that, because & since

The First Letter of John 3:2 (NABRE) is a fascinating verse that hints at our future relationship with God in the statement: “We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” This is an especially interesting phrase because the New Testament contains relatively few hints about the future of the Church and the end times.

This also is one case where the translation of a conjunction is extremely important to the meaning. In the original Greek text, the conjunction translated as “for” is ὅτι (hoti), a word that typically means such things as “that,” “because,” or “since.” With those meanings, there’s a clear causal implication in the text that we will be like God explicitly because we will see God as he is. The choice to translate the conjunction as “for” in both the Revised Standard Version  and the New American Bible softens this meaning and connection. Some other translations soften it even further.

From the Greek text, the key idea is clearly that seeing God as he is is the primary contributing factor in our becoming like God. This notion contains important implications not just for the end times but for us today. Does it likewise hold true that the more we come to know and see of God even now, the more we come to resemble him? If this is something that works by degrees, the the more we can see of God, the holier we will be.

you also may like our study of Saul, David & Solomon (digital only)
The United Kingdom of Israel: Saul, David & Solomon Foreshadow Christ the King, a 28-lesson Catholic Bible study with an imprimatur, provides an in-depth look at the First and Second Books of Samuel to learn how the lives of the monarchs Saul, David, and Solomon point ahead to the kingdom of heaven. The unified reign of King David is seen as a foreshadowing or type of the unity that is one of the four marks of the Church—the kingdom of God—established by Jesus Christ. Click here to view a sample of the first lesson.

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