ris3n's Apologetics Codex

Passage

1 John 5.13

Book: 1 John · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

11. And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12. He that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.

13. These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, even unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God.

  1. And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: 15. and if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. (1 John 5:11-15, ASV)
WEB

11. The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12. He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.

13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

  1. This is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. 15. And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him. (1 John 5:11-15, WEB)
KJV

11. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.

13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

  1. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: in: or, concerning him 15. And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. (1 John 5:11-15, KJV)
YLT

11. and this is the testimony, that life age-during did God give to us, and this, the life, is in His Son; 12. he who is having the Son, hath the life; he who is not having the Son of God, the life he hath not.

13. These things I did write to you who are believing in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that life ye have age-during, and that ye may believe in the name of the Son of God.

  1. And this is the boldness that we have toward Him, that if anything we may ask according to his will, He doth hear us, 15. and if we have known that He doth hear us, whatever we may ask, we have known that we have the requests that we have requested from Him. (1 John 5:11-15, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: The letter is formally anonymous. Early and unanimous tradition assigns it to John the apostle (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.16.5 and 3.16.8, c. AD 180), and its vocabulary and style are closely shared with the Fourth Gospel.
  • Audience: Churches in Roman Asia, addressed after a secession: "they went out from us, but they were not really of us" (1 John 2:19). The departing teachers denied that Jesus is the Christ (2:22) and that He has come in the flesh (4:2).
  • Location: Traditionally Ephesus, the center of the Johannine circle in Asia Minor.
  • Time period: c. AD 85-95, late in the apostolic period. The stated purpose is assurance: "these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13).

Theological reading

"These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life."

The letter's purpose statement, and the key to reading it. Everything in 1 John, the tests of obedience, love, and confession, is written to produce assurance in believers, not to supply criteria for judging others. Used as an audit tool against other people, the letter is being turned against its own stated aim.

"So that you may know." Hina eidēte, subjunctive of settled knowledge rather than of hope. John treats present assurance as normal and attainable, which is why the letter repeats "by this we know" more than a dozen times and supplies checkable evidence each time.

"You who believe." The clause identifies the audience: people already believing, whose confidence has been damaged. The secessionists of 1 John 2:19 had evidently claimed a knowledge of God the remaining congregation lacked, and this verse answers that directly.

Compared with John 20:31. The Gospel is written so that readers "may believe"; the letter so that believers "may know that they have eternal life." The Johannine corpus distinguishes the two tasks explicitly, which is a useful check on the common practice of reading either book as if it were doing the other's work.

"Eternal life" as present possession. Echete, present tense, you have. Johannine eschatology consistently treats eternal life as begun now rather than only awarded later (John 5:24; John 17:3), which is what makes assurance in this life coherent.

See Soteriology (Salvation).

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Concepts:

Lexicon:

Passages:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.