The chief phrase used to express this relationship in John is to ‘believe in (literally, into) Jesus’. This means to entrust oneself to Jesus, fully accepting what he proclaims himself to be. The phrase is unusual, but it does occur eight times elsewhere in the New Testament besides the 36 cases in the Gospel of John and 3 cases in 1 John. It is not found in the Septuagint or in secular Greek. Evidently it is not confined to the evangelist, but should rather be seen as characteristic diction of the
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