Regeneration does precede Redemption

"Thanks for participating, JoJ! The strange thing is, not having a command of the Greek like Arch ,Allan or yourself, I came to that same conclusion from just reading the English with an open mind :laugh:"

Reminds me of a first year seminary class full of Greek/Hebrew students and myself with trouble handling English. Prof posed a question then let us, well them, argue their views for three class periods. There were three positions that developed. After the third day I went home and read the entire book in the NASB and the passage was clear as a bell in context. However the bell did not fit any of the three positions.

Went to the profs office and asked if I could change my position (we had to declare a position the second or third day). He said no but with a smile on his face asked what I had found. I told him what I had done and what I thought the clear "other" position was. He just grinned and said he would see me in class the next day. Yep, he presented a position just as I had found in the ENGLISH :laugh:

This is not to detract in any way from those than have fathomed the Biblical languages. I've seen the benefit many times over the years and wished that I had struggled through some language study though with my difficulties I don't know that I could have learned anything. :laugh:

 

Holy Spirit

I am glad for those who God choose before the cross to prepare the way for our Saviour. Men not empowered by the Holy Spirit could not do it.

2 Chronicles 16:9
For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war."

I am also Glad that God has also included with them those who have heard the Gospel of their salvation having believed.

I praise God that we do have good news for the world, whosoever and all who believe.

I still believe they waited for the Holy Spirit and with Holy Spirit came with gifts at Pentecost. The last person besides Jesus who had the Holy Spirit before the Pentecost was John the Baptist.

Read John 14 and 16

 

Loved the story! :laugh:

Concerning 1 John 5:1, I think a good translation will bring the reader to the same place as the Greek will--if only one can abandon one's presuppositions! And there's the rub.

 

Well said. Now, I made the point that the verb loses force in the substantive usage. You've pretty much reiterated that here. But, hey, even if I were to admit the normal aspect of the present participle here--continued action or state in the present--we still have nothing in the grammar to tell us when they began believing: before, at the instant of (my position), or after regeneration. It would be really stretching the nature of the present participle (never mind the substantival use) to make the believing be after the regeneration simply from the present participle.

And I agree with this. That is the meaning of the present passive. I think the vast majority of conservative theologians would agree that it is God who regenerates. I certainly believe that.

Still all true. I agree.

I'm not sure how you get that the perfect passive verb is "far more important." Don't we believe in verbal inspiration? Every word is important. How is a verb more important than a noun?

Here is where we part company. You've explained the aspect of "believing" well enough, but I think you are reading too much into the tense of the substantive, and I've quoted several grammarians who appear to say so.

Can you come up with a grammarian giving the same weight of the tense that you do to a substantival participle? Any substantival participle anywhere in the NT? None of the grammars I have allow that.

 

Hope you can afford the good grammars someday. And keep that Greek sharp--translating a verse or two a day in your devotions is a great way to do that, for just one way. (Maybe you're already doing something similar.)

But even an intermediate grammar agreeing with you would be nice! Keep looking. I have David Alan Black's intermediate grammar at the church (so I couldn't check it yesterday), but surprisingly he didn't even mention the substantival participle. There's a place on the Internet with PDFs of some old classical grammars, but I can't give you the address right now. But I'd really like to know of any grammar that allows for what you are saying--that the substantival participle still has the force in time of the present active indicative.

Personally, I rarely look at NT commentaries anymore that aren't commentaries directly on the Greek. But I do have The Expositor's Bible Commentary, with Glenn W. Barker on 1 John in vol. 12 agreeing with you. Here's what he says: "'Believing' in Jesus (present tense in the Gr.) is a direct consequince of our 'having been born' (perfect tense in Gr.) of God and therefore becomes a 'test' or proof of that birth" (p. 348).

Now, what has Barker done? He's looked at the tense of the verb and ignored it's usage as a participle, which is a cardinal sin in Greek exegesis. Are you aware of the controversy raging in Greek circles right now on aspect versus time? On the one side you have Stanley Porter saying that the Greek tenses hardly even mean time at all. On the other side you have Daniel Wallace blowing away Porter in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.

In my understanding of the current controversy, and based on my own experience in translating the entire Greek NT (though I'm not a scholar, and my rough draft was full of holes as my co-translators and editors have shown me), in the indicative time has meaning, past, present and future, though aspect is also important. In the infinitive and participle, though, aspect is far more important. You have aorist participles that are obviously describing an action in the future, for example, or present participles that are describing something in the past.

So in 1 John 5:1, to do a good job on the Greek, you'd have to find other places where the substantival use of a present active participle clearly referred to action in the present. Good luck with that! You can do it with a good, advanced Bible program like Bible Works or Bibloi (what I use).

So, I'm interested, do any of your commentaries that agree with you actually discuss the substantival use of the participle, or do they simply say like Barker, "Oh, it's a present tense, so it's referring to action in the now, and therefore the perfect tense of the main verb shows that regeneration precedes faith"? I'd love to know more how your commentaries handle the substantival participle here.

I'm not sure how the position you take is not dependent on the participle. The only way you can get that regeneration precedes faith from 1 John 5:1 is by the participle referring to an action in present time, or at least clearly after the regeneration.

 

Okay, I did a grammar search with my software of John's writings (all I have time for right now), and found 14 matches for a Greek substantive participle with pisteuw, believe. Interestingly enough, we have exact matches in our beloved John 3:15-16, "all who believe." (The exact match also occurs in John 12:46.)

Now, think about those two verses. If we say that the verb aspect applies to the substantive participle, "those who are believing," then salvation is no longer instantaneous, but a process. If we say that the present time applies to the substantive participle, so that those who are now believing will have everlasting life, then those who believed in the past or will believe in the future will not have eternal life, evidently. We don't believe either of these things, do we?

So, John 3:15-16 should show why the substantive use of the participle should be treated as a noun, nothing more and nothing less. And don't be surprised at this, neither Chinese nor Japanese have participles! And in Japanese, the verb can become an adjective with the right suffix, after which that adjective can become an adverb or become a verb again. Isn't language fun? :smilewinkgrin:

 

John,

I realize that English may be your second language, but I have one major bone to pick with everything that you have been saying. It is simply this: the translators of nearly EVERY major, modern, translation disagrees with you.

1Jn 5:1 Everyone who believes (present)that Jesus is the Christ has been (past)born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. (ESV)

1 Jn 5:1 Everyone who believes (present)that Jesus is the Messiah has been (past) born of God,*(HCSB)

1 Jn 5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been (past)born of God (NRSV)


The fact is, John, that in the English, this is definitive: the belief is rendered subordinate to the past tense occurrence of having been born again. Those who believe, have been born again: not those who are born again, have believed.

These different translators, from nearly every major (not including paraphrases and non-literal translations) modern version, all place one's present belief as dependent upon the past action of God on the person: i.e. being born again. They did it for a reason. These different translators, who possibly represent the best in Biblical Greek scholarship, cannot simply be ignored.

 

Besides the debate surrounding the grammar, shouldn't we also consider the obvious intent of the author? The fruit if believing in God is being born of God just as the fruit of loving the Father is loving his children. The proof is in the puddling. I personally think John would laugh at all the semantics and debates over this one phrase...or he'd be disgusted.

 

I will not argue that if you are a believer in Christ, you have been born again.
So is the tribesman who leaves the ways and religion of his tribe in order to follow Christ and His people.
So is someone who have never heard of Christ but believes that there is Somebody more powerful than the sun, his ancestors, the river, the spirits of the forest, and in his heart longs to know who that is.
So was Abram and Sarai, who both were evidently idolaters until the living God called them out.
So is Simeon the old man who had been waiting all along for the redemption of Israel.
So is Job who had never met anyone who preached to him the Name of Christ, or who doesn't even know Jehovah's Name.

The real question is much like the big bang versus Creation.
The big bang can argue all they want that order came out of chaos, but the question is what caused the big bang and when ?

You are born again because you are a believer.
But when were you born again.
When you believed, before you believed, or after you believed.

Who caused your rebirth, or regeneration, or being "born again" ?
Was it the preacher ?
The preached message ?
The Bible ?
The Gospel ?
or the Spirit of God.

 

I'm one of those Calvinists who will gladly defer to what makes better sense.

As Paul demonstrates in Galatians 3:16 grammar sometimes is needed. But we need to be careful of trying to settle or confirm, as in this case, theological points along the lines of mere grammar.

Does 1 John 5:1 support regeneration preceding redemption? The Calvinist would like to think so. But such is not really the case.

John might simply be saying that the person who believes in Jesus gives evidence of being born of God, without any reference to when this being born of God actually took place.

 

Now I'm not TCGreek, but from what I have read of his posts he seems to be saying that one can not devine with clarity anything more than this - the person who believes in Jesus gives evidence of being born of God. Thus it appears his view is that this specific passage in the Greek is not definitively showing neither order of salvation nor causation.

As to the specifics of why, I'll let him answer

 

Archangel,

I do more blogging these days. Every now and then, I'll stop by. :thumbs:

I disagree because of what is actually going on in 1 John. A theme of 1 John is the fact that we can have confidence in our salvation, when so many are defecting.

When we speak of exegesis, we need to take the whole Letter into consideration along the lines of what is really going on, not just an isolation text.

To appeal to mere grammar without the support cast of overall context of the Letter is not the way to go.


1 John 5:1 simply means that one who believes in Jesus has been born of God, without reference to when this "born of God" took place.

Of course we can appeal to the perfect passive, but I see it more as a statement of fact, given the overall context of the Letter.

 

I agree with you. This is why all the OT saints had to wait in paradise or Abraham's bosom. It was when Jesus ascended that he gave "gifts to men" which I personally believe means he gave the Holy Spirit to those OT saints he brought to heaven with him.

Eph 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

Many scholars believe (and I agree) that verses 8 and 9 are speaking of Jesus taking those OT saints who were held captive in paradise or Abraham's bosom with him when he ascended to heaven. And I believe the "gifts" is speaking of those given through the Holy Spirit which he also gave to living believers starting at Pentacost.

Three times "paradise" is used in the NT, the first is in Luke and shows paradise was in the heart of the earth.

Luke 23:43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.

We know paradise was in the heart of the earth because Jesus went down into the heart of the earth for three days. He spoke to the thief concerning where they both would be on the first day.

But after Jesus rose, paradise is shown to be in heaven. Paul spoke of himself being "caught up into paradise"

2 Cor 1:3 And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; )
4 How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.

And later in Revelations we see paradise coming down out of heaven (Rev 2:7, Rev 22:1-7)

So, I believe Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to OT believers when he ascended to heaven and was glorified, just as he gave it to living believers starting at Pentacost.

 

Actually, English is my first language. I minored in English in college, have worked professionally as a book editor and proof reader, and have had a book and a couple of pamphlets published in English.

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.

The word "believes" in the English is a verb, true, but what of it? You are not saying that the English should trump the Greek, are you? Would you care to oppose my Greek analysis with a Greek grammarian? Or is the English more inspired than the Greek to you?

Time for church, have to run.