Second Timothy 4:1  Let us Translate Correctly

 

Koot van Wyk (Dlitt et Phil; Thd)

 

Text:

Διαμαρτύρομαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ μέλλοντος κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, καὶ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ·

(http://www.nestle-aland.com/en/read-na28-online/text/bibeltext/lesen/stelle/65/40001/49999/)

 

Translation

I warn/charge before God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the One Being about to Judge the living and the dead and His appearance and His kingdom.

 

Text:

Διαμαρτύρομαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ μέλλοντος κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, καta τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ·

 

Translation

I warn/charge before God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the One Being about to Judge the living and the dead according to His appearance and His kingdom.

 

Text:

Διαμαρτύρομαι ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ μέλλοντος κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, καὶ καta τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ·

 

Translation

I warn/charge before God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the One Being about to Judge the living and the dead and according to His appearance and His kingdom.

 

Voca:

2 Timothy 4:1  διαμαρτύρομαι I testify [warn/adjure/charge*] ούν then ενώπιον in the presence of του θεού God και and του of the κυρίου Lord Ιησού Jesus χριστού Christ, του of the one μέλλοντος being about [think of doing/intend**] κρίνειν to judge ζώντας [the] living και and νεκρούς [the] dead, κατά according to την επιφάνειαν αυτού His appearance και and την βασιλείαν αυτού His kingdom

 

*Sakae Kubo, A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament page 214.

**Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon page 496.

 

Logical Considerations influencing the semantics

If the dead will be judged at the Second Coming and the living as well, and the Resurrection takes place at the Second Coming with the living and raised dead arriving at Christ at the same time, as Paul also said, then this Judgment cannot be at the Second Coming. No faithful one is dead any longer.

Yet the word Judge is used at the Second Coming = His appearance (4:8) but that “Righteous” Judge is “verdict bringing”. It is bringing reward or bad news. Paul said in 4:8 that the crown is “laid aside” until the Second Coming when the Judge, Who must have finished His Investigative Judgment with the House of God to establish who will be saved, will receive their crowns then as reward.

Therefore, at the Second Coming of Christ there will no longer be a Judgment Hall that all will have to appear before a jury and judges for entry into heaven.

The Investigative Judgment is from 1844 [calculating a year-day principle for the 2300 days in Daniel 8:14 starting it the same year as the 490 year prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27, namely in 457 BCE].

The surprise element here is that Thomas Aquinas [Catholic], Martin Luther, John Calvin, George Ioye, Hugo Grotius, Henry Hammond et al. all accepted the year-day principle in Daniel 9:24-27 starting in 457 BCE (Ezra) to date Christ’s crucifixion but they then “dumped” the year-day principle inconsistently with their exegetical method and said that 2300 days are literal. It is this inconsistency in method that led to the origin of Seventh-day Adventist interpretation.

 

KJV with corrections

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall judge [is about to judge/ think to judge] the quick and the dead at [and/according to/and according to] His appearing and His kingdom

 

Korean Translation

It appears that the Korean translation is saying “by His appearance”. The preposition “by” could have been there only if the Dative form was used but it is the Accusative. F. Delitzsch in his Hebrew translation of the New Testament also made an error by translating the Hebrew here with his preposition be- meaning “in/through/by”. It is the waw copulative that he was supposed to have used not the preposition be-. The Korean is thus also not correct.

 

B. Weiss translation 1906 page 109 [fuse his notes to his translation to modify]

“I testify/charge in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, both of his appearance and of his kingdom.”

Weiss translated very well here.


Old Latin translation according to Sabbatier page 890.

Testificor coram Deo et Christo Iesu, qui judicaturus est vivos et mortuos et adventum ejus et regnum ejus.

Old Latin translation

I testify in the presence of God and Christ Jesus who is to judge the living, and the dead and His Advent and His reign.

 

Vulgate of Jerome

Testificor coram Deo et Jesu Christo, qui judicaturus est vivos et mortuos et per adventum ipsius et regnum ejus

 

Vulgate translation

I testify in the presence of God and Jesus Christ who is to judge the living, and the dead also through the same Advent and His reign.

 

Exegesis:

Paul had three phases in mind here for Christ functioning (1) as a Judge; (2) Appearing at the Second Coming; (3) King of His kingdom. These are in chronological order. This means that judgment is done when Christ comes at the Second Coming and Paul understood that as well.

In 4:8 one cannot lay aside a crown in keeping for Paul’s reward if judgment did not start yet or the crown is not allocated to Paul until the Second Coming.

If the crown is laid aside with Paul completing his process of sanctification (4:7), it is still not given him but only at the Second Coming.

If souls go to heaven at death, why would Paul sit crownless in heaven to receive his crown at the Second Coming!

 

H. Meyer’s translation (1884) page 260.

The words “then I” were used by some authorities but others left it out. “Of the Lord” were also left out by some manuscripts.

Most manuscripts used “to judge” but there is a minority reading of the aorist of “judge” to mean “judged” which is a one event past action. This was found in Manuscripts F and G, several cursives and Theodoret and Theophilus. “But there is not sufficient authority for it here”.

Some manuscripts read “according to” and others read “and”. The famous manuscripts read “and” instead of “according to”.

The dative translation “[by] His appearance” as one finds with the Korean and with F. Delitzsch in his Hebrew New Testament, is also found in one case, with John Chrysostom.

Reiche and others all admitted the difficulty of the reading καὶ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν especially the use of the copulative καὶ = “and”.

That is the reason that they wanted to “emend” or “correct” the text with extra words inserted.

As Seventh-day Adventists we object against changing the original reading just because it looks for us in the 21st century difficult to understand.

 

Ellen White on this verse SDABC vol. 7-A

“No one is to put truth to the torture by cheap imaginings, by putting a forced, mystical construction upon the Word.”

“There is among young men a burning desire to get hold of something new, even though it be of the cheapest quality”.