Grace Theological Journal 11.2 (1990) 221-28.
[Copyright © 1990 Grace
Theological Seminary; cited with permission;
digitally prepared for use at
Gordon Colleges]
THIRD CLASS CONDITIONS IN
FIRST JOHN
DAVID L. WASHBURN
Most of the third class conditions in the First Epistle
of John are
of the "present general" type, i.e., they express
conditions based on
present states or realities rather than future probabilities. These condi-
tions share a semantic domain with the articular
participle, and John
often uses both constructions to express the same idea. The
choice of
one or the other had to do with stylistic variation rather than
difference
of meaning.
*
*
*
SOME
time ago, James Boyer published a study of third class condi-
tions in the New Testament.
In it, he disputed the semantic distinc-
tion between the
"future probable" and "present general" uses of e]a<n
with the subjunctive.
If it seems strange to us that such
distinct types should be thrown
together in
one grammatical form it should alert us to the probability
that we are
not looking at it as the Greek writer did. Apparently he did
not see
these as diverse types; there must be some common characteristic
which in
his mind linked them in the same manner of expression. His
choice to
use the subjunctive points to the common element. They are
both
undetermined, contingent suppositions, future in time reference.
Whether that potentiality was seen
as some particular occurrence or one
which would
produce the result whenever it occurred was not the pri-
mary thought in the mind of the speaker. He used a
form which in either
case
expressed a future eventuality.1
Many grammarians, on the other hand,
posit a semantic distinc-
tion between future
probability vs. present general conditions based on
the tenses used in the apodosis of the condition.2
Boyer questioned
this, as well.
1 J. Boyer, "Third
(and Fourth) Class Conditions," GTJ
3:173.
2 A. H. Chase and H.
Phillips, A New Introduction to Greek
(
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GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
Next, examining the 81
examples of the present indicative in the
apodosis of
general suppositions, it is probable that even these represent
future
time. 20 of these seem to be gnomic or atemporal,
which includes
future
time. But specifically in the apodosis of a contingent condition
this
present must be logically future to the fulfillment of the protasis.3
The trouble is, this logical
connection is true of first class condi-
tions, as well. Thus, in the
simple statement "If it's raining, you need to
come inside," the apodosis (coming inside) is
logically future to the
protasis (rain falling). But
this does not necessarily mean that the
whole matter is future from the writer's point of view. Expressed with a
Greek
subjunctive, this sentence could easily mean that any time it
rains, the addressee needs to get in out of it,
including right now.
This logical relation, therefore, begs the real
question: when a
writer used e]a<n with a subjunctive, was
he thinking always or primarily
of "future eventuality," or is it
possible that he sometimes described a
present state of things?4 This paper
will seek to answer this question for
the book of First John.
I John contains 28 occurrences of e]a<n with the subjunctive. They
fall into three broad categories.
1) Definitely Future
Two passages fit this category:
when he appears we may be confident and unashamed
before him at
his coming (NIV)," and 3:2, "We know that
when he appears, we shall
be like him (NIV)." Both refer to Christ's
return, and so are future due
to the nature of the event.
2) Either Present or Future
(Uncertain)
"If anyone sins" in 2:1
might depict the present situation: "When-
ever someone sins, we have an advocate." It
might state a future
probability: "If anyone sins, we have an
advocate (the advocate will
still be there to intercede)." The previous
statement, "I am writing these
things so that you won't sin" slightly favors the
futuristic interpreta-
tion, but this is not
certain. John's opponents may have convinced
some people that they had sinned beyond the
boundaries of forgive-
Pontificii Instituti Biblici, 1963), 109-11, though Zerwick
is somewhat more flexible in
his understanding of what is allowable in an
apodosis.
3 Boyer
174-75.
4 J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. vol. 3: Syntax, by Nigel
Turner
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963) 114 makes no distinction between the two
functions, but cites Matt
says "the most common example of this condition
[with the present e]a<n subjunctive] in
the Ptol. pap. is stereotyped phrases in
decrees and punishments, having continual
validity." He contrasts the aorist
subjunctive as "a definite event. . . occurring
only once
in the future, and conceived as taking place
before the time of the action of the main
verb. It is expectation, but not fulfillment as
yet."
WASHBURN:
THIRD CLASS CONDITINS IN FIRST JOHN 223
ness. To this John would say that they cannot
forfeit God's forgiveness,
because the Advocate is there and has been there
all along. We cannot
be sure which was in John's mind.
heard from the beginning should remain in you"
seems to set up a
present general statement that builds on this
thought. The apodosis
"you also will remain in the Son and in the Father
(NIV)" with its
future tense appears to contradict this flow of
thought. It may be that
John
had both present state and future probability in mind, so he
combined a present imperative (continue in this
state) with a future
condition (the desired state will continue if the
condition is met). We
cannot know for sure.
reads e]a<n ti
instead of o{ e]a<n. John prefaced the condition by saying
that what follows (introduced by o!ti) is the boldness that we have
before God. The expression of this boldness is the
knowledge that He
hears us when we ask according to His will. By the
nature of the act,
this could be future from John's perspective;
however, since he includes
himself in the declaration, it would seem to be
a present reality in his
mind, as well.
The force of
the mysterious sin unto death and the sin not unto
death, the identity
of the "brother" is the key to the condition.
If it is a general statement
about any brother, it is a future condition: "If
one of you should see his
brother sinning. . ." But if
"brother" is a veiled reference to John's
opponents,5 then John is giving
specific instructions to the faithful on
how to deal with the present problem. Without more
information we
cannot be sure which was the case.
3)
The remaining 22 occurrences of this
construction in 1 John all
seem to focus on present time, or even to include an
element of recent
past events. Much of this present/future question
has to do with the
nature of John's polemic against his opponents. The
five conditional
5 Most commentators do
not consider this possibility. For example, R. E. Brown,
The Epistles of John, Anchor Bible (Garden
City: Doubleday, 1982) 611 calls the brother
a "Johannine
Christian" (though he seems to see the condition as a present general,
p.
610). However, as K. Braune, The Epistles General of John, Lange's Commentary;
(New
York: Scribners, 1869) 170, pointed out, the term
"his brother," while denoting a
member of the Church community, does not necessarily
indicate "a regenerate person."
Cf.
2:19; not all members of the Community were genuine believers. S. S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3
John, Word Biblical Commentary
(Waco: Word, 1984) 299 vacillates between reference
to one within the church and one outside it, and
concludes that "the writer is clearly
dealing with those who are, in the first place,
related to the Christian circle." The
question, however, is not whether the
"brother" is related to the Christian circle, but the
precise nature of that relationship.
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GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
statements in chapter 1 illustrate this: "If
we say we have fellowship
with Him, yet walk in darkness (1:6) . . . If we
walk in the light as He is
in the light (1:7) . . . If we say that we have no
sin (1:8) . . . If we
confess our sins (1:9) . . . If we say we have
not sinned (
the one hand, if John is stating probabilities when
he says these things,
then he may be stating "future
eventuality." If, on the other hand,
verses 6, 8 and 10 are quotes of his opponents, then
he is dealing with
present (and even recent past) realities.6
The question is: if John was
not quoting those who were already making such claims,
why would he
bring up such topics at all? It is more likely that
he was citing claims
that his opponents had already made and were
continuing to make.
If this is the case, we must conclude that John
understands his
words to refer to a present state. Those who claim to
have fellowship
with God but who live in darkness are liars. Those
who claim sinless-
ness are deceiving themselves and making God a liar.
Conversely,
those who live in the light do have fellowship with
God, and those who
confess their sins have forgiveness. All this is
happening right now,
from John's point of view.
"This is how we know that we know Him"
in 2:3 expresses a
present reality: we have known God, and keeping
His commands is the
confirmation of this fact.
Logically, if this condition is future the
believer of John's time could not have had
present reassurance of his
relationship to the Lord; he would
have had to wait for an undeter-
mined time to see if he "keeps his
commandments." But the following
context indicates that John was dealing with
present conditions.
The prohibition about loving the world in 2:15a
sets the tone for
the conditional sentence in 2:15b. A futuristic
interpretation would
read, "If anyone should fall in love with the
world, he will not have the
love of the Father in him." But a present state
makes more sense:
"Whoever
is intensely attached to the world does not have the love of
the Father in him." This condition is an
evaluation of anyone who
6 J. R. W. Stott, The Epistles of John, TNTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1964) 72,
calls them quotes of the opposers.
W. Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude (Phila-
delphia:
view of B. F. Westcott, The Epistles of St. John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1952) 19, is
unclear: "the exact form (e]a<n
ei@pwmen) . . . contemplates a direct assertion of the
several
statements, and not simply the mental conception of
them." Brown, Epistles 197 does
not address this question, but says, "These
are not merely possible contingencies but
reflect the language of jurisprudence [following
W. Nauck-see pp. 43-44] They are
'exceptional' . . . equivalent to
'whenever.'"
D. W. Burdick, The Letters of John the
Apostle (Chicago: Moody, 1985)
121, said, "No doubt some of these hypothetical
statements (vv. 6, 8, 10) represent claims made by
the false teachers." Similarly at
claimed that the conditional statement expresses
a "hypothetical situation," yet affirmed
that John was probably quoting his opponents (p.
339). One wonders how hypothetical a
direct quote can be.
WASHBURN:
THIRD CLASS CONDITIONS IN FIRST JOHN 225
displays this love for the world at the time that
John is writing, and in
fact at any time.
The essence of
that He is righteous then you also know that anyone
who practices
righteousness has been born of
Him." The combination of present and
perfect tenses in the apodosis seems to preclude
a future sense for this
knowledge.
both past and present implications, as well as
future. Even when the
heart stirs self-condemnation, God is greater and
knows the reality of
things.7 This truth covers
present condemnations as well as possible
future ones, and may even extend to self-condemnations
of the past
that still affect the believer.
the heart does not condemn, then boldness before
God is enhanced.
request has future implications, to be sure, but
in the context John is
covering present states, such as keeping God's
commandment of belief
lin Jesus and loving one
another (v. 23).
another means God will abide in us, but that
loving one another proves
that God does abide in us. It does not mean that
God's love will be
perfected in us, but that it is in a present state
of being perfected, and
has been in this process since we believed (v. 7,
8).
The context of
us. We know this because He has given us His
Spirit. Whoever con-
fesses that Jesus is the Son of God is in this state.
The combination o{j
e]a<n in this condition may
serve to modify the force to a present reality,
but this is not a hard rule of grammar. John could
have said e]a<n tij
o[mologh<s^ and the context would
still demand a sense of present
reality.
Anyone
who claims to love God, yet hates his brother, is a liar. This,
again appears to be a quote and an evaluation of
John's opponents,
who were in fact making such false claims.
conditional statements. The first reads, "And
if we know that He hears
us . . . we know that we have the things we ask
for." This is a mixed
protasis: e]a<n with the (semantically)
present indicative oi@damen. Since
7 I have followed the punctuation of the
KJV at this point, because it seems to make
better sense of the phrase o!ti
e]a<n.
Even following the punctuation of UBS3, however, the
force of the condition remains a present general:
"Whenever our heart condemns us, this
is how we know we are of the truth etc."
226
GRACE
THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
it grows out of a logical inference from verse 14,
its thrust would seem
to be the same, i.e. present reality with
overtones for future continuance.
The second condition in
appositional to "Hear hears
us." Yet, this yields no sense: "If we know
that He hears us whatever we might request."
The combination o{
e]a<n
appears to have a semantic value of
"whenever," that is, "We know that
He
hears us whenever we make a request." This throws a definite sense
of present state into the whole chain of
conditions in
This brief examination shows that some third
class conditions in
1
John ought to be understood to deal with present general realities
and states, not exclusively with future
probabilities. This conclusion
draws some reinforcement from the fact that I John
has another
construction that deals with many of
the same topics in much the same
way.
John was fond of the articular
participle as an idiom for "whoever"
(cf.
epistle, only 6 depart from this meaning.8
The rest share a certain
amount of overlap with John's third class conditions,
both semantically
and in terms of subject matter.9
For example,
abides in us. 4:7 (participle) affirms that he who
loves has been born of
God
and knows God. In both verses the mark of a relationship with
God
is love for one another. The difference in construction appears to
be a stylistic variation without any particular
semantic distinction.
Other examples abound. 2:3 "If we keep His
commandments we
know that we have known Him" and 2:4 "He
who says 'I know Him'
but does not keep his commandments is a liar"
give two sides of a coin,
expressed in chiastic order.
and 2:9 "He who says he abides in the
light" say the same thing with
different words. These examples show that John was
comfortable
using both grammatical constructions to convey
similar ideas. He set
the stage in chapter 1 with five third class
conditions in a row,10 and
proceeded to alternate between the two forms as he
pleased from
2:3 on.
The most striking example of this overlap in
meaning is in
"If
anyone says 'I love God' but hates his brother, he is a liar. For he
who does not love his brother whom he has seen
cannot love God
8 These are 2:26; 5:1b; 5:4, 6, 7, 16.
9 Braune, Epistles 31, noted many of the overlaps
in subject matter, calling both
constructions "an objective
possibility. . . i.e. he assumes that it may be so, and that the
event would show whether it will be so (emphasis
his)." See also Brown, Epistles
43.
10 Chapter 1 has no articular participles.
WASHBURN:
THIRD CLASS CONDITIONS IN FIRST JOHN 227
whom he has not seen." The first sentence is a
third class condition
with a dual protasis,
similar to the conditions in chapter 1: "If anyone
says. . . but hates." The second is a
participle: "He who does not love
his brother." We could as easily translate the
two identically, for both
carry the same sense of a present general reality.
Again, alternation
between the two was a stylistic choice.
Several commentators have tried to find
distinctions between the
two constructions in
distinctions are. Westcott said that
the conditional sentence is a "par-
ticular case" while the
participle is a "general principle.”11 Brooke, on
the other hand, said that the claim in the
condition is "mentioned quite
generally" whereas the participial clause is
"more definite.”12 Most
other commentators do not treat the two clauses in
relation to each
other at all.
Many of the conditions examined also seem to
share a semantic
domain with the "first class" or simple
condition.13 This becomes clear
when we examine the five occurrences of ei] with the indicative in
1 John. Of these,
from God" (no apodosis), and 5:9 is concessive,
"although we receive
man's testimony.”14
The remaining two,
ships with the absolute statements that precede them.
In
murdered his brother because his own deeds were
evil while Abel's
were righteous. Believers should not be surprised,
therefore, if the
world hates them.15 In 4:9-11, God has
poured out His love on us, so
we ought to love one another. Each of these
sentences states a "how
much more" conclusion, phrased in the form of a
first class condition.
They
clearly do not, however, contain the hypothetical elements neces-
sary to be conditions; they
express a logical result of what has gone
before. We must conclude that 1 John does not contain
a true "first
11 Westcott 161; see also Smalley 263.
12 A. E. Brooke, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Johannine
Epistles,
ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1976) 126.
13 J. L. Boyer, "First Class
Conditions: What do they Mean?" GTJ 2:75-114 has
shown beyond any doubt that the first class
construction in its pure form is a "simple"
condition with no hint as to probability of
fulfillment, and that the old "assumed as
fulfilled" (cf. F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek
Grammar of the New Testament and
other Early Christian Literature [tr. R. W. Funk;
Chicago:
hereafter BDF] p. 189) designation should be
discarded. For view similar to, but
somewhat weaker than Boyer's, see Zerwick, p. 102-7.
14 For this use of ei] with the indicative, see A. T.
Robertson, A Grammar of the
Greek New Testament in
the Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman,
1934)
1026.
Boyer, "First Class" 113, considers 5:9 a true first class condition.
15 Brown, Epistles 445 translates "when" with some hesitation,
despite the fact that
Koine Greek often used ei] in place of o!ti (BDF p. 237).
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GRACE THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL
class" condition,16 and that this
condition's semantic field has been at
least partially displaced by the third class
construction in this epistle.17
CONCLUSIONS
First, we can conclude that John tended to use e]a<n with the
subjunctive with much the same sense that he used
the articular par-
ticiple, with the meaning
"whoever." His overlap of subject matter and
his dovetailing of the two constructions in several
places confirms this.
If
he had intended a semantic distinction between the two, it would not
make sense to use two different forms to say the
same thing. They
must, in this epistle, share the same semantic
domain. Furthermore,
both constructions infringe on the domain of the
first class condition.
This
kind of overlap is consistent with what we know about the
blurring of distinctions that were occurring in Koine Greek in the first
century.18
Second, we must conclude that Boyer has
overstated the distinc-
tion of the third class
condition, at least as far as I John is concerned.
The
so-called "present general" condition is a distinct entity in I John
just as it is in Classical Greek. It states a
condition based on present
realities or situations. That is, in many
instances the thought that
whenever the protasis
is fulfilled, the apodosis results, was in fact the
primary thought in John's mind.
16 The only clear first class condition in
the Johannine epistles is 2 John 10. The two
occurrences of e]a<n in 3 John (5, 10) show
the same semantic blurring as those in I John.
BDF
p. 189 mentions the occasional overlapping of ei] and e]a<n.
17 Cf. Zerwick,
p. 106 on the overlap between the two constructions.
18 For other examples of this kind of blurring, see Robertson 448-49; D. W.
Lightfoot,
Principles of Diachronic Syntax
(Cambridge: Cambridge U., 1979) 26 includes
a discussion of the breakdown of
sequence-of-tense rules relating to the Greek "historical
present" as a further example of blurring.
Even E. D. Burton, Syntax of the Moods
and
Tenses of New Testament
Greek
(Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1976 reprint of 1898 edition)
105,
recognized that some overlapping occurs when he classed some instances of ei] with
the present indicative as third class conditions.
See also the insightful review of The
Discovery Bible, New
Testament
by R. L. Thomas in Master's Seminary
Journal
1:85-87.
This
material is cited with gracious permission from:
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Theological Seminary
www.grace.edu
Please
report any errors to Ted Hildebrandt at:
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