Wednesday, December 2, 2009

John 1: 7

Who are the "all" that might believe through John's message- that 'he was not the Light, but came to bear witness about the Light'? Does it mean that everyone who heard his message would believe? Does it mean that all who heard his message had the possibility of believing? The question we need to ask is, "Does all mean all all the time"?

The answer to that is, no, it does not. We must always read the context of the sentence or paragraph it is used in to determine if it means absolutely every one or every thing. For example in Romans 1: 8 Paul said the Romans faith had been proclaimed to all the world. So the question we need to ask in context is, had every man, woman and child heard personally of the Roman's faith? No. Had the whole known world heard of it? No. But some people from every part of the known world had heard about the faith of the Roman believers. So we must conclude that all does not mean all all the time. Nor does 'world' mean every person who lives at any given time. (The whole world had not been discovered at the time Romans 1:8 was written). We can see why scripture must be interpreted in context in order to get the correct understanding of the text or passage you are studying.

So, back to John, Did he expect every person to believe his message? No, but he expected some from every tribe and tongue and nation to believe. He expected everyone to know the light had come into the world- no one should not notice the Light. There is a general 'knowing' about the Light. As a witness John was proclaiming the Light- Jesus- to the world- even to this day most people have heard of Jesus and know about Him. And to the praise of the glory of His grace many are believing unto salvation also.

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