Rom 8:9 – A Comparison
- But if God’s Spirit lives in you, you are under the control of your spiritual nature, not your corrupt nature. Whoever doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ doesn’t belong to him. (GW)
- But ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. (RV)
- You, however, are not of the flesh but under the control of the Spirit, since God’s Spirit lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. (ISV)
- But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all.) (NLT)
Do you notice the difference in these translations? Look at them carefully and see what you can find. What is the difference between these four translations? Does it matter?
I guess I should leave the next part until tomorrow so you have time to look for yourself and not sneak a peek. But this time I think I will trust you not to look and to do your investigation and thinking before reading any further. Can I trust you to do that? No peeking now!
Ok now that you have compared the four versions I copied for you and you have thought about it, what did you come up with? Did you notice there is a discrepancy between Spirit and spirit? Oh come on Ian. Don’t waste our time on such trivial things. But it’s not trivial. It depends whether you interpret the word as “spirit” refering to the human spirit or “Spirit” referring to the Holy Spirit. It makes a lot of difference to our understanding. How do we understand the notion of living in the spirit or being led by the spirit anyway? It matters whether it is Holy Spirit or human spirit?
In two translations there is no distinction between Spirit or spirit. In other words all references have been rendered Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit. Please note I only chose this one verse to illustrate, there are other references scattered through the passage in question. In the other two translations a distinction is made between Spirit and spirit.
I have included the Greek New Testament reading of this verse. While you may not be able to read Greek. Look at the reference to (S)spirit in this verse. The word in Greek is πνεύμα or Πνεῦμα [Pneuma]. Don’t worry about the different ending on the word which signifies the difference in case. If you don’t know what I mean by case don’t worry about it; just relax and enjoy the rest.
ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐκ ἐστὲ ἐν σαρκὶ, ἀλλ ἐν πνεύματι, εἴπερ Πνεῦμα Θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν. εἰ δέ τις Πνεῦμα Χριστοῦ οὐκ ἔχει, οὗτος οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτοῦ. (GNT)
Did you notice that the Greek New Testament distinguishes between spirit and Spirit. (Lower case and Upper Case)
Take time to ponder the significance of this and I will continue the discussion tomorrow.
Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. Charles McCabe
Everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but it’s not always right to give it. Ian