Gender, Case, and Number of Pronouns

As a rule, all pronouns agree with their antecedent in case, number, and gender. This applies to personal, demonstrative, and relative pronouns. If the reader is unfamiliar with “case,” see a beginner grammar on NT Greek, or I’m sure I’ll have a post explaining the basics.

Antecedent should be familiar from any grammar course. It’s the word that any pronoun replaces or references in its context. E.g.: Peter went to the store to buy his sister a birthday present. (His refers back to Peter—okay, elementary school is now complete).

Case of Pronouns: The case of a pronoun more than likely will be determined by its function in the clause. (Subjects are usually nominative; objects are usually accusative; various cases for objects of prepositions). However, there are times when the case of a pronoun (whether relative or demonstrative) adapts to the case of its antecedent. This can be helpful when we are unsure what the antecedent is.

The are a few examples where pronouns do not agree with antecedents in gender and number, but these are extremely rare (see 2 John 1). Therefore, if someone is arguing for a change in gender/number or making a key exegetical conclusion based on a switch in agreement, it’s best to take another look.

Here’s an example from Wallace’s Greek Grammar.

Ὅταν ἔλθῃ ὁ παράκλητος ὃν ἐγὼ πέμψω ὑμῖν παρὰ τοῦ πατρός, τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας ὃ παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκπορεύεται, ἐκεῖνος μαρτυρήσει περὶ ἐμοῦ· (Joh 15:26)

The demonstrative pronoun “this” is nominative, masculine, singular. Many see John (or Jesus) as affirming the personhood and even masculine gender of the Spirit (if we can even use such terms for a spirit). Why else would the gender be masculine?

But the antecedent is not “Spirit of truth.” It’s Paraclete, which is a nominative, masculine, singular noun. This is true in each passage in John that discusses the Paraclete. We can affirm that the Spirit is a person, but we cannot conclude anything about gender. Grammar is functioning here as expected. (Not to mention “Spirit” is a neuter noun, so making arguments based on gender of nouns is a bit silly).