David, your comment below is but the first of several paragraphs addressed to me in your effort to defend perfectionism as you understand it. I am going to give my response some serous thought.
But I do want to address this paragraph before leaving -- something I can do without having to study my response.
In Greek 101 , something I actually took in college, we learn that "mood" is the relationship of the verb to reality, and in this case, indicative denotes something that IS rather than something that might be. It has little to do with the action of the verb in time. The present tense is [almost] always "continuous action with no end in sight." Whether the action goes on forever is not necessarily a part of this grammatical function. "I am walking to the store" simply does not picture the journey as completed. The aroist tense does.
If you have Mounce, go to p 133 and there you will see the English translation of "luo" in its different present-tense forms (indicative mood) as "I am loosing, you are loosing, he is loosing " and so on. That Christ "is cleansing " us from our sins is the most common application of the grammatical rule that is "present indicative active." You write: "The Present Tense in the Indicative Mood represents
contemporaneous action, as opposed to action in the past or the future."
I have no idea what you think you see in this quote, but zodiates clearly does NOT contradict Mounce or any other grammarian on this issue. Do you know what "comtemporaneous" means? In this case , it is action THAT IS CURRENTLY ON GOING. It is action that is existING or accurING or originatING during the same time. If I am walking ..... He is cleansing. I am not saying that the cleasing is a repeated action, David. Rather, I am saying that it is continuous action with no end in sight and so I write "keeps on cleasing" as opposed to saying " cleases us over and over again." In this passage, I am NEVER away from this continual flow. The task is not completed, in this passage. The end of this cleansing is not in view.
If you need a reference for this, ask Dean !! He is the one with the Websters. look up contemporaneous. The definition does not help your cause.
You obviously went to Zodiates to find a way out -- because you know full well that if what I say is true, here in I John, your theory of perfectionism as you understand it is simply WRONG. Exegesis is without value if there is no integrity in the reason for the search.
d
David had written:
You are butchering the Greek text here, John. The word "cleanses" in 1 John
1:7 is a present indicative verb, so your "keeps on cleansing" terminology
incorrectly translates the passage. You might consider consulting Zodhiates
on this. He writes, "The Present Tense in the Indicative Mood represents
contemporaneous action, as opposed to action in the past or the future. In
moods other than in the indicative mood, it refers only to continuous or
repeated action." Your attempt to apply continuous and repeated action here
is not supported by the Greek construction.
