Granville Sharp rules

[Sam V]

Tim,

In the past, you have relied on the Granville Sharp rules to buttress your interpretation of various passages, such as 2 Thessalonians 2:1 and Titus 2:13. I seem to recall you had misgivings about those rules. Do you still support use of Granville Sharp rules? Is your support qualified in some way?

I ask because I am studying your articles on posttribulationism. Your articles titled “AntiChrist Comes First” and “The Blessed Hope” make use of the Granville Sharp rules.

Sam V

[Timothy]

Sam,

The general principle behind Sharp’s rule usually holds true. But Sharp pressed it too far in attempting to find the “deity of Christ” in certain passages where that was not the intent. Sharp defined the rule too narrowly by excluding plurals and impersonal nouns, rather than allowing those Sharp constructions to help define the intent of this construction. Sharp was trying to claim that the rule indicates that two nouns of the same case refer to the same PERSON. But the truth of the matter is that the two nouns that fit the first rule are indeed being joined together for some important reason, but not necessarily to make them refer to the same person. For example, the plural nouns “the scribes and Pharisees” fit Sharp’s construction except they are plurals. So he excluded plurals because the falsified his rule. Obviously they do not refer to the same people. However, they are intentionally being joined into one unit, the single group that was opposing Jesus. Sharp’s rule is helpful in exegesis to unite two things or groups or individuals, without necessarily indicating that they are identical. This broader understanding fits well with Titus 2:13 “the blessed hope and glorious appearing.” They are being joined by this construction into a single group, while not being made identical. In Titus 2:13, the “glorious appearing” is Christ’s coming to defeat the Antichrist and armies of the nations when every eye will see Him. The “blessed hope” is our being gathered to Him. They are joined here because both events occur at the same TIME, not because both terms are identical.

There are other problems with the way that Sharp applied his rule to persons, in part because there are other ways that a noun can be made definite in Greek without using the definite article. For example, in the same verse in the clause, “the great God and our Savior,” Sharp applied his rule to show that Jesus is called “the great God,” because “great God” has the definite article, but Savior does not. However, the word “our” (of us) makes the noun definite by identifying WHOSE Savior. So in reality, both nouns are made definite in this clause in different ways, and the sense is then to distinguish them (as Sharp’s 2nd rule does) not make them refer to the same person.

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