In Matthew xiii. 39, the passage, according to the Greek is: "The
harvest is the end of the aion (age);" and in 2 Tim. iv. 10: "Demas hath
forsaken me, having loved the present aion (age)."
The translators have rendered these passages: "The harvest is the end of
the world." "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world."
In these cases, it will be seen that they have rightly excluded the idea
of unendingness from the word [Greek: aion]. But why? we ask. If it was
right to include it in Mark iii. 29, it was wrong to exclude it in the
two last-named passages. Then why exclude it? The answer is, that it
would have been too utterly foolish to translate Matthew xiii. 39, as
"The harvest is the end of the forever," and 2 Tim. iv. 10, as "Demas
hath forsaken me, having loved the present eternity"--and so the
translators in these instances gave the word its true signification.
But can it, we ask, be right to treat language in this way--to make a
word mean one thing to serve the purposes of a doctrinal idea, and to
make it mean something essentially opposite, when that idea is not
involved? Does anyone imagine that the translators would have introduced
this contradiction, and have translated the Greek of Mark xiii. 29, as
they have done, unless they had gone to this text with the preconceived
idea that a certain sin can never be forgiven, and therefore that the
passage must be strained and contorted to endorse the idea? It is an
instance, not of founding theology upon Scripture, but of twisting
Scripture to suit theology.
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