ANNOUNCER: The following is a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society. The Greek word, pistis, and other variants mostly is translated, “believe” in the New Testament. A few times it’s translated “commit.” How do we know that in John 3:16, it means believe instead of commit? Let’s sort this all out today here on Grace in Focus. Glad you are with us. Grace and Focus is a podcast and broadcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We’re located in North Texas, and our website is FaithAlone.org. We’d love to have you with us when we have our national annual conference. It is coming up soon, and if you want to be with us, you need to get registered soon. The dates are May the 18th through the 21st. It’s going to be a great time of fellowship and recreation and teaching on the theme of “Believe in Christ for Life.” VBS for the kids, great accommodations, get registered today at FaithAlone.org. 

And now with our question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: Bob, we’ve got a question from Patrick. This is in response to an older video you did, and in the video you mentioned, I think you were talking about the definition of “believe” in the New Testament, and you mentioned that there are a few rare cases where the word believe can be translated “commit.” So Patrick’s question is, how do we know that in John 3:16, it shouldn’t be translated commit, or entrust, but rather to believe in the sense of being persuaded? 

BOB: Yeah, so that’s a really good question. I would encourage each of you to do this study for yourself. If you can look at the Greek, it’s helpful because you can actually look at the verb pisteuo and look at all of the uses in New Testament. But even if you can’t do Greek, just look at the verb believe and look up all of them. It turns out there are eight uses as I recall of pisteuo, meaning entrust or commit. And in each case, they deal with something which is entrusted or committed to someone, never does it refer to someone committing themselves to Christ for eternal life or to entrusting themselves to Christ for eternal life. In fact, never does pisteuo, if it’s an evangelistic context, refer to anything other than being persuaded. 

Let’s look at an example. If you have your Bibles and you’re not driving, look at John chapter 2 verses 23 and 24. What’s interesting here is this is in itself a problem passage. And the reason it’s a problem passage is because John uses the word pisteuo in two different ways in verses 23 and 24. In verse 23, he’s talking about persuasion, in verse 24, he’s talking about commitment or entrusting. Could you read those verses Sam, John 2:23-24? 

SAM: He says, “But Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men and He had no need that anyone should testify of man for he knew what was in man.” 

BOB: Okay, that’s 24 now go back to 23. 

SAM: 23, “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.” 

BOB: “Many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.” Now, if you look at many commentators, for example, a famous New Testament scholar is D.A. Carson and he has a very popular commentary on John’s Gospel. And he says here that in John 2:23, those who believed in Him because they saw the signs which He did were not true believers. These were false believers. They had some kind of belief, but the belief was based on the signs. And so, Dr. Carson suggests that that’s an inadequate faith, because of the fact that it’s based on the signs and it’s not simply a pure belief directly in Jesus. Then he goes on to verse 24 to say that because the verb pisteuo was used again in verse 24, it’s showing they’re not genuine believers because it says Jesus did not, How is it translated in the New King James and trust? 

SAM: It says commit 

BOB: Commit. Yeah. He didn’t commit Himself to them because He knew what was in man. Well, there are whole lot of problems with this. First of all, in verse 23, what is the exact wording? 

SAM: Many believed in His name. 

BOB: Okay. Many believed in his name. Go back to John 1:12. What does John 1:12 say? 

SAM: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. 

BOB: “To those who believe in His name.” Now, Dr. Carson does point out that in John 1:12, that’s saving faith and he does point out the same language is used in John 2:23, but he just sees it as ironic that the same exact language is used, but it has a different, it’s not saving anymore. It was saving in John 1:12 that whoever believes in His name is a child of God and has, if you go on to verse 13, they’ve been born of God. But yet here in 2:23, he says this isn’t genuine faith. The other problem with this way of looking at it is, what was the purpose of the signs according to the purpose statement in John’s gospel?

SAM: Well, it says they’re written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. 

BOB: So the purpose of the signs is to lead people to believe in Jesus. That is to believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing that, a person would have life in His name. So it’s impossible to take John 2:23 to say this is less than saving faith because it says they believed in his name, which according to 1:12 is saving. And because of the signs, which according to 20:31 is the purpose of the signs. So what we need to see in verse 24 is that Jesus did not commit or entrust more truth to them because he knew they were not ready to confess him. 

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BOB: They were not ready to publicly go before other Jews and say, we believe Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. And you know, Sam, how we know that? It’s based on the linkage between John 2:25 and John 3:1. How does 25 end? 

SAM: “For he knew what was in man”

BOB: And then how does 3:1 begin? 

SAM: 3:1 begins with “there was a man.” 

BOB: There was a man and who is this man that comes to Jesus by night? 

SAM: That’s Nicodemus. 

BOB: Three times in John’s Gospel, we’re told about Nicodemus. John 3, John 7, and John 19. And John 19, he’s there with Joseph of Arimathea to claim the body. In John 7, it’s interesting. The Pharisees in the Sanhedrin, and Nicodemus is a member of the Sanhedrin were chastising him because he’s saying, how can we judge Jesus before we’ve met with Him, before we’ve questioned Him? And then they’re saying, you’re not one of his disciples, are you? 

And so in John’s Gospel, Nicodemus is an example of a secret believer. In fact, Bob Bryant wrote his master’s thesis at Dallas Seminary on the secret believer motif in John’s Gospel. The problem with these new believers in John 2:23, even though it’s not stated, is they were not yet prepared to come out in the light and confess the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah. And so because of that, Jesus didn’t commit further truths to them. 

And that’s true with us in the Christian life. If we’re not walking in the light of God’s Word, then God’s not entrusting more truth to us. We need to be people who are walking in the light of God’s revelation. We’re part of a group of believers who are following Christ and following His instruction. And then God gives us more insight. And this reminds me of Luke 24:45, where the Lord opened the disciples’ minds or hearts that they might understand the Scriptures. Well, I believe that’s something God can and does do for all of us as we are genuinely following Him and confessing Him and acknowledging as the Messiah. 

So coming back to John 3:16, what would John 3:16 mean if it did mean commit? How would we translate John 3:16 then? 

SAM: For God to love the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever commits Himself to Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 

BOB: Yeah, commits to Him or commits Himself to Him should not perish but has everlasting life. And what would that mean? 

SAM: A lot of things probably but it’d be hard to know for sure just from this verse. 

BOB: But if you took this in all the verses like John 6:47, He who believes in Me has everlasting life. Now we say He who commits in Me or commits to Me has everlasting life. And so if you took that view, you would see all of the discipleship passages in Matthew, Mark and Luke as evangelistic, which is what a lot of people think. When you read deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me, a lot of people say that’s how we’re born again. And they say you’ve got to give up your life to gain your life. That’s how you’re born again. So they would use this verse to bolster that. But the problem with that is, it’s very clear in John’s Gospel that to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is the same as believing in Him. And you know Greek Sam. pisteuo hoti is to believe that, pisteuo eis is to believe in. Well, when Martha says, yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God who is to come into the world. Is she saying anything about commitment? 

SAM: No, she’s just stating a thing that she’s convinced of. 

BOB: Right. And she’s not saying anything about, I’m promising to follow you. I’m promising to serve you. Patrick, I would encourage you very strongly to read all of John’s Gospel. One passage in particular would be John 11:25-27, where Jesus says, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, physically, yet he will be raised. He will be glorified, physically. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die, spiritually. That is, he has everlasting life. And then he says to Martha, do you believe this? He’s not asking her, tell me about your quiet time. Tell me about your prayer life. Tell me how many people you’ve evangelized. Tell me about your commitment to me. He’s just saying, are you convinced what I just said is true? 

I would also urge you, Patrick, to look up the eight uses of pisteuo where it means to commit or entrust. And you will see that it’s something like, for example, Paul being entrusted with his gospel ministry from the Lord. That word can be used that way, but only eight times. And I think pisteuo was used almost 300 times in the New Testament. So it’s an exceedingly rare use and it certainly wouldn’t fit John 3:16. 

Thank you for the question, Patrick. And let’s all keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: should evangelism be our primary focus in life? Please join us for that and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus. The preceding has been a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society.