Chapter # 5 Paragraph # 4 Study # 3
May 3, 2015
Dayton, Texas
(136)
1769 Translation:
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [
I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful [
is] he that calleth you, who also will do [
it].
1901 ASV Translation:
23 And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it.
- I. The Primary "Actor": The God of The Peace [see notes for 4/26/2015 (133)].
- II. The "Actions".
- A. May He sanctify you throughout your life to the intended end [see notes for 4/26/2015 (133)].
- 1. The grammar of this "wish" is thus: the main verb is "may He sanctify"; the direct object is "you".
- 2. The term "holoteleis" is an adjective functioning as an adverb: describing the enduring process of God's efforts to bring His own to His plan for each of them.
- B. May the "detailed-through-time inheritance of you" be preserved.
- 1. The verb is "be preserved" (an aorist, optative, passive). God is the Actor, but He is not the subject of the verb. Someone/thing is to be preserved.
- 2. The term "holokleros" may be a noun and as such it would be suited to be the subject of the verb. It is the "detailed-through-life inheritance" that is to be preserved by God.
- III. The Involved Recipients of the Actions of the Primary Actor.
- A. The "possessors" of the planned inheritance: "the detailed-through-life inheritance of you".
- B. The phrases that follow... .
- 1. The spirit and the soul and the body. How shall we take this?
- a. Some have taken the elements (spirit, soul, body) to be the "subjects" of the passive verb in the sense of "May the spirit, soul, and body be preserved".
- 1) This is linguistically problematical because of the nominative form of "holokleros".
- a) The Logos Bible Study program lists the word as a noun. But this is not a final "given" because Michaelson's Enhanced Strong's Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries lists it as an adjective.
- b) The word is rarely found in Greek anywhere and the paucity of usage makes it difficult to decide whether it is an adjective or a noun. Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon quotes it and translates it "uncastrated" -- a clear adjectival use; plus Liddell and Scott Greek-English Lexicon gives a nominal form (holokleria) -- which should make the form we have adjectival. But the quoted texts are not consistently translated by either making it adjectival or nominative.
- 2) It is also theologically and practically problematical in that many, if not most, believers are not themselves (spirit, soul, and body) preserved blamelessly through life.
- b. My take on it is that these "elements" are contained in what is called an epexegetical phrase that defines the "you".
- 2. Blameless in the coming of the Lord of us, Jesus Christ.
- a. Again, some have argued that it is the spirit, soul, and body that is to be "blameless" (without blame worthy characteristics, or faults).
- b. However, it seems to me to be the "through-time-developed inheritance" that is to be ultimately "without fault". It will be everything it is supposed to be in the plan of The God of The Peace, without fault.
- c. God can preserve the inheritance without having to preserve the whole person's character as "blameless" through time (Note 1 Peter 1:4).