Grammatical Tense Brings Good News from Jesus

What’s So Important about Tense and Language?

Under differing circumstances, we exercise both hope and faith. Hope looks to the future; faith to the unseen present. Here, I emphasize faith because it has been misrepresented as hope by so many preachers, a misunderstanding reinforced by our emotions.

I am neither a Greek scholar nor a grammarian, but I am aware, as my readers are or will soon be, that “tense” matters when it comes to faith in Jesus. By “tense” I mean the way verbs may point to past, present, and future events (I ran yesterday, I run or am running today, and I will run tomorrow).

Let me begin with a pedestrian example. Assume a 12-year-old daughter who loved to ride her bicycle could no longer ride it as a result of a flat tire. It would be encouraging for her to hear her father later that evening say, “I will fix your tire soon” (speaking in the future tense). It would be even better if, instead, he said, “I saw your bicycle when I got home and repaired the tire” (speaking in the past tense). Both statements are good, but the one that declares the problem already resolved is, of course, the most secure, ruling out the possibility that the father would be interrupted or distracted later in the week.

When we pay attention to the past tense in the Bible, we see that God is already aware of our needs before we pray. We also see that much of what we pray for has already been provided by Jesus. The past tense redirects our attention from ourselves and our circumstances to God’s awareness and provision. Faith does not involve us reminding God of his promises. Rather, faith reminds us of God’s preparation. We are the one’s getting up to speed and not the reverse.

Note the past tense in the following passage, one of the most concise and profound teachings on prayer in the Bible.^[1]

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24)

Who would have guessed that the key to faith is to believe you have already received what you are about to ask for? Yet as Mark recites it, we are instructed to believe that we have already received whatever we ask for and then we shall have it.^[2]

Many of us have read this verse all our lives and have not caught its meaning. However, its meaning points directly to the one to whom we are praying: the eternal creator who knows everything and stands outside of time. If you are not praying to this being, you are probably praying to someone created in your own image, most likely a “god” who is occasionally forgetful and sometimes indifferent.

We often pray as though God is a hopefully caring individual who will assist us if we can just get his attention, and this, frankly, indicates we are already living in disbelief. It’s essential to believe in the present that God both understands and has provided for this moment’s needs. He knows before we ask what we have need of (Matthew 6:8). For that reason, Jesus says, we should not keep repeating our prayers. We do not “remind” God of anything. We remind ourselves that God has already numbered the hairs on our head and knows what we need (Luke 12:6 – 7). We never make God aware of our needs. We wake up to his constant awareness. As we trust that God already knows and cares, we are living in faith.

What do we do in the mean time—the time between trusting we “have received” and actually experiencing it? Two things stand out in the gospels and elsewhere: be thankful and act on our faith.

Gratitude, especially when we are distressed, may not be automatic. It may require studying the goodness of God and the life of Jesus before we are able to thank God from our heart. It does no good to pretend anything when it comes to prayer, so it’s better to spend time renewing our minds by reading the scriptures than by mouthing words of thankfulness while our hearts remain troubled. In quietness and trust shall be our strength. Let’s stay in that place.

In quietness and trust, you have prayed for something you are sure is God’s will (such as for wisdom, for physical healing, or for the means to provide for yourself and your dependents). You followed Mark 11:24 and believe you have received what you are praying for. Yet you do not see what you have prayed for. This is where we often revert to walking by sight and living in doubt. But you remain focused on the goodness and foresight of our Father in Heaven. You persevere and assume God has set the answer to prayer in motion. Because you prayed according to his will, you are thankful that he has said “yes, so be it. You thank God for the thing you prayed for because you are trusting it is yours. When worries arise, you retrace the steps of faith (hearing, believing, confessing) and thank God again. Your focus is on God’s focus, not on your feelings which ebb and flow as they will.

To act on our faith is to make decisions based on the answer to prayer. Remember how often Jesus told people to do something to receive their healing? Stand up, pick up your bed, stretch out your hand…. Typically those things simply would not happen unless the person were healed. A paralytic wouldn’t think of standing up and walking, just as someone with a thoroughly withered hand would not attempt to stretch it out (Mark 2:1-12, Mark 3:1 – 5).

This need to act has been misunderstood by some who are better at acting daringly than quietly trusting. Jesus never said, “stop taking your meds,” which anyone can do, healed or sick, at times to their or their children’s detriment. The point is to be open to attempting things that presuppose either a healing or the path to healing, never trying to force God’s hand, which simply isn’t how things work.

Examples of acting on faith abound in the scriptures, including these examples:

• Naaman dipped himself into the Jordan River seven times and was cured of leprosy (2 Kings 5),
• The paralytic stood up, picked up his mat, and walked away (Mark 2).
• The man with the shriveled hand extended it fully (Mark 3:1 – 5).
• The man who was lame from birth got up and walked upon Peter’s command (Acts 3:1-10).

The next passage reveals that not only does God know our needs before we mention them, but that God knew our needs before time itself began. Our greatest need was to have his life inside us. He first gave his life to us before time and later enacted it when Jesus lived on earth:

He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. (2 Timothy 1:9-10)

We may not understand all that it means for grace to be given to us before the beginning of time—I certainly do not. But the statement assures us that we have been in God’s mind long before we had minds of our own. As we know, grace is nothing to be begged for or worked for, but only to be recognized and received. That’s why it’s called grace, coming from χάρις (charis), meaning favor or gift. It’s the last thing you want to try to deserve, becuase it was the first thing God choose to share with us through Jesus, even before time.

Past Facts and Present Promises

We must take hold of the past as the period when God foreknew all our needs. if Jesus has already provided something, it’s in our best interest to recognize that. Paying attention to how God has provided in the past stirs our faith. We are no longer relying on what we see in the present. We rely on what we hear about the past. We think of God as truly eternal, a Father who considered everything involved in creation before he created. He is a being for whom nothing is impossible, a being who resists the proud but who reveals himself to the humble. This is the Father that Jesus said we must approach with the faith of a child. As we yield to faith, we are able to hear for ourselves what Jesus said to the blind men: “According to your faith let it be done to you…” (Matthew 9:29).

The present and the past are not separate for the eternal God. We live in time, but God does not. When we pray to the one who already knows everything, we are addressing the real God, wholly unlike ourselves in respect to time. What we experience today, God already knew about. What God did in the past may have full consequences for us today, especially when we rely on those consequences.

Most will agree that the past seems stable, while the present may be daunting, and the future remains uncertain. If the present is difficult (such as with ill health, bad circumstances, or demoralization), we will find more consolation in learning that something for our benefit has been done in the past than we will in finding something may be done for our benefit in the future. It is my wish that the readers of this post will walk away with increased confidence that our Father has already foreseen and addressed the majority of their needs. This revelation will result in peace for the believer who can respond with thanksgiving instead of with worry.

Hope is created through promises that refer to future events (I will marry you), while faith accepts facts that refer to past accomplishments (I married you). Usually, hope looks to the future, while faith accepts in the present that we have what we need even though we do not see it.

While promises are valuable, facts are often ignored. To correct that discounting of facts, think of our redemption as it is explained in Romans: we have died with Christ (fact), we have been forgiven (fact), we are dead to the law (fact), the spirit of life has set us free from sin and death (fact), we are more than conquerors (fact), and nothing can separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus (fact). To pray for any of these things is to pray in vain. Pray instead that the eyes of our heart may be opened to see these things, to accept them, and to be thankful for them.

Most of us feel comfortable with promises. It seems natural to recognize a promise and to hopes for the future. We grow up with caregivers who make promises, and if a caregiver is both trustworthy and capable, we can hope for its fulfillment. Similarly when the scriptures provide a promise such as “no good thing will God withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11), we are right at home. We put our hope in the promise for future fulfillment and assume we will receive its fulfillment so long as we walk uprightly.

But we are less used to hearing a divine fact about a past accomplishment and accepting it as being done. For this difficulty there are at least two reasons.

First, the facts to which I’m referring are not obvious to natural observation. These must be revealed in the scriptures and by the Holy Spirit. This is why Paul prayed that believers would have a spirit of revelation and, I assume, why Jesus said “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” Jesus taught that only by revelation could we know the true God: “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do” ( Ephesians 1:18, Matthew 11:15, 25-26).

The second reason we think in terms of God responding in the future instead of the past is that we have been misled by poor sermons. They may stipulate that if something is God’s will, it will happen. True, but that is largely a matter of hope: I hope it’s God’s will and I hope it will happen. Or they adhere more strictly to God’s promises: those who endure will inherit the kingdom of heaven. True, again, and clearly a matter of hope for things to change in the future. Such promises are good and worthy of our attention, but they are not statements of faith. They do not say the thing is accomplished now (rise up and walk) or was accomplished in the past (the chastisement of our peace fell upon him). Let us rest on divine facts and spend less time treading water by thinking only in terms of an uncertain future. Jesus told Peter to come into the water, but soon Peter forgot he was told to step onto it and focused on an uncertain future of drowning. By faith alone will we experience a kingdom that comes not in word only but also in power (1 Thessalonians 1:4-5).

It’s fine to hope for fulfillment in the future—and some things, such as one’s wedding date or our new, heavenly bodies, are reserved for the future and are proper objects of hope. Other things—indeed many of our greatest needs—have already been known by God, addressed by God, and accomplished by Jesus. To use a crude analogy, the check is not in the mail, it has been deposited before we knew we needed the money and awaits only for us to draw upon the account.

In short, when we pray, we are not called to beg that God makes an exception, we are called to agree that God is our provider. Prayer is closer to praise than we often realize.

If you are indifferent to what I’m pointing out, please know that the difference is immense. Trusting what God already knows, what God already intends, and what Jesus already accomplished delivers us from a life of fretful worry to a life of peace and joy. We may not instantly experience much, but the knowledge that the matter is in hands greater than ours creates trust. I’ve found peace and resolution by assuming a gift from God is mine, even when it isn’t visible or sensible.

Assurance without tangible evidence may be considered the foundation of faith, which, as we learn in Hebrews 11:1 is “the substance [in the present] of things hoped for [in the future], the evidence [in the present] of things not [yet] seen.” The litmus test of prayer is whether, when we are done expressing it, we walk away with assurance that it’s being taken care of or whether we feel it all remains up to us to accomplish. We may have to remind ourselves that we’ve been heard; we never need wonder whether or not our Father has listened.

This assurance comes by being convinced that we know God’s will; that it is good, perfect, and acceptable; that it is for our welfare and not our destruction; and that it is full of grace and mercy. We must rid ourselves of institutional disbelief—teachings and practices that reduce God to a lesser being. Among the worst examples, God is an inexplicable being that prefers to teach through sickness rather than healing, through punishment rather than forgiveness. Other institutional disbelief portrays God as a weak, memory challenged being who requires many reminders in order to act—if indeed this God acts at all. We are taught to keep confessing sins that are already, once and forever, forgiven—which is one example of how disbelief puts us right under the law again. If the good news is anything, it is good and, yes, even at this late date, it is still news.

The Past Tense is Everywhere

Once you are keyed into the importance of the past tense as a gateway to faith, you find it throughout the gospel.

The great scripture that is so often quoted as to become a mere jingle to our ears epitomizes the role of tense for conveying divine truth: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Note that the loving deed has been done in the past; we need not pray it happens nor can we make it happen: “he gave his one and only son….” Note, also, that we who live in the present can believe in this son: “whoever believes in him….” And, finally, observe that the effect of this past deed believed in the present will result in future effects for they “shall have eternal life.”

Another wonderful scripture highlights the role of tense:

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
(Romans 5:6-9)

The “right time” is the historical past, about 33 A.D. This is followed by the literary (or eternal) present, “God demonstrates his own love.” And, again, “While we were still sinners,” refers to the past in two respects. First, the author, Paul the Apostle, was alive and sinning (by his own confession) when Christ died for him. Second, those who were born after the crucifixion (that’s us) discover that, while we may be still sinning in the present, Christ already died for us in the past. As a result, whether a person lives in the first or twenty-first century, “we have now been justified” (past perfect tense—to indicate that one event happened before another in the past).

In a final example, the apostle Peter applies the past tense to the majestic prophecy of Isaiah 53:
“‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed'” (I Peter 2:24, quoting Isaiah 53:5. Peter changes Isaiah’s text from “by his wounds we are healed” to “by his wounds you have been healed—past perfect tense. Either the present “are” or the past perfect “have been” assures us of healing. But Peter’s use of the past tense “have been healed” reminds us that what was done in the past has real effects in the present. Before we were born, the drama of our rebirth into Christ had been transacted.

More can be said for living by faith in what God has already achieved and accomplished. Not only does it put us in tune with God. It also makes our part in the process perfectly clear. We are truly humble recipients. We cannot brag about things someone else achieved, especially if they achieved it in the past, most especially before we were born. We can only be grateful. When we realize that the vast majority of our needs have already been met by Christ—through his sufferings and his resurrection—we have nothing to boast about, to anxiously work for, to fear concerning, or to earn. We are already home.

This recognition that we are already recipients of a great gift is what Paul’s opening statement to the Corinthian believers makes clear:

It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (I Corinthians 1:30-31, NIV)

God has already placed us in Christ. We are neither waiting to gain entrance to God’s presence nor to be near Jesus. We are there, feel it or not. We are not waiting for Jesus to give us wisdom, righteousness, holiness (sanctification), or redemption. We now have them by virtue of already being in Christ. All we need are the eyes to continually see this and the heart to insist on it when this life tells us we are on the outside, far away from Christ.

Consequently, three attitudes should inform our prayers.

1. When we have a need, remember that God already knows about the need and has provided a remedy, although we have not yet experienced it.
2. When we feel we need to become a better person, know that we are already identified with Christ in his death, resurrection, and ascension. The true us cannot be closer to God than we are right now. Living this out in our old bodies may be difficult, but the difficulty is to trust we are exactly who we should be in all the ways that count most.
3. When we feel ungrateful, allow that feeling to remind us that we have forgotten what God has already given us, whether it’s our new life in Christ (done) or that thing we have prayed for (done).

Footnotes

^[1] This teaching occurs after Jesus cursed the fig tree and it died. The cursing of the fig tree is puzzling to most of us who see Jesus as constructive and the fig tree as innocent (it was out of season according to the passage in Mark 11). Without pretending to know why Jesus did it, I can only point out that the cursing of the fig tree and the cleansing of the temple occur on the same day, an extremely emotional one that demonstrates both the misuse of the temple and the impending death of Jesus, who, like the fig tree, would die prematurely.

^[2] The past tense in Mark 11:24 is undeniable. The Greek text reads πιστεύετε ὅτι ἐλάβετε καὶ ἔσται. “ἐλάβετε” is the aorist (past perfect) of “λαμβάνω” (to take or receive). The New International captures the tense (believe that you have received it, and it will be yours), as does the New American Standard (believe that you have received them, and they will be [granted] you), as does the Revised Standard version (believe that you have received it, and it will be yours). Some translations hedge slightly, such as King James (believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them). “Ye receive” is present tense. Perhaps the translators could not believe the past tense was intended. The verse, however, retains its meaning that the believing comes before the receiving and that is the most important point.