Passing to another rule:

(5)  Ancient versions of the Scriptures should be consulted in the endeavour to

establish the meaning of a word by its usage.

Foremost among the versions, easiest of access and of translation by the student, and

earlier than any existing copy of the Hebrew Scriptures is the Septuagint version (usually

represented by the letters LXX and given some explanation in The Berean Expositor,

Volume XXII, page 33). Many words of doctrinal importance that occur in the N.T. are

to be found in the 70: Dikaiosune righteousness, lutron and lutroo redemption or

redeem, hamartia sin, soteria salvation, zoe life, psuche soul, etc., were in daily use for a

couple of centuries before the N.T. was written, and if the writers intended their hearers

to put a new meaning into any of these or similar words, it would have been incumbent

upon them to have said so. Moreover, the LXX, being a translation of the Hebrew O.T.,

forms a bridge by which the student of the Greek N.T. can discover legitimate parallels in

the more ancient Hebrew. The LXX translates the word `atonement' by the Greek word

hilasterion. This word is translated in the N.T. `propitiation', and therefore it is a most

serious thing for anyone to say that `the Atonement' is not used in the N.T. to speak of

the Sacrifice of Christ. It is a quibble not an argument; it is confusing the mere

occurrence of an English word with the meaning of the original. Let us illustrate the

value of getting  some common denominator that shall include all the shades of

meaning of a word and yet give an intelligent meaning to each reference. Let us take the

Greek word ethnos. This word is found 164 times in the N.T. It is translated in the

A.V. Gentiles, heathen, nation and people. The word Gentile means one of any of the

non-Jewish nations. The word heathen, in modern usage, means those races whose

religious belief is neither Christian, Jewish nor Mohammedan; in other words a pagan,

and usually an idolator.

The word nation means a distinct race or people, characterized by a common descent,

language or history, usually organized as a separate political state and occupying a

definite territory. The word people means a nation looked upon as a community or

family, often with a stress on the commonality, and a suggestion that such are ruled over

by a king or chief. The Apostle Paul uses the word ethnos 10 times in Galatians, and the

A.V. translates the word `heathen' three times in 1: 16; 2: 9 and 3: 8; `Gentiles' six

times 2: 2, 8, 12, 14, 15; 3: 14 and `nations' once in 3: 8.

Whichever of these words we care to use in the rendering of these ten occurrences,

leaves the sense pretty much the same. Paul was appointed to be the Apostle of the

Gentiles. These Gentiles were at the time pagans or heathens, and they were `the nations'

of the earth as distinct from one `nation'--Israel.

Yet the modern reader is apt to think of the black or yellow races when he reads of the

heathen, forgetting that, in the teaching of Scripture, the English nation is heathen.

When however we read in Luke 7: 5, "He loveth our nation" or in Acts 24: 17 "I

came to bring alms to my nation" it is obvious that neither the word `heathen' nor the