For the one who has died has been acquitted from his sin. (Romans 6:7 NWT)
A survey of Bibles on Biblehub.com reveals that numerous translations render this verse differently:
New International Version
because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.
New Living Translation
For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.
English Standard Version
For one who has died has been set free from sin.
Berean Study Bible
For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Berean Literal Bible
For the one having died has been freed from sin.
King James Bible
For he that is dead is freed from sin.
New King James Version
For he who has died has been freed from sin.
New American Standard Bible
for the one who has died is freed from sin.
NASB 1995
for he who has died is freed from sin.
NASB 1977
for he who has died is freed from sin.
Amplified Bible
For the person who has died [with Christ] has been freed from [the power of] sin.
Christian Standard Bible
since a person who has died is freed from sin.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
since a person who has died is freed from sin’s claims.
American Standard Version
for he that hath died is justified from sin.
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For whoever is dead has been freed from sin.
Contemporary English Version
We know sin doesn’t have power over dead people.
Douay-Rheims Bible
For he that is dead is justified from sin.
English Revised Version
for he that hath died is justified from sin.
Good News Translation
For when we die, we are set free from the power of sin.
GOD’S WORD® Translation
The person who has died has been freed from sin.
International Standard Version
For the person who has died has been freed from sin.
Literal Standard Version
for he who has died has been set free from sin.
NET Bible
(For someone who has died has been freed from sin.)
New Heart English Bible
For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Weymouth New Testament
for he who has paid the penalty of death stands absolved from his sin.
World English Bible
For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Young’s Literal Translation
for he who hath died hath been set free from the sin.
Notice that almost all other Bibles, with the exception of the American Standard, Douay Rheims, English Revised and Weymouth New Testament, say freed from rather than acquitted or absolved from or his sin. Why?
Regarding this verse the NICNT comments:
This verse explains [Cf. the Gk. γάρ.] the connection between death (“crucified with Christ”) and freedom from sin (“no longer serve sin”) that is the main point of Rom_6:6. Precisely how it does so is, however, debated. On one view, “he who dies” is “the one who has died [with Christ]” and “has been justified” [Gk. δεδικαίωται.] has its usual Pauline sense, “acquit from the penalty of sin.” On this, the “theological” interpretation, Paul is pointing to justification through participation in Christ’s death as the basis for the freedom from sin enjoyed by the believer. But there are difficulties in taking “justify” in this sense here. Paul does not connect our dying with our justification anywhere else. To avoid this problem, it has been suggested that “the one who dies” is Christ, who through his death secured justification for himself and others. But this introduces a shift in subject for which the context has not prepared us. For these reasons, it is likely that “justified from sin” means “set free from [the power of] sin. “The one who dies” could still refer to “the one who has died with Christ,” but this would make Rom_6:7 virtually repeat Rom_6:6. It is more likely, then, that Paul is citing a general maxim, to the effect that “death severs the hold of sin on a person.” Paul’s readers may have been familiar with similar sayings, known to us from the rabbinic writings. His purpose, then, is not to prove Rom_6:6 but to illustrate his theological point by reference to a general truth. (New International Commentary on the New Testament)
R.C.H. Lenski comments:
“Paul applies this effect of physical death on a man’s relation to sin’s power to the ethical death we die at baptism and to its equal effect on our relation to sin’s power. R.C.H Lenski.
Hence, Paul is not talking of our guilt of sin but of sin’s power to make us sin. That power of sin over us ends automatically with a man’s physical death. Paul expresses a similar thought in chapter 7 verse two when he discusses how a woman, at the death of her husband, is freed from his law. (Ro. 7:2)