I John 5:19: We fully know that we are from God and that the world is laid out along the ground by evil. -MGV
Starting in the same way as verse 18, verse 19 speaks of something that we fully and completely know, being in the perfect tense. This verse is also carrying the same though as verse 18, for when is says “from God” or more literally “out of God”, it is referring to us being born of God, the quality that verse 18 is talking about. However, while that verse is talking about how we are protected by God, here it is talking about how the rest of the world is not.
The key word for this passage is “keitai” which mean “lays”. The Greek literally reads “the whole world, by evil, lays”. This is referring to the absolute dominion that evil has towards them. They lay on the ground before it, completely incapable of doing anything about it. Whether it is on the ground out of fear or force, it is unclear, but it is not out of love or desire. The image is domination. They lie prostrate on the ground by evil, not for evil.
This is in direct comparison to the freedom that we have being born of God. We are not part of the world anymore, so we are no longer under the dominion of evil. We know we are born of God because we are not bound by the things that the world is bound by.
Do you live in the freedom bought for you by Jesus Christ? Or do you rebind yourself to what the world is devoted to? Remember, we were not freed to follow the whims of our desire, but we are freed to follow Christ and His ways, for they lead to a greater life. Freedom is not defined by the possibilites that lay before us, but by what no longer hinders us. Live in Christ’s freedom, not what the world calls freedom. Know that it is for God that we are free, and live for that, for the world does not really know freedom. It is the bondage to their whims that they call freedom. Do not return to that kind of life. Walk in the truth of the gospel.
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