John 6:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

How many of us study Greek? Not many I expect. It isn’t an easy language, hence the saying “It’s Greek to me.” That implies a lack of understanding. I am a little bit of a bible geek. I admit it. I look up words in the original text for clarity when it is seemingly obvious what is meant. I do that because I have discovered that all things are not exactly what they seem to be in scriptures. There is more to be learned.

Believe on him is broken down into three component parts for use in the Greek. For this exercise I bring you just the one connective word “on”. Strong’s number G1519 eis. It is translated 573 times as into and translated as on 58 times. Given that the translations are used to smooth out speech and make grammatical correctness in another language, what is the proper use? In context!

Read all you will on the subject but the most clarity that I could find was in Thayer’s Greek Lexicon that identified this word as a verb placed before a noun, which is the case here. The placement of the word in context, by what goes before and follows, should render the clearest understanding. This is what Thayer’s says about eis as it is used properly in context.

“An open place, a hollow thing, or one in which an object can be hidden.” Thayer’s Greek Lexicon

Colossians 3:3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

Add to that the Vine’s Expository of New Testament Words definition of G1519 and it reads that it literally means “until the end”, “continually”. If you read this and this alone one might mistakenly think that one must “believe” Jesus until the end which would then render belief as a work and not a grace gift. If you look at it rather as being hidden in Christ until the end, then it returns to a state of grace.

In support of this offering look how many time Paul uses “in Christ” in his epistles.