Anyone who accepts his testimony can affirm that God is true.
Parallel translations
- WEB He who has received his witness has set his seal to this, that God is true.
- KJV He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true.
- BSB Whoever accepts His testimony has certified that God is truthful.
- NKJV He who has received His testimony has certified that God is true.
- NASB The one who has accepted His testimony has certified that God is true.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Whoever accepts Jesus' testimony certifies that God is truthful. Believing the Son is to affirm the trustworthiness of God himself.
Overview
To 'set his seal' is to attest formally that God's word is reliable. Receiving Jesus' witness is not merely intellectual assent but a confession that God, who sent him, is true. This ties saving faith to the very faithfulness and truthfulness of God.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Eph 1:13in whom you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation — in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
- Heb 6:17In this way God, being determined to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, interposed with an oath;
- 2 Cor 1:18But as God is faithful, our word toward you was not “Yes and no.”
- Titus 1:1–2Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s chosen ones, and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness,
- Rom 3:3–4For what if some were without faith? Will their lack of faith nullify the faithfulness of God?
- John 6:27Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”
- 2 Cor 1:22who also sealed us, and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts.
- Rom 4:18–21Besides hope, Abraham in hope believed, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your offspring be.”
- 1 Jn 5:9–10If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is God’s testimony which he has testified concerning his Son.
- Rev 7:3–8saying, “Don’t harm the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we have sealed the bondservants of our God on their foreheads!”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
John declares him plainly: the eternal Word made flesh, the Lamb of God, the great 'I AM' — bread, light, door, shepherd, way, truth, life, resurrection — that you may believe and have life in his name.
How John 3:33 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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