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Text and Translation
Greek Text
1:5. Καὶ αὕτη ἔστιν ἡ ἀγγελία ἣν ἀκηκόαμεν ἀπʼ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀναγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν, ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς φῶς ἐστι, καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία.
1:6. ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατῶμεν, ψευδόμεθα, καὶ οὐ ποιοῦμεν τὴν ἀλήθειαν·
1:7. ἐὰν δὲ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατῶμεν, ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί, κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ ἀλλήλων, καὶ τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας.
1:8. ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔχομεν, ἑαυτοὺς πλανῶμεν, καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν.
1:9. ἐὰν ὁμολογῶμεν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, πιστός ἐστι καὶ δίκαιος ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας, καὶ καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας.
1:10. ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι οὐχ ἡμαρτήκαμεν, ψεύστην ποιοῦμεν αὐτὸν, καὶ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν.
English Translation
1:5. And this is the message that we have heard from him and we proclaim that God is light and darkness is not in him at all.
1:6. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
1:7. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
1:8. If we say, “we do not have sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
1:9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1:10. If we say “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar and his word is not in us.
Graphical Grammar
Weighty Words
ἡμαρτήκαμεν – You might have thought this was a pluperfect because of the ήκα, but it’s not. It’s just a plain old perfect. What clues might there be?
Quick clues that it’s a normal perfect (not pluperfect):
| Form | Perfect indicative | Pluperfect indicative |
|---|---|---|
| 1pl active | ἡμαρτήκαμεν | ἡμαρτήκειμεν |
| Augment | none (reduplication ἡ-) | temporal augment on the stem (ἠμαρτ-) |
| Tense Formative | κα | κει |
| Ending | -μεν (primary) | -μεν (secondary) |
Greek perfects of μι-verbs and many others often keep a κ in the stem (ἁμαρτ- + -κα-), and the 1pl ending is -μεν with no augment. Pluperfects always take a temporal augment (ἠ-) and secondary endings.
But why don’t you see the augment in the pluperfect in the table? The pluperfect as a past-tense version of the perfect, is formed by adding an augment to the perfect stem. The perfect stem is already lengthened from the reduplication (ἡμαρτ). When a stem already begins with a long vowel (like η-), adding another augment does not change it further. Thus, the augment in the pluperfect “merges” into the existing long vowel, leaving it unchanged. Perfect Stem (ἡμαρτ-) + Augment → Resulting Stem (ἡμαρτ-).
So ἡμαρτήκαμεν = perfect (“we have sinned” / “we stand guilty of sin”). ἡμαρτήκειμεν would be pluperfect (“we had sinned”). The key clue here that this is a perfect is, thus, the tense formative. Many professors would teach the endings as -αμεν and -ειμεν, to keep the thematic vowel connected. That’s fine, remember the key is recognizing the patterns. A helpful rule is that when forms look similar, the ending-plus-vowel cluster is often decisive—provided you read it together with the tense formative. Greek does not leave tense to guesswork; it distributes the signal across multiple features.
Syntax Sense
ὅτι recitativum — vv. 6, 8, and 10.
In verses 6, 8, and 10, we see this repeated phrase: εἴπωμεν ὅτι. Why is the ὅτι not translated as “that”? This is what grammarians call an “ὅτι recitativum.” Don’t let the dense title intimidate you. All this means is that the ὅτι is functioning to introduce direct speech or a direct quotation. It is the Greek equivalent of quotation marks. In fact, you could just remember it as “quotation ὅτι.” When ὅτι functions this way, it is not behaving as a subordinating conjunction meaning “that” or “because.”
The bigger question is how can you tell when reading the Greek whether this is a quotation mark or a coordinating conjunction. The answer to that does not lie in curious grammatical names, but in the context. Typically, when ὅτι follows verbs of saying, thinking, or perceiving (e.g., λέγω, εἶπον), the author is introducing a quotation. Key indicators for identifying ὅτι recitativum include the following.
- Presence of Quotation: The clause following ὅτι is a direct statement, question, or command in the first or second person, rather than reported indirect speech. I.e., the ὅτι often appears where quotation marks would be used in English, often after a comma or colon in modern translations.
- Verb Context: It typically follows verbs of perception, speech, or cognition such as λέγει (he/she says), εἶπε (he/she said), ἐρωτάω (I ask), or οἶδα (I know).
- Distinction from Causal: The ὅτι is not explaining the reason for an action but is instead directly reporting the words spoken.
In verse 8, should ἑαυτοὺς be rendered themselves or ourselves?
ἑαυτούς is the reflexive pronoun for the 3rd person (himself, herself, itself, themselves). When the subject of the clause is 1st or 2nd person, Greek still uses the 3rd-person reflexive (ἑαυτόν / ἑαυτούς / ἑαυτάς) rather than a 1st/2nd-person form. There simply isn’t a separate “ourselves/yourselves” reflexive in earlier Koine. Here in 1 John 1:8 (and everywhere else in the NT when “we” or “you” do something to “ourselves/yourselves”), the Greek must use ἑαυτούς even though the logical referent is 1st person plural.
Thus, whether it is rendered themselves or ourselves here (or anywhere) is a purely contextual question. You will see the same phenomenon in:
- Mark 9:50 – “salt yourselves” (ἑαυτοὺς)
- Luke 11:4 – “we ourselves forgive” (καὶ γὰρ αὐτοὶ ἀφίομεν) — note the intensive αὐτοί is added for clarity.
To put it more concretely, context alone tells you it’s “ourselves.” The grammar forces the 3rd-person reflexive.
In verse 9, where did the “our” come from; it does not seem to appear in the Greek?
Greek often omits possessive pronouns when possession is clear from context. Here, the dative ἡμῖν already identifies the possessor, so τὰς ἁμαρτίας naturally refers to our sins (Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 215–16). Smyth notes the same idiom more generally: “The article often takes the place of an unemphatic possessive pronoun when there is no doubt as to the possessor” (§1121).
But “our” is not literally there. If we want a literal translation, how do we justify it? Aren’t we being interpretive? These are important questions for a careful reader who cares about accuracy in translation. Let me first allay your fears. The grammar does not add possession here; it does not fabricate it out of thin air. Greek does not need the pronoun to show possession. Possession is built into the structure of the sentence. To show that possession in English, we have to use the pronoun. We are not being interpretive; English requires us to make explicit what the Greek here leaves implicit.
Now, let’s address the question of literalness. The problem with that concept is it is not meaningful in real translation work the way that people who commonly say it mean. Why? Languages are not like computer programs that have a one-to-one correspondence. It is not like Greek is a cypher of English. The languages do things differently. So, you can be literal—and the better concept is non-interpretive—but that does not mean each Greek word is going to map to each English word. If you tried to stay ultra-literal here, you’d get the awkward: “…to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That sounds like God is forgiving the sins in general, not our own — which changes the meaning. This does not mean your translation is dynamically equivalent. It just means you have to re-think what it means to have a “literal” translation.
Why do we have “to forgive” and “to cleanse,” rather than the English subjunctive sounding “may forgive” and “may cleanse”?
ἵνα + subjunctive here is not a simple purpose clause (“so that he may…”). It is the classic ἵνα + subjunctive of result / consequence after an adjective like πιστός ἐστι καὶ δίκαιος (Wallace p. 471-472; Smyth §2196). The English idiom for this construction is “to + infinitive.”
Demystifying the Discourse
John structures this section around a series of conditional statements that expose claims people might make about themselves and then test those claims against the reality of God’s character. Each ἐὰν clause presents a hypothetical assertion; each response clarifies whether that claim aligns with truth or self-deception. The repetition is not redundancy—it is a rhetorical strategy that presses the reader to examine not isolated statements, but patterns of thinking. By the time the section ends, the reader has been moved from abstract claims about sin to concrete assurance grounded in God’s faithfulness and justice.
Your turn!
Now that we are rounding out chapter 1, let’s step above the syntax level and look at some discourse features.
- What effect on the discourse would there be if ὅτι were translated as “that” or “because”? Feel free to look back at verses 1-4 or forward to the beginning of chapter 2 if it helps you to consider it.
- Taking chapter 1 as a whole, what effect do the repeated ἐὰν clauses have on the flow of the discourse? How do all the discourse features in these 10 verses work together to communicate John’s opening message? It may help to examine this chapter by looking at the diagrams. Do those provide any insights?
- After working through these discourse questions, translate the passage yourself.
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Return to TBWM – I John
See complete translation of I John here.