Which is more natural: イエス様の救う恵み or 救うイエス様の恵み?

Question

I'm trying to translate "Jesus's saving grace". Translating directly from English, the phrase that comes to mind is:

イエス様の救っている恵み

But I get the feeling that maybe it's more natural and articulate to put the verb first and the noun modifier second:

救っているイエス様の恵み

In English, this sort of ordering would amount to "saving Jesus's grace", which is not what's intended, but maybe it's more natural and people would understand what it really means.

So I almost asked this question to see which of those two would be more natural, but now I'm also starting to think that maybe instead of using 救っている, I should use 救う. Is this so? What's the most natural, articulate way to say this? Thanks!

Answer 1

As a Christian who worked at a Japanese church, I can say that イエス様の救う恵み and 救うイエス様の恵み are both fine, although the latter is somewhat ambiguous in parsing, i.e., it could be parsed as either

• 救う(イエス様の恵み)　→　Jesus' grace that saves.
  OR
• (救うイエス様)の恵み　→　The grace of Jesus, who saves.

To disambiguate it, you could add in a その

• 救うそのイエス様の恵み

Either way, the phrase beginning with 救う sounds more refined/formal to my ear. And of course, if you're saying this in a more familiar setting (like to other Christians), you can leave off 様 completely.

And not to dump on @Tim's answer, but I have never heard any Japanese Christian use 神の加護. Sounds way too dictionary and impersonal.

Answer 2

After some research about this topic, I've found that "(神の)救いの恵み" is very frequently used by Japanese Christians. So this seems to be the exact phrase you need.

• 旧約新約聖書講解―神の救いの恵みを学ぶための
• 救いの恵みと祝福
• 救いの恵みに今応答しよう
• 神の救いの恵み

• 亀戸教会 - 牧師より

  主 イエスの救いの恵み に応答する第一歩は、礼拝に参加すること、祈ること、聖書を読むことです。礼拝は祈りです。キリストの御名を通して、あなたの祈りが神さまに聞かれています。

And looks like "saving grace" is used by some theologians as a strictly defined technical term, as an antonym of "common grace." (English WP and Japanese WP). In that case, "救いの恩寵" or "救済的恩寵" is the corresponding term of "saving grace". But I don't know whether this term is widely recognized by ordinary Japanese Christians.

And as for the difference between 恵み and 恩寵【おんちょう】, Japanese Wikipedia says that the choice of words depends on the communions.

「神の恵み」は日本聖書協会の口語訳聖書・新共同訳聖書、他にも新改訳聖書などで一般的な表記であるが、正教会では恩寵（おんちょう）が一般的表記である。カトリック教会では、かつては聖寵（せいちょう）と訳され、例えば伝統的な祈祷文「アヴェ・マリア」の文語訳（天使祝詞）では「めでたし聖寵･･･」と唱えられていた。いまは「恩寵」と表記される例も稀にあるが、カトリック教会のカテキズムや公式文書等では「恵み」「神の恵み」「恩恵」と表記されている。また、プロテスタントにも「恩寵」の語彙を用いるものがある。

And you may also have to change the word choice depending on the intended audience. I can say 恵み is recognized by almost all native speakers (not to say the precise definition is understood). I, as a non-Christian, feel 恩寵 is very difficult.

Answer 3

You're a little mixed up about the English grammar and its equivalence in Japanese; "saving" is not present progressive, but a participle adjective.

イエス様の救い would be enough I think, though you could make it "fancier" if you like.

Answer 4

For an expression like this (a kind of 専門用語）there is likely to be a commonly used phrase you won't be able to come up with from scratch, and the majority of people have to look it up.

I found this on the internet:

saving grace of God | 神の加護

I expect you could use it for Jesus too.