Paragraph 15:22–25
Jesus spoke about those who hated and rejected him. He said that their hate fulfilled a text in the Old Testament.
15:22a
If I had not come and spoken to them: In this clause, the word If introduces a situation that was not true. Jesus did come and speak to them. This clause imagines what would have happened if a false situation was true. Consider how it is natural in your language to suggest a possibility that is known to not have happened. For example:
Suppose I had never come and spoken to them
In some languages it is more natural to use a true statement. For example:
Because I came and spoke to them they are guilty of sin
them: This word refers to the Jews of Jesus’ day who refused to believe in him.
15:22b
they would not be guilty of sin: This clause indicates that these people would not be responsible or deserve blame for their sin if Jesus had not come. They would not have known the truth and so would not deserve punishment for not believing and obeying it.
This clause refers to something that was not the situation. If the condition in 15:22a had been fulfilled, then this would have been true. But the condition was not fulfilled, and so this clause is not true either. Christ did come and tell the people God’s message. The people heard the truth and refused it. They were now responsible for their choice to do wrong and became guilty of sin. Here are other ways to translate this clause:
they would not be responsible for their sin
-or-
⌊God⌋ would not have ⌊considered⌋ them to be responsible for their sin.
In some languages it may be natural to translate this as a positive statement. If this is so in your language, you should avoid indicating that these people would have been sinless. They would not have been innocent, but because they did not know, they would not deserve blame or punishment. For example:
they would have been blameless (New Jerusalem Bible)
General Comment on 15:22 a, b
In some languages it may be natural to reverse the order of 15:22a, b. For example:
22b They would not have been guilty of sin 22a if I had not come and spoken to them (Good News Translation)
15:22c
Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin: The people could not excuse their sin by saying that they did not know the truth. Jesus had brought them the truth and they had rejected it. In some languages it may be natural to start a new sentence here. For example:
But now they have no excuse for their sin. (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. (NET Bible)
-or-
But now they are fully responsible for the wrong they did.
Now, however: This phrase is short for “but now, because I have come and spoken to them.” The word however indicates a contrast with a situation in which Jesus did not come and speak to them. Yet at that time (Now), he had come and spoken, so the other situation no longer existed. Here are other ways to indicate this contrast and change of situation:
but the way things are, they no longer have any excuse for their sin
-or-
However, because I did come and speak to them
they have no excuse for their sin: In this context an excuse is a reason that is given for a sin to avoid punishment. If Jesus had not spoken to them, they would have had an excuse because they did not know his teaching about sin. But because Jesus spoke to them, they did not have any excuse. For example:
Now they cannot say, “We did not know that what we did was sin” (see TH)
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
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.