(Text and Audio)
Title: Tense, Because it’s all Greek to Me
I don’t often get this much into the Greek in a sermon setting, but this morning I feel it is essentially to fully explain what the Greek actually says, because it matters so very much in our full understanding of how to interpret this verse.
I want to focus on only four phrases and their tenses and I think we will see some things that we might not have seen otherwise. Essentially, I have a big point I want to make, and I could just make it, and you would probably just trust me…but I really feel it’s more appropriate to show you how I came to that conclusion from the text that you might see it the same way.
V32:
“whoever confesses Me” Verb: Future, Active, Indicative (fact)
“I will also confess” Verb: Future Active Indicative (fact)
In both cases here, the verb for confess is something that happens in the future, it is an active verb, meaning the person is the person is the performer of the action, and it is an indicative verb, meaning this action is a fact, not a hypothetical.
V33:
“whoever denies me” Verb: Aorist (without regard to particular time), Middle Deponent (active), subjunctive (possibility and potential)
“I will also deny” Verb: Future, Middle Deponent (active), Indicative (fact)
So, the key here is that we have four verb phrases, and three of them share the same tense. But that third statement “whoever denies me” is in its own class.
Here are my three conclusions, each one building on the next:
- If we are one of those who confess Christ, we will do that before Him, in the future (judgment), willingly, as a statement of fact. Jesus is talking specifically about those he knows and loves.
- If we are one of those who deny Christ, we have denied Him our entire lives. We have never stopped denying Him. Jesus here is talking about no one specifically, but rather the very real potential for these people to have an insufficient testimony at judgment.
- In BOTH cases, Jesus’ reaction is final.
POINT: Our confession is an ongoing thing. Though judgement takes place in a moment, the testimony of that statement is based on the fruit of our lives. Either we live to honor God, or we live to honor ourselves.
Remember: This teaching on “Confession” comes directly on a powerful teaching on “Possession”. What we confess depends upon who we belong to. If we are Christ, our fruit will show that and our confession will be for Him. If we are the world’s our fruit will show that and our confession will be for anything but Him.
So can we “lose” or forfeit our salvation by denying Him at judgment? No. No more than we could simply “lie” and say we love Jesus when we’ve lived a life of sin. Confession isn’t just the words you say to God after you die. Confession is much broader than that. Confession is what you claim. And the foundation and fruit of that claim has been the works for years for most of us.