Gospel Guidebook: Getting and Keeping It Right 
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The Significance of John 3:18 as Proof of Punctiliar Believing
by Robert P. TerryUpdated January 5, 2025
Introduction
In this article, I will demonstrate three things:
1. That "believe" in the salvific context of John 3:18 refers to an inceptive state that can be characterized as gnomic (i.e., a timeless fact)
2. That the Greek articular present participle ho pisteuon ("he who believes) in the salvific context of John 3:18 refers to an inceptive state that can be characterized as gnomic
3. That "believe" in the salvific context of John 3:18 simply means receiving or accepting testimony as being true
Let's start off by reading John 3:18. "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."
I once shared the following observation with a friend of mine regarding John 3:18:
Notice how an unbeliever is basically defined as a person who has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. What is important is that the present perfect tense is being used. Jesus is basically saying that that an unbeliever is a person who has not ever believed; in other words, a person who has not believed even once in his or her life. Therefore, the person who is condemned is the person who has never believed even once in his or her life. Flipping this around based on the first clause of the verse, "He that believeth on him is not condemned," we could say that a person who believes even once in his or life is not condemned.
My friend basically responded by saying that I was reading too much into the verse. Up until that point, I thought I had given a fair amount of consideration to this verse. But was my friend right? Was I reading too much into it? In this article, I will reevaluate the significance of the present perfect in John 3:18.
Findings
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines present perfect as follows:
: of, relating to, or constituting a verb tense that is traditionally formed in English with have and a past participle and that expresses an action or state begun in the past and completed at the time of speaking (as in "I have finished") or continuing in the present (as in "We have lived here for several years")
In Max Zerwick's Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples, he comments on present perfect in Section 285:
In essence, though not exactly in use, the Greek perfect tense corresponds to the English one, in that it is not a past tense but a present one, indicating not the past action as such but the present state of affairs resulting from the past action.
In regard to what he means by "though not exactly in use," he goes on in Section 285 to show that in some contexts, such as Mark 6:14-16, the Greek uses the aorist where English translation would most often use the present perfect. However, this observation is of no consequence in our present discussion.
I would now like to make a couple comments in light of these definitions.
Based the definitions of Merriam-Webster and Zerwick, it is possible to say that the present perfect refers to an action or a state that started in the past and continues into the present, and/or an action or state that started and completed at least once in the past as of present time. Now, let's take the present perfect "he has believed" as an example and see what observations we can make. (1) If "he has believed" refers to a state of believing that started in the past and continues into the present, then such a person would still be believing, and the present tense could be used as an alternative to convey the existence of currently-held belief. (2) If, however, "he has believed" refers to a state of believing that started and completed at least once (i.e., wavering between states of belief and unbelief) in the past as of present time, then such a person has a history of belief, but since he is currently not believing, the present tense could not be used as an alternative. (3) Finally, it is possible to have a combination of both views, a situation in which a person has a history of wavering between states of belief and unbelief, but as of present time, he just so happens to be in a state of belief. This would mean the present tense could be used as an alternative to convey the existence of currently-held belief.
In the case of John 3:18, if we were presented with the present perfect "he has believed," we wouldn't be able to definitively say which of the three options described in the previous paragraph were in view. However, in such a case, we could still surmise that option (2) was meant, or at least was a possible interpretation, simply because the present tense was not used. Certainly, this would be useful, but it wouldn't be ideal, for we would have no way to prove it. However, what we find in John 3:18 is not the positive form of the present perfect, but the negative form of it. The negative form of the present perfect conveys so much more information than the positive form of it because it means that of all the possibilities of the positive form of the present perfect, not even the bare minimum requirement was fulfilled. In terms of the three options described in the previous paragraph, it means that none of them were fulfilled, not even option (2). However, since option (2) was not fulfilled, this means that a person has no history of believing, i.e., not even a single instance of wavering between states of belief and unbelief. More precisely, this means that such a person never believed, not even once, and that he is coming under judgment specifically for this reason. Based on this analysis, I feel vindicated (at least grammatically) that my initial comment to my friend was correct and that I wasn't reading too much into John 3:18.
While contemplating the significance of John 3:18, it dawned on me that this verse conveys something even more profound than the conclusion that "he that believeth not" refers to a person who not ever believed. I noticed that this verse actually provides the answer to the long debated question (in recent years) of whether or not the Greek articular present participle ho pisteuon ("he who believes") in salvific contexts, such as John 3:18, should be interpreted as gnomic (i.e., timeless — just stating that someone has believed) or durative action (i.e., ongoing — stating that someone is believing).
Before getting into the details, I would like to make a few initial comments on the English present continuous. There are an increasing number of teachers and scholars (and a few Bible translators) who interpret ho pistueon using as the English present continuous based on the current consensus that the New Testament Greek present tense is characterized by a "kind of action" that is durative rather than punctiliar (i.e., point of time). This means that they interpret ho pisteuon as "he who is believing." I have found this interpretation problematic for a couple reasons. For starters, it stipulates that "believing" must continue for some unknown period of time (a second, an hour, a year, a lifetime?) before a person can have eternal life in verses like John 3:16, due to the inability of the English present continuous to properly convey inception of action. Also, it makes it unclear if continuance of belief is a necessary requirement for maintaining one's possession of eternal life. While I think this latter point is commonly recognized, I don't think much attention has been given to the former point regarding the inability of the English present continuous to properly convey inception of action.
The English present continuous is commonly used to describe ongoing action in present time of something that already started in the past. "He who is believing" means someone who is continuing to believe now. Needless to say, an action cannot start and continue at the same time. It must start before it can continue. As the name suggests, the English present continuous emphasizes continuing action, but as a result, it fails to properly convey inception of action. This is highly significant because it means that "he who is believing" does not explicitly include the moment a person initially believes in Jesus Christ in a verse like John 3:16. This would mean that a person does not have eternal life the moment he believes in Jesus for it. Furthermore, it would be unclear how long he must wait before he does have it (a second, an hour, a year, a lifetime?). Thankfully, there are only a few Bibles that actually translate ho pisteuon this way, but regrettably, there are many scholars and teachers who interpret and teach ho pisteuon in this way. Hypothetically speaking, even if the New Testament Greek articular present participle ho pisteuon did have a "kind of action" that is characterized by duration, the English present continuous is not capable of properly conveying its meaning. In contrast, the English present simple is more appropriate because it can be used to convey general truths (e.g., gnomic or timeless facts) and includes inception of action. We often find ho pisteuon in general truth statements, such as John 3:16, where it is combined with subjunctive verbs of purpose. Furthermore, the English present simple is the natural tense used for stative verbs, such as "believe," regardless of whether the state of belief is punctiliar or durative. Based on the foregoing discussion, I cannot recommend using the English present continuous to describe ho pisteuon. The English present simple is quite capable of conveying both punctiliar and durative states for stative verbs.
So, getting back to John 3:18, I observed that this verse is indirectly explaining to us what ho pisteuon means. In particular, by basically describing the negative form of the present participle ho me pisteuon (i.e., "he who does not believe") as the negative form of the present perfect me pepisteuken (i.e., "he has not believed"), the verse is explaining that the "kind of action" of the present participle ho pisteuon in the first clause of John 3:18 is inceptive and gnomic. It is the initial and singular state of belief that guarantees that a person is not judged. This is the logical deduction that can be made from the negated present participle and negated present perfect in John 3:18. Based on this, ho pisteuon should be translated as "he who believes," and should be interpreted in salvific contexts such as John 3:18 as inceptive and gnomic. Of course, by the grace of God, believers continue to believe after their initial moment of belief, but continuance of belief is not a requirement of having eternal life and avoiding judgment. From this analysis we can see that translation of Greek verbs is more complicated than just sticking to the general rules established for "kind of action." In the case of John 3:18, the combination of the negative forms of the present participle and present perfect gave us the information we need to properly understand how to interpret ho pisteuon.
In addition to the above grammatical considerations, we also have contextual considerations that show that an inceptive act of belief is what saves. In particular, we have Jesus' testimony in John 3:14-15 where He likens looking at the serpent on the pole (an inceptive and punctiliar action) to believing in Him. Just as it took only one look at the serpent on the pole to be saved, it takes only one moment of belief in Jesus Christ to have eternal life.