Salvation and the Greek Grammar

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

24 October 2012

When you start with the Greek Grammar of the New Testament, you are taught that there are two past tenses in Greek. This is important because Christ saved you. He saved you on the cross in 31 CE. So you are going to find these past tenses in the Bible telling you about your salvation in Christ. The first kind is a point past tense and is indicated by a point ⊙. It is very good news for sinners. It is the Aorist. It saves one time in the history of mankind and is not repeated again. One refers to it in history and back in time. You turn around and point back to the cross where it all happened. And then the Greek Grammar takes you to another past tense, which is indicated by a _____ line. This past tense describes a process not a one-time event. This is one of the revolutionary things the beginner in Greek learns when he /she studies the Beginning Greek Grammar of the New Testament. Any Greek Grammar.

           So the pastor venture out to his pulpit after the seminary with the Beginner Greek knowledge in his hand and preach week after week that Christ saved you once and for all and therefore you do not have to do anything for your salvation and that is why the Sanctuary Message or Investigative Judgment in Heaven theology cannot be true because the book of Hebrews indicate that salvation is a once and for all event. Especially Calvinists stress this theology and their theology is cross-theology. Adventists pastors who regularly read Calvinistic books are caught up by these aorist-theology writers who uses of course Beginner Greek Grammars to state their case.

           But then comes Advanced Greek Grammars in later years. Suddenly the picture becomes more interesting. When one uses the Syntax Grammars by Dana and Mantey, or C. D. Moule, or Blass and De Brunner, suddenly the situation requires revision. Also the theology requires revision. In fact, as time goes on, one learns that this is a more biblical Greek than the one taught in Beginners Greek.

Now there are three more kinds of Aorists or ⊙. An Aorist past event can be <⊙> constative or it can be ⊙>----------- ingressive or it can be ----------<⊙ culminative. When you read in the New Testament that Christ will save us you ask yourself, wait, why is the Future Tense used. I thought the Aorist indicated that it was constative or   <⊙> and once and for all? This is where Adventism Theology starts. This is what differentiates Calvinism and Adventism. The New Testament indicates to you that Christ’s work was an ongoing one ever since the Fall of Man. The eternal covenant was actually before the Fall of Man between the Trinity. In this sense His work was on our behalf a culminative Aorist ----------<⊙†. But if you read the Bible carefully, you realize that Christ’s Ministry did not stop at the cross. His work continued on behalf of the salvation of mankind after 31 CE. Now the understanding grows to the Meditorial Priesthood function of Christ after 31 CE on our behalf as the Book of Hebrews indicated. Suddenly your Aorist concept is becoming now the following:

----------<⊙†>------------. Even here it does not stop. As you read the Book of Daniel 7, you become aware that Christ Ministry will make a change in 1844 (after 2300 years calculated from 457 BCE) when His role of Priest change to High Priest and the Investigative Judgment starts as vividly portrayed in Daniel 7. Now we have another event that is also based on the first event.

 ----------<⊙†>------------⊙>------------. It is suddenly an ingressive Aorist since 1844 with a ministerial work that is an ongoing one. It is individualized to such an extent that one has to say that every short line in the representation is a series of

   ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙<⊙†>⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙>⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙

 Life of perfection > cross>  Mediator          1844     High Priest

                                                (individualized)        (Investigative Judgment) 

                                                                                        (individualized)

When you come to this point in Bible Study, you are a Seventh-day Adventist. Salvation has become a process of a series of events wrapped up in the existence of the God-Son Jesus Christ. From the Eternal Covenant to the Covenant of Grace, we are all involved in this drama. We learn that the cross was a culminative event in 31 CE, a point in time that supplied worthiness recognized by creatures that Christ is Our Savior. But notice, the Trinity did not need this proof. In fact, Christ died already in the Eternal Covenant before the Creation of the World! It was already <⊙†> constative back then before Creation. Welcome to the biblical view of Adventism. Just when you think this is all, you learn from Paul that Christ will save us. Jesus also promised to come again. So the great culminative Aorist that all are waiting for is the Second Coming. It is going to be so that His ministry will culminate in the Second Coming:

----------<⊙ Second Coming (Future once and for all event).

Ministry

Christ ministry does not end here. This is giving the reward to the saints but the punishment, says the Book of Revelation, will be after a 1000 years but, during that 1000 years, following the Second Coming, Christ will “wipe away the tears from the saints eyes”. Again individualized events. It is a process with many events by Christ.

                         ⊙> ⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙

    (Second Coming)  (1000 years of individualized wiping)

Just when you think, salvation is accomplished in history, the Bible has more to say. The Book of Revelation indicates that Salvation is accomplished when the presence of evil is finally eradicated in the Hell. That is the work of Christ and no one else.

⊙>------------------------------------------------⊙> Hell

There is thus a culminative aorist event after the Second Coming culminative event that means the eradication of the presence and existence of evil in all its forms. Finally, at that point, at the Day of the Lord, the Great Day of the Lord, the Day of God’s Wrath, Armegeddon, the Day of the Lord, salvation is accomplished since the equilibrium distorted by the Fall is finally regained and eternity starts properly.

           Gone is the concept of constative salvation at the cross and cross only. Gone is the once and for all salvation of the individual in 31 CE. Now it is no more denominational ideology but biblical theology that rules and when this happens, the person is a full Adventist. If the person keeps the Sabbath, namely the seventh-day Sabbath, the person is also a Seventh-day Adventist because the keeping of God’s law properly is restored as well.