2 Cor 3:17

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Michael W Abernathy
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2 Cor 3:17

Post by Michael W Abernathy »

I was looking at 2 Cor 3:17: ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν·
Is there any reason why this would not be considered a convertible proposition?
Jonathan Robie
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Re: 2 Cor 3:17

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Michael W Abernathy wrote: December 6th, 2021, 3:15 pm I was looking at 2 Cor 3:17: ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν·
Is there any reason why this would not be considered a convertible proposition?
Well, there are at least other reasonable ways to understand this. Here's a range of ways this has been understood, from the SIL Exegetical Summaries:
SIL Exegetical Summaries wrote:
QUESTION—What does ὁ δὲ κύριος το͂ πνεῦμά ἐστιν ‘but the Lord is the Spirit’ mean?
Paul is indicating dynamic function, work, or action, not an identity of person [AB, EBC, Hanson, He, HNTC, Ho, Lns, My, NCBC, NIC2, TNTC, WBC]. The Lord (Christ) communicates himself in the Holy Spirit, who is the living principle of the influence and indwelling of Christ [My]. The Lord is the Spirit in our experience; just as Moses turned to Yahweh, so the Jew should turn to the Spirit [Dunn, Hanson]. The Yahweh of the OT signifies the Spirit of the NT in terms of the new relationship through Christ; that is, the immediacy of God’s presence such as Moses experienced happens to the believer by means of the Spirit [Dumbrell]. The Holy Spirit is the one to whom one turns at conversion, and who removes the veil of hardheartedness [Wong]. Paul experienced God and Christ as well as the freedom of the new covenant through the Spirit [Dunn]. Christ and the Spirit work in the same way and produce the same effect [ICC1]. Paul is contrasting the administration of Moses and the law with that of Christ and the spirit; Moses is (by metonymy) ‘the law’, and the Lord is the Spirit in that those who rely on Moses get only the law, and those who turn to the Lord (Christ) receive the Spirit [Aber NOT1].
QUESTION—In what sense does he use the word ἐστιν ‘is’?
1. It is epexegetical, further explaining what ‘the Lord’ of the previous verse means [AB, Dumbrell, Dunn, EBC, EGT, HNTC, ICC2, NAC, NCBC, WBC, Wong; NJB, REB, TEV, TNT]. The Lord of the previous verse means for us the Spirit [WBC]. The lord of the previous verse is the Holy Spirit, who is the one to whom a believer turns and by whom the veil is removed and freedom given [Van Unnik, Wong]. The identity of Christ and the Holy Spirit is one of our experience and not of their own essence; that is, Christ is known to us as spirit [Hanson]. The Lord is to us the Spirit under the new covenant [TNTC]. The Lord to whom they turned at conversion is the God of the new covenant which is of the Spirit, not of the letter [AB]. The Lord to whom the Jew must turn is the life-giving spirit of the living God [EBC]. It identifies to whom the Jew must turn, which is the Spirit [Dunn, EBC, ICC2], who is the transforming power and essential characteristic of the new covenant [ICC2]. The Spirit is the agent by which the veil of hardheartedness is removed when one turns to God [Provence].
2. It is associational and refers to the entire economy of the Spirit, to that which spiritual in nature as opposed to the law, and which includes also the personal ministration of the Holy Spirit [NIC1, NIC2]. He is referring to the contrast between the letter and the Spirit in 3:6; Christ is the way into that spiritual freedom that brings life [NIC1]. Turning to the Lord means turning to the lord of the new covenant of the Spirit, and who is himself a ‘life giving spirit’ (from 1 Cor. 15:45) [NIC2].
3. Paul is commenting on the relationship between Christ and the Spirit [Lns, NTC]. He emphasizes that in Christ it is the Spirit who takes away the veil from the reading of the old covenant [NTC]. He is saying that they are of one essence but are two persons and do the same work; the Spirit is where the Lord is, and where the Lord is the Spirit is [Lns].
4. Paul is saying that Christ and the Spirit are one and the same [CEV].
5. It is used in a comparative sense, comparing and contrasting Moses and Christ; Christ ‘is’ the Spirit in the same sense that Moses ‘is’ the law, each representing a separate covenant and its means of implementation [Aber NOT1].
QUESTION—Who is ‘the Lord’?
Paul is clarifying a statement he has just made. This is indicated by the addition of a demonstrative pronoun: ‘this Lord’ [NJB], ‘the Lord is that spirit’ [KJV]; by the addition of an explanatory phrase: ‘the Lord of whom this passage speaks’ [REB]; or by the fact that the words ‘the Lord’ are shown in quotes [AB, HNTC, ICC2, WBC; TEV, TNT].
1. It is Yahweh, referring to the Exodus 34 passage that Paul has been commenting on [AB, Dumbrell, Dunn, EBC, EGT, ICC2, NAC, Provence, TG, TNTC].
2. It is Christ [Aber NOT1, Hanson, He, HNTC, Ho, ICC1, Lns, My, NIC1, NIC2, NTC, SP, TG].
3. It is the Holy Spirit [Van Unnik, Wong].


Abernathy, D. (2008). An Exegetical Summary of 2 Corinthians (2nd ed., pp. 132–134). Dallas, TX: SIL International.
Numbered lists indicate different interpretations, so do consecutive sentences followed by abbreviation lists. Abbreviations refer to commentaries that take a given position.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Stephen Carlson
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Re: 2 Cor 3:17

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Michael W Abernathy wrote: December 6th, 2021, 3:15 pm I was looking at 2 Cor 3:17: ὁ δὲ κύριος τὸ πνεῦμά ἐστιν·
Is there any reason why this would not be considered a convertible proposition?
"Convertible proposition" is a coinage by Dan Wallace and, as fair as I can tell, the term lacks any currency within the broader Greek grammatical tradition. This means to answer the question you need to go to the source, Wallace, and he gives a number of syntactic criteria for it. Among these, the fact that both the subject and the predicate nouns have the article should qualify it as one. The problem with this if these two terms have the same referent, which what a convertible proposition is supposed to mean, the statement really looks Sabellian and not properly Trinitarian, hence all the ways around that implication that Jonathan listed.

Taking a step back, I might question whether "convertible propositions" is an appropriate or well-formed concept and look at how the broader Greek grammatical tradition would analyze it.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Jonathan Robie
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Re: 2 Cor 3:17

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Stephen Carlson wrote: December 6th, 2021, 7:46 pm Taking a step back, I might question whether "convertible propositions" is an appropriate or well-formed concept and look at how the broader Greek grammatical tradition would analyze it.
And taking one more step back ... whenever you see people use terms from formal logic to describe anything in the grammar of a language, that's a category error. Human language isn't governed by formal logic [1]. I think this can sometimes indicate a desire to use grammar to prove something exegetically, but it's usually questionable.

[1] https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/logic-42.htm
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Michael W Abernathy
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Re: 2 Cor 3:17

Post by Michael W Abernathy »

Thank you for your responses. I had not seen the article quoted by Jonathan Robie. I appreciate the references. I assumed that the term "convertible proposition" was accepted by the scholarly community because I saw that it was in use from the time of A. T. Robertson and it is still in use by Decker and Wallace.
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