1 Corinthians 1:30
1 Corinthians 1:3030It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God: our righteousness, holiness, and redemption.
JWs read as describing the believer's relationship to Christ as one of "union" — a relational standing rather than the full-orbed mystical participation Reformed and Catholic readings draw from the same text. The verse is held to honour Christ as the medium through whom Jehovah's wisdom, righteousness and ransom reach the Witness, while preserving the JW conviction that Christ is the agent rather than the source of these gifts. The verse is not contested in JW publishing, partly because the NWT's "union with" rendering softens the more direct identity statements Paul is making about Christ.
This is one of the New Testament's densest Christological compressions. Paul says God himself has made Christ Jesus to become to us four things: wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Each of these is a divine attribute or a divine gift, and Paul attributes them to the believer through Christ — Christ is the wisdom of God, our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. On the doorstep, pair this with (where the NWT flattens Lady Wisdom's feminine personification, removing the trail Christian readers since the early church have followed to , 30) and (in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge). Christ is not a delivery channel for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption — he is each of those in person. That is a strong identity statement about Christ's deity, and Paul writes it casually because the Corinthian church already knew it.
The NWT 2013 renders ex autou (literally "from him" or "of him") as "due to him" and en Christo Iesou (literally "in Christ Jesus") as "in union with Christ Jesus". The "in union with" pattern is a consistent NWT habit across the Pauline corpus; it softens the deeper Pauline category of being-in-Christ (mystical union, organic participation) into an external relational arrangement. The doctrinal effect is to weaken the believer's identity-in-Christ language Paul uses elsewhere (e.g., ; 8:1; ). The NWT also renders apolytrosis as "release by ransom" rather than the simpler "redemption" — privileging the JW's specific ransom theology over the broader scriptural category of redemption. Standard translations (BSB, ESV, NASB, KJV, NIV) read "in Christ Jesus" and "redemption" without these expansions.