Active continuous present verb tense of John 3:16

Steve Chiara
MA in Christian Apologetics, Biola University

Interesting thing about John 3:16. The tense of the Greek verbs are active continuous present, indicating ongoing action. So "believes" really should read "he who is believing."

Here's how it reads taking the verb tenses into account, and this is from the Concordant Literal Version:

16 For thus God loves the world, so that He gives His only-begotten Son, that everyone who is believing in Him should not be perishing, but may be having life eonian."

As you can see it shouldn't be "perish" and it shouldn't be "have eternal life," as if they were one time events. They are all ongoing actions.

So while I agree that "eternal life" (literally zōē aiōnios) applies to the afterlife I must strongly insist that it is not limited to the afterlife and is instead a continual, ongoing present state of being in God now.

The verb tenses also make clear that the flipside is true as well. If you are not believing then you are in an ongoing, present state condition of perishing. This reality does not change whether you are in this life or the next. The one thing that does change this condition is being brought to the point where you are able to be, believing in the Son.

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