Grammar Bites: Does Acts 13:48 Teach Double Predestination?

On the limits of grammar for figuring out our theology...

One of the many joys of my work is the opportunity to respond to questions about the Greek New Testament from students, pastors, and layfolk. The entries in this series come from questions that I have been asked over the years. My intent is to provide a basic response with reference to the Greek New Testament. These entries will include some technical terms from Greek grammar, but my intent is to provide clarifying remarks for those who are not familiar with those materials. I’ve taken to calling this series Grammar Bites because the entries are focused on smaller bits of text - and because grammar is often frustrating (it “bites” in the slang sense).

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Today’s question came from a student in one of my second semester Greek grammar courses, who wanted to know about whether Acts 13:48 has anything to say about a theology of election - how/whether God “selects” or “appoints” people for eternal life:

“Most translations read something like, ‘as many as were appointed believed.’ My main concern is if that is indeed accurate, then the implication is that belief follows appointment. Or is it actually the opposite, that those who believed were appointed?”

The text in question reads as follows in a few different translations:

• NIV: When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.

• NRSV: When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and praised the word of the Lord; and as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers.

• ESV: And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed

This student’s concern was primarily about the last clause of this verse: “and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” And, as you can see even from just the three translations supplied above, there are some minor differences that lean towards different interpretations of what Luke was trying to say. But before we get into the grammar, I want to provide a brief orientation to this idea of election.

What is “Election”?

Most folks are familiar with this term in the realm of politics, which is actually a helpful window into the term’s biblical usage. In the United States we hold various elections, usually in November of each year. And these elections involve voters makes a choice between candidates for office. “Election” in a theological sense is similar in that it refers to God’s choice. But what exactly that choice is is the subject of countless debates over the meaning of election. Many different views about the topic exist, but if we were to paint with a very broad brush, the most familiar camps are unconditional (Calvinist) and conditional (Arminian) election, and so I will stick with those for the sake of this discussion.

• Unconditional Election is a Calvinist idea that God chooses to redeem people prior to the creation of the world without respect to their choices. Those who are chosen/elected in this manner will have a faith-response to the message of Jesus, because they were chosen. Closely linked to this view is the idea of predestination - that some people are eternally chosen for redemption and others for judgment.

• Conditional Election is an Arminian idea that God chooses to redeem people based on his foreknowledge of their faith-response to the message of Jesus. In other words, those who will have a faith-response to the message of Jesus were chosen because of that faith, even if God’s “choosing” pre-dates the timing of their belief. Variants of this view abound, but a common one suggests that God has chosen/elected “those who believe in Jesus” as a group, and that people who have a faith-response to Jesus become a part of that group.

As is common with theological concepts, people bring these views with them when they read their Bibles, and there is a tendency to read many election/appointing texts as confirmations of one’s already held views. But what does the grammar of the verse in question allow?

The Grammar of Acts 13:48

The Greek text of Acts 13:48b (with transliteration and basic comments) is as follows:

καὶ ἐπίστευσαν ὅσοι ἦσαν τεταγμένοι εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον

(kai episteusan hosoi aysan tetagmenoi eis zoayn aionion)

• καὶ = Conjunction¹: meaning “and”

• ἐπίστευσαν = Verb: Aorist Active Indicative² 3rd Plural³ from πιστεύω - I believe/am faithful

• ὅσοι = Relative Pronoun⁴: of quantity, Nominative Plural Masculine⁵ from ὅσος - as much as

• ἦσαν = Verb: Imperfect⁶ Active Indicative 3rd Plural from εἰμί - I am/exist

• τεταγμένοι = Participle⁷: Perfect⁸ Passive⁹ Participle Nominative Plural Masculine from τάσσω - I assign/appoint

• εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον = Prepositional¹⁰ phrase - to eternal life

Although the earlier part of the verse speaks about "the Gentiles" who were present, the way the clause is rendered suggests that the verb ἐπίστευσαν (“they believed”) refers to a sub-set of the group that was present. Whether that sub-set was 1% or 99% of those present we do not know. The reason for this is because of the relative pronoun ὅσοι (“as many as”), which introduces a "headless" relative clause¹¹ (meaning, no other clear subject) and thus acts as the subject for the verb. The presence of ἦσαν (“they were being”) before the participle τεταγμένοι (“appointed”) suggests to me that we are working with a periphrastic¹² use of the participle. Since the verb ἦσαν is in the Imperfect tense and the participle τεταγμένοι is in the Perfect tense, their combined meaning would be rendered as if it were in the Pluperfect¹³ tense. The passive voice of the participle, coupled with the theological context of Acts, suggests that God was the one who performed the action referenced in the participle. And then we have that prepositional phrase at the end that supplies additional content to complete the participle's meaning.

Putting this all together, I think we can translate this clause as follows: "And as many as had been appointed for eternal life believed." I suppose you could alternately translate it as "And they believed - as many as had been appointed for eternal life" but the general grammatical point is that the relative clause (“as many as had been appointed”) supplies the subject for the verb ἐπίστευσαν (“they believed”).

The Pluperfect tense is a bit tricky because it emphasizes the result/state of a completed action, as that result/state existed in a past time from the vantage point of the speaker. But, importantly, the grammar does not say anything about that result/state in the present. In this case, it appears that Luke is simply stating that at the moment of their belief, they had been appointed. But whether that appointment still exists or not is left unstated by the grammar. Similarly, it does not tell us whether the appointment occurred prior to the creation of the world, in 3,000 BC, or immediately prior to their belief. It simply states that they were in a state of "being appointed for eternal life" at the moment of their belief.

Theological Vagueness

So much for grammar. As far as theology, I think that this verse is actually a bit too vague to provide genuine hints towards any particular system of election. As I mentioned above, at the grammatical level, we are left with a simple statement that some of the crowd were in a result/state of appointment to eternal life, and that these people believed. Folks with a Calvinistic worldview might be tempted to read this text through the lens of a double predestination mindset in which people are selected for salvation and damnation from eternity, but that would be reading too much into the passage. Those of an Arminian worldview might suggest that those who believed were conditionally elected because God possessed foreknowledge of their belief, which was only realized in this exact moment. Again, I think that is reading too much into the passage. All that the grammar allows us to say, in my opinion, is that God was at work prior to the faith response of some of the Gentiles to Paul and Barnabas's preaching - something that I think both Calvinists and Arminians would agree on.

The Context of Acts 13:48

I do think it is worth noting the remark in 13:46 where Paul and Barnabas accuse the Jewish members of their audience of rejecting the message of Jesus, and therefore rejecting eternal life. Some element of choice/response seems to be assumed by them (and the author of Acts) with those remarks. And a similar refrain is found throughout the book of Acts, where Christian preaching is rejected by some and accepted by others. All of this simply means that Acts is not completely deterministic in its view of divine appointment and human action. But where God’s initiative and personal choice meet is a bit ambiguous.

The verb τάσσω (“I appoint”) to my knowledge is only used elsewhere in Luke-Acts to refer to people being “assigned” a task/ministry, and so should not be taken as a technical term referring to the salvation process.

Running List of Grammatical Terms:

1. Conjunction: a linking word that connects words, phrases, or clauses.

2. Aorist: a verb tense indicating that an action is viewed as ‘complete’ or in snapshot form, often used for the past-tense. For example, “I ate a sandwich”. Active: a verb ‘voice’ indicating that the subject is the one performing the action. Indicative: a verb ‘mood’ indicating that the action is ‘real’ rather than hypothetical.

3. 3rd Plural: verbs in Greek contain via their endings a ‘person’ and ‘number’ for the subject performing the action. In this case, the action is done by ‘they/them’.

4. Relative Pronoun: a pronoun that begins a relative clause (a clause that cannot exist on its own), usually “who, that, which”.

5. Nominative: noun ‘case’ usually used to identify the subject of a clause. Plural: noun ‘number’ indicating that the subject is plural. Masculine: noun ‘gender’ sometimes used to indicate that the subject is male. However, in this culture masculine pronouns were the default pronoun, which should not be taken as suggesting that females were excluded.

6. Imperfect: a verb tense indicating that an action is viewed as ‘incomplete’ or in a movie-type form, often used for the past-tense. For example, “I was eating a sandwich”.

7. Participle: a type of verbal adjective used for a wide variety of purposes in Greek, including as an adjective, substantive, adverb, etc.

8. Perfect: a verb tense that emphasizes the result or state of a given (usually past) action. For example: “we have been saved by Jesus’s death and resurrection” emphasizes a state of salvation brought about by the past-time events of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

9. Passive: a verb ‘voice’ indicating that the subject is the one receiving the action.

10. Preposition: a type of word used to express a relationship along the lines of direction, location, time, etc.

11. Headless Relative Clause: a relative clause that contains no clear internal subject.

12. Periphrastic: a grammatical construction that is a roundabout way of saying something. In Greek, this is accomplished through the use of a participle and a verb of being.

13. Pluperfect: a verb tense that stresses the result or state brought about by an action, highlighting that the result/state was such in the past (with little comment on whether it still exists). For example: “I had been full” does not tell us whether I am still full.