John 3:34 Commentary and Bible Study

This verse is dealt with rather disappointingly by most of the modern translations. They translate along the lines of, ‘God gives him the Spirit without measure, without limit’, but this misses the point. The King James Translators like all the old translations have followed the Greek much more carefully and they put that ‘not’ in there. In other words, God the Father does not deal with Christ the Son as he deals with the prophets. The prophets were given a measure, a proportion of the Spirit. They were inspired to give just the portion of God’s word that is under their name. They were not made altogether infallible. They just had a portion of the Spirit, a portion of inspiration.But Christ has all the Spirit. The Son is distinct from the Holy Spirit, but they are at one. They are completely agreed and working together, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the concert of the Trinity, the unity of the Trinity. And when he came to earth and walked as a man, with all the limitations of the human body and human flesh, the Spirit came down with him to assist him and to empower and enable him. The modern translators have lost the argument. They have not followed the context. ‘He that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: he that cometh from heaven is above all.’