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[3:19-24] • [4:1-6] • [4:7-12] • [4:13-15] • [4:16-21] • [5:1-3]
[5:4-5] • [5:6-12] • [5:13-15] • [5:16-17] • [5:18-20] • [5:21]
Text and Translation
Greek Text
2:3. Καὶ ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐγνώκαμεν αὐτόν, ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν.
2:4. ὁ λέγων Ἔγνωκα αὐτόν, καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ μὴ τηρῶν, ψεύστης ἐστί, καὶ ἐν τούτῳ ἡ ἀλήθεια οὐκ ἔστιν·
2:5. ὃς δʼ ἂν τηρῇ αὐτοῦ τὸν λόγον, ἀληθῶς ἐν τούτῳ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ τετελείωται. ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐσμεν·
2:6. ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει, καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησε, καὶ αὐτὸς οὕτω περιπατεῖν.
English Translation
2:3. And by this we know that we have come to know him—if we keep his commandments.
2:4. The one who says “I have come to know him” yet does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him,
2:5. whoever keeps his Word—in this one the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in him.
2:6. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same way that one walked.
Graphical Grammar
I would not normally recommend this, but if you are working through the translation yourself, skip reviewing this diagram for now. You’ll see why in the “Your Turn” section.
Weighty Words
Rather than including Weighty Words here, those words are discussed below in the Syntax Sense. The main words covered in depth are ἐγνώκαμεν, ἀληθῶς, τετελείωται, and τηρῇ.
Syntax Sense
There is a lot to unpack in these verses. Let’s get started.
What is the aspectual force of ἐγνώκαμεν?
The perfect of ἐγνώκαμεν seems to say two things (1) we have known him, but also (2) that we are continuing to know him:
- We have come to know Him (completed action)
- We continue in that knowledge (ongoing state)
English does not offer us a way to cover both facts, without adding additional words. English has no single verb that does both without extra words, so the standard ways the “have come to know” idiom. This is consistent across the mainstream translations, too.
How do we know when the quotation ends?
In verse 4, ὁ λέγων introduces a direct quotation. Since there are no punctuation marks in Koine Greek, how does one know when the quotation ends. I.e., where do we English speakers put the close quotation mark? We do it the same way the 1st Century Greek readers, by observing when the syntax shifts back to the main clause. Here, the shift from the 1st-person statement (“I have come to know Him”) to the 3rd-person description (“yet does not keep…”) is the clue.
In verse 4, why render ἐν τούτῳ as “in Him”?
The literal meaning of ἐν τούτῳ (masculine dative singular demonstrative) in English is “in this one,” not “in him.” So how do we get “him” in our translations? The antecedent of ἐν τούτῳ is ὁ λέγων (“the one who says…”) a person, not a thing. So the most woodenly literal translation would be: “…and the truth is not in this one.” English disfavors “this one” when the antecedent is obvious. “In him” is instantly clear and idiomatic.
What does ἀληθῶς modify?
Let’s look at this more closely: ἀληθῶς ἐν τούτῳ ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ τετελείωται. So we have adverb + prepositional phrase + articular nominative + articular genitive + verb ==> adverb + “in this one” + “the love” + “of God” + verb. Weird as the construction may feel in Greek, it becomes clear when you consider the structure. In this construction, the adverb must modify a verb. The only option reading forward is τετελείωται. (We’ll address why we can’t look backwards in a moment.). Because Greek is so flexible in terms of word order, you can have structures like this where an adverb precedes the verb and is interrupted by numerous other words on the path to the verb.
Sidebar: Why is Greek word order so flexible? Why will understanding this make me a better Greek reader?
English depends heavily on word order to show relationships between words. Greek does not. Greek is a synthetic language, meaning grammatical relationships are built into the forms of words themselves. Because endings carry meaning, word order is freer.
English, by contrast, is largely analytic. It depends on word order and helper words to convey relationships. This difference explains why Greek can place an adverb like ἀληθῶς before its verb—even with several words intervening—without creating confusion.
As an English reader, your instinct may be to attach modifiers to the nearest available word. In Greek, that instinct must be restrained. Structure, not proximity, determines attachment.
Why can’t ἀληθῶς modify τηρῇ or how to determine clause boundaries?
While modern editions of the Greek text have punctuation in them, the original manuscripts did not. Could anyone reading them determine what word ἀληθῶς modified? The answer is yes, because the Greek structure gives us the information that we need. Learning to see that structure will make reading (and by extension exegesis when you get to that stage) so much easier.
When asking what word ἀληθῶς modifies, we are really asking one question: is it part of the relative clause or the main clause? That leads us to this question: how do we determine the relative clause’s boundaries? That is an especially important question when the relative clause precedes the main clause, as it does here.
A relative clause is structurally complete once its verb and arguments are supplied. When a new demonstrative or prepositional phrase resumes the thought (e.g., ἐν τούτῳ), the sentence has shifted back to the main clause. Words following that shift belong to the main clause unless clear grammatical markers indicate otherwise.
Let’s show the work through this verse.
- Determine the relative clause frame. A relative clause is marked by:
- a relative pronoun (here, ὃς);
- a finite verb (here, τηρῇ); and
- its internal arguments (here, τὸν λόγον).
- Observe. That is a complete syntactic unit:
- subject (ὃς)
- verb (τηρῇ)
- object (τὸν λόγον)
- Nothing is missing.
- When the verb and its arguments are satisfied, the clause is structurally complete.
- That’s your first boundary signal.
- Look for a New Structural Anchor. After λόγον we get ἐν τούτῳ. That is:
- prepositional phrase
- new demonstrative
- new referential anchor
- This signals a shift back to the main clause. Greek often resumes with:
- ἐν τούτῳ
- ἐν αὐτῷ
- τότε
- καὶ τότε or
- simply a new nominative
- That’s a second boundary marker.
- Locate the Main Clause Verb. Now we find:
- τετελείωται
- This is a perfect indicative functioning as the main assertion of the sentence.
- So now the structure unfolds:
- Relative clause: ὃς … τηρῇ … λόγον
- Main clause: ἐν τούτῳ … τετελείωται
- But where does ἀληθῶς sit?
- It appears isolated in position, but not in structure.
- It’s just before the resumed clause
- Although ἀληθῶς appears between the two clauses, the relative clause is already complete. Greek often fronts adverbs in the clause they modify. Here, ἀληθῶς introduces and strengthens the main clause, not the relative clause.
What happed to the ἄν?
The word ἄν? seems to have disappeared in the translation. Why? The construction is the indefinite particle with the relative pronoun + subjunctive = “whoever” (Smyth §2560). It’s baked into the English “whoever.”
Demystifying the Discourse
Going back to our main discussion regarding what ἀληθῶς modifies. If it modified τηρῇ, the meaning would be: whoever truly keeps his word. But John’s rhetorical move is stronger: in him truly the love of God has been perfected. He shifts the weight from the human action to the divine result. The syntax reflects that theological emphasis.
Your turn!
This has been such a dense discussion. Nevertheless, because of the benefit to reading fluency, let me offer you a few things to try.
- If you have not studied my diagram, try diagramming this group of verses yourself. See if you can “see” the clause boundaries in your diagram. By that I mean, without putting your hand on the scale, where does ἀληθῶς naturally fit?
- Try translating the passage, and experiment with really pulling out the aspect of both ἐγνώκαμεν and τετελείωται. The purpose of this is not to render your “publishable” version of the translation, but to get a better feel for aspect.
- One last thing to consider is try making your translation expansive, but pulling in more of the meaning of the key words as set forth in a lexicon, like BDAG. You’re making essentially a three-verse Amplified Bible. Again, the point is not to be cavalier with the Word, but to draw out meaning. Then you can adjust your conveying that in your final translation.
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