QRe: [B-Greek] John 3:36

Mike Dewus dewus at bluemarble.net
Mon Sep 22 03:10:06 EDT 2003


Hi Doug, I should probably restate my original, main question, and my
motivation for it. I was wondering why John used the word APEIQW to negate
the word he used earlier in this verse-- PISTEUW, instead of just going with
OU PISTEUW; it struck me as a curiosity. My motivation: in some modern-day
settings the case is made for salvation on the basis of believing/faith-- at
the expense of obedience to Christ (obedience is supposed to come by way of
sincere faith, but sometimes obedience gets lost in the shuffle, and the
faith part then becomes compensatory). The verse in John 3:36 has often been
presented to me as a linchpin argument for a pure/sole faith-based salvation
mandate, but it would seem that that particular argument depends much on the
way in which APEIQW  is rendered. APEIQW  stood out as a curiosity to me as
it seemed like John was deliberately trying to make a point by refocusing
his expression towards compliance/subjection/obedience in the second part of
the verse. I thought about the early Church setting there in his day, and
as has been said the Church apparently had a hard time teaching some Gentile
converts that Grace doesn't mean a libertine lifestyle, that in fact there
had to be some white lines within which Grace could abound and yet, at the
very least, Noachian morality, or better, Christian morality, govern the
affairs of these converts;  as concerns the Jews, the problem was just the
opposite almost. There care had to be taken that the implication of the
Christian doctrine as applied to restraining the tendency of Gentile
converts to revert to paganism through mis-use/interpretation of Grace did
not embrace/reflect Halakha type legalism and/or formalisms and by-laws;
Christians were not subject to that thanks to the Cross; so the Church was
"between a rock and a hard place" so to speak as it went about the business
of working these issues out, and the verse under study here I thought might
reflect that dilemma, as it evinces both believing (PISTEUW) on the front
end of the verse and obeying (APEIQW) on the back end-- if in fact APEIQW
can be so rendered there (to which the preponderance of the modern
translations assent); the upshot would be that  John was possibly preaching
a balance between believing and obeying here, thus getting at the heart of
his and the Church's dilemma. It would be wrong then to think of this verse
as an argument for a belief/faith only salvation mandate.
kind regards, Mike Dewus

dewus at bluemarble.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Doug Hoxworth" <dhoxworth at charter.net>
To: <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2003 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] John 3:36


> ><Mike>
> >...for as you know the belief/-faith-obedience issue ran deep and wide in
the early Christian Church (esp. first-century AD), even as it seems to
still today in some settings; i.e., the degree of validity of the Law in a
Christian's life, or, the Grace/Law issue...
>
> <doug>
> not to go down a theological rabbit trail, but obedience
> was not the main dispute in the early Christian Church but
> as you mention the Grace/Law issue it was the question of
> whether or not Gentiles had to become Jews (by being
> circumcised and keeping the Law) before or in order to
> become Christians. so i highly doubt that the modern day
> expression of the belief/-faith-obedience issue was
> anything like what we see today in modern christiandom.
> just thought i'd throw that in since it seems that there
> may be a danger of reading that back into John 3:36 and
> the meaning or use of APEIQW here.
> ---
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