Before we begin this study, we would first like to give our internet visitors a bit of background. A local Church of Christ in Danville sponsors a radio program that immediately follows ours. Brother Bronger, the host, has asked us to comment on a few verses which he believes refute the fulfilled view of eschatology. 

I do not listen to Brother Bronger’s radio program so I am not aware of how he worded his position on the air. We do have a written record of his position on Revelation 2:16. It is here we will begin our study of his proposition.

He writes:

“Rev 2:16 Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. If this congregation did not repent, Christ would come in judgment upon them. This does not refer to his second coming. If it did, this would mean that the second coming of Christ was dependant upon whether a congregation repented or not.” 1

Brother Bronger has committed the fallacy of denying the antecedent (or illicit modus tollens).

Denying the Antecedent (Logical Fallacy)

If p is so, then q is so.
But p is not so.
Therefore, q is also not so. 

Example of denying the antecedent:

If I am in Indianapolis, then I am in Indiana.
But I am not in Indianapolis.
Therefore, I am not in Indiana.

So why is the above argument invalid? I could be in Danville, which is not Indianapolis, and still be in Indiana. This pattern is always invalid. That is, the conclusion does not follow from the premises.

Let’s take another look at our brother’s argument. He stated, “If this congregation did not repent, Christ would come in judgment upon them.” Up to this point, he is partially correct. 2 However, he runs into problems when he infers that their repentance would then stay Christ’s coming. He goes on, “This does not refer to his second coming. If it did, this would mean that the second coming of Christ was dependant upon whether a congregation repented or not.” We may reconstruct his argument as follows and make explicit what is implicit in his statements:

Denying the Antecedent (Logical Fallacy)
If you remain unrepentant, then I will come.
But you will not remain unrepentant.
Therefore, I will not come.

As we have seen, this argument pattern is invalid. The conclusion does not follow so we may dismiss this argument. However, in the interest of being thorough, we will continue to make a few more points.

In the discussion above, we noted that Brother Bronger presented Christ’s coming as part of the conditional statement. This is incorrect. We will now address Revelation 2:16 as it appears in the Greek text of the New Testament.

Revelation 2:16 with KJV translation:
μετανοήσον οὖν εἰ δὲ μή ἔρχομαί σοι ταχύ καὶ πολεμήσω μετ' αὐτῶν τῆ ῥομφαίᾳ τοῦ στόματός μου
Repent or else I will come unto thee quickly and will fight against them with the sword of mouth my

Now we must determine the condition (protasis) and the future action (apodosis) contingent upon it. Our brother concluded that Christ would not come if the congregation repented. Obviously, we disagree with this conclusion in that it does not follow from the premises. However, his argument also relied on an erroneous translation of the Greek. As a result, one of his premises is false. In order to determine the protasis and apodosis of a conditional phrase in the Greek, consideration must be given to mood and tense of the verbs in question.

Wallace writes, “The imperative mood may at times be used to state a condition (protasis) on which the fulfillment (apodosis) of another verb depends… This use of the imperative is always or almost always in the construction imperative +καί + future indicative. The idea is ‘if X, then Y will happen.’” 3

Let’s see how this applies to Revelation 2:16. Our first verb is μετανοήσον translated repent. It is in the imperative mood. This is the protasis of our conditional phrase and may be rendered as: repent, but if not or if you do not repent. The idea being, “If you remain unrepentant, then X.” We may now consider the apodosis.

Υou will recall that we are looking for a future tense indicative verb in our apodosis. Using the King’s English here can be misleading. Brother Bronger makes his case from the King James translation which renders the Greek verb ἔρχομαί as  will come. This verb is in the indicative mood, however, it is in the present tense. Translating this present tense verb as I will come implies that it is part of the apodosis. It is not. polemh/sw, I will fight, is our apodosis as it follows καί and it is in the correct mood and tense. With these things in mind, we can visualize our formula as such:

Protasis (Condition) Apodosis (Future Action)
imperative + καί + future indicative
μετανοήσον (Repent [not]) καί πολεμήσω (will fight)

ἔρχομαί, I come, does not fit our pattern. Therefore, Christ’s “coming” is not part of theapodosis. As we stated above, Brother Bronger’s first premise is false as it does not represent the Greek text. ἔρχομαί is a unconditional, declarative indicative that is unrelated to the protasis and apodosis. The Greek text may be expressed as follows: I am coming to you soon. If you remain unrepentant, then I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth. Our arrangement of the clauses has removed the syntactic ambiguity 4 that appears in the English translation of the King James.

In summary, we have seen that the argument presented by Brother Bronger contains a logical fallacy. Denying the antecedent renders his argument invalid. Consequently, his conclusion does not follow from the premises. In addition, after examining the Greek text, we have demonstrated that e&rxomai is not part of the adoposis. Therefore, his first premise is false. On both logical and grammatical grounds, we may reject the argument that Christ’s coming in Revelation 2:16 was conditional. 5

Footnotes:

1. J. R. Bronger, Realized Eschatology: Part 3 – Pg. 12 (available at http://www.danvillechurchofchrist.org)

2. We say “partially” correct because Brother Bronger lumps “coming” and “will make war” together. He presents his case in such a way that we can’t have “coming” without “will make war.” In this regard, he is incorrect.

3. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics – An Exegetical Syntax of the NT: Daniel B. Wallace – Pg. 489

4. By syntactic ambiguity we mean that the sentence can be parsed in more than one way. For example, Small rats and mice can squeeze into holes or cracks in the wall. What does this mean?

(Small rats and mice) can squeeze into (holes or cracks in the wall.)
(Small rats and mice) can squeeze into (holes) or (cracks in the wall.)
(Small rats) and (mice) can squeeze into (holes or cracks in the wall.)
(Small rats) and (mice) can squeeze into (holes) or (cracks in the wall.)

With regard to Revelation 2:16, translating the phrase “I am coming to you soon” in line with Greek word order creates a syntactically ambiguous sentence in English (e.g. KJV). As we have seen, this can be misleading. As a result of the King James construction, Brother Bronger believed Christ's coming was included in the conditional sentence. By adjusting for English syntax, we have cleared this up.

5. The same arguments would also ap ply to Revelation 2:5