Pas ho pisteuwn: 'everyone believing' not 'all can believe'

John 3:16 and the Meaning of “Whoever Believes”

A number of months ago, I listened to a sermon by Dr. Jerry Vines on John 3 .16, and he re-presented that same sermon at the John 3 .16 conference a few weeks ago in Georgia. But he added a section that had not been in the previous material, where he attempts to deal with one of the objections that certainly I have raised, whether he has any idea who I am or any of the objections I've raised, I do not know.

But he attempts to deal with one of the objections that is raised against their particular interpretation of John 3 .16. And specifically, it has to do with the fact that I and many others have pointed out that the constant emphasis by many synergists upon the phrase, whosoever, represents a misunderstanding of the original language.

When it says, whosoever believes in him, many people think that that whosoever somehow is a denial of the electing grace of God. That there is somehow in this magical word, whosoever, a universalizing grammatical structure that means that saving faith is the capacity of every single rebel sinner against God.

And that therefore, everybody has the capacity to have saving faith. Now, the fact that the Gospel of John specifically addresses that issue in John 6, especially verse 44, and denies that, doesn't come up.

And that's one of the reasons why I think some meaningful debates with the leading synergists would be so useful, because they just sort of tend to forget that in their presentations. And in a debate, you can't really forget that, because that other guy is going to bring it up.

Pas ho pisteuōn as “Everyone Who Believes”

But the question, the objection that we have raised, is that there literally is no word whosoever in John 3 .16. English translations are rendering a Greek phrase, and by the way, for those who claim, oh, you're just going to the Greek, going to the Greek, Dr. Vine's sermon was filled with Greek.

He gave every single Greek word in the text. He pronounced them all, and he told, he parsed them all, and so don't say that it's just the Calvinist, or you're just trying to confuse this with the Greek.

Now, Dr. Vine's used a lot of Greek, whether he used it accurately is another issue, but he used a lot of Greek. And so don't blame us for going there. The objection we've said is that the phrase is pas ha pisteum, and that that is really a very standardized phrase.

Pas ha with a participle occurs almost 60 times in the text of the New Testament. It's not an unusual or difficult thing to translate, and the term whosoever is not a translation of a single word. It's translation of a phrase.

And so pas ha pisteum is best translated, everyone who believes. Every single individual who believes, and then you have the rest of, in this case in John chapter 3, receives eternal life. Will not perish, but will have eternal life.

Of course, believes is given object, believes in Christ. But the point is that pas ha pisteum, pas, which is normally translated all or every, is modifying a singular participle. And so what it's saying is every single one of this group.

And what's the group? Ha pisteum, those who have saving faith, ongoing faith. Even Dr. Vines admits that ha pisteum in John is a normative way of referring to saving faith, an ongoing faith. So if we keep that in mind then, what the text is saying is everyone who has true saving faith in Jesus Christ will not perish, but will have eternal life.

Everyone who believes in Christ will find him to be a perfect savior. The text is saying nothing about who will do this. The text is saying nothing about who has the capacity to do this. There are other texts in John that address that, like John 6, but they don't go there.

Instead, they try to shoehorn into this one text a concept that simply is not there. The concept is that the entirety of that participle, ha pisteum, all the believing ones, that's all it's saying. They will not perish, they will have eternal life.

There's nothing about capacity or anything else there at all. And so, let's look at a couple of the places where pas ha pisteum is used. It's used a total of six times in the New Testament. It's used in the preceding verse right before John 3, 16, so that whoever believes, everyone believing in him will have eternal life in John 3, 15.

And again, it's faith in Christ, it's not just whoever believes with some amorphous concept of faith. Whoever believes in him will have eternal life, John 3, 16, which we saw, whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 12, 46, Jesus says, I have come as light in the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. Again, nothing about capacity or anything like that, it's just every single one who believes experiences eternal life.

In this case, they will not remain in darkness, they will have the light of life in John 12, 46. Now, outside the Gospel of John, Acts 13, 39, and through him, everyone who believes, pas ha pisteum, is justified or freed from all things.

Very same phrase, nothing about who has this capacity or anything along those lines. Romans 10, 11 says, for the scripture says, whoever believes in him, everyone who believes in him, pas ha pisteum, will not be disappointed.

They will not be confounded, they will not be disappointed, they will find him to be a perfect savior. And then, interestingly enough, 1 John 5, 1, now I say interesting enough, well it says, pas ha pisteum, everyone believing that Jesus is a Christ has been born of God.

And then it's pas ha, and then love, pas ha agapon, and everyone loving, who loves the father, loves the child born of him. That's interesting because there's a parallel between the two, who has ever believing and whoever is loving.

Would it be the argument of Dr. Vines and others that everyone has the capacity to love God perfectly who are not regenerate? To be loving God in an ongoing way? It's an interesting question, but what I find most interesting is 1 John 5, 1, I have argued in the Potter's Freedom, is a text that indicates to me that if a person has ongoing faith, pas ha pisteum, ha pisteum, the one believing that Jesus is a Christ, it is because they have already been born of God.

The position, I'm sure, of everyone in the panel of the John 3 .16 conference would be that it is your faith that results in your being born again, not the other way. And I've used 1 John 5, 1 in that way a number of times.

So here's every use of pas ha pisteum. Nowhere is there anything that substantiates the idea that this indicates some universal capacity, universal ability. We have to go to texts that actually address that issue.

We've got to go to John chapter 6. We've got to go to Romans chapter 8 that says that the natural man is not even able to subject himself to the law of God. It's beyond his capacity in nature. That's where we have to go.

And that's where we would go if debates were allowed on these issues and both sides had to defend their position in the face of the other. That's why debates are so useful rather than going one side, the other side, one side, the other side.

John 3:16 in the Context of the Whole Bible

And so with all of that having been said, and you know, John 3 .16 is a beautiful text, but it is not the entirety of the Bible. It's a little bit scary to hear a text basically isolated from its context and turned into a summary of the entirety of the Bible.

There is so much that is in the background for John 3 .16 to be understandable that you can lose in that way. For example, the call to repentance from sin is vital to understand why it is that God's love is demonstrated in the way that it is.

If you don't understand the wrath of God against sin, then the cross becomes just nothing but sticky sentimentality. You have to have the, we need to have a fully canonical view, all of the scriptures, not just a small number of the words of scripture.

So while John 3 .16 is a beautiful text, its author never intended it to be understood outside the context of John 6 and John 10 and John 17. To take it in that way and ignore the rest of the text is to abuse the text.

And so having said all that, let's listen to what Dr. Vine says where he tries to argue this idea and that somehow paschopistion means whosoever, every single person, has the ability to believe. That's what he's trying to argue.

Paschopistion means every single person who believes receives eternal life. Let's take a look at it.

Dr. Vines on “Whosoever” and the Meaning of Pas

I want to say about God's love from John 3 .16, God's love is personal. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that, and here is another conjunction, it is a subordinate conjunction, introducing a purpose clause.

God gave his son to die on the cross for what purpose? That whosoever believeth in him, whosoever. Interesting little word, whosoever. It's the great word pas, transliterated P-A-S. It occurs 1 ,228 times in your New Testament.

I have referenced almost every one of those. I don't think I got completely to all of them, but I've referenced almost every one of the occurrence of this little word pas. It is a rather interesting word.

It carries the idea of totality and every part of the total. I was introduced to this little word pas when I had the responsibility to serve on the peace committee, and on that peace committee was Dr. Herschel Hobbs, who was known in those days as a pastor theologian, and I will never forget as we were discussing the whole matter of the inerrancy of Scripture and what the Bible has to say about Scripture.

I was interested in Dr. Hobbs' explanation of this word pas in 2 Timothy 3, 16. For all Scripture, pas, Scripture, is given by inspiration of God, and he explained to us that it carries the idea of the whole and every part of the whole, and he said that means then that the whole of Scripture and every part of the whole of Scripture is intended, and that's the first introduction I had to that little word pas, pas.

It is a pronominal, substantival adjective, pronominal meaning that it takes the role of a proverb. It functions as a proverb. Substantival, that means it fills the noun slot in the statement. Adjetival, that means that it modifies the participle hapistuon.

Now what does it mean then when it says that? Someone says, well, what that means is, that just simply means that it is modifying the participle believing so that it is just simply saying all of those believing are the whoso ever.

But you see, the statement would be redundant there because to say that the ones believing should not perish but have everlasting life is sufficient itself. It is redundant to have to add the adjective.

So the adjective here becomes an all-embracing kind of adjective.

Why Pas Does Not Mean Universal Human Capacity

Now let me break in here for just a moment to point out that this is not the case. It is not redundant in any way, shape, or form to have pas in front of hapistuon. It is an assertion that the entirety of the audience envisioned in the participle will receive the benefits of their belief.

That's not redundant. Could you have left pas out? Well, I suppose you could have left pas out from any of the six other places where pas hapistuon appears. But just simply to say, well, it's redundant so it must have some other meaning.

Again, Dr. Vines is just wrong that the term whosoever is a translation solely of pas. Whosoever or everyone is a translation of a phrase. Pas hapistuon is a phrase. You can't cut the language up the way that he's cutting the language up here.

And there is no basis. I would challenge Dr. Vines, show us what your basis is for asserting that if we understand this as everyone believing and that that defines whosoever is, that's redundant. What's your basis for saying that?

Merely asserting it is not proof. What's your basis for saying that translating pas hapistuon as everyone who believes is in any way, shape, or form inaccurate or acontextual? I don't believe Dr. Vines can give us any reason for this at all.

He's about to cite Dr. Allen, but if you listen carefully and remember this one thing, remember that pas is modifying hapistuon. Hapistuon limits the realm of pas. Pas does not apply to those not believing.

Look at verse 18. Those not believing have been judged already because they've not believed in the name of God and the Son of God. So it's hapistuon that determines the realm of what pas is. These folks want to make pas all of humanity.

But the text doesn't do so. And I believe any person sitting in the Southern Baptist Seminary right now who knows Greek knows that I'm telling you the truth at this point.

Why the Grammar of Pas Ho Pisteuōn Limits the Scope to Believers

Let me read something from one of the men who will be speaking here in a little while. In the morning, I think sometime, Dr. Allen. I talked with Dr. Allen just a little bit about this word pas. You know, Dr. Allen is a linguistic scholar.

He has a degree, Ph .D. in linguistics from the University of Texas at Arlington. Here's what Dr. Allen says about this word pas. He says the addition of pas before the participle generalizes it to every single person.

The best translation is anyone who believes the idea is non-restrictive. The idea is anyone, anywhere, anytime. Whosoever.

Now notice, whosoever does what? It really seems to me that maybe Dr. Vines doesn't understand Dr. Allen. But if what Dr. Allen is saying, and he didn't make this specific so I want to be very careful If what Dr. Allen is saying is that pas means every single human being without reference to the audience of the participle that it is modifying, then he is wrong.

W-R-O-N-G. And there is no Greek scholar that I know of who would even try to make that argument. Pas is modifying a participle. This is only talking about believers. Everyone who believes. That is the best translation.

But that is not how it is being presented. And maybe Dr. Vines took what he said and ran with it too far. I don't know. But clearly what you just saw in that clip was an attempt to say that pas generalizes this to every single individual and then he didn't say every single individual in the modified group which is believers.

But that is what the text says. There is no arguing this on the grammar or syntax. There just isn't. I cannot imagine that any person who teaches this language, and it isn't ironic, I've taught Greek and Greek exegesis for a Southern Baptist seminary many times.

I cannot imagine any of my colleagues going to the mat and saying, oh no, no, no, no. Pas has a meaning that is separate from the participle and it means every single human being and it means universal capacity and it denies election.

I just don't think anyone would dare do that. But I'm afraid that probably the majority of those sitting there at the John 316 conference got that idea. And if they were already there because they wanted to believe what was being said, those folks weren't really treated well, I would say, at this point.

Because if that was the indication that was given to them, it was a false indication. And so, this is why, once again, if this presentation was being made in a debate, a formal, moderated, scholarly, respectful, Bible-based debate, then the other side would be able to get up and challenge, give the same data that I just gave you.

And then we could all turn to Dr. Vines and say, so Dr. Vines, what do you say? That is putting the audience and the edification of the Church first. It's not about my ego or anybody else's. It doesn't matter if I did it or somebody else did it, as long as it is done properly on the basis of the inspired, inerrant Word of God.

Thanks for watching.