ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη (I John 4:10)

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Title:  In This is Love

The text is, “ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη,
οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήκαμεν τὸν θεόν,
ἀλλ’ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς
καὶ ἀπέστειλεν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ
ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν.

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

τούτῳ -> neuter, singular, dative, demonstrative pronoun -> this

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

ἡ -> feminine, singular, nominative article -> the *NRIEH*

ἀγάπη -> feminine, singular, nominative noun -> love
οὐχ -> negative particle -> not

ὅτι -> subordinating, comparative conjunction -> that

ἡμεῖς -> first person, personal, plural, nominative pronoun -> we

ἠγαπήκαμεν-> first person, plural, perfect, active, indicative verb -> we have loved

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

θεόν -> masculine, singular, accusative noun -> God
ἀλλ’ -> coordinating adversative conjunction -> but

ὅτι -> subordinating comparative conjunction -> that αὐτὸς-> third person,  personal, masculine, singular, nominative pronoun -> he

ἠγάπησεν-> third person, singular, aorist, active, indicative verb -> loved

ἡμᾶς -> first person, personal, plural, accusative pronoun -> us
καὶ ->coordinating additive conjunction -> and

ἀπέστειλεν -> third person, singular, aorist, active, indicative verb -> sent

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

υἱὸν -> masculine, singular, accusative noun -> son

αὐτοῦ -> third person, personal, masculine, singular, genitive pronoun -> his
ἱλασμὸν ->masculine, singular, accusative noun -> a propitiation

περὶ ->preposition taking the genitive for its object word -> for

τῶν -> feminine, plural, genitive article -> the *NRIEH*

ἁμαρτιῶν ->feminine, plural, genitive noun -> sins

ἡμῶν -> first person, personal, plural, genitive pronoun -> our

The meaning of this verse is, “In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son a propitiation for our sins.

**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 ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη (I John 4:10) by Dennis Glover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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