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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - John 3:15 - 3:15
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Believeth in Him (πιστευÌων εἰς αὐτὸν)
The best texts read ἐν αὐτῷ, construing with have eternal life, and rendering may in Him have eternal life. So Rev.
Should not perish, but
The best texts omit.
Have eternal life
A characteristic phrase of John for live forever. See Joh 3:16, Joh 3:36; Joh 5:24; Joh 6:40, Joh 6:47, Joh 6:54; 1Jo 3:15; 1Jo 5:12.
The interview with Nicodemus closes with Joh 3:15; and the succeeding words are John's. This appears from the following facts: 1. The past tenses loved and gave, in Joh 3:16, better suit the later point of view from which John writes, after the atoning death of Christ was an accomplished historic fact, than the drift of the present discourse of Jesus before the full revelation of that work. 2. It is in John's manner to throw in explanatory comments of his own (Joh 1:16-18; Joh 12:37-41), and to do so abruptly. See Joh 1:15, Joh 1:16, and on and, Joh 1:16. 3. Joh 3:19 is in the same line of thought with Joh 1:9-11 in the Prologue; and the tone of that verse is historic, carrying the sense of past rejection, as loved darkness; were evil. 4. The phrase believe on the name is not used elsewhere by our Lord, but by John (Joh 1:12; Joh 2:23; 1Jo 5:13). 5. The phrase only-begotten son is not elsewhere used by Jesus of himself, but in every case by the Evangelist (Joh 1:14, Joh 1:18; 1Jo 4:9). 6. The phrase to do truth (Joh 3:21) occurs elsewhere only in 1Jo 1:6.