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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