Understanding God’s election

[PaulThomson]

I have a question for our resident Greek "experts" in this thread. Can someone explain to me, preferably in layman's lingo, what the aorist subjunctive mood of a verb means in the Greek?

There ae two subjunctive forms in KoinE Greek.

The present subjunctive and the aorist subjunctive.

One view is that the present subjunctive mood conveys a potential continuous action: a wish, hope, intention that someone or something will keep on doing an action over time and not just at one instant and then stopping.

Jhn 6:38
For I came down from heaven, not so that I should keep on doing (present subjunctive) my own will, but [that I should keep on doing] the will of him that sent (aorist participle) me.
A potential ongoing doing was anticipated.

And that the aorist subjunctive mood conveys a potential action: a wish, hope or intention that someone or something will do something at some time. It is anticipating a single action possibly occurring. This does not mean that the action is expected to only happen once, but that there is a particular occasion of the action happening that is hoped/wish for or intended.

Jhn 6:30 They said therefore unto him, What sign then are you doing (present active indicative), that we might see {at some point in time](aorist subjunctive) , and might believe [at some point in time] (aorist subjunctive) you? what are you performing (present indicative active)?
A potential instance of seeing and believing is anticipated.

 

[Rufus]

No it wasn't. That is what you read into the verse.

No...that's what Rom 9 teaches, whether you like it or not.

Rom 9:10-13
10 Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11 Yet, BEFORE the twins were born or had done anything good or bad — in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls — she was told, "The older will serve the younger." 13 Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
NIV

 

[Rufus]

I challenge you to find anywhere in scripture that says God is timeless. He is called everlasting. To last means to endure over time, so everlasting means ever-enduring. I don't know how you can get "timeless" from that. Nothing in the Bible says that time was created.

I am amazed at how conversant you are with God's own realm. Have you been caught up to the third heaven?

I don't agree that if something changes it cannot be ever-enduring. The fact that God changes, means that He endures over and experiences time. God is angry with someone and threatens them with punishment, but then He relents and bestows mercy? That's a change in God toward that person, from anger to forgiveness and kindness. Do you think Jesus has always been a human being in heaven, in some eternal unchanging now, and has always had nail-scarred hands there? Do you think Jesus never really left heaven, but has always been in heaven with nail-scarred hands? Or do you believe Jesus has no physical resurrection body in heaven? I can't see how your theology manages to join coherently all the biblical dots.

Psa 53:2
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.

Explain how "to see if" does not mean "to learn whether". The Bible says God is able to learn from observing mankind. You disagree with the Bible.... a lot.

You should read the creation account some day. Time was every bit as much as God's creative work as was space and matter.

Gen 1:14-19
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth." And it was so. 16 God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning — the fourth day.
NIV

Here's another little hint for you: In the New Order of the eternal, visible kingdom, there will be no such signs or markers in eternity to separate the day from night because there will no longer be any night (Rev 21). The eternal order will be forever illuminated by God's eternal glory. There will no longer be days, seasons or years in the New Order. There will only be the everlasting Today.

Ps 53:2 is speaking anthropomorphically of God. The bible is loaded with such figures of speech.

 

[Rufus]

Your admission that Jesus knows the people He chooses for a particular role are not yet believers in Him and His Father, does not do anything to support your claims that only believers come to Jesus, and Jesus only elects/chooses those who believe. In fact, it is counterindicative.

Judas was never a believer. And Jesus choosing Judas so that he would willingly play the role for which he was created actually supports my claims and the Doctrines of Grace. Judas was a lump of clay created for ignoble purposes (Rom 9), whereas the other 11 were lumps created for noble purposes.

Furthermore, Judas didn't come to Jesus; rather Jesus chose him! No one can come to Jesus spiritually apart from the Father "dragging" them to Him. ("To drag" is the literal rendering of the Gr. term "helko", cf. Strong's 1670, which is rendered "draw" in Jn 6:44.) All manner of people can corporeally come to Jesus under the influence of their own flesh, but none can spiritually come to Him under the influence of the Spirit, apart from God's enabling, causal power.

 

[studier]

Furthermore, Judas didn't come to Jesus; rather Jesus chose him! No one can come to Jesus spiritually apart from the Father "dragging" them to Him. ("To drag" is the literal rendering of the Gr. term "helko", cf. Strong's 1670, which is rendered "draw" in Jn 6:44.)

That's a common claim among some Reformed that has been debunked through some simple analysis of the Text. There are several write-ups about it if one simply does some searching.

 

[studier]

The term "men" in Jn 12:32 isn't in any of my interlinears.

This has been explained to you several times. Your acceptance is immaterial to what the language says.

 

[studier]

But Jn 6:37 doesn't teach that the Father "sent" anything to the son.

Fair point. The gist still works. To save time I'll just goes with this answer:

So, it is not possible to say that a storm is coming our way because storms are things and cannot come? It is not possible to say, "There is a crisis coming our way", because crises are things and cannot come? I cannot say, "There is an inheritance coming to Me," because an inheritance is a thing, and things cannot come?

 

[Rufus]

Jn 12:32 reads:

John 12:32
32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all [men] to myself."
NIV

In the vast majority of cases when trying to determine if a "universal" term is being used in the distributive or limited sense, the context of the passage will provide the correct answer. And this is also the case with this passage. When Jesus said that he would draw "all" to him he meant that he would draw "all" without distinction as opposed to without exception. And the context of this passage bears out this truth.

Contextual Setting

In Jn 11 Jesus performed his most spectacular miracle of all by raising Lazarus from the dead in the presence of many witnesses. This spectacular miracle that Jesus performed late in his ministry served to be the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back", as the religious leaders became more firm than ever in their resolve to kill the Lord. However, at the same time Jesus' great miracle excited the interest of a large number of rank and file Jews, as we'll soon see.

In 12:1, we find that Jesus returned to Bethany to visit Lazarus, Mary and Martha several days before the Passover. When the Jews found out that Jesus had returned to Bethany a great crowd followed him there to not only see Jesus but to see this walking, talking, breathing Lazarus who had been raised up by the Lord (v. 9). This crowd and all the attention Jesus was getting so infuriated the chief priests that they plotted to murder Lazarus as well (v. 10), since so many Jews had come to believe on Jesus due to this miracle.

The next day Jesus makes his famous triumphal entry into Jerusalem where many Jews were singing his praises (vv. 12-15).

Another reason the crowd was so big was that the witnesses to Lazarus' resurrection were themselves spreading the spectacular news to others about this great miracle, and as a result many went out to see Jesus because of what they had heard from these witnesses (vv. 17-18). And because of all this attraction Jesus was getting, it drove the Pharisees insanely jealous and no doubt frustrated them to no end to the point where they exclaimed:

John 12:19b
See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!"
NIV

If any FWer here believes that the Pharisees literally meant by "the whole world" that each and every person on the planet has gone after Jesus, I have a six-lane bridge to Nowhere to sell you, and I'm only asking a billion big ones for it. But for the rest of us who have our heads screwed on straight and greatly value common sense, we recognize hyperbolic language when we see it.

Meanwhile, there were some Greeks who went up to worship at the Feast and they approached Philip, asking if they could get an audience with Jesus. Philip shared their request with Andrew and both of them told Jesus (vv. 20-22). And this passage right here is a big key to rightly understanding v. 32. Gentiles wanted an audience with Jesus! We should keep this in mind.

Then when we skip down to v. 31, we find another major clue as to how we should understand the next verse.

John 12:-31
31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
NIV

What I'm about to say will be rejected by many here due to your own eschatological perspectives. But I call the shots the way I see 'em and my interpretation squares nicely with Rev 20:1-3. In a nutshell, this is what Jesus meant: He meant that the devil will be (in the near future) driven out of heaven (in the sense of him no longer having any audience with God the way he did in the old dispensation) and thrown into the Abyss, which will be locked up and sealed over him for the specific divine purpose of prohibiting him from deceiving the nations and, therefore, depriving him from hindering the spread of the Gospel to the nations. (Rev 21:3 does not teach that Satan will no longer be able to deceive individuals, for this would contradict other scriptures.) And this will be accomplished by Christ's death, burial and resurrection! The devil will no longer have access to God to accuse Christ's brethren to Him because he no longer has any judicial grounds for such accusations.

So now when we come back full circle to v. 32, we can see that when Jesus said "I....will draw all to me", he meant all without distinction. The few Greeks who desired to have an audience with Jesus were but a microcosm of how numerous Gentiles, after Christ's ascension and the outpouring of the gift of the Holy Spirit, would also come to Jesus wanting "an audience with Him". We must understand v. 32 in the context of vv. 20-22, 31; Rev 20:1-3. And this latter passage because Jesus was alluding to the future event of "casting out the devil" in this passage. Plus we have seen that it would be beyond absurd to interpret v. 19b in the distributive sense.

Context really does matter...

 

[Rufus]

This has been explained to you several times. Your acceptance is immaterial to what the language says.

Fine. Just remember though: "men" was added by the translators!

 

[Rufus]

Rufus said:


But Jn 6:37 doesn't teach that the Father "sent" anything to the son.


Studier repled:

Fair point. The gist still works. To save time I'll just goes with this answer:



PaulThomson said:


So, it is not possible to say that a storm is coming our way because storms are things and cannot come? It is not possible to say, "There is a crisis coming our way", because crises are things and cannot come? I cannot say, "There is an inheritance coming to Me," because an inheritance is a thing, and things cannot come?

Oy Vey! You guys need to avoid analogies like the Bubonic Plague. How do people come to Christ? Are they not DRAWN (literally dragged) by the Father (Jn 6:44)? I received an inheritance once and I don't recall that inheritance being dragged to me. And I've been in my share of real life crises, yet I don't recall any of those being dragged to me either. As far as storms go, they are most often driven
by atmospheric conditions. Cyclones are driven by upper level winds, generally. Hurricanes are pushed around by the atmosphere. Storm surges are pushed toward the shore, etc. Moreover, in bad storm situtation, Jesus often drives them away from one destination through the prayers of faithful saints. I can't count the number of times we've escaped serious storms that were more or less predicted to come upon my location.

Go back to the drawing board, gents.