"Convince our conscience" or "reassure our heart" in 1 John 3:19?

Question

1 John 3:19:

And by this we will know that we are of the truth and will convince our conscience in his presence, (NET)

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; (ESV)

Καὶ ἐν τούτῳ γνωσόμεθα ὅτι ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας ἐσμέν. καὶ ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ πείσομεν τὴν καρδίαν ἡμῶν, (NA28)

I’m not sure what either "convince our conscience" or "reassure our heart" means in English in this context, let alone πείσομεν ⸄τὴν καρδίαν (literally, "persuade the heart" but with several available derived meanings for both words, clearly).

There is another word συνείδησις¹ meaning "conscience." I'm not aware of anything other than συνείδησις being translated "conscience" except this passage (3:19-21), so I was surprised to find καρδία translated that way.

• Is the intended meaning of πείσομεν (lex: πείθω) more closely "convince" or "reassure"?
• Is "conscience" a reasonable rendering of καρδία in this context?² (And is it odd that it's singular?)

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^{1. Although admittedly, it does not appear to be a Johannine word.}

^{2. It might not be possible to address these questions without also discussing the referent of ἐν τούτῳ and/or relationship with the ὅτι clause in the next verse, both of which are also unclear to me and of interest; I was attempting to limit the scope required of an answer, but feel free to touch on these if you’re so inclined.}

Answer 1

The Idea in Brief

If the conscience condemns itself of past sins, the Spirit of God is greater. That is, despite self-condemnation, the Spirit of God is greater in power and might, and therefore provides full reassurance to the human conscience of complete forgiveness of sins.

Discussion

In this verse, there are variant readings in four places:

1. [Καὶ] ἐν τούτῳ // ἐν τούτῳ // καὶ ἐκ τούτoυ --> [And] by this // by this // and because of this
2. γνωσόμεθα // γινώσκομεν // γινωσκόμεθα --> we ourselves will know // we will know // we ourselves know
3. πείσομεν // πείσωμεν --> we will assure // we may assure
4. τὴν καρδίαν // τας καρδιας --> our heart // our hearts

The bold words indicate the reading preference of the editors of NA28. In regard to two of the variants, Metzger (1994) provided editorial amplification as follows.

 3:19      [καὶ] ἐν τούτῳ {C}

As in the case of 1 John 3:13, a majority of the Committee preferred to retain the word in the text, but to enclose it within square brackets in order to indicate considerable doubt that it belongs there.

 3:19      γνωσόμεθα {A}

The Textus Receptus, following K L and a great number of minuscules, has assimilated the future tense to the present tense so as to accord with the frequently occurring formula ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν (2:3; 3:24; 4:2, 13; 5:2).

Therefore the following rendering from the NASB provides one acceptable translation of this verse within its context into English.

1 John 3:19-21 (NASB)
¹⁹ We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him ²⁰ in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. ²¹ Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.

The context appears to indicate self-condemnation. Self-condemnation can rise to the level of self-destruction as the following verse indicates.

2 Corinthians 7:10 (NASB)
¹⁰ For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

This repentance leading to salvation results in cleansing, or washing, of the conscience.

Hebrews 10:22-23 (NASB)
²² let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful;

In summary, the Spirit of God is the Person who effects this conviction, or this testimony, within the spirit of man that the he is indeed the child of God, and therefore cleansed.

Romans 8:16 (NASB)
¹⁶ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

Conclusion

The believer's "evil conscience sprinkled clean" is not that he never committed sins worthy of shame, but that those sins no longer have the power to shame him, because his conscience is clear by the working of the Spirit of God that he is forgiven. That is, the Spirit of God is more powerful than the self-condemning conscience. The woman who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears (Luke 7:36-50) is an example of someone who experienced this ontological change, or cleansing, of the self-condemning conscience.

Answer 2

This is a very good example of the difference between translation and paraphrase. καρδία is an absolutely ordinary Greek word, part of the core vocabulary of Classical, Koine and Modern Greek. It means “heart”. Of course, in this passage it is used figuratively, but in English too “heart” is used figuratively on a daily basis. Sometimes I have the impression that the authors of some modern versions of the Bible are treating their readers like retarded children who cannot understand a metaphor.

Answer 3

Short Answer: The word πειθω has the basic sense (in the active voice) of "convince" or "persuade" (cf. Gingrich) and καρδια just means "heart". So literally it would be "convince our heart". However, the reason there is so much debate surrounding the translation of this phrase is not that the terms are unclear, but that there is a bigger theological debate going on in the background which is driving the translation choices. "Reassure our heart" has become associated with the view that John is encouraging his readers, while "convince our conscience" has come to be associated with the view that John is confronting his readers and driving them toward repentance.

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This is an interesting discussion which actually ties in with several other interpretive challenges in the surrounding context. Perhaps the easiest way to explain it would be to survey the two competing interpretations.

View #1: John is reassuring his readers

In this view, John wrote his letter in order to reassure his readers of their salvation, which was evident by their love for one another. In the more immediate context, John has encouraged them to continue loving one another (3:18), by which they will continue to know that they are right with God (19a; notice that the NA28 ends the sentence mid-way through verse 19.)

Furthermore, by continuing to love one another, if our heart happens to try to condemn us, we will be able to reassure our heart that it is wrong because God is greater than our misleading heart, and He knows everything, and He has said that those who love one another are right with Him (19b-20).

The goal is to get to a place where we don't feel unnecessarily condemned, because then we will feel comfortable presenting our requests before God (the basic meaning of the word translated "confidence"), and so we will present our requests, and we will receive what we request, because we are doing what is pleasing to Him (21-22).

For what it's worth, I think this is the plain and obvious meaning of John's words here, though I will grant that the syntax is challenging in this section.

View #2: John is confronting his readers

In this view, John has just said something very challenging: that if you hate your brother you are a murderer (3:15), that we are obligated instead to lay down our lives for our brothers (16), and so closing our heart (lit: stomach) to our needy brother is not loving (17). We should not love with our words alone but with our actions (18; notice that the UBS4 ends the sentence here instead.)

Now, the logic goes, who can read such a statement and not feel convicted? This surely would have served to confront the readers in many of the areas where they were unloving -- and that's good; that's exactly what John is trying to do. John wants them to understand what love looks like so they can see their shortcomings and repent.

By this new found understanding we will be able to come to know that we are from the truth and we will convince our conscience in God's presence (i.e. to repent and do the right thing by loving one another) whenever our conscience rightfully condemns us, because God is even more severe in His judgments than our conscience; He knows everything.

If our conscience is not rightfully condemning us about anything, on the other hand, then God will hear our prayers.

Summary

As you can see, though the Greek literally just says something like "convince our heart", there are two very different ways of interpreting the meaning of this phrase in context. This has led to two very different modern interpretations, with the first being the idea of reassuring our heart when it wrongfully condemns us, and the second being the idea of convincing our conscience to lead us in the right direction based on the fear of God and knowledge of His ways.

Personally I think the second view is outlandish and the first is obviously true, but my preference is to simply translate it "convince (or persuade) our heart" and then explain the sense of the phrase in context as needed. I think most people out there would not naturally take John's statement as a confrontation anyway.