Angelo
Administrator
Here are 7 Reasons from Context & Grammar Showing Acts 13:48 Gives an Example of Personal Response to the Gospel… not Divine Election of Individuals before Creation
Context
1. The context contrasts the Jews who judged themselves “unworthy of everlasting life” (vs 46) with the Gentiles who “arranged themselves (got in line) for everlasting life” (vs 48).2. The context of verse 48 has five verbal actions (heard, were glad, glorified, arranged, believed), and one would normally expect all those verbal actions to be accomplished by the same subject – the Gentiles who were there that day.
3. The context does not mention God as an actor in this story at all, but only the Jews, Paul and Barnabas, and the Gentiles, except perhaps in the last words of verse 52 – “filled…with the Holy Spirit”. Therefore the implied subject of this participle should naturally be found among one of these actors, not God, unless a similar verse in Luke or Acts can be shown where Luke introduces God’s activity of one action into a list of actions done by another subject.
Grammar
4. The grammar (semantic range of meaning) of Greek participle – τεταγμένοι – must be determined by context since the Greek word τασσω, is a generic word, almost exactly like our English word “arrange”. The choice of “ordain” is clearly interpretive, wrongly implying that God must be the actor of this “arranging”.5. The grammar (inflected form) of Greek participle – τεταγμένοι – denotes that a choice of interpretation has to be made between the middle or passive voice, since both are spelled the same way. The passive voice denotes action received by the subject (“were arranged”) and the middle voice denotes reflexive action by the subject (“arranged themselves” or “arranged for themselves”).
This verb – τασσω – is only used 9 times in the NT and twice are in the active voice, with one of those instances of the active voice clearly showing the action being done reflexively (like middle voice) by the subject on themselves (1Cor 16:15). The other instance in active voice, in Acts 15:2, shows that the elders “arranged” for Paul to represent them in Jerusalem (also an indirect reflexive idea). Of the seven other instances, one is clearly middle in form, Matt 28:16, where Christ arranges for Himself to meet with the apostles in Galilee. The last six are middle or passive in form, so the context must determine which fits best.
Of the last six, the middle reflexive idea fits best for Matt 8:9, Luke 7:8, and Acts 28:23 for they are much like Matt 28:16 where a person is arranging something or someone for his own benefit. The passive idea, where the subject receives the action, arranged by someone else, fits best for Acts 22:10 and Rom 13:1, and in those two contexts God can be assumed to be the one doing the arranging, though there is no hint in those contexts that He had to do it before creation. Since the middle/reflexive idea fits well with six of the eight contexts, it can be expected to also fit as normal for the ninth context in Acts 13:48, making the reflexive idea found in seven of nine NT instances of this verb.
6. The grammar (lexical evidence) of this same verb as a middle participle was used in Classical Greek of soldiers and ships getting in line, according to an example found in Liddell Scott. (I, 1. fall in, form in order of battle… formed in a circle… having drawn up their ships in four lines). It is not hard to then visualize that when Paul and Barnabas said out loud that they were now turning to the Gentiles, that those Gentiles rushed to “arrange themselves” in line to profess their public commitment of faith and be baptized. Luke is saying that as many as got in line, seeking for everlasting life through the Gospel, did indeed become public believers!
In Acts 18:6 the word for “opposed” is – ἀντιτασσομένων – which is the antonym for the participle – τεταγμένοι – here in 13:48. This antonym in 18:6 is middle or passive in form, but there is no doubt that in that verse the middle voice is the preferred choice. Those Jews, like those in Acts 13 were arranging themselves in opposition to Paul and Silas.
7. The grammar (less contextual but possible) concedes that God or the apostles, Paul and Barnabas, might be the main subjects of this one of five verbal ideas in 13:48. That is, there could be the passive idea of God or the apostles having first arranged for the Gentiles to hear the Gospel for the purpose of their receiving everlasting life. However, the passive verbal concept of those offering this arrangement assumes a voluntary response of those being so arranged. And Luke confirms the acceptance of that arrangement by them by confirming their act as a personal commitment of trust in the active voice (“believed”), and not in the passive voice (“were converted”).
If Calvinists have as many contextual/grammatical reasons for the idea of divine ordination before creation being taught in this verse, let them show the evidence. They will look in vain for “God” as the declared subject of a verb or the phrase “before creation” in this context.
Brian Wagner
