singular, genitive noun → antichrist

ὃ -> neuter, singular, accusative, relative, definite pronoun → which

ἀκηκόατε -> second person, plural, perfect, active, indicative verb → you all heard

ὅτι ->subordinating complementary conjunction → that

ἔρχεται, -> third person, singular, present, active, indicative very → he comes

καὶ -> coordinating additive conjunction → and

νῦν -> temporal adverb → now

ἐν -> preposition taking the dative for its object word → in

τῷ -> masculine, singular, dative article → the

κόσμῳ -> masculine, singular, dative noun → world

ἐστὶν -> third person, singular, indicative verb → is

ἤδη. -> temporal adverb → already

The meaning of this verse is,

And every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God, and this is the very antichrist which you all heard that he comes, and is now already in the world.”

*CER:  indicates a non-literal, but good translation.  In the example here, the pair of articles “τὸ τοῦ” is a way to intensify the identification of the one to whom reference is made so that there is no mistaking that it is the spirit of the antichrist who denies that Christ is from God.  This is the translation in the English Standard Version, for example,; this translator chose to express the same thought slightly differently.  The  designation CER is equivalent to “Contextual English Rendering”.

**NRIEH:  For the sake of clarity the word is translated into English, but to avoid such odd constructions as applying a definite article (“the”) to a substantive sufficiently determined by its being a proper noun, or by the use of a qualifier other than the definite article. An example would be the basic translation “Peter said to the Jesus”; the word “the” is completely unnecessary. There are many examples of this in the New Testament. Another example is the use of “doubled negatives” or “negations” in Greek, which are not translated except in the correct English usage.  The designation NRIEH is equivalent to “Not Rendered Into English Here”.

CC BY 4.0 καὶ πᾶν πνεῦμα ὃ μὴ ὁμολογεῖ τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν· καὶ τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ τοῦ ἀντιχρίστου (I John 4:3) by Dennis Glover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Post Navigation