In 1882 George Matheson wrote:
O Love, that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
I quote it here—especially “O Love, that wilt not let me go” —as the testimony of two witnesses. One witness, the author of this verse, is the epitome of the righteous as I understand it, according to a comment on hymnal.net by Ana Lara, March 27, 2020. George Matheson struggled to serve God against the undeserved evils of blindness and loneliness. The other witness is a sinner who has struggled against almost every sin of the flesh and most sins of doubt and confusion.
I, that sinner, further affirm that God is patient, God is kind, He is not envious. He does not brag, He is not puffed up. He is not rude, He is not self-serving, He is not easily angered or resentful. He is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.
The Bible is translated into English by committees of the righteous, not by committees of sinners. I don’t have a lot of personal experience to know what it feels like to be the righteous. I have Jesus’ word (Luke 15:11-32) that they may feel that God has treated them unfairly when He shows mercy to a sinner like me.
Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, Jesus said, and the one who comes to me I will never send away.[1]
I’m led to examine the Greek.
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John 6:37 |
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| NET Parallel Greek |
Stephanus Textus Receptus |
| πᾶν ὃ δίδωσιν μοι ὁ πατὴρ πρὸς ἐμὲ ἥξει, καὶ τὸν ἐρχόμενον πρὸς |ἐμὲ| οὐ μὴ ἐκβάλω ἔξω | παν ο διδωσιν μοι ο πατηρ προς εμε ηξει και τον ερχομενον προς με ου μη εκβαλω εξω |
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NET |
KJV |
| Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never send away. | All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. |
The Greek word translated Everyone (KJV: All) is πᾶν (a form of πᾶς). It is listed as an adjective that may be in the nominative case or the accusative case, but stands as the subject of this clause in both translations. It is singular and neuter while πᾶς is singular and masculine. But πᾶν (everyone or all) is limited and specified by what follows.
The next word is the relative pronoun ὃ, a singular neuter form of ὅς, translated whom in the NET signaling the translators’ choice of the accusative case over the nominative case. The KJV translators’ choice, that, is more difficult to ferret out. The verb δίδωσιν, a form of δίδωμι in the present tense, active voice and indicative mood follows this relative pronoun. Jesus makes a factual statement here as opposed to proposing a hypothetical situation.
The personal pronoun μοι, a first person singular form of ἐγώ in the dative case follows the verb. So I have: “Everyone whom [an as yet unspecified third person singular] gives me” or gives “to me.” Then the giver is specified: ὁ πατὴρ, the Father, unequivocally in the nominative case. “Everyone whom the Father gives me…”
The preposition πρὸς is next, followed by the personal pronoun ἐμὲ, the first person form of ἐγώ in the accusative case. This signifies that ἐμὲ is the direct object of πρὸς, and that the meaning of πρὸς is selected from the following pool: “to; toward, in the direction of; beside; against; with; at; toward daybreak.” So I have: “Everyone whom the Father gives me, to me…”
The verb ἥξει, a third person singular form of ἥκω, completes this clause. It is in the future tense, active voice and indicative mood. This remains a factual statement through and through: “Everyone whom the Father gives me, to me will come.”
Frankly, my knowledge of Greek is insufficient to see why—other than word order—this wasn’t translated: “the Father gives me everyone who will come to me.” The grammarian in my head actually prefers it. Of course my grammarian is still more familiar with American English than Koine Greek. The logician in my head hears “everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me” and “the Father gives me everyone who will come to me” as logically equivalent, so long as I’m not confused by will.
The English word will in the NET doesn’t refer to any forms of the Greek verbs θέλω or βούλομαι (to will), or any forms of the nouns θέλημα or βουλή (the will). It was simply half of the two word phrase, will come, the NET translators chose for the Greek verb ἥξει. And though both verbs, δίδωσιν and ἥξει, are in the active voice, I hear no cause and effect between them here necessarily.
Yes, one could argue that, No one can come to me (ἐλθεῖν πρός με) unless the Father who sent me draws him,[2] adds a sense of cause and effect to this clause retrospectively. But in context it’s not yet the point of this clause. The logical equivalence of the one the Father gives Jesus with the one who will come to Jesus is really leaping off the page at me.
Imprisoned in time as I am, I’m unqualified to use this clause to judge another negatively. In other words, I can’t say, it appears to me that you have not come to Jesus yet, therefore the Father has not given you to Jesus. I may have a limited qualification to judge positively: It appears to me that you have come to Jesus, therefore the Father has given you to Jesus. But it seems to me, as one who will stand before Jesus to give an account, that the best understanding of this clause is that anyone who appears to me to have come to, toward, in the direction of, beside, with, even against Jesus, should be recognized as at least potentially a precious gift of God the Father to God the Son.
The next clause begins with the conjunction καὶ. This is followed by τὸν ἐρχόμενον. Apparently, placing a definite article before a verb (a form of ἔρχομαι here) transforms it into something like a gerund, a verb functioning as a noun, “the coming one,” translated the one who comes (NET) or him that cometh (KJV). Since τὸν and ἐρχόμενον are both in the accusative case, the one who comes is the direct object of this clause.
The prepositional phrase πρὸς |ἐμὲ| in the NET parallel Greek text or προς με in the Stephanus Textus Receptus follows ἐρχόμενον. So I have: “and the one who comes to me…”
The negation which follows is οὐ μὴ. It is nothing like a double negative in English. Rather, it is an emphatic negation. The verb it negates is ἐκβάλω, a 2nd aorist tense form of ἐκβάλλω in the active voice and subjunctive mood. Though it is not the future tense ἐκβαλῶ, it was translated as a potential future event, I will…send away (NET) or I will…cast out (KJV), relative to the time one comes to Jesus.
Here is Justin Alfred again on the emphatic negation of a future event in the aorist tense.[3]
However, when these two Greek negative particles are combined in the form of οὐ µή (ou mē) with reference to a future event, what results is an intensified form of the negative: “οὐ µή (ou mē) is the most decisive way of negativing something in the future.” Thayer adds, “The particles οὐ µή in combination augment the force of the negation, and signify not at all, in no wise, by no means; . . .”
However, when this combination is attached to an Aorist Subjunctive, what occurs is what has been termed the Subjunctive of Emphatic Negation. As was pointed out above, the Subjunctive Mood indicates the probability of an event, and the Aorist Tense emphasizes an action as simply occurring, without any specific reference to time, apart from the use of an adverbial modifier (e.g., that which would describe when, where, how much, or how often). Thus, when you have οὐ µή (ou mē) in combination with the Aorist Subjunctive, what occurs is the absolute and unequivocal denial of the probability of an event EVER OCCURING at any moment or time in the future.
The Greek word ἔξω, translated away (NET) or out (KJV), may be an adverb or a preposition. I’ll assume that it’s an adverb here modifying ἐκβάλω, since no object of the preposition is present. I don’t think it diminishes the power of the “Subjunctive of Emphatic Negation” as described by Mr. Alfred above.
The Father and I are one,[4] Jesus said: ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν.
I’ve already encountered ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ, “I and the Father.” The adjective ἕν (a form of εἷς) is the number one. And ἐσμεν is a 1st person plural form of εἰμί in the present tense, active voice and indicative mood: “I and the Father one are.” In other words, God the Father and God the Son exist as one God. He is not divided against Himself.
So I have “the absolute and unequivocal denial of the probability” that one God will “EVER…at any moment or time in the future” send away the one who comes to Jesus, as a fact before I even come to the metaphor in John 15:1-8. This fact must be the basis for any assumptions I make when translating that metaphor into English.
When Jesus said to his disciples, I am the vine; you are the branches,[5] he clarified the meaning of a metaphor. He didn’t transform human beings into the branches of a vine. Human beings they remained, fully capable of autonomous motion, with agile minds, easily bored, easily captivated by other people and other concepts than Jesus and his word. Such a hypothetical human being “[is] not one remaining in [Jesus], [and is] like a branch [that] was thrown out and dried up, they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and it burns.” This is a description of this hypothetical human being’s present condition, not a prophecy necessarily of this hypothetical human beings’ future.
On the contrary, Jesus’ point was: Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me [Table]…The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing,[6] as far as bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit is concerned.
Don’t be fooled. To other human beings imprisoned in time the human being not remaining in Jesus may appear exceptionally accomplished professionally, politically, academically, artistically, commercially, even, dare I say it, religiously as a “soul winner.” But as far as the fruit of the Spirit of God is concerned, this one can accomplish nothing, “like a branch [that] was thrown out and dried up, they gather them up and throw them into the fire, and it burns.”
On the other hand, when Jesus spoke of “every branch in me that does not bear fruit,” He speaks of a human being in Jesus, captivated by Him and his word. And here I’ll mix Jesus’ and Paul’s metaphors: This one participates in the richness of the olive root;[7] this one is continuously filled with God’s own love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.[8] But what proceeds out of this one is not very loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle or self-controlled at present.
I’ll take me for an example, talking politics. God help me I’m neither Democrat nor Republican but a bomb-throwing anarchist at heart. And I in this area, even as a branch in Jesus that does not yet bear the fruit that is so generously supplied, can be assured that the gardener, God our Father, will lift us up, move us upward, raise us to a higher level, carry us along, bear with us, endure with us until He causes his fruit to emerge through us.
We can know this for certain by faith in Jesus Christ, who said takes away ain’t no option in Greek for an English translation of αἴρει in John 15:2 concerning the One true God regarding the one who remains in Jesus. My Father is honored by this, Jesus said, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples.[9]
A table comparing John 6:44 in the NET and KJV follow.
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John 6:44 (KJV) |
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| No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. | No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. |
| Stephanus Textus Receptus | ||
| οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν, καγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ | ουδεις δυναται ελθειν προς με εαν μη ο πατηρ ο πεμψας με ελκυση αυτον και εγω αναστησω αυτον τη εσχατη ημερα | ουδεις δυναται ελθειν προς με εαν μη ο πατηρ ο πεμψας με ελκυση αυτον και εγω αναστησω αυτον εν τη εσχατη ημερα |
[1] John 6:37 (NET) Table
[3] Justin Alfred, “EMPHATIC NEGATIONS IN BIBLICAL GREEK,” BLB Blog
[8] Galatians 5:22b, 23a (NET) Table
[9] John 15:8 (NET) Table