SIL Translator's Notes on 1 John 3:24

3:24a

Whoever: (Meaning) This means “anyone/everyone who.” It includes John and his readers.

His commandments: (Pronoun Reference) This refers to God’s commands. But since the last person mentioned in the previous sentence was Christ, it may be necessary to make “God” explicit here. See Good News Translation, The Jerusalem Bible, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English, Living Bible.

in God: (Collocation) As in 2:5, this refers to being in union with God. See the note on 2:5.

3:24b

and God in him: (Ellipsis) The full meaning here is that God lives in them, just as they live in God. In your language it may not be natural to use the same expression for both of these, so you may need to say something like “they are constantly united with God and God is in their hearts.”

3:24c

And by this: (Pronoun Reference) This phrase refers forward to 3:24d.

3:24c-d

we know…by the Spirit: (Meaning) John means that the presence of the Holy Spirit in us proves that God is living in us.

3:24d

the Spirit: (Biblical Term) This means the Holy Spirit.

(1) Probably Christ is part of the name. (Berean Standard Bible, Good News Translation, New International Version (2011 Revision), New English Bible, Revised Standard Version, King James Version, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)

(2) Some think that Christ is the title, and that the sentence therefore means, “Jesus is the Messiah and he came as a human being.” (The Jerusalem Bible)

has come: (Meaning) This refers to when Jesus came into the world.

in the flesh: (Biblical Term) The phrase in the flesh is used here with the meaning “as a human being.” See Good News Translation, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English, Living Bible.

© 2000 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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