Kolasin, as I understand it, was a term that originally referred to the pruning of trees in order to promote proper growth. So it would seem that the application of this word to a notion of chastening/ correction/ cutting off, would carry a positive connotation.
I believe that this is the same concept that Paul was referring to when he suggested that (a) certain individual(s) should be turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh in order that his spirit may be saved.
I’ve heard that the word can mean “pruning”. Is there any reason (just from the word itself and how it’s typically used) that we should not take it to mean that some individuals are “pruned” away (i.e., destroyed) so that the larger group would be better as a whole? I.E. Is there reason why we should take this “pruning” an a per individual sense, as opposed to pruning for the sake of the group as a whole?
I think it’s probably biblical to say, “both”; The example I gave above in the last post applies to both situations. And as another example we know Israel was cut off for the sake of the Gentiles, but we also know that this is a temporary situation, and that Israel is to be restored.
What I mean to say here is that we have biblical examples of an individual being cut off temporarily from the group for the individual’s benefit as well as the group’s benefit. We also have the example of an entire group being temporarily cut off for the benefit of another group.
It is of course possible for Jesus and/or the NT authors (translating Jesus or otherwise) to use the term for hopeless punishment, even if the cultural context was for hopeful punishment.
Fortunately there are other contexts to the judgment of the baby goats that point in the direction of {kolasis} here meaning the expected remedial punishment. (The term ‘baby-goat’ being one such context. 
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How does “baby goat” fit in to the picture? Does this have a significance?
Roofus,
Aside from giving us the hypothesis of Christ hopelessly zorching defenseless baby animals–which is a picture I’ve found most people aren’t comfortable with affirming --the term ‘baby-goat’ directly (if poetically) identifies these as being the least of Christ’s flock.
The thematic logic of the comparison between them and the mature flock (keeping in mind that the Greek term there, as in most places in the NT, is for ‘flock’ not explicitly for ‘sheep’–including in the parable of the 100th ‘sheep’!) would thus run as follows:
Over here are the mature flock who, even though they are surprised to find this out at the judgment, have been serving Christ by serving the least of those who belong to Christ (His brethren): feeding them when they are hungry, giving them drink when they thirst, accepting them when they are estranged, clothing them when they are naked, visiting them when they are sick and imprisoned.
Over there by contrast are the baby-goats of Christ’s flock, i.e. the least of Christ’s flock, who are surprised to find out they haven’t been serving Christ: namely succoring those who are the least of Christ’s. So they are sent off to be put into prison, where elsewhere we are told (in various ways) that they’re going to be hungry and thirsty and sick and badly in need of clothes and estranged.
The parable leaves over, without discussing, the question of what the mature ones of Jesus’ flock will do in regard to these who are truly the least of Christ’s flock: will they visit them in prison, trying to accept them despite being estranged, exhorting them to drink of the water of life flowing out of the never-clothed gates of Jerusalem, and to wash their filthy robes clean, so that they may obtain permission to enter and eat of the tree of life (the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations)?
Or will the mature of Christ’s flock refuse to do this–acting like the baby-goats had been doing instead?