[B-Greek] Morph & Eikwn/Conformity to Christ in Romans 8:29

mrt mrt at hisurfer.net
Fri Jan 9 16:47:56 EST 2004


Kevin Shehan wrote:
>Hi.I'm new to the list (first time posting), and a beginning Greek student.
I've been studying Romans 8:29, and I'm curious to see if there is something
in the original Greek that may shed a little light on the meaning.

Many scholars take Paul's discussion of "conformity to Christ" to mean a
final glorified state for all believers. For instance, A.T. Robertson
writes, "Here we have both morph and eikwn to express the gradual change in
us till we acquire the likeness of Christ the Son of God so that we
ourselves shall ultimately have the family likeness of sons of God. Glorious
destiny." (Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament).

However, I've read differing opinions on this "glorious destiny." One
particular essay (seems a rather unique interpretation) claims that Paul is
speaking here not of final glorification, but of a "positional
glorification" that believers receive when they become "adopted children of
God." The use of edoxasen in v. 30, then, would (according to this view)
mean simply a bestowal of honor, which could equate to something that
happens when believers are adopted into the family of God (and "conformed to
the image of Christ" positionally). Just curious to see if there's anything
in the Greek that might indicate which interpretation would be most likely
(the larger context seems to favor the popular "future glorification" view,
while I could see how the immediate context of v. 28-30 could possibly allow
for this other interpretation).  Thanks

_____________________

CAIRE Kevin,
Preliminary remarks: There is often difficulty in answering questions here
in that those who ask them on b-greek are at times more well read on the
subject and versed in the matter then those who answer.  Certainly I am not
speaking against the expertise here on the list... but rather to the
informed reader I say... If the weight of researched evidence suggests that
your informed view should stand... then by all means stick to that instead
of one of us who because of time restraints etc. can only give a 30 min
blurp of their opinion on the matter.  On the other hand, often the
little-greeks are not looking at the best scholarly works on the subject or
well-read enough to make the tougher grammatical decisions.  Ok enough said.

Looking at the many English translations they all seem to render PROWRISEN
SUMMORFOUS THS EIKONOS TOU hUIOU AUTOU very close to one another, something
like: "he also predestined *to become/be* conformed to the image of his Son"
Now I take  SUMMORFOS to mean ~having a similar nature, conformed to.  And
regarding SUMM' the person in view here is Christ.  So then, I guess the
possibilities are: to the ones Paul is addressing they are either
Christ-like now, or in the process of becoming, or still yet awaiting this
promise to be.  Or one or more of the above all at the same time.

Now how shall we understand the tense of the aorist verb PROWRISEN?  And
what does the action of the verb portray?  Is the action expressed:
progressive, a result, or simple occurrence?   And one should always keep in
mind the lexical meaning, which often plays a role PROGINWSKW fore-know
PROORIZW pre-determine/pre-destine.

Moving on, here are your chooses for how to take the aorist verb (in no
particular order and discounting some obvious ones): (1) Constative aorist
a.k.a Global (2) Ingressive aor. a.k.a. Inceptive (3) Consummative a.k.a.
Effective (4) Prolepic (futuristic).

Now if the verb is Constative the action is described in summary fashion
without attention to either the beginning or end of the action.  Sometimes
grammarians refer to it as a "punctiliar" statement.  Now what seperates
this from Consummative is that the action expressed by the aor. may have
taken a long time e.g. they built the temple.  Or the act may be frequently
repeated but the writer/speaker simply wanted to express the fact of the
matter and not the process.  This is by far the most popular use. If (2)
then before the verb you may prefix "became/began to do, come to" because
the beginning of the verbal action is stressed. These are generally w. verbs
of state. e.g. he became king, she came to life, so & so became poor/rich,
they fell silent. If (3) many verbs by their own nature are in this category
simply because of their lexical character... as "kill" so that unless there
are overriding contextual matters influencing the verbal action, the verb is
simply focused on the cessation of the act e.g. he killed him, he died, they
arrived, and so forth. There is not much else in view other than the
conclusion of the matter ie. the actual attainment of the end thereof.  And
lastly Prolepic (4) In my mind I liken this to the prophetic perfect (not to
be confused w. perfect tense) in Hebrew, where the prophet views his
prophetic statement as a done deal.  The action is expressed as if it had
already come to pass, in other words the action is being regarded as
fulfilled from the standpoint of the speaker/writer.

Now because of the overriding evidence of contextual features controlling
the verb I take PROWRISEN as an Ingressive aorist, thus: "whom he foreknew,
he also began to predestine toward becoming conformed to..."  No, not
really... I only said this to see if anyone was still listening :-)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I take the verb as
Constative though I view the matter as Prolepic at the same time.
Constative along w. the other verbs - foreknew (v.29) predestined, called,
and justified (v.30)  But because of the direct object w. its modifiers
SUMMORFOUS THS EIKONOS TOU hUIOU AUTOU ([to become] sharing the likeness of
the image of his Son) I also understand it as proleptic since the conditions
seem to indicate both a now sense and a future sense. It is these contextual
features (ie. direct obj.) that I think affect PROWRISEN.
Now someone will say; If Paul meant to communicate the image of the Son now
and hence forth, I would expect Paul to use the perfect tense. Me too but it
is a Constantive aor. with the rest of them (foreknew (v.29) predestined,
called, and justified (v.30)) and the aorist would more dramatically
represents the consequence as a historical fact.  And I have never seen
PROORIZW used in the GNT or otherwise in the perfect tense, only as an
aorist, and I don't know if it can be. (again aporew - I am uncertain)
Now the Proleptic side of the coin communicates something that Paul's
audience can most certainly expect.  And we have a example of the proleptic
use in the next verse (Rom. 8:30) hOUS DE EDIKAIWSEN, TOUTOUS KAI
*EDOXASEN - "those whom he justified, these he also *glorified."  This
glorification is still awaiting them.  And I think in a sense it parallels
our statement (PROWRISEN SUMMORFOUS THS EIKONOS TOU hUIOU AUTOU).
Therefore if our verbal clause above is Proleptic, then we do not yet see
the ultimate glorified state of believers ie. partaking in the likeness of
Christ, though it is certainly going to come to pass because it's a done
deal.  And being Constative, God has accomplished his goal of Christlikeness
at least in part among the believers.


Michael Tarver
Oregon, USA
<'\\><  laus Deo




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