It also denotes judgment, i.e., the process of judging; and in forty-one passages of the New Testament the translators so rendered it. But in Matt, xxiii. 33; Mark in. 29; and John v. 29, they deliberately substituted the word "damnation" for "judgment." With what object? Plainly, to add emphasis to their preconceived idea of an endless hell. But does this commend itself as being a fair and consistent way of dealing with Scripture?
Why,—except that it was too utterly foolish,—not have rendered the following passages as they did the three just instanced?
"Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye … pass over damnation ([Greek: krisis]) and the love of God" (Luke xi. 42).
"As I hear, I judge, and My damnation ([Greek: krisis]) is just" (John v. 30).
"So opened He not His mouth; in His humiliation His damnation ([Greek: krisis])_ was taken away" (Acts viii. 32, 33).
Seeing that the Greek word is the same in every one of these passages, is it not very wrong to give it an improper and grossly exaggerated significance in three texts, while translating it correctly in forty-one other instances?
Again, it is suggestive that the revisers of the New Testament, in Matt, xxiii. 33 and John v. 29, have flung away the word "damnation," and in its place put "judgment" as the proper rendering of [Greek: krisis]. If the translators of the Authorized Version had done this, one of the supports of an ancient error would have been knocked down.
(d) The word (krinein).
The word denotes—to judge; and eighty-one times in the New Testament the translators so rendered it. And yet in regard to the same Greek word which occurs in 2 Thess. ii. 12, they made the translation run:—"That they all might be damned who believed not the truth."
But why not have been consistent? Why not have rendered 1 Cor. vi. 2, in this way; since in both passages the verb [Greek: krinein] is the same,—"Do ye not know that the saints shall damn the world? And if the world shall be damned by you, are ye unworthy to damn the smallest matters?"