The Aorist

Counted across every mood, the aorist and the present are by far the commonest verb forms in the New Testament, each occurring more than eleven thousand times in the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT) as tagged by the free MorphGNT project, and in the narrative books the aorist indicative is the ordinary form for telling what happened. He went, he said, they answered, he healed: most of the main verbs of most stories in the Gospels and Acts are aorist indicatives. If you learn to recognise only one past form, it should be this one.

Aorists come in a few shapes, and you have met examples of each. The first aorist adds σα (sa) to the stem, with the augment in front in the indicative: ἐπίστευσα (episteusa, I believed), ἠγάπησεν (ēgapēsen, he loved). The second aorist has no σ but uses a different form of the stem: ἔλαβον (elabon, I took) from λαμβάνω (lambanō, I take), ἀπέθανον (apethanon, I died) from ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnēskō, I die). The aorist passive usually adds θη (thē): οἰκοδομήθη (oikodomēthē, it was built) from οἰκοδομέω (oikodomeō, I build), ἠγέρθη (ēgerthē, he was raised) from ἐγείρω (egeirō, I raise). A few verbs have a passive in η without the θ, such as ἐτάφη (etaphē, he was buried) from θάπτω (thaptō, I bury), in 1 Corinthians 15:4. The tools sort all this out for you. What you need is to recognise the word aorist when the tool shows it, and to know what it does and does not mean.

The name itself comes from the ancient Greek grammarians: ἀόριστος (aoristos) means without boundaries, undefined. It is a fair description of how the form behaves, and Frank Stagg made much of it, as you will see. But be careful not to argue from the name. It is a label chosen by grammarians centuries after most of the language had developed, and Module 2 warned you about deciding a word's meaning by its origins. The behaviour of the form in real sentences is the evidence; the name is only a convenient summary of it.

Remember too what lesson 1 said about the augment. It appears only in the indicative. An aorist imperative, an aorist subjunctive, an aorist infinitive or an aorist participle has no augment and, whatever view of the indicative you take, carries no reference to past time. ἀράτω (aratō, let him take up) in Luke 9:23 is a command for the present and future. ἀπόληται (apolētai, he should perish) in John 3:16 is about a perishing that has not happened. If a preacher says that an aorist imperative refers to something done in the past, he has confused the form with the indicative, where the past reference lives.

Aorist participles need the same care, and Module 5 will treat them fully. An aorist participle often describes an action that comes before the main verb: in John 19:30, κλίνας τὴν κεφαλὴν παρέδωκεν τὸ πνεῦμα (klinas tēn kephalēn paredōken to pneuma, having bowed his head, he gave up his spirit), and κλίνας (klinas, having bowed) is an aorist active participle, nominative singular masculine, of κλίνω (klinō, I bow). But it does not always come before. Matthew 4:4 begins ὁ δὲ ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν (ho de apokritheis eipen, and answering he said), with ἀποκριθείς an aorist passive participle of ἀποκρίνομαι (apokrinomai, I answer) and εἶπεν an aorist indicative, and the answering and the saying are one and the same act, which is why the BSB simply has 'But Jesus answered'. The aorist participle presents its action as a whole; whether that action came first, or at the same moment, is told by the sentence.

The aorist is the perfective form. It presents an action as a whole, seen from outside, without looking into how it unfolded. On this, as lesson 2 showed, the older grammarians at their most careful, Porter, Fanning and Campbell all agree. In the indicative most aorists refer to past events; whether that past reference is part of the form's meaning, as the older view and Fanning hold, or comes from context, as Porter holds, or is a matter of remoteness, as Campbell holds, is the open question. It does not change anything in this lesson.

Because it presents an action as a whole, the aorist says nothing in itself about how long the action took or how many times it happened. The proof is in the text. John 2:20 says the temple was built in forty-six years: Τεσσεράκοντα καὶ ἓξ ἔτεσιν οἰκοδομήθη (tesserakonta kai hex etesin oikodomēthē, in forty-six years it was built), and οἰκοδομήθη is an aorist passive indicative, third person singular. (Notice that it has no augment, although it is an indicative: some verbs beginning with οι sometimes drop it in Koine, and the tools still parse the form as an aorist indicative.) Forty-six years of building are presented as one whole. Romans 5:14 says death ἐβασίλευσεν (ebasileusen, it reigned), an aorist, from Adam until Moses, which is many centuries. Revelation 20:4 says the saints ἐβασίλευσαν (ebasileusan, they reigned) with Christ a thousand years, again an aorist, and the BSB translates 'reigned with Christ for a thousand years'. Whatever you believe about the thousand years, which the New Testament Survey lessons on Revelation take up, the verb is an aorist and the span is a thousand years.

The same verse in Revelation shows the other side. Just before ἐβασίλευσαν comes ἔζησαν (ezēsan, they lived), also an aorist, and the BSB renders it 'they came to life'. With a verb that names a state, such as living, the aorist often presents the entry into the state, which grammars call an ingressive aorist. Romans 14:9 has the same thing: Christ ἀπέθανεν καὶ ἔζησεν (apethanen kai ezēsen, died and lived), which the BSB renders 'died and returned to life'. In one verse of Revelation, then, two aorists: one presents a beginning, the other a thousand years. The form is the same. The meaning of the verb and the context make the difference.

The grammars give names to the ways aorists are used, and they are worth knowing so that you can read a commentary. The constative aorist presents an action simply as a whole, which is the commonest use. The ingressive aorist stresses the beginning, as with ἔζησαν. The consummative aorist stresses the end or result. The gnomic aorist states a general truth, as in John 15:6. The epistolary aorist is the letter writer's courtesy of putting himself in the reader's time, as in Galatians 6:11, where ἔγραψα (egrapsa, I wrote) is rendered 'I am using to write to you' by the BSB, though some take it to look back over the whole letter. Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996) sets these out with examples. Every one of these labels is a description of what the aorist is doing in a particular context, and none of them is a separate meaning that the form carries wherever it goes.

In 1972 Frank Stagg, a Baptist New Testament scholar, published a short article in the Journal of Biblical Literature called 'The Abused Aorist'. It has been cited ever since, because it named a habit almost every reader recognised. Commentators, preachers and even some grammarians had been treating the aorist as if it told them how an action happened: once, momentarily, decisively, completely, once for all. Stagg collected examples and showed, verse by verse, that the form does not say any of these things. He described the aorist as undefined, the form a writer uses when he is not saying how the action took place. Where the New Testament wants to say once for all, it uses words that say it.

His argument was not that aorist actions are never single or decisive. Many are. Jesus died once; the aorist ἀπέθανεν describes a single event. The point is that it is the event and the context that tell you so, not the form. The same form describes forty-six years of building and a thousand years of reigning. A form that can do that cannot also mean once for all. When an interpreter draws once for all from the aorist, he has taken something true about some events and attributed it to a grammatical form that is equally used of quite different events.

Others carried the argument further. Charles R. Smith's article 'Errant Aorist Interpreters' in the Grace Theological Journal (1981) gathered further examples of the error from commentaries and sermons. D. A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies, in its chapter on grammatical fallacies, treats the once-for-all aorist as a standard case, and nearly every grammar written since the aspect debate began says the same. On this point, notice, the scholars who disagree about almost everything else in lesson 2 stand together. Porter, Fanning and Campbell would each reject the claim that the aorist means once for all, for reasons rooted in their own theories. This is as near to settled as anything in New Testament grammar.

Here are three places where the myth is often preached, so that you can recognise it. Romans 12:1 urges believers παραστῆσαι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν (parastēsai ta sōmata hymōn, to present your bodies), with παραστῆσαι an aorist active infinitive of παρίστημι (paristēmi, I present). It is often preached as a once-for-all act of surrender made at a single moment. That may be a good thing to do, and some traditions of consecration have taught it with real fruit, but the aorist does not teach it; the aorist infinitive is simply the ordinary form for presenting an action as a whole. 2 Timothy 4:2 begins κήρυξον τὸν λόγον (kēryxon ton logon, preach the word), with κήρυξον an aorist imperative, and no one has ever thought Paul meant Timothy should preach once. John 6:34 has the crowd say πάντοτε δὸς ἡμῖν τὸν ἄρτον τοῦτον (pantote dos hēmin ton arton touton, always give us this bread), with δός an aorist imperative and πάντοτε (pantote) meaning always. An aorist command with the word always beside it shows that the form does not limit the action to one occasion.

Why does the myth survive? Partly because the old label punctiliar, discussed in lesson 2, sounded like a description of the event. Partly because many of the most important aorists in the New Testament do describe once-for-all events, the death and resurrection of Christ above all, so the claim is often attached to true theology and nobody checks the grammar. And partly because it sounds learned. The cure is the same as for every fallacy in this track: ask what the form actually signals, ask what the context and the other words in the sentence add, and refuse to let a true doctrine be propped up by a false argument. A true doctrine does not need one, and a congregation that is taught false arguments for true doctrines is defenceless when someone takes the argument away.

Now read the anchor in Greek. The SBLGNT has ὃ γὰρ ἀπέθανεν, τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ἀπέθανεν ἐφάπαξ (ho gar apethanen, tē hamartia apethanen ephapax, for the death he died, he died to sin once for all), then ὃ δὲ ζῇ, ζῇ τῷ θεῷ (ho de zē, zē tō theō, but the life he lives, he lives to God). The two ὅ (ho, what, that which) are relative pronouns, literally 'what he died' and 'what he lives', which the BSB smooths into 'the death He died' and 'the life He lives'. ἀπέθανεν is second aorist active indicative, third person singular, of ἀποθνῄσκω. ζῇ is present active indicative, third person singular, of ζάω (zaō, I live). And ἐφάπαξ (ephapax) is an adverb, once for all, formed from ἐπί (epi) and ἅπαξ (hapax, once).

So the 'once for all' in Romans 6:10 is in the Greek, plainly and strongly, and it is carried by ἐφάπαξ. Paul did not leave it to the aorist. Neither does the rest of the New Testament. Hebrews 7:27 says Christ did this ἐφάπαξ when he offered up himself, with an aorist verb. Hebrews 9:12 says he entered the Most Holy Place ἐφάπαξ, with an aorist. Hebrews 10:10 says we have been sanctified through the offering of his body ἐφάπαξ, and there the verb is a perfect, ἡγιασμένοι ἐσμέν (hēgiasmenoi esmen, we have been sanctified). 1 Peter 3:18 says Christ suffered for sins ἅπαξ (hapax, once), and Hebrews 9:26 that he has appeared ἅπαξ at the end of the ages, with a perfect, πεφανέρωται (pephanerōtai, he has appeared). The finality of Christ's death is taught with an adverb, beside verbs of more than one tense-form. Once you see that, the doctrine stands on far firmer ground than any argument from the aorist could give it.

Romans 6:9, the verse before, supports it from another side. Christ, having been raised from the dead, οὐκέτι ἀποθνῄσκει (ouketi apothnēskei, no longer dies), with a present verb and the adverb οὐκέτι (ouketi, no longer), and death οὐκέτι κυριεύει (ouketi kyrieuei, no longer rules) over him. The argument of the paragraph is that Christ's death was final and his life is endless. Verse 9 says so with no longer; verse 10 says so with once for all.

Is there anything to be learned from the tenses in verse 10? A little, and it is worth saying modestly. Paul presents the death with an aorist, as a whole event, and the life with a present, as ongoing. That fits what he is saying very well. But notice that it is also the natural way to write the sentence: dying is the kind of thing you would normally present as a whole, and living is the kind of thing you would normally present as in progress. The tenses fit the thought; they do not create it. The thought is created by ἐφάπαξ and by verse 9.

One question in the verse is open, and it is worth knowing so that you do not settle it by accident. What does it mean that Christ died to sin, when he had no sin of his own? Some interpreters read the dative τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ (tē hamartia, to sin) in relation to sin as a power: in Romans 5:21 sin reigned in death, and Christ, by entering the realm where sin reigns through death and dying there, passed out of its reach for ever, so that sin has no further claim on him, and in him none on us. Others read it in relation to sin's guilt: Christ bore sin in his death, and that bearing is finished. The two readings are not exclusive, and many commentators combine them. The dative of reference, which Module 3 introduced, allows both. What the verse makes certain is not which of these is primary but that the death, whatever its relation to sin, happened once and is not repeated, and it makes that certain with an adverb.

The same chapter has other aorists that preachers lean on. In 6:4 we were buried with him, συνετάφημεν (synetaphēmen, we were buried with), aorist passive indicative, first person plural, of συνθάπτω (synthaptō, I bury with). In 6:6 our old self was crucified with him, συνεσταυρώθη (synestaurōthē, it was crucified with), aorist passive indicative, third person singular, of συσταυρόω (systauroō, I crucify with). These refer to a definite past event in the believer's life, connected in 6:3-4 with baptism. That they refer to such an event is clear from the context. What that event is, how baptism and faith are related in it, and what happened in it, are questions on which Christian traditions differ deeply, and the aorist cannot decide between them. Let the passage and the rest of scripture do that work.

There is a balance to keep here, because a lesson like this can make a preacher afraid to say anything about the aorist at all. It is true, and sometimes worth saying, that a passage presents an event as a whole rather than as a process; that an aorist in a list of presents stands out; that a writer has chosen to present an action as a single act where he could have presented it as ongoing. It is not true that the aorist itself means once, or suddenly, or decisively, or for ever.

A simple test will keep you honest. Before you make any point from an aorist, try reading the verse as if the aorist simply presented the action as a whole and said nothing more. If your point still stands, because the context or another word supplies what you wanted, then preach it, and point your hearers to the word or the context that supplies it. In Romans 6:10, that is ἐφάπαξ. If your point disappears when the aorist is read that way, it was never in the text. Drop it, or find out whether something else in the passage teaches it.

It also helps to remember how ordinary the aorist is. In a typical paragraph of narrative it is the default; in a letter it is one of the two most common forms in every mood. A form that common cannot be a signal of special emphasis every time it appears. Where it does carry weight, it is usually because it stands against something else in the passage, an aorist among presents, or because the writer has used it with a verb that more often appears in another form. Lesson 3's question still applies: did the writer have a real choice?

And when you hear a claim about the aorist from someone else, do not mock it. Many good preachers learned the once-for-all aorist from books they trusted, and the theology they attached to it is often entirely sound. Show the person the adverb. Show him John 2:20 and Revelation 20:4. A man who has been given a better argument for what he already believes will usually take it gladly.

Return to your verb table. Find every aorist in your passage, in every mood, and put a small mark beside each row. For the aorist indicatives, add a note in the What the context adds column saying whether the action looks single, repeated, long or the entry into a state, and what in the passage tells you so. For aorist imperatives, subjunctives, infinitives and participles, write in the margin: no past time, so that you train your eye not to read them as past.

Next, look for words in your passage that do say how often or how long: adverbs such as once, again, always, daily, no longer, and phrases of time such as for three days or from the beginning. Use your tool to find the Greek behind each. Circle them in your Greek column. These are the words that carry the kind of action the preacher often wants the tense to carry.

Then turn to the Claims to test page at the back of your notebook. Write down any claim you have heard or made about an aorist in your passage, or in a passage you have preached on before. Beside each, write what you now think, with the evidence: a verse reference, a word, a context. If one of them turns out to be the once-for-all myth, write the true ground for the doctrine beside it, as Romans 6:10 has done for you with ἐφάπαξ. That is the habit this lesson is meant to give you: whenever a true doctrine has been propped up by a false argument, find the real one.