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

Clwinbery at aol.com Clwinbery at aol.com
Sat Jan 22 16:05:51 EST 2005


In a message dated 1/21/05 9:07:41 PM, MAKARIOIOIPRAEIS at aol.com writes:


> 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
> 
The text is PAS hO PISTEUWN hOTI IHSOUS ESTIN hO CRISTOS, EK TOU QEOU 
GEGENNHTAI, KAI PAS hO AGAPWN TON GENNHSANTA AGAPAi [KAI] TON GEGENNHMENON EX AUTOU.

I am not sure what you mean by "order of faith and regeneration." I think the 
writer is most concerned here to cause a relationship of love to exist 
between the various members of his troubled church, hence the whole verse is 
important to what he is communicating. The participle is not about time but the 
situation of believers. That relates directly to the perfect indicative. The 
believer is in a situation and in that situation should (AGAPAi is probably 
subjunctive with a sense of oughtness) love all others in that situation (who have 
been begotten of God). The writer was not concerned with modern Christian 
concerns of soteriology. 

Rich, please follow the Faq which asks us to give a full name signature. See 
the faq at  http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek.

Carlton Winbery
Louisiana College



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