Over the past few days, I have spent some time talking about "words" and their value. Something else that is important when it comes to understanding Scripture, or communication in general, is grammar.
Grammar was never one of my favorite subjects. I would always get confused between participles, prepositions, pronouns, past tense, present tense, etc., etc. There seemed to be so many rules and even more exceptions to the rules, especially in the English language. Nevertheless, grammar has its rightful place in the toolbox of any good student of Scripture.
A good example of how grammar presents itself is Revelation 1:5b
"To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood..."
Here are two terrific truths that can serve to transform how we think about what Christ has done for us. Grammatically, both "love" and "freed" are participles. Participles are tricky little critters because they can have the characteristics of both a verb (action) and an adjective (modifier).
Moving one step further, there is the tense of each word, which shows the "time" of each action. That is, when did it, or does it, take place? In this verse, "love" is present tense - as in on-going. "Freed" is what is known as aorist tense. Most often, aorist tense is used to denote a summary action or an action that occurred at a point in time not to be repeated.
Therefore, what John is telling us in this verse is that Jesus Christ loves us now and forever and has freed us once for all. We are forever in his love and never again to be slaves to sin. How marvelous is that?
"Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his mercy and his grace..."
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