Trivial thoughts...

After studying Japanese for one semester, I was trying out reading my Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible this afternoon (just to relax), which is the version most Japanese Evangelicals used. (I got my copy during my trip to Japan, which is a Gideon NT 'half-Bible'). Anyway, with my background in Chinese, I was able to make some partial sense of some of the verses, through I could neither read most of the words in the verses nor the tenses *yet*. Interesting though... Especially reading the book of Romans. Here's a look at Rom. 8:30 & 35.

神はあらかじめ定めた人々をさらに召し、召した人々をさらに義と認め、義と認めた人々にはさら栄光をお与えになりました。（ローマ８：３０）

私たちをキリストの愛から引き難すのはだれですか。患難ですか、苦しみですか、迫害ですか、飢えですか、裸ですか、危險ですか、剣ですか。（ローマ８：３５）

And here are the verses in English (ESV):

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those who he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (Rom. 8:30)

Who shall seperate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Rom. 8:35)

I would very much like to go into the whole concept of the doctrine of election being a source of confort for the saints, but that will have to wait. For now, I would just like to compare the different language versions as an exercise.

Let's look at Rom. 8:30.

神はあらかじめ定めた人々をさらに召し、召した人々をさらに義と認め、義と認めた人々にはさら栄光をお与えになりました。（ローマ８：３０）

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those who he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified (Rom. 8:30)

The first character 神 (kami) refers to God. は is here saying that God at least is ... I can't make up the meaning of the following words. However, I do see the character 定 there, which is used as in 定食 (teishoku) or set meal, and thus the character means something like set. Adding the meaning of the character in Chinese gives the idea that something is already set and decided before, and thus could legitimately be inferred to be referring to the doctrine of predestination. In 人々, the first character refers to people and the second is sortof repeating the concept of the first word, thus it probably means all of the people, thus showing us that the act of what God has done which is stated in the later part of the verse applies to ALL which God has predestined (first part), probably showing the unbreakable 'golden chain' of redemption in Rom. 8:30 itself, especially since it is repeated many times throughout the verse. Next, we see the character 召, which in Chinese refers to a call which is active as in a call which draws and compels the listerner to obey. This probably refers to the calling of God which actively works in bringing people to Christ. It is also used in the same verse in the Chinese Bible (和合本） to refer to the calling of God of His elect unto salvation.

The characters 義と認め is next seen, which probably is the Japanese words meaning justified. This can also be seen in the character 義, which in Chinese means righteousness. In fact, the term justification in Chinese is 称义 (义 is 義 in simplified form) or to be counted righteous (imputed righteousness).

The last noun seen there is shown in the characters 栄光 which in Chinese means (literally) the 'light of glory'; i.e. glory, glorified. This thus fits in nicely with the meaning of the corresponding verb in English.

Last of all, we can see the verb form modifying all the nouns in the characters なりました (nari mashita). The 'mashita' form indicates a past tense, thus showing that all these actions happened in the past, so to speak. (It is considered as done already in Christ, thus the past tense) This of course is a strong proof for the action of predestination and election happening before the beginning of the world (contra Open theism for example) and since it is an unbreakable chain, it falsifies Remonstrant Arminianism which denies the eternal persevererance of the saints (i.e. Dan Corner of so-called 'Evangelical Outreach')

OK, let's move on to Rom. 8:35.

私たちをキリストの愛から引き難すのはだれですか。患難ですか、苦しみですか、迫害ですか、飢えですか、裸ですか、危險ですか、剣ですか。（ローマ８：３５）

Who shall seperate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? (Rom. 8:35)

The first three characters 私たち (watashi tachi) means we. を is a phrase particle here. キリスト (kirisuto) = Christ, の = (noun after) belonging to (noun before), 愛 (ai) = love, から (kara) = from; because. Thus, the first part of the sentence is literally translated something like "we, because of Christ's love for us". I don't know what 引き難 exactly means, but from Chinese, it seems to mean something like caused or lured (departing) (引) difficulty (難). だれ (da-re) = who?, used to demark a 'who' question, which is confirmed by the characters ですか. 患難 in its Chinese (simplied) form (患难） means having severe troubles or problems caused by something like a disaster, which does carries the idea of tribulation well. ですか shows that a question is being asked. From the other characters in this verse, from my knowledge of Chinese characters, I can sortof understand it. So, therefore, the verse translated literally from the Shinkaiyaku would read something like this, I think:

We, because of Christ's love for us, who (then) can create a difficult departure between (Christ's love and us)? Severe suffering? Hardship? Persecution? Hunger? Nakedness? Danger? Sword?

OK, I know my translation is bad, but anyway these are just trivial thoughts.