Is 1 John 5:20 Indicating a Past Event?
By Bible Researcher and Author Eli Kittim 🇬🇷 🇺🇸
Inaccurate Bible Translations
It appears that most English translations of 1 John 5:20 say that the Son of God “has come” or “is come” when referring to Jesus Christ. Specifically, they say “that the Son of God has come” (see e.g. NIV, NLT, ESV, BSB, NKJV, NASB, CSB, HCSB, GNT, ISV, LSV, NAB, NET Bible, NRSV, NHEB, WNT, WEB). The rest of the Bible versions use the variant “is come,” which is an archaic form of English. This construction employs the term “come” as an unaccusative intransitive verb. Essentially, to say “that the Son of God is come” (e.g. BLB, KJV, ASV, DRB, YLT) not only implies the state of “having come” but also of “now being here” as well. The meaning of this construction is that “the Son of God” didn't simply come but that he is here right now! As you will see, the “is come” construction is actually closer to the original Greek text than “has come.” The worst Bible version is the AMP which makes explicit and ambitious statements that the Greek text does not make, while also adding foreign elements that are not found in the original. It’s the least faithful English translation. It reads:
And we [have seen and] know [by personal
experience] that the Son of God has
[actually] come [to this world].
Grammatical Parsing & Concordance Studies
In 1 John 5:20, the key word in this sentence is the Greek verb ἥκει (hēkei), which is a present indicative active, 3rd person singular (Strong's 2240: meaning, “to be present”). The term ἥκει is derived from the verb ἥκω, which can mean “to come,” “I am present,” “to be present,” or “will come” (see https://biblehub.com/greek/2240.htm).
Strong's Greek: 2240. ἥκω (hékó) -- to have come, be present
As a present active indicative verb, ἥκει describes a linear (ongoing) action, as opposed to a punctiliar (complete) action. Thus, ἥκει as a primary tense expresses the present & future times, whereas secondary or historical tenses (aorist, imperfect, pluperfect) express past time. So, present active indicative verbs show that the action happens in the present time. Therefore, the verb ἥκει, in 1 John 5:20, should be understood in the sense of an “ongoing present” action (in a transhistorical sense), otherwise the translation is not entirely accurate but rather misleading for the reader. Moreover, the fact that ἥκει describes an ongoing action in the *present tense* indicates that it should not be read as referring to an event that transpired in the past, during the writing of this letter, but rather to all generations of readers, that is to say, in the temporal context that they find themselves in. In other words, the term ἥκει in 1 John 5:20 should be equally read in the *present tense* whether a person is living in the Middle Ages or in the 21st century. It should not be understood as a completed event that took place in the past.
In cross-reference studies, e.g. in Luke 15:27, notice that ἥκει is translated as “is here” (now)! See the Christian Standard Bible & Holman Christian Standard Bible translations:
Your brother is here, he told him, and your
father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.
And in John 2:4 ἥκει is rendered as referring to the future: “My hour has not yet come” (οὔπω ἥκει ἡ ὥρα μου).
English Standard Version:
And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what does
this have to do with me? My hour has not
yet come.’
Conclusion
As you can see, the translation “has come”——which gives the false impression of an event that happened and was completed in the past——is obviously misleading and not faithful to the original Greek text!
The more I research the Bible, the more evidence I find of corruptions and mistranslations. Similar to the way in which almost all translations of Acts 1:11 wrongly render the Greek term ἐλεύσεται as “come back,” most translations of ἥκει in 1 John 5:20 wrongly render it as “has come.” That’s why I parsed it for you. So that we can analyze the sentence into its various components and thereby define their syntactic roles.
Another key word in 1 John 5:20 is δέδωκεν (dedōken), which is a verb, perfect indicative active, 3rd person singular. It comes from δίδωμι, which means “give.” So, all in all, when you consider the intricate workings of this sentence you will have a better appreciation of the fact that the present active indicative verb ἥκει describes a linear (ongoing) action, as opposed to a punctiliar (complete) action. Here, then, is my rendition of 1 John 5:20 (SBLGNT):
οἴδαμεν δὲ ὅτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ἥκει, καὶ
δέδωκεν ἡμῖν διάνοιαν ἵνα γινώσκωμεν τὸν
ἀληθινόν· καὶ ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, ἐν τῷ
υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ
ἀληθινὸς θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος.
Eli Kittim translation (Formal equivalence):
We know, then, that the son of God comes
and gives to us intelligence so that we
might know the true——and we are in the
true, [if we are] in his son——Jesus Christ.
This is the true God and life eternal.
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