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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