Mark

Hi Cheryl,

Thankyou for your comments. A few points… you are correct that the verb to be in verse 1 is a present participle- I missed that and I’m glad you corrected me. However this does not change a thing, since a present participle is used as a contrast. For example it is very hard to translate that into English, but the most ‘wooden’ approach is to apply the word ‘while’. Thus the verse would read…”while you were dead in your trespasses…God made you alive”, thus the present participle stills gives the contrasting effect- thus why it is in the present tense. At the very time when God made us alive in Christ, we were presently dead in sin. So therefore the present participle of ‘to be’ still in effect constrasts a previous state to a new one.

Now like I have said the context ought to decide. Now it is clear in verses 1-10 that Paul is constrating a past situation with a new. He is not saying you can be both dead and alive at the same time. My position (and in fact pretty much all greek commentators) is also confirmed by the rest of the chapter. Look at verses 11 to the end of the chapter. Paul is calling them to ‘remember’ their ‘flesh’ nature and how they were seperated from Christ, but now in Christ they have been changed.

So although the present can imply a continuous event, to interpret in this way divorces the verse from the context of the passage.

Now in relation to Rom 6:11 you have made the same mistake. Look at the conjunctions ‘men’ and ‘de’ Now if you know how these conjunctions work, you would know that when the two are used in the constructing precisely like Rom 6:11, a contrast is being made. So the verse essentially said “consider yourselves to be (on the one hand) dead to sin but (on the other hand) alive to God”. See the contrast? The conjunctions are used grammatically in this way to make that contrast. So no, Paul is not saying you can be both dead and alive at the same time. We are dead to sin because we are alive in Christ, in the same way as Eph 2, when we were dead in sins, but are now alive in Christ.

“This is something that we can all search and dig deeply into God’s word for the truth is worth the effort.”

This is very true. But the problem I see with your view, is that you are divorcing the verses from their context, and therefore not allowing the actual inspired grammar to function properly. Sure a present tense can be a continuous state of being, as your grammar friend has pointed out, but and it’s a big but, the context always decides the meaning.You need to show from the context of Eph 2 how your grammar construction makes sense. As for Roman’s 6, you are simply wrong becasue the conjunctions are clear and cannot be interpreted in the way you have said.