What does “verily, verily” mean?

While translated often as “Truly, truly”, it also means “amen”.

While customary to use “amen” to affirm other’s prayers at the close, Jesus used the term and used it emphatically at the beginning of His statements. He wanted people to pay attention to His words. He affirmed His own statements as being True because He bore witness that His words came from His Heavenly Father.

Hebrews 6:13 says, “For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,”

Jesus can affirm His own statements with a double-Amen because he can affirm them by no greater authority than Himself. He and the Father are one.

Jesus goes on to say in John‬ ‭5‬‬:‭24‬, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”

The word condemnation here is the Greek word “krisis” meaning judgement or decision. How fitting that we get the English word “crisis” from this word. Truly coming to Jesus and either accepting or rejecting His words is a crisis moment. “Crisis” in English has been used to mean “the turning point of a disease when an important change takes place, indicating either recovery or death.” Sin is the disease and Jesus is literally saying this is where you decide to continue into death or to change to follow after life.

The interlinear Bible translates the scripture to “the one” and “the word” in regard to “heareth my word”, and “the one” again in regard to “him that sent me”.

God is the one source of all life and light and Jesus is the Word made flesh. These two concepts are inseparable here and Jesus is stating emphatically that if you believe His words then you are believing the Words of His Father and that He and the Father are one.

The word “passed” here is to move from one place to another or to make a transition or change. It is a “process” of moving or changing. Transitions take time. So we make the decision to believe the words that Jesus is saying and believe in the Father who sent Him and then we transition into life. That isn’t to say that we don’t receive everlasting life when we believe on Jesus, but this Christian Walk is a process of moving into life from death.

It is interesting that Jesus says that we must believe in the one who sent Him. He is speaking to the Jews here and is directly challenging their belief in His Father. They believed they had been following the God of Abraham, but they had actually fallen away, creating for themselves a God in line with their vain rituals and laws that was bereft of love, grace and mercy.

We were originally created in the image of God.

Are we being shaped in the image of our loving Heavenly Father, or do we follow after a God that we have made after “our image”?