Regeneration does precede Redemption

So if I am understanding this, you are giving causative force to the Greek perfect passive verb, is that it? I was unaware that the perfect passive had causative force. Please find a grammarian who agrees with you.

Consider the following sentence: "The running man was shoved into the light pole and injured." We here have in the English a similar sentence grammatically to 1 John 5:1, complete with a gerund modifying the subject, and a past passive for the verb. By your reasoning, the reason the man was running is that he was shoved into a light pole. And the person who shoved him into a light pole was causing him to run. Do you see my point?

 

I am stating that the Greek translators who translated this passage, either disagree with you as to the thrust of the passage, or purposefully translated this passage incorrectly.

I cannot believe the second, so I must believe the first. The thrust that you are trying to present, could have easily been represented in the text, in English. It is not.

In English, there is not doubt left in this passage that belief in the present is dependent upon having been born again in the past. If I state "everyone who is in this theater, has purchased a ticket" the ticket purchase is logically and temporally prior to the person's presence in the theater. You can say whatever you like, but the translators would either have to be blundering buffoons in Greek, or lousy as all get out at English, to make such a simple, stupid translational error.

 

Why can't you believe the second?

 

Not at all. The difference in this sentence, and the one in question, is that in 1 John 5:1 there is a direct correlative presented between believing and being born again. The "everyone" thrown to the front of the sentence, brings this emphasis out even more, especially in the Greek. Every single person who is believing, has been (completed action in the past) born again.

And please. I am well aware of the aspect/time issue, but their are quite a number of Greek scholars, who maintain the time emphasis. There are a whole slew of passages in the NT, which demonstrate a clear past action sense of the perfect tense.

There are a number of commentaries which agree with my assessment, btw (along with the translators of a whole slew of MV's), such as Jamieson Fausset and Brown, The New American Commentary, not to mention Wuest WS...

 

That most of the people who have devoted their life to studying Greek, and translating Biblical text, would deliberately lie and lead people astray??

Oh, I don't know...:tonofbricks:

 

So it is your claim JoJ does not fall into that camp (study of Greek and translation)?

It has nothing to do with "lying" and "leading people astray"...it has to do with infallibility.

 

You misunderstand me. I believe the versions you quoted are translated correctly. Here is what I said: "What the translators of the various English Bibles you mention did is this. They used the English noun "everyone" to represent the Greek substantival participle, since the Greek word for that is not a noun."

There is no way to translate the original substantive participle without using a noun of some kind. So you could say, "All (or every) of the ones believing" and the noun would be "ones." You could say, "Every believer" and the noun would be "believer." And the three you quoted all had a noun: "Everyone who believes," where the noun is "everyone."

Now, the original had a participle, right? If you want to carry over the participle into an English gerund, you could do this: "Everyone believing." In that case, the English participle would be used as an adjective, but you still have a noun." You cannot translate the original without a noun, and in any case the verb or verb clause modifies the noun in 1 John 5:1. My point stands.

Your English sentence is not analogous to the passage and doesn't show cause. 1 John 5:1 has a passive in it. Please try again and I'd be happy to interact with you.

Please tone back the rhetoric. That kind of rhetoric is exactly why I post less and less on the BB. It's offensive. You seem to be making me puff my chest out and say, "All other translators are stupid."

 

Okay, tell you what, quote Schreiner to me and I'll interact with him. What did he say about the passage?

And the connection is? I've already said that regeneration is caused by God. That's not in doubt here. What I want to know is where you get that the ones believing must have believed after regeneration.

So you are saying that grammar is illogical? I don't get it! Why would a grammatically identical sentence have a different logical outcome?

But anyway, the running man is qualified: "running" qualifies him just like "believing" qualifies in 1 John 5:1

Nope, sorry, I don't buy it. Your sentence doesn't show that people were caused by Fred to attend the game. It only accounts for people being made able to attend the game legally. What if someone with no transportation got a ticket from Fred? Or someone who had to be in court that day?

 

I'm not really sure you are following me. Did you read my original post and the grammarians I quoted? We're not just dealing with a normal participle. This is a substantival participle. "In particular when a participle is substantival, its aspectual force is more susceptible to reduction in force" (Wallace, p. 615).

 

One's theological bent will influence one's translation, more so in amatuer translators than full Greek scholars. I don't believe John Piper knows less about Greek than J of J, but JoJ's signature tells me his theology won't allow him to give in. (Neither will Piper's.)

The Scriptures are replete with straightforward, explicit maxims about God's sovereignty in salvation. It isn't hinged on this one verse.

 

Neither JFB nor Wuest say anything like the view of the OP concerning 1 John 5:1. I don't have access to The New American Commentary.

 

This thread is not about the order of salvation in general, but only in 1 John 5:1. And I'm not sure how you get my theology from my signature. Are you aware that Calvinist Spurgeon wrote a book, The Soul Winner? In the very first paragraph of the book he wrote, "Soul-winning is the chief business of the Christian minister; indeed, it should be the main pursuit of every true believer."

 

"we become begotten sons of God by regeneration and adoption".1
Specifically excludes belief, since, belief is a result of regeneration.

"Translation. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, out from God has been born and as a result is His child"2


That person, John says, and he uses the perfect tense here, has been born of God and as a result is a child of God.3

" Thus faith is a sign of sonship."4

1. Jamieson, Robert ; Fausset, A. R. ; Fausset, A. R. ; Brown, David ; Brown, David: A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments. Oak Harbor, WA : Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, S. 1 Jn 5:1

2. Wuest, Kenneth S.: Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament : For the English Reader. Grand Rapids : Eerdmans, 1997, c1984, S. 1 Jn 5:1

3 Ibid.

4 Akin, Daniel L.: 1, 2, 3 John. electronic ed. Nashville : Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2001, c2001 (Logos Library System; The New American Commentary 38), S. 189

 

I just took a second look at the title of the OP.
REGENERATION PRECEDES REDEMPTION.
I must say if this is what Piper is teaching, then I cannot agree.

 

I'm a member of a Primitive Baptist church, and an ordained elder in that church. Notice that I said "a" Primitive Baptist church, because there is no Primitive Baptist order that can be referred to as "the" Primitive Baptist church.

Yes, I believe Christians and all of God's elect are born saved (in the eternal sense) and redeemed, and I base that on the fact that Jesus Christ came to save His people and He did exactly that, else the cross would not have happened, the empty tomb will simply be a myth, his resurrection said to have been witnessed by hundreds, his 40 day walk on this earth after his resurrection, his ascension to heaven, ALL will be myths, and His imminent return simply wishful thinking.

Hebrews 9:12 says "having obtained eternal redemption for us".

That language effectively shuts off anymore redemption, and anymore to be redeemed. It is my belief that the word "us" includes all of God's elect from the foundation of the world, to the end of this plane we call time, else the statement would have been "having made eternal redemption possible for us".

He did what He came to do, and He did it well, and His blood redeemed ALL whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, and while someone may protest that there is a possibility that God can erase names in that book, I say that will never happen now or God will be like a US president who sent his boys and girls to war and then said, "ah, forgot about your blood. let's call it quits, alright ? Everybody, I'm sorry for the stupidity of America". (sorry, can't help that one.lol.)

In short, God will not demean the blood His only begotten and well beloved Son shed on that cross here in time, and in eternity past as the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.

CAUTION, NOW !!

I did not say that God's elect are born REGENERATE !!
Redemption and regeneration are two different aspects of God's act on His child, just as regeneration and conversion are different.
EVERYBODY descended from Adam, and possessed of the same fallen nature, is born at enmity with God (Ephesians 2:13-16) until regenerated by the Spirit.
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Some parts got about a foot, some, more.
here in Chantilly, where I work, we more likely had about more than a foot overnight.
Funny, you know.
We left Maryland for Buffalo NY a few years back because we were deadly scared of tornados, and a week after we got there a tornado touched down seven miles from where we lived.
Then it got too cold and too snowy for my wife so we moved back to Maryland.
Now we deal with just about as much snow as we did over there.

 

by the way, what I said I believed above about redemption and regeneration is not necessarily what every primitive baptist may believe, too.
so please, understand I am not speaking for all primitive baptists.