I John, 4:11-13

Alright, well here are our three verses. Let's go ahead and read these together, then we'll study them. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. Alright, you can see a lot of the same things that John's talked about before, loving one another and abiding, and the Spirit shows up again. So let's look at verse 1. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

This is Agapitas, Beloved, again. And this is actually the last of the five times John uses it here in 1 John, so we won't see it anymore. In fact, this is the case with a lot of these words. We're just about done seeing them. We're wrapping up the book here.

We've noted before in previous weeks that this term Beloved, meaning one who is loved either by that individual or by God, God uses it of His Son Christ, Isaiah uses it, and elders in Jerusalem use it, and then a lot of the other New Testament authors use it. Okay, Beloved If.

This is a conditional particle, and it's A. Okay, it's A, and A with a verb in the indicative mood indicates a first-class conditional sentence. So, does anyone remember the definition without looking at your notes? And you can look at your notes if you have to, but they're right there. What's the definition of a first-class conditional sentence?

If and it's true or generally true. If and it's generally true, okay. Alright. And the definition we've been using, it's based off of Wallace's Greek New Testament book. The statement is presumed true for the sake of argument. And then this is the chart we've handed out as well.

So, it would read like this, if God so loved us and let us assume that this is true for the sake of argument, then we also ought to love one another. So, you might ask, well, God obviously loves us, so why is that little clause even in there, assume true for the sake of argument? Isn't it true that God loves us? Well, it is true that God loves us, but the reason the definition includes presume true, for the sake of argument is because in some instances the first class conditional sentence asserts something that's not true.

For example, Jesus said in Matthew 12, if I, Jesus, by Beelzebub, cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? And there's a couple other similar examples to this where he's making a statement that of course isn't true. Jesus doesn't cast out demons by Satan, Beelzebub.

But he's just presenting a statement here. So, in his argument, he presumes that this is true. Just for the argument. So that's why they add that. Presume truth for the sake of argument. Okay. John uses this conditional phrase to exhort them to love one another. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another, he says. So that's why he's using this. God is to us. It's used 62 times and is one of the key words of 1 John.

Here's a question for you. Do we know from the context to whom Theos refers? If you had time to study it or take a quick look at it, what do you think? And here's some options, I guess. The Trinity in general, God, or the Father specifically, the Son specifically, or the Holy Spirit. Or maybe we don't know. Sometimes we don't know. But, what do you think?

Well, he's giving us of his spirit in the context, so doesn't that eliminate the spirit? Okay. Alright. Yeah, I agree with that. The same context refers to God in the Son of the Virgin Mary. So the Father? Here. Okay. Alright. Anybody else real quick? Alright. Well, check this out.

If God so loved us, so we're asking, who does God refer to? Can we tell specifically? Well, in John 17, Jesus is praying to the Father, O righteous Father, for the world has not known You, yet I have known You, and these have known You that sent Me. And these have known that You sent Me, and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them.

So here we have the Father sending the Son, and then in John 4.14, which we'll look at next week, we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. So, from basically 14 here, it seems to me that it is the Father in view. He sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. But anyway... Question? Yeah. Back to your verse, John 17. Yeah.

The righteous Father, although the world hath not known Him, what is the world there? It is Cosmos. Which definition of Cosmos? I don't know. Probably the unbelievers. That would make most sense off the top of my head. The believing Jews certainly did, yeah. Right, right. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Sure. And even probably the national Jews that didn't trust him. Because Jesus confronted the Pharisees directly and told them they were of the devil.

Okay, if God so loved us, and this is a little adverb of comparison, And it refers to the manner that God loved us. He loved us in this manner, in this way. And by context, we should have looked at this one a minute ago too when we were trying to determine which member of the Trinity this is talking about.

1 John 4, 9, by this the love of God was manifested in us that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world. And so from John 17 and 4, 14 we see that the Father sent His Son. the love of God was manifested in us or to us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world." So, in other words, this is how God loved us. He sent His Son into the world. So that's what John's talking about. If God so loved us by sending His Son into the world, then. So that's what he's talking about here.

Loved is agapao. to have love for someone or something, and it's the word that's most often used for God's love, not entirely, or exclusively, but usually the word used. Here it's aorist tense and indicative mood, so it's just a fact that occurred in the past. It's also one of our key words. If God so loved us, Hamas, This is just a personal pronoun.

And I have another question for you. Does Hamas refer to believers only or to mankind globally? What do you think? Okay. And we saw just in the previous slide that this is talking about The Father sending His Son into the world to die for sins, right?

John 3.16 Okay, so Roger taught last week that 1 John 4-9 refers globally to all mankind, and this is by this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

Does 1 John 4.9 remind you of any other portion of Scripture or specific verse? And I think Ann Marie already answered that. Yeah, and it is.

It's very similar to John 3.16, which of course is talking about the Father sending His Son to die for the world.

In fact, the passage we're looking at this morning is so similar to John 3.16 that some Bible teachers have called this section in 1 John a commentary on John 3.16. So they're talking about similar things. So, most likely the global view also applies here in verse 11. Us, if God so loved us, referring to mankind, not just Christians. Okay, next phrase, we also ought to love one another.

Hēmēs, same personal pronoun, just used differently in the sentence. Hēmēs is the subject of the sentence and is added for emphasis. In other words, John could have left that out. You can leave out the pronoun or the subject in Greek, and it still makes fine sense. And you add the subject for emphasis, and that's what John's done here. Yes. Did you say that John's saying that the us includes the world? Yes. If God so loved us. You don't think so? I don't think so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I think based on the context in verse 9 that that makes most sense. Okay.

I'm just thinking a little bit about the pronoun normal. If I say us, wouldn't I be more inclined to think of the people I'm addressing? If I'm just addressing a certain group, I would say us. But if it's broader than that, why wouldn't I say so? How would you say so? If God so loved the world. Okay, yeah. Yeah, you could. Yeah, the reason I think it's us is just because of the context. It's clearly he's talking about what God did for. It's not a big point. Yeah. No, it's something. We won't.

But it is something I thought through. And it seems to be that he wasn't being exclusive to the Christians right there with us, if God so loved us. Of course, it includes the Christians, because he's referring to Christ's general death on the cross for all mankind. But here, then, he specifically is singling out the Christians. But those are good questions to ask.

I think we should be careful and wrestle over questions like that. Try to figure it out. What's it saying? What is it saying? Yeah, we better keep going. I'm going to run out of time as it is. Alright, so, but here I'm going ahead and saying that he's emphasizing, now he's making the distinction.

On the previous phrase, he's emphasizing what God's done. On the one hand, God so loved us, whether or not it's the world or just the church. On the one hand, the subject is God, what God's done. God so loved us. Now he's saying, on the other hand, because of that, then we ought to love one another.

And he adds that pronoun we for emphasis. Also is chi, which is a very common conjunction. We'll see that in a minute. Here it's used adverbially, though. We even, also. I'm sorry, we even ought to love one another, is probably a better way to translate it. A little info on Chi.

There are 33 different coordinating conjunctions in the New Testament, which are used 14,183 times. That's about two conjunctions for every single verse of the New Testament. So they're all over the place, just parts of the sentence. But chi is used in more than half of these instances, so chi is everywhere.

But here it's used as an adverb. Ot is a phalo, to owe, to be under obligation, to be bound by duty or obligation to do something. present tense, active voice, indicative mood. So right now, in continuing, we ought to love one another. It's only used three times by John.

In 2.6 and in 3.16 it shows up. The one who says he abides in him ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked. And then 3.16, we know love by this, he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. So that's where it shows up in 1 John. Now Paul uses this verb quite a bit, a total of 16 times. Here's a couple examples where Paul uses it.

We who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength. Ephesians 5.28, So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies.

2 Thessalonians 1.3, We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren.

And 2 Thessalonians 2.13, But we should always give thanks to God for you.

So I have a question. Is this okay for a Christian under grace to be told by John and Paul that they ought to do certain things? Or does that sound a little too legalistic? It did, so it must be okay. Okay, good point. That's inspired. And I think that's my first answer. The answer is yes for a couple of reasons. First, these verses are in God's Word and are found in those portions of Scripture which are written directly to church-age saints. So, yeah, they're for us. A second reason would be that Scripture, these verses and others, teaches that the church-age saint is responsible to make sure that his condition or walk glorifies God.

So that's certainly in there. I didn't give you the how of that. That's my third point. We'll come back to that. Here's some more examples where scriptures mention our conduct or our walk. Ephesians 5, Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. And then a third reason why this is okay is that the church-age saint fulfills his responsibility to glorify God and His condition by moment by moment, dependence upon the Lord and His grace. So it's, yeah, it's in the Scripture and then we're able to do that by trusting the Lord and He'll live through us in that way. Okay, so here's one verse that teaches that our part is to trust the Lord.

Colossians 2.6 says, Therefore as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. And how do we receive Him? By faith. And so, how do we walk in Him? By faith. Another place where this comes up is John 15.

Abide in Me and I in you, and that abiding is just resting by faith in Him, in Christ. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. So you cannot bear fruit unless you are depending upon the Lord. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. So that teaches it very clearly. So, how can we love one another? By depending upon him.

In Hali'ilite language, would this be called identification? What's that? Would this be called identification? In other words, the way we function is by this life that we have. Sure. And Paul and John are illustrating what our condition should be, operating out of our position. Sure. So that it's a natural function, it's not one of a legal thing that we have to attain. It's the way the life functions. That's right.

It is the way the life functions, and with that we are involved to make the decision, the choice, however you want to call it, to trust the Lord. so that this happens. In other words, I don't believe that this just happens, like I just wake up one day and without thinking about it, I'm loving one another. I believe it's a moment by moment walk where I'm trusting the Lord, He's living through me, but it doesn't just kind of mystically wham-o-bam happen without my involvement, I guess. It does mystically happen in that he does it, but we're involved all along. And isn't it all of these things that are conditional aspects that John is pointing out here, training, in other words, if we don't know how the life functions, we wouldn't recognize it, right?

Maybe I'm confusing the issue. I think it's even more than just, they're not just there to show us what it looks like, that is true, but I think it's also there to show us what we physically need to be trusting for, so we'll just be doing through us.

Right. I think I see what you're asking, and I'm not sure how to answer it exactly. Examples to your children. Yeah. I mean, that's sort of what we have in our Yeah. Sure. It's laying out what the life looks like. I guess that's my point. Sure. And I and I used to and I used to I used to be confused on conduct. And so I don't want to.

This this probably isn't what you're saying, but I used to think that when I read the conduct portions of Scripture that they weren't necessarily for me right now. They were more just to show me theoretically or objectively what the life of Christ looks like. But they weren't for me today. love my brother today, because somehow I viewed that as being legalistic. But the practical portions of God's Word were just for me to look at and wait for God to someday work these things into my life. But now I look at the practical portions of the Church Age Epistles and say, you know, they're not just there to show me what the life of Christ looks like so that one day, twenty years from now, these will be part of my life. But they're there to do that as well, to show me what Jesus' life looks like, but then for me to specifically trust Him for, and these should be a part of my life today.

You know what I mean? So this loving one another isn't just something that John's just not saying, hey guys, 20 years from now as you grow spiritually, you'll be loving one another. He's specifically telling them, we ought to love one another. But he's not being legalistic and telling them to do this in the flesh or in dependence upon yourself. He's saying, you know, the Lord lives in you, trust Him, and because of that, love one another today, you know, right now.

So that's... Actually, that's all Chris Jones about our condition to a large extent. This is what your condition should look like. That's where Ben is coming from. He lays the condition out almost... He flips things around and comes at the condition and says, well, don't forget where your condition came from. It came from your position.

That's right. He says condition over and you can and people do make that realistic. Well, you argue about your brother and you can make that a law. Sure. And we shouldn't, that's right. But you're right Ben, this is our condition based on our position because I think it was a verse Roger covered last week that said that love comes from God. So he's real clear that this loving, it comes from God. It doesn't come from you. But then he tells you to do it, But it's obviously because you're abiding in Him.

That's all in the context too. Yeah, we're going to go way over today. Okay, so anyway, in conclusion, it is okay for John, Paul, and for us to teach that the Christian under grace ought to love one another. There's not a problem there. To love is agapalo again, the same word he used in the last phrase. One another, alelone, it's a reciprocal pronoun.

Here's a reciprocating air compressor. I used to sell these. You know, the piston goes back and forth. That's how it compresses the air. Well, that's the same idea. That's one another, you know. That's why it's called a reciprocal pronoun, back and forth.

Sorry about that. All right, it's used five times. Alelone is found 98 times in all. And I thought it was pretty interesting to look in the New Testament at where Elylon shows up, because it's so similar to what John's saying in 1 John. So we'll just peek at those, a couple of them.

New commandment I give to you, Jesus says, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you love one another. He repeats it again in verse 35. John 15, this is my commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. So the same idea there. If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. The same thing is going on there.

Paul, Romans 13, oh, and this is a phalo, oh, nothing to anyone except to love one another, for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. Galatians 5, don't use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but, at the end, but through love serve one another. Paul again, love one another. Peter, love one another.

So it shows up a lot. Okay, so let's summarize verse 11. Beloved, let us love one another. After stating the origin of love which was from God. He said love is from God and even defining love and remember he defined love He said this is love not that you love God, but that he loved you. So that's love what he did for you That's love. Well now he again because the first time was in verse 7 When he said let us love one another.

Well, he again here in verse 11 admonishes the Christians to love one another and We saw that God so loved us refers to Christ's substitutionary death on the cross for all mankind. Although Ben and Doug, and I think it's good, want to study that out a little more to make sure.

These verses in 1 John are very similar to John 3.16. Also John again calls on the Christians to love one another. He says that the Christians ought to love one another or that they are indebted to God to love one another. And as we noted earlier, John isn't putting them or you under law.

He's simply communicating that you have a responsibility to love one another based on God's love for us. And in the context of the New Testament and first John, for that matter, you fulfill this responsibility by trusting in the Lord who lives in us. Our job is to trust him. His job is to live through us.

Here's a neat verse that goes right along with this. The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has given to us. And then what's one of the first fruits of the Holy Spirit? In Galatians 5, love, joy, peace, etc. Also 2 Corinthians 5, for the love of Christ controls us or impels us. Right on to verse 12.

No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. No one, Udays, a negative pronoun, used only twice in 1 John, has seen Ishtia'omai. to behold, to look upon, to view attentively, to contemplate. And here it's in the perfect tense, indicative mood, and it's a deponent. So, can anybody off the top of their head tell us what the perfect tense is?

I'm asking a lot of questions because Because something has to have stuck. Anybody? Past completed action. And technically I've been told that the effects, by the definition of the perfect tense, the effects are only into the present. Obviously, if it's something God's done, the effects are eternally, but like with the perfect tense, it only includes or guarantees that the effects come into the present. Anyway, right on.

What's a deponent? Kind of a weird word. Basically, it's a verb that is in the middle or passive. It could be in the middle or the passive. It could have a middle or passive ending. It functions as if it's active voice. So here it looks like, this one looks like it should be in the middle voice, but it's actually active voice. All right.

Theomai is only used three times in 1 John. And Vines has a pretty good definition of it. He says, a theomai signifies a more earnest contemplation than the ordinary verbs for it to see. So it's a very intense word. And I believe this is the one that Hal has taught on. This is where we get our word theater from. So it's like you're watching something pretty intensely. God hears theos. Now here Thaos is anarthros. Does anyone remember what that means? Anarthros?

No definite article. So the definite article is not there. What does that mean then? If the definite article isn't in front of a word, what is that saying about the word? You say it's not necessarily specific? Okay. So, if the definite article isn't in front of the word, usually the character of the word is being emphasized, instead of the specificness of the word.

So here, God's character or God's essence is being referred to here, not necessarily God himself. because Jesus is God, and certainly people have seen Jesus. At any time, Popete, an adverb, a really rare adverb, only found six times in the New Testament, but John uses it five of those to six times.

Now, this whole phrase here, no one has seen God at any time. What is John talking about here? Why? And where did this statement come from? Because if you're like me, you're reading through here, and then all of a sudden, no one's seen God at any time. It's like, where did that come from, you know? But, yeah, I mean, it's just a bullet out of nowhere. But we're actually going to hold off until we get to the verse 12 summary, and we'll look at some reasons why that's there. So, no one has seen God at any time, and then he says, if we love one another.

Well, now we have another one of these class conditional third, first, I'm sorry, first, second, third, fourth, fifth class conditional sentences. This is Eon, a different particle than verse 11. et on with a verb in the subjunctive mood indicates a third class conditional sentence. And can anyone remember what the significance of that is? What does a third class say?

Probability. Okay. The fulfillment of the statement is uncertain, but still likely. So it's not guaranteed, but it's probable, like Larry said. in 3rd class on our chart. Okay, so if we love, and of course this is going to be in the subjunctive mood because the 3rd class condition always has the verb in the subjunctive mood. We love, now we've already seen Agapayo two times this morning. Subjunctive mood is the mood of moderate contingency, where the action is objectively possible, but not reality. So it goes right along with that definition of the third class condition.

One another, same word, aleilon. If we love one another, God abides in us. Abides, meno, to continue to be present. This is also one of our key words in 1 John, used 24 times. And we've noted earlier that John uses this word more than any other author. God abides in us. In is this little preposition which means to be entirely in something or someone. So we could look at this phrase like this.

God abides in us, so here's God abiding entirely in us, if we love one another. And, and is chi, and His love is perfected in us. Altos is a pronoun, referring to God. Believe it or not, some people argue about whose love that is there, but it's God's love. our love for Him.

Love is agape. This is just the noun that comes from the verb to love, agapao. Eighteen times it's used. It's also one of the key words, agape. Here's a question for you. When you hear the phrase, the love chapter, what first comes to your mind? Yeah, 1 Corinthians 13. But I propose that 1 John 4 is also a love chapter. For example, the noun agape, which we're looking at right now, it occurs 12 times. The verb agapao occurs 15 times, just in this one chapter. That's a total of 27 times. And 1 Corinthians 13 only has 9 instances. So this is the real love chapter. No, 1 Corinthians 13 is great because it has a lot about love and defines love. But this is close. Alright, so His love is perfected in us. So this is Amy, our favorite word in 1 John, 99 times.

Present tense, active voice, indicative mood, so it is presently perfected. Perfected is te lao, to complete, to perfect, that is, to add what is lacking in order to render a thing full. Alright, now this is perfect tense, so again, it's something that was completed in the past, but it's events or, I'm sorry, it's effects are carried into the present, at least. Passive voice, so it's something that was done. It received the, I'm sorry, his love is what was perfected, so it's passive.

His love is perfected. It's also a participle here. Now this is going to get real technical. Here John uses a paraphrastic construction. What in the world is that? Well, basically, a paraphrastic construction is where you have a finite verb, like is, with a participle. And you have different tenses even, like this is present tense and this is perfect tense. They go together. So his love is perfected in us. Same preposition. So here we have, His love is perfected where? In us. Summarizing verse 12, Okay, let's look at that phrase again.

No one has seen God at any time. Seemed to come out of nowhere at first glance. Well, several times in Scripture it is taught that man has not and cannot see God directly. One example is Exodus 33, but Jehovah said to Moses, you cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live. And then John, we'll zero into the Apostle John. He states this several times in his Gospel and in 1 John.

John 1.18, no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. We'll come back to that in a minute.

John 5.37, the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form.

John 6.46, not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God. So Christ is saying He's the only one who's, you know, beheld the Father. He has seen the Father.

1 John 4.20, if someone says, I love God and hates His brother, he's a liar. For the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. So man cannot look upon God. And that's taught in Scripture in quite a few places. So that's what John's saying there. So no man has seen God at any time. That's what he's saying. Pretty simple. But why? Why did he say that here?

Several Bible scholars have said that the Gnostics were claiming to have seen God, to have had a vision of God, and that could be why John brought it in here. It could be, but there isn't any available Gnostic material that claims that, so it's just, it could be true, but it's just, it's sort of a guess.

1 John 1.18, which we just looked at.

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. When Christ was on earth, He explained God. He revealed God's character to all mankind. While presently, Christ is in heaven at the Father's right hand. In order for God's character to be demonstrated to mankind today, Christ's very life is lived through Christians. So, in other words, for man to see God today, to see God's character today, it would be through Christians. Obviously, in God's Word, His character is taught and revealed. But certainly, Christ demonstrated God's character on earth.

That's what 1 John 1.18 taught. And now, our verse is talking about God abiding in us, and that's why I believe he mentions the whole seeing God.

No one has seen God at any time. But God abides in us, so that people can see His character through us. That's, I think, what's going on here in not just our verse, but this whole section in 1 John 4. This is what John references when he states, No one has seen God at any time.

If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. So he's abiding in us, and His love is perfected in us, so that man can see what God's like. And of course, Paul talks a bit about that as well. The rest of verse 12 says, If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. This is the third class conditional phrase. If we love one another, as John has been urged us to do in verse 7 and verse 11, the phrases are conditioned upon if we love one another. If we love one another, then God experientially abides by us, talking about our condition, and His love is perfected. It is interesting that His love is not perfected until we are loving one another.

And John actually taught the same thing in 2.5. Whoever keeps his word, In Him, the love of God has been truly perfected. And you could ask, well, what does it mean to keep His Word? And I have an answer for that. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in Him. Similar message to our verse. Okay, so now, let's try to cover verse 13. Okay, by this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

By this, in tuto, it's a prepositional phrase. We've seen it before. I think we'll see it a couple more times before we're done with the book. It means by this or in this. And here, It refers to the knowledge that comes by the illumination of the indwelling spirit. In other words, it refers to the same phrase that's mentioned at the end of the verse. We'll come back to this. We know, is gnosko, to know, to understand, to perceive, to have knowledge of. In some context, it has the meaning of experiential knowledge. Present tense, indicative, so it's happening now and continually. It's also one of our key words.

By this, we know that. Hati. And in this context, Hati denotes the substance or the contents of a statement. Sometimes Hati can explain why, can tell you the reason that something has happened, but it also then can just tell you the contents of a statement. And that's what it's doing here.

What do we know? Well, we know that we abide in Him. Abide is meno, again. In Him. You guys are going to get really good at understanding when it's used this way, we know that we abide in Him, we are abiding in Him, and He in us. Altos is just a personal pronoun for He, referring to God, of course, in us. Look at this pictorially. God is abiding in us. We're abiding in Him. He's abiding in us. Now, also I note that the verb meno is implied, of course. It's not in the text, but it's implied. Okay, so He's abiding in us, and we're abiding in Him.

Because, how do we know that? How do we know that we are abiding in Him and He in us? Well, because He has given us of His Spirit. Now, here we have Hati, the same little conjunction as earlier in the sentence, but it's used differently here. Here, Hati explains how. How are we knowing that we abide in Him and He in us? Because He has given us of His Spirit.

He has given us didomai, a very common verb for giving, and it's perfect tense, so it happened in the past. He has given us, and this of course would be Christians, He has given to us. The preposition to is implied, it's not in there, but it's built into the word, it's built into the pronoun. You see, it would be translated, He has given to us, and that makes Haman the indirect object as well. He has given to us of His Spirit.

Ak is the little preposition, out of, denotes the origin, or the source, or the cause of something. Spirit is pneuma, or pneuma, however you want to say it. It's one of the key words. We looked at it in detail a few weeks ago. There were at least 11 different definitions of it. So here, pneuma is referring to the Holy Spirit. He has given to us of His Spirit.

Alright, real quickly here, because we're out of time completely. Because He has given us of His Spirit, there's something missing from the phrase, and I'll tell you what it is. It's the object, the direct object. There's no direct object here. He is the subject, has given is the verb, to us is the indirect object. So what, my question is, what has He given to us? Because he doesn't directly state it here.

And Bible scholars and students are all over the page on this. Everybody seems to come up with a different object, a different direct object. What is he given? And so, it seems to me from the context and the way I can best interpret this, that he's talking about the knowledge or the knowing that we are in God and he is in us. How do we know this, he says? Because of the spirit.

Alright. And we're just going to end it right there because we're out of time. Those diagrams are for you. I usually diagram them and then I don't always make copies of them. They're pretty cool because sometimes they just kind of help you see what he's saying. If they don't make any sense to you and they're not helpful, Throw them up. Doesn't matter. Throw them away. Sorry. Don't eat them. Sorry. Just throw them away. But they can be pretty helpful to help you figure out what is the subject of the sentence? What is the verb? What's the object? Especially with these... You know what is really helpful? These conditional sentences.

Because like on verse 12, where we had the third class, what you see is that the conditional part of that sentence, which is, if we love one another, that's the conditional part. But what you see is that the other two statements, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us, are hinged on us loving one another. So, to see that kind of graphically can help. Alright, let's pray. Dear Lord, thanks for letting us dig into the details of your word and then hopefully summarize it and make sense out of it and apply it to our lives. And I pray that we would love one another and glorify You there by Your grace and by trusting You moment by moment. And please continue to teach us this morning and give us great fellowship. In Jesus' name, Amen.