Wednesday, January 24, 2018

I Thessalonians 5:23,24 – “The Agent”


As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

23May the God of peace Himself sanctify you [to be] complete, and may [the] whole of you – the spirit and the soul and the body – be kept blamelessly in the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The One calling you [is] faithful, who will also accomplish it.

The translation of verse 23 is very odd to me. Most translations make “complete” into an adverb, so it becomes some variation of “completely.” This is odd to me because it is an adjective, and clearly not an adverb. Even A.T. Robertson says it is a predicate adjective and specifically not an adverb, but then says it has “the force of an adverb” (whatever that means). Then, later in the verse, most translations make the adverb “blamelessly” into an adjective, “blameless.” It seems really odd to me that we can just (seemingly arbitrarily) translate an adjective as an adverb, then turn around a phrase or two later and translate an adverb as an adjective.

Most likely anyone who has stumbled across this post, at this point thinks I am quibbling over completely irrelevant details. To such persons I have to say, my first task in Bible study is to try to determine as certainly as possible what the Bible says (and what it does not say). These are the very words of God and personally I want to be as careful as possible to translate them accurately. Whether or not we’re being “sanctified completely” or “sanctified [to be] complete” are perhaps very similar, yet still different in meaning. Similarly, whether we are “kept blameless” or “kept blamelessly” are two similar but yet different thoughts. And again, my first concern is to be sure I really do understand what the Lord is saying. It may turn out that practically speaking it makes little difference, but I don’t know that yet. I do not believe I am quibbling over irrelevant details.

Second of all, I want to acknowledge that pretty much everything I will say in this post I’m saying on precariously thin ice. I’m always reminded of John Eadie’s warning, “Interpretations are generally false in proportion to their ingenuity.” Apparently most of the world’s scholars seem to think this juxtaposition of adjectives and adverbs is not only reasonable but also called for in this passage. It is perhaps reckless and even arrogant for a neophyte like myself to question them and even more so to contradict them. My problem is that in my studies not one of them offered any defensible explanation for this juxtaposing of the adjectives and adverbs. It was rare to find anyone who even noticed the difference – which is scary coming from men who are writing commentaries on the Word of God and who, for the most part I am sure were capable of careful exegesis. It makes one wonder how closely they really looked at the text. On my part, if I’m wrong, all I need is someone to show me clearly why, and I would be very happy to learn something which I obviously don’t know. But until they do, I see no reason to depart from the simple truth that adjectives are adjectives, adverbs are adverbs, and that they should be translated accordingly.

In my translation offered above, I have tried to maintain this grammatical consistency.

And, although humbly (I hope) aware of John Eadie’s warning, this is where I head off on “my own.”  I think it is a very different thing whether we are “sanctified completely” (adverb) or “sanctified [to be] complete” (predicate adjective). The focus of the adjective isn’t so much on the process as on the accomplishment of it. God doesn’t just sanctify us completely, but He sanctifies us because His goal is for us to be complete. Here again I hearken back to the Jewish concept of peace, which is precisely this – the idea of things being “complete.” Our God is a redeeming God. In a sense, the entire work of salvation is about redemption, it is about God through Christ and in the power of His Spirit, picking up His broken creation and making it complete again. Even as an unregenerate man, we all are made in the image of God. All of us. But like our image in a broken mirror, the pieces are out of place and even missing. God’s great eternal goal is to pick us up, put all the pieces back together, and make us complete again. That will be peace. Because He is the God of peace. Because He is a Redeemer.

And then I personally think it is interesting that in the latter half of the verse Paul is praying not that we should be “kept blameless,” but that we should be kept “blamelessly.” Even as I myself read the words, the “kept blamelessly” just doesn’t settle well in my brain – but as I said above, I am trying to translate accurately and it is what it is. It is very awkward to me too when we add the prepositional phrase “in the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Maybe I’m just plain wrong, but it is also possible that this is just another case where, in the ancient world, they simply didn’t think like us.

I guess what I have to say is that for me personally, retaining the adverbial “blamelessly” really emphasizes the agent here. Who is doing the “keeping?” It certainly isn’t us, since the verb is a passive – the passive makes it very definite that we are being “kept.” Although we of course already know the answer to this question, verse 24 leaves no doubt who’s doing the keeping: “The One calling you [is] faithful, who will also accomplish it.” Of course God is the active agent here and we are those being kept. We will in fact be kept and we will be kept blamelessly. The focus is not on us – whether we are “blameless” but on the God who keeps us and who does it blamelessly. This is even emphasized by the opening words, May the God of peace Himself …” The “Himself” is a reflexive pronoun and, in the Greek, it is the very first word of the verse.

As verse 24 assures us, God is faithful and He will accomplish it – He will accomplish this sanctifying of us to be whole and keeping us blamelessly.

Verses 12 to 22 have set a pretty high bar for all of us. Reading a whole series of admonitions like “Be joyful always,” a legalist would have good reason to despair. But Paul’s prayer reminds us that while the Christian’s call is in fact a high calling, it is God’s faithfulness, not ours, that is our hope. “He who begun a good work will complete it” (Phil 1:6). He is the God who “is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24)

I would like to suggest that, by keeping our grammar precise, we particularly keep the focus on the Lord as the active agent. Paul isn’t so much praying that the people would do all these things, but rather committing them to the God who can and will accomplish it. That is what grace does. The Law says to us, “Do this and live.” Grace says, “Live! And do this.” Sure He wants us to do it, but, as we know Him and walk with Him, we find whatever success we enjoy we are keenly aware it was Him and not us that accomplished it. To be “better” I need to know Him better. “Beholding His image, we are changed into that image.”

He is our Hope.

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