From: dixonps@juno.com
Date: Wed Oct 20 1999 - 17:37:13 EDT
On Wed, 20 Oct 1999 09:28:18 -0500 Steven Craig Miller
<scmiller@www.plantnet.com> writes:
<snip>
> I'm not so sure. Can anyone show me a clear example of a "habitual
present"
> with the negative particle "OU" where the resulting meaning clearly
means
> that one only occasionally does this thing, but one does not do it
> on a habitual bases? I would like to see the NT usage which justifies
> this interpretation.
In the same context is a ready example. Verse 6b says:
PAS hO hAMARTANWN OUC hEWRAKEN AUTON OUDE
EGNWKAMEN AUTON.
No one who sins has seen Him or has known Him.
This makes sense only if the present tense hAMARTANWN is
habitual/characteristic. Any other nuance would suggest whenever
someone sins he gives away he has never seen or known God,
certainly a commentary to the effect he never was saved.
The habitual/characteristic nuance is compatible with the fact
that one who has seen and known God does still commit acts
of sin in an aoristic sense (2:1), though not
habitually/characteristically.
This teaching of John, of course, is consistent with that of His
Master's who taught, "by their fruit you shall know them" (Mt 7). The
message in 1 John, however, is more for those who believe,
that they may know they have eternal life (5:13). By implication,
however, it also assures them that those who had gone out from
them were really not of them - even if they did profess faith.
Their lifestyle of sin and of walking in the darkness gives them
away.
Paul Dixon
.
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