Apr 6, 2026
John 20:31 is usually translated as John’s purpose statement:
“that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God”
(ESV). But could the clause also be understood as, “that you may
believe that the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus”? What difference
would this make for how we read John’s Gospel as a whole? In this
episode, David Ritsema discusses the grammatical question behind
this translation and its implications for John’s presentation of
Jesus as the Messiah. Dr. David Ritsema is Assistant Dean and
Assistant Professor of New Testament at B. H. Carroll Theological
Seminary, East Texas Baptist University. His book, The Divine
Messiah: A Portrait of Jesus in the Johannine Literature, is
forthcoming with Wipf & Stock.
Check out related programs at Wheaton
College:
B.A. in Classical Languages (Greek,
Latin, Hebrew): https://bit.ly/4tfjeTr
M.A. in Biblical Exegesis: https://bit.ly/4lYiJuC