[B-Greek] Subjunctive Aorist & Future Indicative in Rom 10:9

Fuller Ming fullerming at gmail.com
Mon Jan 1 08:53:01 EST 2007


Greetings and Happy New Year,

I am new to this list, so I have no idea how busy it is...

Can someone help me with something?

I want to understand Roman 10:9 a little better.  (note - I'm learning NTG
so if I mess up below, please feel free to correct me!)

Why the subjunctive mood for confess (homologeo) and believe (pisteuo)? What
does it mean to be aorist subjunctive?  These words are not translated in
the past tense in English.   Would it be safe to translate something like,
"if you actually confessed..." or " if you really had confessed...",
indicating the mood and putting it in the past tense?  Why don't translators
do this - is there a theological prejudice here?  Or am I really off base?
Does this construct eliminate the "time" element typically associated with
the tense?  Aorist is "a point in time", right?  It is thus, past tense and
a summary, correct? This is the "Deliberative Subjunctive" - what I was
sleeping through because NT Greek was starting to get way too complicated
for my brain!

In addition, save (sotzo) is a future, passive, indicative - pretty straight
forward.  Saved by who? (by God, but He is not specified, thus the passive),
and it's a future indicative.  The plain meaning then is that you will at
some time in the future be saved.  Why do so many people take this as
immediately after the confession and belief?  Is there a better way in Greek
to indicate an immediate result?

Finally, it seems that the overall context of this verse is the fact that
everyone can be saved - on behalf of them (huper autwn)- probably referring
to the Jews, "i.e. Israel" in verse 1- but the point is specified later in
verses 13 and following:  For all/"everyone" (pas) who call (epikaleo) -
another subjunctive aorist word - will be saved (future, indicative of
sotzo).  It seems that the overall message is that Everyone CAN be saved -
it is not a formula for HOW to be saved, but I have frequently seen this
verse used in the "Roman Road" as a scripted evangelistic tool.  Is the
"Roman Road" and "The Four Spiritual Laws (Rom 10:9 has been used as the
basis for the prayer at the end)" and other such "tools" - are these things
a poor and over-simplified use of God's word?

It seems, then, that the passage is saying, "there is no way anyone will
eventually be saved unless there is authentic faith (i.e.
confession/belief).  Or put another way, "anyone can eventually be saved as
long as they start with authentic faith".

Help - this is a little important for me.

--Fuller



More information about the B-Greek mailing list