Terry writes that Paul said, "God forbid!"
No, Terry, he did not say, "God
forbid!" This is a terrible translation of Paul's words, and one which
completely robs us of his intent. What Paul said was me (pronounced:
may) genoito, which if translated literally is something on
the order of "may it not become" or "may it never be." Before
explaining this further, let me say that there is not one thing in the
Greek to denote the idea of deity in this phrase. It is just simply not
there. What the translators realized concerning Paul's intent is that
his words were combining to forge a most emphatic negation; hence they
came up with what they considered to be the most emphatic way
of saying "Don't do this!" -- in other words, "God forbid!" But the
thing they missed, and the thing we will never get to in their
translation, is that the root meaning of Paul's words do in fact convey
a negation even stronger than "God forbid." Let me explain.
The word me in Greek means
"not" or "no" or "never"; it serves as a negation of whatever it
modifies. The word genoito is an optative verb (which is a
verb that conveys a wish or desire) from the word ginomai,
which means "to become" -- hence the literal translation "may it not
become" (with the "may" conveying the wish aspect of the optative) or
"may it never be." But here is what is so powerful about Paul's intent:
the root of this word genoito or ginomai is ge,
which means "dust" or "dirt" -- ges is the Greek word for
earth, literally the place made of dust. The word ginomai,
when we take into consideration its root meaning, means that which is
"from the dust," which conveys the idea of transformation; in other
words it "becomes" something other, something greater.
And so the question is, What is the
negation of that which comes from dust and becomes something greater?
Well, it is the turning of that which is already greater back into
dust. When Paul says me genoito, he is saying, "Don't do this,
because it will turn you into dust!" In other words, it will kill you!
And when he rhetorically asks of those who have been given life in
Christ, if they should continue on in sin, he answers this question
with a most emphatic "No!" And why is that? Because it would destroy
them -- turn them into dust.
Keep in mind that in the back of
Paul's mind was the story of Adam, the man made from dust, who had been
given life by the breath of God. His was to become! to grow and mature
in relationship with his Creator. But what did Adam do? He sinned. And
what did his sin produce? You've got it: death -- back to dust. Are you
starting to get the picture?
Stick with now me for a minute. Our
word "hell" has this same root in the Greek. The Greek word for hell is
geenna; it is pronounced gehenna. Gehenna was a valley just
south and west of the Temple mount, which at one time belonged to a
Hebrew man named Hinnom. Scholars and commentators want to
tell us that gehenna literally means "the valley of Hinnom."
I will dispute their assertion below. What we can agree on is that
"gehenna" at the time of the penning of the NT was a city dump. All of
Jerusalem's trash went to this place -- and there it was burned. It is
said that the fire never went out at gehenna. It is also said that
gehenna was where the
corpses of Jerusalem's animals -- and its criminals -- were burned.
(Friberg)
Think about it: If one is content to let the root of this
word "gehenna" speak for itself, then gehenna is literally the ground
or the dirt of Hinnom (it just happened to be a "valley"). Add to this
the fiery picture of that place in the minds of NT Jews and one begins
to get an image of the hellishness of hell. "Hell" is the place where
that which is dead turns into dust; it is that place where what was
once alive and in a state of becoming, stops being human. What is
death? Death is turning to dust, the ultimate cessation of being. I am
not going to argue here about the duration of this cessation, but I do
want to tell you that there is nothing scarier to the human mind than
death (Heb 2.15). Death is the ultimate negation of being; in its final
state, it is nothingness. Do you realize that we cannot even imagine
what nothing is like? So horrible is death that we cannot even begin to
fathom it.
Do you want to know where the early church got its idea
that Christ "descended into hell" (see, e.g., the Athanasian Creed and
later versions of the Apostles Creed)? Look with me at Ephesians
4.8-10: "Therefore He says: 'When He ascended on high, He led captivity
captive, And gave gifts to men.' (Now this, 'He ascended' -- what does
it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the
earth? He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the
heavens, that He might fill all things.)" This passage says that Christ
descended into "the lower parts of the 'place made of dust.'" That's
right; in the context of this passage, our early brothers and sisters
considered ges (translated above as "earth") to be a very
specific reference to hell, the place where death turns to dust.
"Hell," the place where death turns to dust: Am I out of
line in saying this? I do not think so. Another of our Creeds -- in
fact, the earliest of our Creeds -- interprets verse 9 as saying "He
descended into death" (see the early versions of the Apostles Creed).
Yes, the early church considered ges, with its root meaning
of "dust," to be synonymous in the context of this passage with both
hell and death. Indeed, in order to take captivity captive, it was
understood that Christ had to descend into hell and destroy that which
was turning humans to dust; that is death.
And so, Terry, when you come across those occasions when
Paul wants to be really emphatic, don't read "God forbid!" -- that just
doesn't cut it. Instead, if you want to get to Paul's intent, and if
you want to do it in a way that holds true to the text, say something
like, "Hell no!" As for the rest of us, well, we'll
all know what you mean.
Bill
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