We [now] refer to the Greek word kolasin, translated "punishments" in verse 46. This word has not in it the remotest idea of torment. Its primary signifisation is to cut off or prune or lop off, as in the pruning of trees, and a secondary meaning is to restrain. The wicked will be everlastingly restrained, cut off from life in the second death. Illustrations of the use of kolasin can easily be had from Greek classical writings. The Greek word for "torment" is basinos, a word totally unrelated to the word kolasin.
Kolasin, the word used in Matthew 25: 46, occurs in but one other place in the Bible—viz., 1 John 4: 18, where it is improperly rendered "torment" in the common version; whereas it should read: "Fear hath restraint." Those who possess a copy of Young's Analytical Concordance will see from it (page 995) that the definition of the word kolasin is "pruning, restraining, restraint." And the author of the "Emphatic Diaglott," after translating kolasin in Matthew 20: 46 by the words "cutting off," says in a footnote: "The common version and many modern ones render kolasin aionios 'everlasting punishment,' conveying the idea, as generally interpreted, of basinos, torment, Kolasin in its various forms occurs in only three other places in the New Testament: Acts 4: 21; 2 Peter 2: 9; 1 John 4: 18. It is derived from kolazoo, which signifies (1) to cut off, as lopping off branches of trees; to prune. (2) To restrain, to repress. The Greeks write: 'The charioteer restrains [kalazei] his fiery steeds.' (3) To chastise, to punish. To cut off an individual from life or from society, or even to restrain, is esteemed as a punishment. Hence has arisen this third or metaphorical use of the word. The primary signification has been adopted [in the 'Diaglott'] because it agrees better with the second member of the sentence, thus preserving the force and beauty of the antithesis. The righteous go to life; the wicked, to the cutting off from life—death." (2 Thess. 1:9.)
Now consider carefully the text and not the antithesis, the contrast shown between the reward of the sheep and the reward of the goats, which the correct idea of kolasin gives. The one class goes into everlasting life, while the other is everlastingly cut off from life, forever restrained in death. And this exactly agrees with what the Scriptures everywhere else declare concerning the wages or penalty of willful sin.
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