Linguistic Gap Analysis

Some Romans concepts have no single Mandarin word that is both natural and doctrinally safe; they require either an established compound, an explanatory note, or careful avoidance of a homonymous borrowed term.

Terms requiring compound phrases with mandatory qualification

• Incarnation (道成肉身 — “the Word/Dao became flesh”): the compound itself is doctrinally sound and historically established, but 道 (dào) is also the central term of Daoist metaphysics for an impersonal cosmic principle. Every occurrence needs a note clarifying this is the personal, eternal divine Word, not an impersonal Way.
• Sanctification (成圣): identical in form to the Neo-Confucian technical term for self-cultivation into sagehood. Cannot be used without a distinguishing note the first several times it appears in a curriculum.
• Imputed righteousness (算为义 — “reckoned as righteous”): the forensic “reckoned” sense has no natural single-word equivalent and must never be shortened to 义 alone, which would collapse into the ambiguous, Confucian-adjacent term for righteousness.

Terms requiring transliteration rather than translation

• Christ (基督): transliterated from “Christos” rather than translated, since no Mandarin word carries the specific Jewish messianic-fulfillment sense without importing either generic-savior connotations or a direct collision with 弥勒 (Maitreya).
• Abba (阿爸): the Aramaic term of intimacy in Romans 8:15 is kept as a transliteration rather than translated to the more formal 父, because the informal filial closeness Paul is pointing to would otherwise be lost.

Gap-filling strategy

Where an existing CUV-established compound already carries some risk of misreading (道成肉身, 成圣), this Language Package prefers keeping the established term and adding an explanatory note over inventing a novel, unfamiliar coinage — familiarity to existing Chinese Christian readers outweighs the cost of needing a clarifying note.