Acts 2:38, For or Because Of Forgiveness
Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2018 6:29 pm
Acts 2:38 (NASB)
38. Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
This verse has long been controversial among those who have a sacramentalist view of baptism and those who do not. Among those of the sacramentalist side there is a range of views. Some say baptism is efficacious for infants and others belief there is no efficacy apart from a belief in the gospel message. Those who are sacramentalist believe that baptism is instrumental in receiving grace. Many who oppose this view see baptism as an “ordinance”. They often argue that what Peter meant in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost was that his hearers should be baptized “because of” the forgiveness of sins; that baptism was not instrumental in receiving forgiveness.
In Acts 2:38 the Greek word translated “for” is the preposition eis which indicates progression into or toward a place or state of being. Some time ago I read an article in the appendix of the NIV Theological Dictionary regarding the meaning of eis. The author referred to the considerable efforts to show eis could have a causative meaning and stated that the efforts had failed.
I have been trying to learn to read Greek and Sunday was reading Godet’s commentary on 1st Corinthians. Godet refers a lot to the Greek words used in the New Testament and something caused me to think about Peter’s use (or actually Luke) of eis in Acts 2:38. I wondered whether Peter could have used eis in the sense of “because of” or, if that was what was meant, he would have used another Greek word. So I decided to look at every place in the KJV where a Greek word, or words, had been translated “because of”. I found a total of 41 instances. The following are the Greek words and number of times translated “because of”:
Strong’s number, Greek word, number of times used
#1223, dia, 30x
#1722, en, 3x
#1537, ek, 2x
#5484, charin, 2x
#575, apo, 1x
#1909, epi, 1x
#4314, pros, 1x
NIG, In one instance the translators supplied “because of” where it is not in the Greek.
My conclusion: Luke had a Greek word (dia) available to precisely say “because of”, that he used this word six times in Luke and Acts combined where in each instance the meaning is “because of”, and this was so translated in the KJV. It is highly improbable, if not impossible, to maintain that eis means “because of” in Acts 2:38.
38. Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
This verse has long been controversial among those who have a sacramentalist view of baptism and those who do not. Among those of the sacramentalist side there is a range of views. Some say baptism is efficacious for infants and others belief there is no efficacy apart from a belief in the gospel message. Those who are sacramentalist believe that baptism is instrumental in receiving grace. Many who oppose this view see baptism as an “ordinance”. They often argue that what Peter meant in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost was that his hearers should be baptized “because of” the forgiveness of sins; that baptism was not instrumental in receiving forgiveness.
In Acts 2:38 the Greek word translated “for” is the preposition eis which indicates progression into or toward a place or state of being. Some time ago I read an article in the appendix of the NIV Theological Dictionary regarding the meaning of eis. The author referred to the considerable efforts to show eis could have a causative meaning and stated that the efforts had failed.
I have been trying to learn to read Greek and Sunday was reading Godet’s commentary on 1st Corinthians. Godet refers a lot to the Greek words used in the New Testament and something caused me to think about Peter’s use (or actually Luke) of eis in Acts 2:38. I wondered whether Peter could have used eis in the sense of “because of” or, if that was what was meant, he would have used another Greek word. So I decided to look at every place in the KJV where a Greek word, or words, had been translated “because of”. I found a total of 41 instances. The following are the Greek words and number of times translated “because of”:
Strong’s number, Greek word, number of times used
#1223, dia, 30x
#1722, en, 3x
#1537, ek, 2x
#5484, charin, 2x
#575, apo, 1x
#1909, epi, 1x
#4314, pros, 1x
NIG, In one instance the translators supplied “because of” where it is not in the Greek.
My conclusion: Luke had a Greek word (dia) available to precisely say “because of”, that he used this word six times in Luke and Acts combined where in each instance the meaning is “because of”, and this was so translated in the KJV. It is highly improbable, if not impossible, to maintain that eis means “because of” in Acts 2:38.