Saturday, April 20, 2019

John 3:6, Grammar, and Spiritual Rebirth

Greek: τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τῆς σαρκὸς σάρξ ἐστιν, καὶ τὸ γεγεννημένον ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος πνεῦμά ἐστιν.

πνεῦμά is surely a noun, but I don't see how it could refer to "class" as opposed to quality in John 3:6 (see Wallace, GGBB, ). It's true that πνεῦμά potentially functions as a mass noun in certain contexts and as a count nouns in others. The phrase "mass noun" here refers to a nominal or substantive that names "undifferentiated stuff" such as sand, wood or bread although writers employ άρτος (Gk. for "bread") as a count noun in the GNT.

On the other hand, the phrase "count noun" refers to a nominal or substantive that names "differentiated stuff" such as books, beer (in certain contexts) or cats and dogs.

Finally, Trinitarians normally define the adnominal "qualitative" so that it imputes to a divine entity, G, the entire complex (set of properties) that are personally instantiated or exemplified by the God of Scripture--as they understand that deity.

It seems that those born from God's spirit or by means of the spirit of God are "spiritual" in the sense described by John 3:6. That is, God's spirit of holiness evidently reorients the bearing, disposition, dominant inclination or variegated propensities of those who are either "born again" or "born from above." See 1 John 3:9.

J. Ramsey Michaels (John in the New International Biblical Commentary series) suggests that Jesus is contrasting two distinct spheres of existence (i.e., "spirit" and "flesh") in John 3:6. However one construes the text, it seems that πνεῦμά is not a count noun in the verse, but likely a mass noun. Compare John 1:14.

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