[B-Greek] I John 5:1belief and regeneration

MAKARIOIOIPRAEIS at aol.com MAKARIOIOIPRAEIS at aol.com
Fri Jan 21 22:07:11 EST 2005


Is it correct to say that 1 John 5:1a is a grammatical example of the order 
of faith and regeneration? 
The substantive: pas ho pisteuon..."All the believing ones..." a participle 
in the present tense 
The verb: gegennetai   "has been born of God" is a perfect passive indicative

It was explained to me once that this verse is actually an indirect statement 
and that "John used perfect passives soley as adjectives without emphasizing 
time". The example that was given for the perfect passive was: "The tired man 
took a shower" "tired" functioning as an attributive adjective using the 
perfect passive tense, which does not emphasize when the man actually got tired 
(before or after he took a shower) . The example to explain the verse was: " 
Everyone believing that the sewer is filthy, from the sewer has been rescued" 
"Everyone believing..." the present participle 
"has been rescued"     the perfect passive
I questioned this because if John did not want to stress an event in the past 
with results abiding in the present he would have used an aorist passive for 
"been born of..." That would be the aspect of the aorist tense. Also, although 
the analogies were good he gave no examples from Scripture nor any Greek 
sources where perfect passives are used solely as adjectives as he claimed. 
Any comments? 
Rich




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