The Greek phrase that is used numerous times in 1 John and that is translated into English as “in Him” is translated in Northern One (Wolwale) as “really stick to and really remain good friends with God.”
“In the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, several people gathered to conduct the final checking on the books of 1, 2, and 3 John and Jude. They were challenged to find the best way to write the description of a believer’s intimate union with Christ. The writer of 1 John says we are ‘in Him.’ That’s easy to express in English, but not in languages that only use ‘in’ for things inside other things, but don’t use it in a metaphorical way. How would you express this concept without using the word ‘in’?
“Unsure how to translate this, the team asked Wolwale local language expert Philip Musi for advice. Philip explained while demonstrating by putting his hand firmly to a nearby post, ‘It’s like a lizard who has really stuck himself to a tree.’ Everyone in the room knew exactly what that looked like.
“Now the revised draft of 1 John 2:28a in the Northern One Wolwale language reads: Kongkom uporo kinini, pone samo pangkana ka samo paipe fori uporo plau God.
“A rough English back translation is: ‘My good children, you-all really stick to and really remain good friends with God.'”
The Hebrew and Greek that is typically translated as “sin” in English has a wide variety of translations.
The Greek ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) carries the original verbatim meaning of “miss the mark” and likewise, many translations contain the “connotation of moral responsibility.”
Loma: “leaving the road” (which “implies a definite standard, the transgression of which is sin”)
Navajo (Dinė): “that which is off to the side” (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
Toraja-Sa’dan: kasalan, originally meaning “transgression of a religious or moral rule” and in the context of the Bible “transgression of God’s commandments” (source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21ff. )
Bariai: “bad behavior” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
Sandawe: “miss the mark” (like the original meaning of the Greek term) (source for this and above: Ursula Wiesemann in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 36ff., 43)
In Shipibo-Conibo the term is hocha. Nida (1952, p. 149) tells the story of its choosing: “In some instances a native expression for sin includes many connotations, and its full meaning must be completely understood before one ever attempts to use it. This was true, for example, of the term hocha first proposed by Shipibo-Conibo natives as an equivalent for ‘sin.’ The term seemed quite all right until one day the translator heard a girl say after having broken a little pottery jar that she was guilty of ‘hocha.’ Breaking such a little jar scarcely seemed to be sin. However, the Shipibos insisted that hocha was really sin, and they explained more fully the meaning of the word. It could be used of breaking a jar, but only if the jar belonged to someone else. Hocha was nothing more nor less than destroying the possessions of another, but the meaning did not stop with purely material possessions. In their belief God owns the world and all that is in it. Anyone who destroys the work and plan of God is guilty of hocha. Hence the murderer is of all men most guilty of hocha, for he has destroyed God’s most important possession in the world, namely, man. Any destructive and malevolent spirit is hocha, for it is antagonistic and harmful to God’s creation. Rather than being a feeble word for some accidental event, this word for sin turned out to be exceedingly rich in meaning and laid a foundation for the full presentation of the redemptive act of God.”
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the DanishBibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “We would explain terms, such that e.g. sin often became ‘doing what God does not want’ or ‘breaking God’s law’, ‘letting God down’, ‘disrespecting God’, ‘doing evil’, ‘acting stupidly’, ‘becoming guilty’. Now why couldn’t we just use the word sin? Well, sin in contemporary Danish, outside of the church, is mostly used about things such as delicious but unhealthy foods. Exquisite cakes and chocolates are what a sin is today.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 John 3:6:
Uma: “So, all people who remain in harmony with him, they no longer do sins. All people who keep doing sins, they haven’t seen him and they don’t know him.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Therefore whoever is one with Almasi, he does no longer sin. Anybody who is still sinning has not understood about Almasi and he has not known Christ.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And because of that, anyone who holds tight to His oneness with Christ, it is not possible that He continually does evil. That person who is always doing evil, he doesn’t yet know who Christ is and he has not yet believed in Him.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “So whoever has-been-joined to Cristo, he doesn’t continue to sin, because the one who continues to sin, he hasn’t believed in Cristo and has absolutely not come-to-know him.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “The one who lives holding fast to his believing-in/obeying Jesu-Cristo, he doesn’t keep on doing sin. But the one who still keeps on with his doing of sin, he hasn’t comprehended what Jesu-Cristo is like and doesn’t really know/acknowledge him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “All who walk with Jesus Christ do not continue committing sin. But all who commit sin are those who do not understand about Jesus Christ, and do not know him.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Yatzachi Zapotec: “Each one of us if we are constantly present with him, we are not evil doers. And each one of us if we are evil doers we do not yet understand who Jesus Christ is, nor are we acquainted with him.”
Eastern Highland Otomi: “He who habitually lives with Christ doesn’t habitually do sin. But he who habitually sins, never wanted to hear Christ and he never knew him.”
Tzotzil: “If we are in the presence of Christ, we don’t now seek our sin. If we still seek our sin, it is because we have not yet seen Christ, we do not yet know him.” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
This verse draws the conclusion from verse 5: since Christ and sin have nothing in common, fellowship with Christ cannot go together with sin. The verse may be introduced by some word or phrase meaning “consequently.”
No one who abides in him sins, or ‘every one who abides in him (or in Christ) does not sin,’ ‘if a person abides in him/Christ, he does not sin.’ The present tense of “to abide” in this and of “to sin” in the next clause characterizes the sentence as stating a general truth. For “to abide in” and “to sin,” see comments on 2.6 and 1.10, respectively.
No one who sins has either seen him or known him states the opposite of verse 6a: a person who sins proves by that very fact that Christ is a stranger to him, whom he has never seen or known.
Because of the reverse parallel structure of this and the preceding clause, one might expect here “abides in him,” echoing the first part of 6a. The reason why John preferred to employ the verbs “to see” and “to know” instead was probably to refute the false teachers, who used to boast of having the true vision and knowledge of Christ. This boast must be false, John points out, since they are persons who sin (according to 1.8). The perfect tense of has … seen … or known is to show that the present situation is viewed as the result of previous events.
Seen him is used here metaphorically. It refers to seeing with the eye of faith, realizing that Christ is the revelation of God (John 14.7, 9). Sometimes the corresponding verb does not allow this figurative use. Then one has to use another verb of perception; for example, ‘to understand,’ ‘to find,’ or ‘to know-by-face’ (in one American Indian language).
Known him: for the verb see comments on 2.3, where, however, the object is not Christ but God. The American Indian language just quoted uses here a verb meaning ‘to know-by-mind.’
Quoted with permission from Haas, C., de Jonge, M. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on The First Letter of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
This verse is the conclusion which John draws from what he has said in 3:4–5. This connection may need to be made clear by a joining word such as “so/therefore” (Good News Translation, New English Bible, Living Bible).
3:6a
No one…keeps on sinning:(Emotive Impact) John is not just making a statement here. He is giving an indirect command to his readers, who he knows are in Christ, that they should not sin.
keeps on sinning:(Alternative Interpretations) There are different interpretations of the tense of the Greek verb used here:
(1) It probably means “should not be continually/habitually sinning.” (Berean Standard Bible, New International Version (2011 Revision), Good News Translation, Living Bible, Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)
(2) Some think it means “should not commit any sin.” (The Jerusalem Bible, Revised Standard Version, King James Version)
in Him:(Collocation) As in 2:5, this is John’s way of talking about a close personal relationship and union with God. See the note on 2:5c.
3:6b
continues to sin:(Meaning) This means the same as “keeps on sinning” in 3:6a.
3:6c
seen:(Metaphor) This does not refer to literal “seeing,” since most Christians have never seen Christ with their eyes. It is a metaphor for understanding or recognizing Christ for who he is, the Son of God.
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All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
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