The Tense Readings of
the Greek New Testament
Part 2
By Daniel Steele, D.D.
(Past President of Syracuse University)
2. The next fact which impresses us in our investigation is the absence of the aorist and the presence of the present tense whenever the conditions
of final salvation are stated. Our inference is that the conditions of ultimate salvation are continuous, extending
through probation, and not completed in any one act. The great requirement is faith in Jesus Christ. A careful study of the
Greek will convince the student that it is a great mistake to teach that a single act of faith furnishes a person with a paid-up,
non-forfeitable policy, assuring the holder that he will inherit eternal life, or that a single energy of faith secures a
through ticket for heaven, as is taught by the Plymouth Brethren, and by some popular lay evangelists. The Greek tenses show
that faith is a state, a habit of mind, into which the believer enters at justification. The widespread mistake on this point
in thus illustrated by Dr. John Hall, of New York: —
Have you ever seen a young girl learn to fire a pistol? I will not
say, imagine a boy, for he would naturally be brave about it. I have seen young ladies acquiring this accomplishment, and
it is a very curious thing. It may illustrate to you the false notion that many persons have about faith. The pistol is loaded
and handed to the young lady. She takes hold of it very 'gingerly,' as if afraid it may shoot from the handle. Now, she means
to go through with it: there is the mark: so she takes the pistol in her hand, and holds it out a long way, and appears to
take aim with the greatest exactness, but does not shoot. She is a little afraid, trembles, and holds back. At last she screws
up her courage to the sticking-point, and, as you suppose, taking the most exact aim, shuts her eyes firmly, and fires. The
thing is done, and done with. Well, now, many intelligent persons are led to believe that faith is something like that —
something you end in an instant. You screw up your courage for it, then shut your eyes, and just believe once for all: then
the thing is done, and you are saved. Now, that is a mistaken idea about faith itself. That real faith which is honest goes
on from time to eternity.
Since we are writing for the English readers, we will refrain from
quoting the Greek verbs, which would make our pages repulsive to the very class which we wish to benefit. Scholars will appreciate
our argument if they accompany it with their Greek Testaments.
John i.12: But as many as received (aor.) Him (by a momentary and
definite act), to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that are believing (present) perseveringly on
His name. Here the aorist participle would have been used instead of the present, if a single act of faith secured ultimate
salvation.
John iii. 15: That whosoever is continuously believing in Him should
not perish (aor., once for all), but be having everlasting life. Here, again, the present and not the aorist participle of
the verb to believe is used, as it is again in verses 16 and 36.
John v. 24: Verily, verily I say unto you, he that is always hearing
My word, and constantly believing on Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and is not coming into condemnation, but has passed
over (perfect) from death unto life, and so continues. Says Alford: "So in I John v. 12, 13, the believing and the having
eternal life are commensurate; where the faith is, the possession of eternal
life is, and when the one remits, the other is forfeited. But here the faith is set before us as an enduring faith, and its effects described in their completion.
(See Eph. i. 19, 20)." Thus this great English scholar rescues this text from its perverted use, to teach an eternal incorporation
into Christ by a single act of faith, and he demonstrates the common-sense doctrine that the perseverance of the saints is
grounded on persistent trust in Jesus Christ. A wise generalship does not destroy a captured fortress, but garrisons it.
John v. 44: How are ye able to put forth a momentary act of faith
(aor.) who habitually receive (pres.) honour one of another, and are not constantly seeking the honour which is from God only?
This interrogatory implies the impossibility of a single genuine act of faith springing up in a heart persistently courting
human applause.
John v. 47: But if ye are not habitually believing His writings,
how will ye believe My words?
John vi. 29: The received text reads thus: This is the work of God,
that ye believe (aor., once for all) on Him whom He sent. When we first noticed this aorist tense, implying that the whole
work required by God is summed up in an isolated act, we felt that there must be an error in this tense. By referring to Alford,
Tregelles, and Tischendorf, we find that the aorist is rejected, and the present tense is restored, so that it reads: This
is the work of God, that ye perseveringly believe, etc.
John vi. 35: He that is perpetually coming (pres.) to Me shall not,
by any means (double negative), once hunger (aor.), and he that is constantly believing in ME (emphatic) shall never, by any
means, (double negative), feel one pang of thirst (aor.). Says Bengel, "When thirst returns, the defect is in the man, not
in the water." He has ceased to drink.
John vi. 54: Whoso eateth (pres., keeps eating) My flesh, and drinketh
(keeps drinking) My blood, hath eternal life.
John xi. 25, 26: He that believeth persistently (pres.) shall not,
by any means (double negative), die (aor.) forever.
John xx. 31: That ye might believe (aor.; but Tischendorf has the
present, continue to believe) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing constantly (pres.), ye might have
life through His name.
Acts xvi. 30, 31: Sirs, what must I do to be instantaneously saved
(aor.)? Believe instantaneously (aor.) on the Lord Jesus. This is no exception to the general use of the tenses. The jailer
wished immediate deliverance from his guilt, and was directed to a definite and sharply defined act of reliance on Christ.
But in Rom. i. 16, where future and eternal salvation is spoken of, it is promised to every one that perseveringly believes
(pres.). So also in Rom. iii. 22; iv. 24: ix. 33; x. 4, 11; 1 Cor. i. 21: Eph. i. 19; I Thess. i. 7; ii. 10, 13; iv. 14.
In 2 Thess. i. 10, we find, not in the received text, but in the
best manuscripts, an exceptional instance of the use of the aorist in expressing the conditions of final salvation: "to be
admired in all them that believe" (aor.). Alford says it is used because the writer is "looking back from that day on the
past," probation being viewed as a point.
A similar explanation he gives to the aorist in Heb. iv. 3, saying,
that the standing-point is the day of entering into the rest. We prefer to teach that the aorist is preferred to the present
in this passage because the general state of trust is not under discussion as the condition of entering eternal rest in heaven,
but the grasping of the definite fact of Christ's ability to be the believer's Joshua, and to bring him into soul-rest in
the present life. Hence the exhortation, verse 11, "Let us labour (Greek, hasten)
to enter (aor.) into that rest." Other instances of the aorist, used when some distinct saying is to be believed, are found
in John iv. 21; and in Matt. viii. 13.
Rev. xxii. 14: Blessed are they that are constantly doing His commandments,
that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. The best manuscripts read, Blessed
are they that are always washing their garments, etc. In both instances the present tense is used. This is the last time the
conditions of final salvation are expressed in the Bible.
There is in the New Testament one remarkable exception to the use
of the present tense as expressing the continuousness of the conditions of salvation. We will not dodge Mark xvi. 16: He that
believeth (aor.) once for all, and is baptized (aor.) once for all, shall be saved; he that disbelieves (aor.) shall be damned.
It may not be known to the reader that the chief biblical critics, such as Westcott and Hort, agree in rejecting as spurious
verses 9-20 of this chapter. Tischendorf drops them entirely from his edition. Dean Alford retains them in brackets, but thinks
that both the external and the internal evidences are "very weighty against Mark's
being the author. No less than twenty-one words and expressions occur in these verses, and some of them several times,
which are never used by Mark, whose adherence to his own peculiar phrases is remarkable."
Should we admit the genuineness of this text, its meaning, says
Meyer, is, "He who becomes a believer shall be saved," as in I Cor. iii. 5, "Ministers by whom ye became believers." This
applies to Rom. xiii. 11. "First became believers."
Hence we conclude from a thorough examination of the above texts,
that the Spirit of inspiration has uniformly chosen the present tense in order of teach that final salvation depends on persevering
faith.
