Calvary Road Baptist Church
“CONCERNING MATTERS OF LOVE AND HATE”
John 15.17-21
I intend to bring you a message from God’s Word concerning matters of love and hate. However, before I speak to you concerning matters of love and hate, I want to remind you how important it is to God and how important it should be to you and me to engage in the practice of thanksgiving.
Before I read several verses to show you the importance of giving thanks, let me read Romans 1.21, a portion of the apostle’s inspired description of those who suppress their knowledge of God:
“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
Recognizing those whose imaginations are vain, whose foolish hearts are darkened, because they refuse to glorify God, we see from Paul’s letter that they are also characteristically ingrates. Does that not describe so much of our present culture? Thankful for nothing. Do you know someone who is unthankful? Has someone come to mind who is not appreciative? Such patterns are typical of far worse spiritual issues than most people recognize.
We now turn to thankfulness:
Psalm 50.14:
“Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High.”
Psalm 69.30:
“I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.”
Psalm 95.2:
“Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.”
Psalm 100.4:
“Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”
Psalm 107.22:
“And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.”
Psalm 116.17:
“I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.”
Psalm 147.7:
“Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; sing praise upon the harp unto our God.”
Jonah 2.9:
“But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.”
2 Corinthians 9.11:
“Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.”
Philippians 4.6:
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”
Colossians 2.7:
“Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”
Colossians 4.2:
“Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving.”
From the Psalmists to the prophet Jonah inside the belly of the great fish in the Old Testament, and from the Apostle Paul’s second Corinthian letter and two of his prison epistles in the New Testament, we see how important the practice and habit of God’s people to express thanksgiving to Him, both in the private utterances of our prayer closets, as well as the gathered assemblies of our public worship is. Are you enjoying God’s rich bounty of blessings? Then you ought to express your thanks to God, in private as well as in public. Are you suffering heartache, loss, or physical pain? Do you imagine there were no expressions of thanksgiving mingled with Paul and Silas’ prayers and praises to God heard by the other prisoners in the Philippian jail, Acts 16.25? What mental picture do you have of Daniel as an old man in the lion’s den in which is he not giving thanks to God?
The verses that I read to you about thanksgiving contained little information concerning what God is being thanked for. Only God’s people are encouraged to form the habits and practice of thanking God for everything. If you doubt that, listen as I read what the Apostle Paul wrote to the new converts in Thessalonica:
“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you,”
First Thessalonians 5.18.
As you make your way to John 15.17, please keep in mind what we have quickly reviewed about this matter of thanksgiving. Remember that it is characteristic of the unsaved to display ingratitude, be unthankful, and not count their blessings. On the other hand, we see that God’s people’s cultivated characteristic pattern is thankfulness during both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Again, the prophet Jonah expressed a commitment to thanking God in the future when he was in the belly of the great fish.[1] And Paul’s instructional epistle written to new Christians very directly asserts that God’s will for your life is to give thanks in everything.
Now that you have arrived at John 15.17 let us recall that the Lord Jesus Christ is leading His eleven remaining apostles from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane after celebrating the Passover with them and instituting the communion of the Lord’s Supper. Along the way that evening, He declared to them that He is the way, the truth, and the life and that no one comes to the Father but by Him.[2] Farther along the way, He identified Himself as the True Vine, with His Father said to be the Husbandman, and believers likened to branches of the vine that bear fruit.[3] However, life for those men was not going to be a cluster of grapes. As the Lord Jesus Christ walked with them toward the Garden of Gethsemane and would leave them behind to go to the cross of Calvary, the Good Shepherd first took occasion to prepare His little flock for what was in store for them; persecution.
Read John 15.17-21:
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
Again, the issue those men would soon face was persecution, withering persecution. How their shepherd prepared them for what they would face was by, first, issuing them a command, next, voicing to them a caution, and, then, providing for them a rehearsal of the causes. The Lord directs His men. Then He warns His men. And then He elaborates to His men.
However, remember that I began by addressing the issue of gratitude and thanksgiving. What those men should be thankful for, and what they would learn to express their thankfulness for, was the preparation they were given even before they knew what they were being prepared for. The same is true of you and me. There is a reason why we should always give thanks to God. Do you have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ? That is sufficient reason for gratitude appreciated and expressed. Do you not agree?
Additionally, as with those eleven men, we are looked after and cared for, even when we do not realize what is happening. Therefore, you and I ought to purpose to thank God even when we don’t know what for. In due time we will know what for.
Three observations in our text show us how the Savior began to prepare His little flock for the persecution that was about to fall upon them with force and fury:
First, WE OBSERVE THE SAVIOR’S COMMAND
Verse 17:
“These things I command you, that ye love one another.”
When seeking to discover Bible truth, we know to ask who, what, why, where, and how. We already know where—Jerusalem, somewhere between the Upper Room and the Garden of Gethsemane. We already know when. Thursday evening, the night before our Lord’s crucifixion. The how is obvious. The Savior is instructing them. What remains for us to discover from verse 17 is the who and the what and the why.
Let us ask, who is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking to? What is abundantly clear is that He is walking with the eleven remaining apostles, Judas Iscariot, having been dismissed from the Upper Room to complete his conspiracy of betrayal. What is overlooked by most who study this portion of God’s Word is that these men are distinguished by the fact that the Savior invited them to the Passover celebration He hosted. They were present when He instituted the communion of the Lord’s Supper. Why was His mother, Mary, not invited? Why were His half-brothers, who were in Jerusalem, not invited? Why were Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, who lived a short distance away, not invited? These men are more than the remaining apostles of Jesus Christ, a disconnected group of disciples following Judas Iscariot’s betrayal. They are the Church of Jesus Christ, our Lord’s little flock, Luke 12.32. Granted, they have not yet been indwelt by the Spirit. The Spirit would be given to them following Christ’s resurrection.[4] The other disciples are not yet incorporated into the Church of Jesus Christ, as would be the case leading up to the Day of Pentecost.[5] This, then, is a fuller satisfaction of our curiosity about precisely who the Lord is speaking to and why His mother, His brothers, and Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were not invited to celebrate the Passover with them in the Upper Room. Who? The Church of Jesus Christ, the little flock, before greater numbers were added.
The final question that remains unanswered is What? What is the Lord Jesus doing at this point by commanding them to love one another? Concerning the disciples’ love one to another commanded as evidence of their love for Christ, and a grateful return for His love of them, we must keep His commandments. And this is His commandment, that we love one another, John 15.12 and 17:
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.
There is no spiritual obligation that is more frequently commanded, nor more urgently pressed upon us, by our Lord Jesus, than that of mutual love, and for good reason. This is especially important for the Church congregation. It is here recommended by Christ’s pattern, as we saw in John 15.12, “as I have loved you.” As if to reinforce the importance of this command, in Ephesians 5.25, Paul writes, “Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.” Christ’s love of and for His followers should direct and engage our love to and for each other. In this manner, and from this motive, we should love one another, as, and because, Christ has loved those who have trusted Him. But beyond that, our Lord specifies some of the expressions of His love to His Church. He called those men particularly friends in John 15.13, 14, and 15. Then He communicated His mind to them, and was ready to give them what they asked. How that should inform our attitude toward the Church. His precept requires our posture toward the congregation. Our Lord interposes His authority and has made love for one another one in the congregation one of the statute-laws of His Church. Observe how differently the command is expressed in these two verses, and both in a very emphatic fashion:
“This is my commandment,” John 15.12 as if this were the most necessary of all the commandments. As under the Law of Moses the prohibition of idolatry was the commandment more insisted on than any other, foreseeing the Jewish people’s addiction to that sin, so Christ, foreseeing that persecution of Christian congregations is best coped with by love, has laid His greatest stress upon this duty that we love one another.
“These things I command you,” John 15.17. He speaks here as if He were about to give them many directives. Yet He names only this one, that they love each other; not only because this includes many of our duties in our congregational life, but because it best prepares members of congregations to deal with persecutions.
Next, WE OBSERVE THE SAVIOR’S CAUTION
Verse 18:
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
Those of you familiar with John’s 15th chapter may have read it enough to appreciate the significant themes found in it. In verses 1-8, our Lord speaks of fruit, using the wonderful allegory of the husbandman, the vine, the branch, and the fruit, with His emphasis on abiding. Verses 9-17 deal with love from various perspectives, beginning with the Father’s love for Him in verse 9 and concluding with His directive for His apostles, the infant Church, to love one another in verse 17. Beginning in verse 18 and continuing through verse 25, before He speaks of the Holy Spirit of God, He cautions His Church about hatred. We need to arm ourselves against the onslaught of hatred. Hatred from others is best countered with love for one another.
Before we narrow our focus to John 15.18, I want to read verses 18-25 to you to provide an overview of where the Lord took His Church as they walked from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.
22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.
23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.
25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.
Do you see how effectively the Lord Jesus Christ pointed out the harsh but true reality of the spiritual realm? His goal was to not only teach His Church about their relationship with God and with Him, that ought to be reflected in their conduct toward each other. He also showed how opposed to God, to the Savior, and to believers they are in and of the world as unbelieving rebels against God and Christ's rejecters. Too many believers in Christ think they are demonstrating kindness by disputing what our Lord said in this passage, but they only deny reality. The world really does hate us.
Adjust your focus to verse 18:
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
To get a handle on the meaning of verse 18, I want to consider it in three ways. First, the structure of the verse. Next, the first phrase. Then, the final phrase.
A. T. Robertson reminds us that John 15.18 is a first-class conditional statement. He writes, “If the world hateth you (ei ho kosmos humas misei). Condition of the first class. As it certainly does.”[6] What does that mean? The first class condition affirms the reality of the condition using a certain Greek word meaning “if.” This construction confirms the condition....”[7] Recognizing this verse as a conditional statement of the first class is crucial to understanding this first phrase, “If the world hate you.” “There is no doubt the world hates you,” is the essence of our Lord’s comment to His young Church. It is then left to us to understand what is meant by the word translated “world” and the word translated “hate.”
In John’s Gospel, the Greek word for world ká½¹smos is used to mean at least seven different things.[8] The word world refers in this verse to the created moral order in active rebellion against God. This same Apostle John writes of the world in the same sense, in First John 2.15-16 and First John 5.19:
2.15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
2.16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
5.19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
Who, then, hates believers in Jesus Christ, especially committed Church members? Unsaved people, all unsaved people, every unsaved person, who comprise a collective of individuals who are each and also together arrayed against God and even the plan, the purpose, the people of God, and the Church of God. Remember, our Lord did say, in Luke 11.23,
“He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”
Now, to ascertain what is meant by the word hate. Translating the Greek word misá¼oo, the Lord informed His Church that the world of unsaved men hated them. It is an ongoing and continuing hatred, despite the abilities of different unsaved people to convince themselves that they do not hate us, and the opinions of some believers that the unsaved to not hate us. The Lord Jesus Christ insists they do hate us. Our command and commitment is to love. The world’s stated commitment is to hate. How very different they are from us. It is a difference that must not be overlooked or minimized. Love them, while recognizing their hatred of us.
Finally, WE OBSERVE THE SAVIOR’S CAUSES
The Lord Jesus provided His men with four interrelated causes for the hatred and the subsequent persecution He cautioned them about in the first half of verse 18 and that He prepared them to deal with by commanding them to love one another in verse 17:
First, the cause of their hatred for you is their already existing hatred for Him:
“ye know that it hated me before it hated you.”
The verb form of the same Greek word translated hated in this phrase is perfect, meaning a permanent attitude of hatred is being referred to.[9] Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ here informs His Church that the world of unsaved individuals under the control and influence of the Devil has a permanent hatred for and toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Think about this dynamic for a moment. We know that God loves Christ, God loves us, Christ loves all believers, and Christ loves His Church. We are, therefore, to love God, love Christ, love all believers, and especially love each other in the Church. But the world hates us because it hates our Savior. Yet there is always the tendency of believers to love the world that hates us and to love the world that hates our God and our Savior.
Next, a further cause of their hatred for you is your difference from them:
Verse 19:
“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
Although we see the word “ye” twice and the word “you” twice in this verse in our version of the Bible, the Greek pronoun is only used twice by our Lord. Our Lord was addressing His immediate comments to the little flock accompanying Him on His way to the Garden of Gethsemane, and not, then, the broader expanse of believers. Those He was speaking to, the still small in number Church of Jesus Christ, were not of the world and were chosen out of the world. Therefore, they were, because of that, hated by the world. When someone in a social group is perceived to be abandoning that group in favor of another group, the first group is typically resentful and feels rejected. Add on top of that the sinful inclinations and motives of the unsaved, and you can easily understand why former friends, relatives, colleagues, and people, in general, will feel antagonistic toward you.
Keep in mind that it is the difference from them that enflames them. No child of God is sinlessly perfect. But if you display the differences associated with obedient Christianity, personal holiness, and involvement in a Church ministry that occupies your time and devotion, they will hate you. After all, the world demands conformity and sameness. Compromise your Christianity, choose them over the Savior and choose them over others in the congregation, and they will tolerate you. But there will be wrath if you display what they perceive to be the differences resulting from Christ choosing you.
Third, yet another cause of the world’s hatred for us is our likeness to Him.
Verse 20:
“Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”
In this verse there are three important points made, which I will deal with in four parts:
First, our Lord issues a directive to the congregation of eleven, a command:
“Remember the word that I said unto you.”
The Greek word translated “remember” translates a Greek word about memory, an imperative verb, meaning our Lord is telling His men what they are to do.[10] They are to remember what He had earlier taught them, which He restates here.
Next, our Lord repeats what He had said in the Upper Room immediately after He washed the apostle’s feet:
“The servant is not greater than his lord.”
This is an exact quote from John 13.16.[11] The apostle does not typically quote verbatim what he refers to. To do so here suggests that this is an important reminder. The context reinforces the importance of the reminder. The question is what does the Lord mean by this statement? He continues to prepare them for the rough treatment they will receive from the world by pointing out that no servant is greater than his lord, as a universally accepted principle. Meaning? If the world has no hesitation about resisting the Son of God, opposing the Son of God, and even crucifying the Son of God, do you think the world will hesitate to treat you poorly? We should not expect treatment from the world to be any different than their treatment of our Lord. Now comes the specific explanation of the general principle our Lord just stated in the form of a first-class conditional sentence, using the familiar if/then format:
“If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
If they have persecuted me (and they both have and will), then they will do likewise to you. The specific word used by the Lord translated persecuted means to pursue. In context, it has here to do with chasing someone, which is why it is translated persecuted here. What irony, the Lord Jesus Christ using a word related to following someone, but with a context that shows the following is not as a disciple but as a harasser, as a stalker, and as a persecutor. If they did that to the Son of the living God, the sinless Savior, He points out that “they will also persecute you.” This word diá½½kw is used in the first half of this statement and also in the second half. In the first half, the verb form refers to what is being done to the Savior, with the second use of the verb being a future tense form. Persecution of the Church of Jesus Christ (and all subsequent congregations and believers) has not commenced, but it will. We observe their persecution in the book of Acts. And we see the apostles Paul and Peter addressing the certainty of Christian persecution. Writing to Timothy in Second Timothy 3.12, Paul asserts,
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”
Here is a portion of Peter’s comments related to a Christian’s persecution, First Peter 4.12-13:
12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
For the last 2,000 years, the Lord’s prediction to the eleven has been fulfilled in Christian history, and the relative freedom from religious persecution that has been enjoyed in this country for the most part for the last two centuries has been a departure from the norm. It may soon become the more common experience of American professing Christians.
The last phrase of John 15.20 reads,
“if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.”
Pay attention to the fact that this phrase is set amid comments before and after dealing with the hatred of Christ and His followers by the world. Therefore, the Lord meant, and His men understood Him to mean, “if they have kept my saying (and they most certainly have not), they will keep yours also (in the same way they have not kept my saying).”
What is the Savior seeking to accomplish in this verse? The Lord Jesus Christ was reinforcing His apostle’s understanding of something He had initially stated minutes earlier to support His comment in John 13.16. Do not think you can stand by and watch the world unleash its fury and venom on the Son of God and hope to escape their attention. Because the servant is not greater than his lord, what the world heaps on the Savior the world will heap on the Savior’s people alike. The statements are designed to impress upon the apostles that the world’s opposition to the Savior will guarantee the world’s opposition to the Savior’s own.
Meaning? Meaning there is a price to pay for being a disciple of Jesus Christ. The cost of privilege is high. However, as Paul pointed out in Romans 8.18,
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.
Finally, the world hates us because of our association with God.
Verse 21:
“But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.”
Though the Lord Jesus Christ is presenting the reasons why the world hates them so, it is in this verse that He seems to distill the reason for their hatred of us to its essence. Recall what our Lord said moments ago, in John 15.19:
“If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
The world loves worldlings. The world loves the worldly.
What the world will not tolerate, however, is an essential difference. For that reason, because God’s people are not of the world but have been chosen by Christ out of the world, the world irrationally, viscerally, hates us. It is an illogical, unreasoning, gut-level intolerance of our spiritual difference and reflects their hatred of God. Those of you who recently were brave enough to try to make Christmas about Christ instead of about presents likely saw proof of what I am saying.
Another cause of the world’s hatred of the apostles comprising the Church (and, by extension, us) is because they belonged to Christ (as we belong to Christ). Here is the real core of the controversy; whatever is pretended, this is the basis of their quarrel with us. The world hates Christ’s disciples because they bear His name and lift up His name in the world:
“But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake.”
It is the character of Christ’s disciples that we stand up for His name. This standing up for Jesus Christ begins with believer baptism and continues for the rest of our lives. It is what we live and die for. The history of the Christian faith is a history of such suffering for Christ. Peter wrote about this in First Peter 4.14:
“If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified.”
And he reflected the experiences of the early Christians, as we see in Acts 5:41:
“And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.”
But did not the Lord Jesus Christ warn His disciples again and again throughout His earthly ministry that persecution awaited them? Yes, He most certainly did. Thus, their experience was what their Savior had predicted.
It is in the last half of John 15.21 that the underlying reason back of all persecution of Christians is found. Be it pagan and Jewish persecution of early disciples, Islamic persecution of Christians throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe beginning in the 7th century, and persecution of the faithful by the Roman Catholic Church in Europe during the era of the Inquisition, the foundation reason is the same:
“because they know not him that sent me.”
Do you have family members who launch into tirades against you for being a Christian, for attending Church, believing the Bible, for forsaking the lifestyle you lived before turning to Christ? The reasons for persecution from these people are typically the same. They persecute you, rail against you, falsely accuse you, spew invective in your direction, threatening in so many words to withhold your grandchildren from you, and seek everything but your interests, is because they know not God.
This is not a new thing. Notice what the psalmist wrote a thousand years before the Savior’s birth, in Psalm 14.1-4:
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
Thus, according to verse 4, they devour us how they eat bread and call not upon the LORD.
If they were that way a thousand years before Christ, should the world be any different when faced with the Son of God come to take away the sins of the world? No. They know not God as He sent the Lord Jesus and authorized Him to be the great Mediator between God and men, so it is no surprise at all that they crucified the Savior and so strongly oppose His people. Paul wrote in First Corinthians 2.8:
“Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
The issue, of course, is knowing God and knowing Jesus Christ. Unsaved people do not grasp, and surprisingly few Christians behave as though they understand that one cannot just know God and know Christ. To know God by knowing Christ changes a person, leaving that individual forever changed, altered for eternity. That is how an enemy of God becomes a servant of Christ when he comes to know Christ by faith.
The issue that determines which side of this great divide you are on is simple to grasp.
Do you know Christ?
Do you thereby know God?
If not, all is lost.
__________
[1] Jonah 2.9
[2] John 14.6
[3] John 15.1-8
[4] John 20.22
[5] Acts 1.15; 1 Corinthians 12.28
[6] A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures In The New Testament, Vol V, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1930), page 261.
[7] Ray Summers, Essentials of New Testament Greek, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1950), pages 108-109.
[8]ká½¹smos = universe as a whole, Acts 17.24
ká½¹smos = earth, John 13.1; Ephesians 1.4
ká½¹smos = evil world system, Matthew 4.8; John 12.31; First John 5.19
ká½¹smos = human race, Romans 3.19
ká½¹smos = humanity minus believers, John 15.18; Romans 3.6
ká½¹smos = Gentiles in contrast to Jews, Romans 11.12
ká½¹smos = believers only, John 1.29; 3.16-17; 6.33; 12.47; First Corinthians 4.9; Second Corinthians 5.19
[9] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 253.
[10] Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1996), page 1153.
[11] Leon Morris, The Gospel According To John - Revised Edition, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), page 603.
Would you like to contact Dr. Waldrip about this sermon? Please contact him by clicking on the link below. Please do not change the subject within your email message. Thank you.
Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church