Verse Lens · Concise explanation
John 1:13 Explained in Context
Use this verse as a doorway into the larger passage—not as an isolated saying.
Verse 13. 13Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions
Quick Meaning
This verse serves as the thirteenth turn in The Word Becomes Flesh and Makes God Known, where it sets the next condition for the scene's response: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.
Read It With
- John 1:1-18
Read John 1:13 with 1:1-18. This verse serves as the thirteenth turn in The Word Becomes Flesh and Makes God Known, where it sets the next condition for the scene's response: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”. The controlling movement is: The prologue places the Word with God and as God before creation, names life and light through him, distinguishes John's witness, and climaxes in the Word becoming flesh and interpreting the unseen God.
Why This Verse Appears Here
This verse serves as the thirteenth turn in The Word Becomes Flesh and Makes God Known, where it sets the next condition for the scene's response: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”. As the thirteenth turn in The Word Becomes Flesh and Makes God Known, it locates its force in the scene's sequence of claim and response: The prologue places the Word with God and as God before creation, names life and light through him, distinguishes John's witness, and climaxes in the Word becoming flesh and interpreting the unseen God.
What Remains True
This verse serves as the thirteenth turn in The Word Becomes Flesh and Makes God Known, where it sets the next condition for the scene's response: “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”. Its enduring force supports this passage-controlled response: Receive the embodied disclosure of God by letting Jesus' life, light, grace, truth, Jewish flesh, and costly presence correct abstract or dehumanizing claims about God.
How It Can Shape Life
- For John 1:13, practice this verse's particular contribution by doing the following without outrunning John 1:1-18: Receive the embodied disclosure of God by letting Jesus' life, light, grace, truth, Jewish flesh, and costly presence correct abstract or dehumanizing claims about God.
Continue in Context
The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.
Read John 1:1-18 — The Word Becomes Flesh and Makes God KnownSources used for this Verse Lens
How certain is this explanation? strong
These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact KJV wording, paragraph flags, supplied-word markup, and coverage.
Exact location: John 1:1-18, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗Greek textual evidence
The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition
Michael W. Holmes, editor; Society of Biblical Literature and Logos
Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, 2010
Supports: Greek wording, sentence relations, and critical-text reading checked independently of the KJV.
Exact location: Faithlife SBLGNT official repository, data/sblgnt/text/John.txt, 1:1-18
Open the John Greek text file ↗Translation and textual notes
NET Bible — John with translators' and textual notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2005–2026 online edition
Supports: Verse-level syntax, older-English clarification, material variants, background, and alternatives.
Exact location: NET Bible John PDF, John 1:1-18 and attached translator, study, and textual notes
Open the official NET John PDF ↗