Five-minute study · Day 242 · John 17
John 17:3
A word worth stopping on: know γινώσκω ginosko
Greek had two words for knowing. Oida describes intellectual awareness: factual comprehension, knowing that something is true. Ginosko describes knowledge gained through experience, encounter, relationship. Jesus chose ginosko. In John 17:3, he defines eternal life as a single thing: 'that they might know [ginosko] thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' Eternal life, in this sentence, is a relationship. You can oida a person's name, their biography, their public record. You ginosko them over meals, in silence, through years.
Word study: know
- Greek
- γινώσκω
- Pronounced
- ginosko
- Strong's
- G1097
- Definition
- To know by experience, to come to know, to learn, to recognize, to understand through personal encounter. Distinguished from oida (to know as a fact, to perceive intellectually). Ginosko implies process, relationship, and experiential depth.
Ginosko appears 222 times in the New Testament. BDAG defines it as 'to arrive at a knowledge of someone or something, to know, to be acquainted with.' The word carries a processual quality: ginosko often implies coming to know, acquiring knowledge through encounter and experience. This distinguishes it from oida (from the perfect of horao, 'to see'), which implies settled knowledge, awareness already possessed.
Carson's commentary on the Gospel of John in the Pillar New Testament Commentary series identifies John 17:3 as one of the most theologically compressed sentences in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus is praying. The setting is the night before his crucifixion, in the upper room after the Last Supper. This prayer (John 17) is sometimes called the 'High Priestly Prayer' because Jesus intercedes for his disciples and for all future believers. In verse 3, Jesus defines eternal life. The definition is relational: knowing the Father and knowing the Son.
The Old Testament background of ginosko deepens the definition. The Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) uses ginosko to translate the Hebrew yada, which appears in contexts ranging from knowing facts (Genesis 3:5, 'knowing good and evil') to knowing persons intimately (Genesis 4:1, 'Adam knew [yada] Eve his wife; and she conceived'). When Jeremiah describes the new covenant, God promises: 'they shall all know [yada/ginosko] me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them' (Jeremiah 31:34). The knowledge is universal, unmediated, and relational.
Carson notes that John 17:3 makes knowing God and knowing Christ the content of eternal life, its substance. Eternal life is frequently misunderstood as simply endless duration: life that goes on forever. Jesus' definition adds a qualitative dimension. The life is eternal because the relationship is with the eternal God. The knowing is ongoing, progressive, deepening. You do not ginosko God in a single moment and move on to other things. The knowing is the life. The experience of God is what makes the life eternal.
The distinction between ginosko and oida is visible elsewhere in John. In John 8:55, Jesus says: 'Ye have not known [ginosko] him; but I know [oida] him.' Jesus has complete, settled knowledge of the Father (oida). The Pharisees have not even begun the experiential process of knowing (ginosko). The two verbs, placed side by side, reveal a gap between information and intimacy.
Historical context · Thursday night before the crucifixion, approximately AD 30-33; John's Gospel composed approximately AD 85-95
The Upper Room Prayer and the Language of Knowing God
John 17 is set in the final hours before Jesus' arrest. The Last Supper has concluded. Jesus has washed the disciples' feet (John 13), delivered the Farewell Discourse (John 14-16), and now prays aloud in the disciples' hearing. The prayer is addressed to the Father, and the disciples are its audience. This dual address gives the prayer its unique character: it is simultaneously intimate communion with God and theological instruction for the eleven men in the room.
The concept of 'knowing God' had deep roots in Jewish thought. The Hebrew prophets distinguished between external religious observance and genuine knowledge of God. Hosea 6:6: 'For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God (da'at Elohim) more than burnt offerings.' Hosea 4:1: 'There is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.' Jeremiah 9:24: 'Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.' The prophetic tradition consistently defined knowing God as a relational reality expressed through justice, mercy, and faithfulness, not through ritual performance.
The Greek philosophical tradition also explored the concept of knowledge, though along different lines. Plato distinguished between doxa (opinion, belief) and episteme (true knowledge, scientific understanding). Aristotle categorized knowledge into theoretical, practical, and productive. The Stoics valued gnosis (knowledge) of the logos (reason/word) that pervaded the cosmos. When John wrote to a Greek-speaking audience, the word ginosko carried these philosophical overtones. John's definition of knowing God would have sounded strange to a Greek ear trained in Platonic epistemology: knowledge as relationship with a personal God, defined by encounter and experience, constituting the substance of eternal life.
Carson observes that John 17:3 is the only place in the Fourth Gospel where 'eternal life' receives an explicit definition. Elsewhere John describes eternal life as a gift (3:16), a present possession (5:24), something the Son gives (10:28), and the purpose of the Gospel itself (20:31). Here, and only here, Jesus says what it is. The definition is striking in its simplicity. Eternal life is knowing two persons: the Father and the Son. Everything else in Christian theology (forgiveness, redemption, sanctification, resurrection, the kingdom of God) orbits around this relational center.
For reflection
Jesus defined eternal life with a verb, and the verb was ginosko. Experiential knowledge. The kind that comes from proximity, from time, from paying attention. You can know a great deal about God: theology, doctrine, history, the names of the original languages. Ginosko asks a different question. Have you sat with this person? Have you listened long enough to recognize the voice? Think about the person you know best in your life. That knowledge came through years of presence, through ordinary Tuesdays as much as through crises. Ginosko with God works the same way. What is one practice that would put you in proximity this week?
Ginosko: to know through experience and relationship. Distinct from oida (intellectual knowledge). Jesus used ginosko when he defined eternal life as knowing God.
Sources: BDAG; Carson, 'The Gospel According to John' (PNTC)