How To Study The Bible
Vern Peterman · Mar 3, 2002
How to Study Bible (2001-02), No. 22
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826224105953

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're going to take a bit of a side trip from our going through Ephesians 5 and take a look at something that doesn't show up in this Ephesians chapter but is still valuable in terms of the kinds of things that we can learn in using this Word Study New Testament to dig into the depth of meaning that's in a particular passage of Scripture.

So we're going to take a look at a passage that's probably real familiar to you. As a matter of fact, as we get into it later on in this month, we'll probably take a closer look at other parts of it. But I actually want to focus initially on just one word. So let's dig into that here. Here's John 19-30. And this is right at the end of what's described as the crucifixion.

And it says, when Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. Or, as we would say in our modern vernacular, gave up his spirit. Although, giving up the ghost is almost sort of a cliché anymore, isn't it? People kind of pick that up.

But what I want to focus on is what you see there in red. Yes? What is the therefore, therefore? Good point. When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar... Well, you'll have to open up your Bibles to find out what the therefore is therefore. What's the therefore therefore, now that you ask? What is the therefore therefore?

Okay, the therefore is pointing to something that happened before, right? Any time we see that? What happened before? What's that? In the New King James, it's not the therefore isn't there. The therefore isn't there. Okay. What does it say in some of the other translations they have? What do you find? Okay. And what's it pointing back to? Ah, okay. Okay. So he says, I thirst. And they gave him what would quench his thirst, right? No. Vinegar. Okay. Right. Okay. So we've not focused that on what's here but looking in the larger context it becomes clear. They gave him the vinegar and then he said it is finished. Now what's one of the things you notice in it is finished? He hasn't just said what it was. Okay. What's that? Right. And why would they do that? That's his own statement. In other words, when you put a quote in the middle of a sentence, you'll start it with a capital. But what's one of the things, what do you see here?

It's one word for it is finished. Okay. So that's one of the things that comes out of that. So Basically, we say it is finished. What Jesus actually spoke was just one word. Okay? Yeah. One word was all that was said. And what I'd like us to zero in on, what was that word? And what was the form of that word? Okay? Okay. This is the word. In other words, if you look at what's the code from that word, it takes you to Strong's number, 5055. Okay? And that word then is a word...

We think of finished. What do you think of when you think of finished? We think of something, it's done, it's ended. This has... This has a little bit more significance to it than that. The Greek word that's underlying doesn't mean, okay, we've finished it. It means I've completed a goal. You see the difference there? I've completed the goal. It doesn't mean, okay, we're done with this. It's just kind of like, I've been going through an awful time and now we're done. But the goal has been accomplished. You see the difference? That's why it says, to make an end or to accomplish and complete something. Not merely to end it, but to bring it to perfection or its destined goal. Let's see if I can focus that a little bit better here. To carry it through.

So he didn't just say, at last, after all this agony, I'm done. He said, finally, it's over. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, I have completed the goal. I have arrived at the place that I determined to go. In Hebrews it says, for the joy set before him he endured the cross. It wasn't just a matter of, now I'm going to go through this and then when it's done I'll say, boy am I glad it's done. But it was a matter of actually looking ahead and seeing the goal. This is the thing towards which he came.

We celebrate Christmas as we did just a couple months ago, right? And yet, what is it about? As for Christ's first coming, this is the goal towards which He was aiming. To deal with our sins. Just having twelve disciples by itself wasn't sufficient. This is what He was aiming towards.

So see, when He says, it is finished, it isn't just a, that's over. But instead, It's a matter of him looking ahead and saying, this is what I came to accomplish, and he was saying, I have accomplished what I set out to do. You see the difference there? So that's why even right in the reference there, it gives this specific reference. It is finished, meaning the whole work of salvation, the purpose for which Jesus came into the world. That's a lot for one word, isn't it? In the context, that's what it's laying out. It's not just, boy, am I glad that's behind me. Jesus accomplished what He set out to do. Those were His last words. It says He gave up the ghost in the King James where He gave up His Spirit. And incidentally, He gave it up. It was not taken.

You see that come out from there? Okay, now, let's look at Another aspect of this thing... Okay, there's this code besides 5055, the Strong's number, there is also a code here. What happens if you look that one up? What does that mean? You got a reference card or you have it in the pages in your handout? What's this PFIP stand for?

Present infinitive passive. Ah, okay. So what's that telling us? It's nice to know those words. What does that mean? Okay. It's a present infinitive passive. Indicative. Indicative passive. Yeah. Okay. So it's saying right now, It is, and what's the passive? It means the complete, what's that? Remember the differences? Active is when it's doing something. Middle voice is when the action comes back on oneself. And the passive voice is when the action is done to the person, okay? So what's that saying here?

He's saying right now, at this moment, right now, the goal has been accomplished. The goal didn't do it. The goal didn't do it to itself. The goal was reached by action outside. But he's saying right now it's been done. Right this very minute it's been done. With that word, he says, it has been accomplished. Right now.

The language of the time was Aramaic, and so this is likely the Greek translation of what was said in Aramaic. Now, let's take a look at some fulfillment of this. Let's take a look at some fulfillment of this. We'll turn to Hebrews 10. Now, it says, this man... Let's start right off. This is referring to Christ Himself, to give ourselves some context.

But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool." Okay? What's the one sacrifice for sins? The death on the cross. We just got through reading to the end of it, right? So that's the one sacrifice for sins. And what do you notice about the character of it? Yes, it's forever. One sacrifice for sin is forever. He sat down at the right hand of God. That's the first coming, isn't it? That's the first coming.

Now, what do we see in the next verse? Verse 13. From henceforth expecting till His enemies be made His footstool. This is the second coming. If we were to look at some of the charts that we've been looking at here, essentially what we've got is, here's the first coming. That's verse 12. And then, here we are here. This is the second coming of Christ. So you have in verse 12, the first coming. Verse 13, the second coming.

So there's a perspective. A second look at that. So here's the first coming. He offered up one sacrifice for sins forever. It is finished, isn't it? One of the things to look at this is when Christ came in His first coming, He accomplished the goal. The sacrifice was done. It was done complete, completely finished. There isn't any need for us to add to it. No need for us to add to it. Okay. Verse 14, "...for by one offering..."

Are we talking first or second coming here? The first coming. "...by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." And that's what I want to focus on. This goes back to the it is finished statement that Jesus made before. By one offering He has perfected. Let's take a look at that that word perfected. And this is a word that is related to the word that Jesus, you notice the similarity? Related to the word that Jesus used when he said, it's finished. And when we think of perfected, what comes to mind? What conjures up in your mind when you hear the word perfected? Made perfect, okay.

And what else? Exactly right. Okay, good. Any other thoughts? Anything else comes to mind when you hear that word perfected? Nothing bad about it. Nothing bad about it. Hey, there's a good one. Nothing more to do. It's completely accomplished. So here's what that word is conveying from the original language. Complete, mature. So complete, made perfect by reaching the intended goal. See, it's the same message as when Jesus said it's finished, see? It isn't just putting it behind you. It's actually reaching a goal. This is intentional. It is what Jesus had in mind.

And then, if you look down the list, and we know it fits here because here's the reference. Let me move this up so it's a lot easier to read, hopefully. In the epistle to the Hebrews, is used in a moral sense, meaning to make perfect, to fully cleanse from sin, in contrast to ceremonial cleansing. Now, one of the reasons why this is important, because you notice this is something that's been done. When that happened, the perfecting was done. Now, several important conclusions come from this. Suppose somebody comes to you and says, well, you know, you've got to work to get up to the place where you're really in right standing with God. How does that fit with this? It doesn't. No, it doesn't.

This says Jesus is the one who accomplished it. Completely. It is completely done. He reached His goal. As a matter of fact, anybody who says, well, you've got to work to really get yourself in the right standing with God, is denying what Jesus said in His last words on the cross. and denying what's said right here. Because this says, and confirms what Jesus said in His last words, this says that Jesus achieved His goal. What He set out to accomplish in our salvation was completely accomplished on the cross. There is no need for us to go and try to add to it. He did it. He accomplished it. Now, let's ask one other question.

We talk in terms of position and condition. What's this talking about? Is this position or condition? This is position, okay? Excellent. This is our position in Christ. Does it mean that we will not struggle with sin? Does it mean that we have no flesh to contend with? No, it does not. But, yeah, that's right. As long as we're here on planet Earth, there will still be those things to contend with. But, In terms of our position in the Lord, that is not in question. That is eternally fixed in the heavens. What Christ set out to accomplish has been accomplished. Completely done. Let's look at a little bit more here. In verse 14, we looked at perfected But what's, how about the little green code next to it, PLI, what's that stand for? Does it show up? Huh? Is it, is it, I got a computer funny here?

What does it say for four P.L. P.L. was that plural. I didn't quite write that. Something is not complete in the listing here. Let me check this here. Ah, okay. It actually is P-F-I, not P-L-I. That's why it was confusing. Okay. It's perfect indicative active. Now, let's figure out what that means.

A perfect tense is a past completed action with continuing results. Okay? And as a matter of fact, the usual meaning of that perfect tense, barring something in the context otherwise, the usual meaning is it's permanent. Past completed action, permanent, is the typical meaning here, with ongoing results.

So when he says, you've been perfected, it means it doesn't mean something part way done. It means it's completely done. Isn't that something? Completely done. That past completed action is completely done, totally done. and it has ongoing results, continuing now, okay? You see that?

So this perfected thing is not something that we say, well, you know, it's partway done and we've got to kind of work to add to it and, boy, you better work hard and your status is kind of questionable. It's not saying that, is it? It's saying because of that perfect tense, it means it's a past completed action with ongoing results The completion is total and permanent.

So that's what that's telling us. Now, the next thing, it's indicative. It's saying, this is the fact. When you see that indicative, this is the fact. It is true. It's making a statement. It's indicating something. And then the last part is active. He has done the perfecting. He's done it. So what does that mean? There's no middle voice. I don't do my own perfecting. I don't do my own. So it's a permanent, past, completed action with continuing results. It is true. It's an indicative statement. And it's active, which means that He has done it to us. It's not something that we do to ourselves. And isn't that good? It's amazing just in the verb tense that's there and the other indications from that code are truths about the character of our salvation and what Christ accomplished on the cross.

Now, how about this, forever? Why did he add forever? Wasn't it good enough to say it before? Yeah, Tom? Well, this was in the days before 6 months or 6,000 miles, but he meant what he said. Excellent point. He meant what he said. It's actually an emphasis word because he could have said it and just left it, perfected them and just left it, and it would have had the meaning. The word forever is added to focus and emphasize the fact that this is continuing. He's already communicated that with that perfect tense that is permanent, but just so you don't lose the point. It's forever, it is continual and that's emphasized by adding that extra word on there. If we were to say something in English, we might say perfected and put emphasis that way. But in writing, putting it in emphasis by adding that forever on top of it.

Then the next one, them that are sanctified." Who's them that are sanctified? Here's something you notice. Them that are sanctified includes how many Greek words? Yeah, okay. She caught on to it. Them that are sanctified is indicated by this one Greek word at the end. So, them that are sanctified is just one Greek word. And let's take a look at that Greek word. We looked at before saints.

Haggios, okay? This one is a related work. Haggioso. To make holy or to sanctify. To make clean or render pure. Okay? That's the sense. Metaphorically, to render clean in a moral sense. To purify, sanctify. And it even gives reference to Hebrews 10.14 there. Okay, that we just read. specifically. Notice what it quotes there out of Romans 15-16, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost, meaning by the sanctifying influences of the Spirit on the heart. Let's go back to this one. them that are sanctified. What is this PPMP? And I hope those letters are the right ones this time. PPMP. Okay. All right. Passive middle. The reason they have passive middle is some forms of the Greek word don't differentiate between the middle and the passive, and it uses both forms.

But, them that are sanctified, one of the truths that we've talked about, about the present tense in the Greek, is barring something else in the context, the usual meaning is present ongoing, present continuing. So, them that are sanctified really is those that are being sanctified.

You get the sense? What is happening is that sanctification is going on now. It's an ongoing process. You see, your holiness, your position in the Lord, is something that is fixed. That's done. But there is something going on here in a believer, here on planet Earth, And what this is telling us is this is a part of the process that's taking place. Otherwise, why doesn't the Lord just say, well, now you've accepted the Lord, it's time to go home. See the distinction there? We have in us something that the Lord has accomplished that's been past, completed, and done. But this sanctification is an ongoing process. It's still taking place. It's still in process. as we look at life here. Yeah, Art? That's right.

And that's one of the reasons why we study this. One of the things we've found as we've gone through here is that a lot of times there are meanings that come out in the Greek that are not always well translated in the English in the sense of giving you a full picture of what the Greek is indicating. Just like even it is finished. Do we in English get the sense of a goal accomplished? We tend to miss that. And so I think there's value in going through these to get a deeper sense of what did he mean by that? And even here, to understand that perfected is a completed past action, it's done.

I cannot add to it. Not only do I not need to add to it, I cannot add to it. Suppose you go to a building and the building is completed and done and everybody's doing the ribbon ceremony and then you get out the cranes and start doing some more to it. They're going to say, what? What are you doing? At that point in time, you're modifying something that's already supposed to be done. Yes, there we go. Yes, this is government policy, right? Yeah. Well, this is why earlier in this classroom we talked about translations and how they translate things. And frequently what they're doing is they're taking the Greek and saying, how do I make that into English?

And at times in doing so, some of the richness of meaning and the shades of meaning that come out in the original language are missed. And so, you know, precisely that point, when they come to this, to actually explain everything in depth requires, gosh, a whole bunch more words. just like, you know, perfected. That means so much that we could put a whole sentence in there for what just that means. And then the fact that perfected forever, that forever idea is already included in what we found in the verb form for perfected.

So why the second one? It's a way of emphasizing. In English we might emphasize it some different way, but that's the way in the Greek to add emphasis is to add that on to focus additional attention to the fact that it just goes on continually. Read that, what does it say? Yes, yes, that's very good. It is in fact a process that is ongoing as long as we're here on planet Earth. Now, something else, this has an article in front of it. The ART means there's an article in front of it. So it's those holy ones, those who are in the process. It's specific, talking about this group versus those that are not.

Are there those that are not being made holy? And who are they? Unbelievers are not in the process of being made holy. Let's ask this, are unbelievers perfected? No. It is belief that puts one in a place where they have been perfected forever and they are in the process of being made holy. Belief puts one into that category. Lack of belief, you're not there. But notice, we have believed and so we're in that category. But the action is all God's doing. It's God's doing, not ours. Yes, Art? Oh, go ahead and go. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

If you go back to verse 10, and it says, and by that will we have been made holy through the sacrifice. In this translation, in one verse, just four verses ahead of that, it sounds like It's a done deal. And in 14, it says what you're saying, you know.

And is there some meaning in that? Well, if you've ever seen a search commercial, you'd probably catch it. You're giving that to... Yes, yeah. I'm just trying to look it up here. Yeah, and it actually puts that as something accomplished too. And that's why the question, let's put it this way, the terminology that we've come to use at this church and frankly at other churches, they'll use another pair of words, standing and state, position and condition, just kind of our church background. This is one of those kinds of statements. where in one statement you'll get a, this is your position, and in another statement, this is the condition.

Eternally, in terms of our position, we're already holy. Yeah, yeah. In terms of what God's declared view of us, it's already a done deal. And yet what we just read is that here's this perfecting is an accomplished fact, and yet there is something going on right now. So that is, in our condition, we are being made holy. In our position, it's already an accomplished fact. The verb form is identical.

But as you look at things, you have to ask the question, is this my position, or is this my condition? Let's take it for instance, if I look at the first three chapters of Ephesians, just about everything in those first three chapters is focusing on my position.

You have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Now, how many Christians know what that means when they read that? I would venture to guess that a great many Christians don't understand even in the slightest, what that means that they've been blessed with every spiritual blessing. So, if they don't understand it, does it mean that they haven't been blessed? So, the truth, the reality, the position is real, it's objective, it's total. They have been 100% completely blessed with every, no exception, every spiritual blessing in Christ, whether they recognize it or not.

So that's why in Ephesians 1.18, Paul's prayer is that the eyes of their hearts might be opened. Their position is clear, done, untouchable, and completed. Their condition is what's in question right now here on planet Earth. Yeah. Kind of a paraphrase of a car commercial. Get in the line, get down to the traffic light, I'll pump some grease into you. Yeah.

So, as we read through various verses, it's important for us to ask the question, is this about my position or is this about my condition? Because what you will find is just studying the tenses of the Greek will not reveal necessarily anything different about the position and about the condition. But you will see both position and condition truths taught in Scripture. And if you don't make the distinction, it will appear confusing.

We've given out a list, you know, and we have it in the literature rack in the hallway. Here's all the blessings that we have in Christ. A great many Christians understand but a small portion of that that multitude of blessings that we have in Christ, that eternally fixed position that we have in Christ. It is understanding those positional truths, those blessings that we have in Christ, that position that we have in Him that is the beginning of being able to grow spiritually.

Okay? Let's pray. Lord, we do give you thanks that indeed you finished it. Oh, thank you so much, Lord, that we are not in a place of having to work for that perfection, that you indeed did finish it. You accomplished what you set out to do, and we thank you for that. And we just pray that the eyes of our hearts may indeed be opened, that we may understand those blessings, all that you purchased for us and accomplished for us. here and now as we walk this planet. We just pray that we might live, Lord, seated in the heavenlies and looking down. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.