The Tense Readings of
the Greek New Testament
Part 1
By Daniel Steele, D.D.
(Past President of Syracuse University)
IN this age of astonishing scientific progress, when the microscope
applied to living tissues reveals whole continents of evidence of design in bioplastic life, and marvelously strengthens theism
in its debate with atheism, we have applied the same instrument to the Greek Testament, in the aid of exegesis, in the interest
of disputed truths, and for the refutation of certain doctrinal errors. Our microscope will be directed to a long-neglected
field of research, the Greek tenses, not for the purpose of discovering new truths, but for the confirmation and clear elucidation
of verities as old as revelation. It is the evident order of Providence that there should be an advance in the evidences of
Christianity in its various departments. Hence, Tischendorf, in rummaging the mouldy libraries of the Orient, lays open to
the world a manuscript of the New Testament hidden for ages among the lazy, wine-bibbing Greek monks of a Sinaitic convent;
and Smith digs up Nineveh from her long-lost grave, and makes her a swift witness against the doubters of Old Testament history;
as Schliemann unearths old Troy to the confusion of those German destructives who, with pipe in mouth, over mugs of beer,
were proving to their own satisfaction that Ilium was a myth, and the Iliad a splendid fiction born of the mythopoctic faculty
of successive generations of rhapsodists wandering over Greece. In the field of exegetics the late advance has been in the
most searching grammatical analysis, attending to the accents, the particles, the tenses, and the emphatic order of the words.
This results from the greater accuracy of modern scholarship. But most of our standard commentaries were written by annotators
trained to disregard the minutiae of the Greek language. But Dean Alford, Bishop Ellicott, and other late sacred scholars,
enrich their notes with gems of truth discovered by applying the microscope of modern learning. They call frequent attention
to the tenses as conveying important truth. Recent Greek Testament grammarians, such as Winer and the younger Buttmann, indignantly
rebuke the blindness of the older annotators to the value of the tenses. Says Winer, the highest authority in the grammar
of the Greek Testament, "In regard to the tenses of the verb, Greek Testament grammarians and expositors have exhibited very
great misapprehensions. In general, the tenses are employed in the New Testament with exactly the same accuracy as in Greek
authors." He then quotes Berthold, as a representative of the slovenly style of treating the tenses, who says, "In the use
of the tenses, it is well known that the New Testament writers paid little regard to the rules of grammar." But Winer denies
this charge, and asserts that, "strictly and properly, none of these tenses (aorist, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect) ever
stands for another, as commentators pretend." That the English scholar may understand our argument and our illustrations,
we will give the following definitions: The present tense denotes what is now going on, and indicates a continuous, repeated,
or habitual action, as, I am writing. The imperfect denotes the same continuity
or repetition in the past, as, I was writing.
"The aorist indicative," says Goodwin, "expresses the simple momentary occurrence of an action in past time, as, I wrote." The perfect denotes an action as already finished at the present time, as, I have written; my writing is just now finished. It also expresses the continuance of the result down to the
present time; as the formula "It is written," is literally, it has been written,
and implies that it now stands on record; the door has been shut, that is, it so remains till now. The pluperfect denotes
an act which took place before another past act.
The chief peculiarity lies in the aorist. We have in the English
no tense like it. Except in the indicative, it is timeless, and in all the moods indicates what Krueger styles "singleness
of act." This idea our translators could not express without a circumlocution in words having no representatives in the Greek.
"The poverty of our language." says Alford, "in the finer distinctions of the tenses, often obliges us to render inaccurately
and fail short of the wonderful language with which we have to deal." His annotations abound in attempts to bring out the
full significance of the tenses. For instance, in 2 Cor. xii. 7, "to buffet" (pres.) me, "is best thus expressed in the present. The aorist would denote but one
such act of insult." This has been noted by both Chrysostom and Theophylact.
It is worthy of remark that when the aorist would indicate the momentary
work of the Spirit in regeneration and in entire sanctification, these learned writers, especially Bishop Ellicott and Dean
Alford, for dogmatic reasons, refrain from calling attention to the force of the aorist, except it be to note that baptismal
regeneration is a single act.
As some of our readers may be disposed from dogmatic reasons or
prejudice, to dispute our inferences from this tense, we proceed to fortify ourselves by the following authorities: —
Says Buttmann, in his recent New Testament Grammar: "The established distinction between the aorist, as a purely narrative
tense (expressing something momentary), and the imperfect as a descriptive tense (expressing something contemporaneous or
continuous), holds in all its force in the New Testament. Says Winer: "Nowhere in the New Testament does the aorist express
what is wont to be." "The aorist," says Meyer, "does not anywhere in the New Testament express a habit." In applying these
principles we make several important discoveries. We cite only a few specimens :
1. All exhortations to prayer and to spiritual endeavour in the
resistance of temptation are usually expressed in the present tense, which strongly indicates persistence.
Matt. vii. 7: Keep asking (pres.), and it shall be given you: seek
(pres.) again and again, and ye shall find; knock persistently, and it shall be opened unto you.
Mark xi. 24: (Alford's version). Therefore I say unto you, All things
that ye perseveringly pray (pres.) and ask for (pres.), keep believing (pres.) that ye receive (aor., Alford), and ye shall
have them.
Luke xi. 10: For every one that asketh (pres.) perseveringly, receiveth;
and he that seeketh (pres.) untiringly, findeth; and to him that persistently knocketh (pres.), it shall be opened. Verse
13: How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that importunately ask (pres.) Him. The idea implied
is clearly expressed in Luke xviii. 1.
John xvi. 24: Ask (pres.) repeatedly, and ye shall receive, that
your joy may be permanently filled (perfect).
Luke xiii. 24: Persistently agonize to enter in (aor.), once for
all, at the strait gate.
Luke xviii. 13: But he kept smiting (imperfect), and saying, God
be merciful (aor.) to me, the sinner. The conditions of pardon are persistently complied with.
James i. 5-6: If any one of you lack wisdom, let him frequently
ask (pres.) of God, etc. But let him ask (pres.) repeatedly in faith, etc. Heb. xi. 6: For he that persistently comes (pres.)
to God must believe (aor. definitely grasps two facts), (1) that He exists, and (2) that He is becoming a rewarder to those
who diligently and repeatedly seek Him.
To this use of the present tense a remarkable exception occurs in
Christ's last address before His crucifixion (John xiv.-xvi.). Here He for the first time directs us to pray in His name,
and, as if to denote the influence of that all-prevailing name when presented to the Father in faith, the aorist tense is
used when prayer is commanded, as if to teach that one presentation of the name of the adorable Son of God must be successful.
See John xiv. 13, 14, and xvi. 23, 24. In the 23rd verse the aorist occurs, but in verse 24 the present tense (be asking)
is used, probably in view of the foreseen fact that there would be multitudes of half-believers, who must be encouraged to
pray till they fully believe in the name of Jesus Christ.
