Forever and ever and EVER...

Forever is a long time.  Can’t-wrap-my-head-around-it long time.  What will it be like?  What will we do?

The way I always thought, and I think most Followers are with me, is that once we die, we either go to Heaven or Hell- forever.  And Hell sucks and Heaven is like being in church all of the time.  Now, don’t get me wrong- I like going to church.  But a church service that never ends?  Eh... I don’t really know if I can handle that.  So I always just kind of wrote it off as ‘Things will be different in Heaven- being in God’s presence... I’ll want different things.  Right?’  Not really that comforting, but the best I could do.

Enter ‘Love Wins.’  (And yes, I’m going to spend a lot of time on this book, because I’m trying to process everything it said and it might just take some time...)

First- the concept of ‘forever.’  Rob (I’m going to talk about him like we’re friends) goes into great detail about the Greek word ‘aion.’  Now, he doesn’t mention where in Scripture this word is used, but he describes this word as meaning ‘age.’  Not so much a precise amount of time, but more a period or era of time.  So, it doesn’t mean ‘forever’ like we think of forever.  He says ‘The first meaning of this word...refers to a period of time with a beginning and an end.’ (Chapter 2)

To Quote:

So according to Jesus there is this age, this aion-

the one they, and we, are living in-

and then a coming age, 

also called ‘the world to come’

or simply ‘eternal life.’

The second possible definition he gives ‘aion’ is something akin to an intensity of experience that transcends time- ‘That took FOREVER...’ or ‘Time flies’ something so intense that time ceases to matter.

Ultimately, Rob tells us, the people Jesus was speaking to didn’t think of forever the way we think of forever.

This is really important.  So, of course, I decided to look into it for myself.  That’s the responsible thing to do, right?  I mean, this guy is kind of flying in the face of everything we’ve been taught for as long as we can remember- surely he’s making it up, right?

First- the easy one- I went to the IVP Bible Background Commentary.  It says that ‘in Jewish texts, the term literally means the life of the world to come...some [NT] passages speak of it as a present as well as a future gift, because Jesus’ resurrection has inaugurated salvation for the present.’ (pg 824)

Then I went around on the internet and searched ‘greek aion.’  What I didn’t think about, and it’s so obvious now that I’ve seen it, is this is the root for our word ‘eon.’  Which isn’t actually eternal.  Not proof, but something to think about.

Here’s something I found on a website:

The Greek form for "everlasting punishment" in Matthew 25:46 is "kolasin aionion." Kolasin is a noun in the accusative form, singular voice, feminine gender and means "punishment, chastening, correction, to cut-off as in pruning a tree to bare more fruit." "Aionion" is the adjective form of "aion," in the singular form and means "pertaining to an eon or age, an indeterminate period of time." (Note: the two words in many, not all translations become reversed changing the Greek into English.)

"Aionion," as shown above, is the singular form of the adjective of the Greek noun "aion." Many people unfamiliar with the Greek do not realize that the endings of the same word change (inflection) to indicate its mood, case, gender, etc. Therefore, "aionion" may appear with different endings. "Aionion, aioniou, aionios," for example, are all different inflections of the adjective form of the noun "aion."

The noun "aion" in Greek literature has always meant "an indeterminate period of time. It could be as short as the time Jonah spent in the belly of a fish (three days or nights), the length of a man's life, or as long as a very long age.

Of course, the website was www.tentmaker.org- not really something that inspires a lot of confidence.

So I broke out the big guns (at least the biggest guns I have at my disposal): Dictionary of Paul and his Letters, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, Cleon Morris (you language students know what I’m talking about:), and Kittel.  Oh yeah- and BAGD.  

Have I told you my husband has a pretty great library?

Here’s what I found (and I’m going to warn you now, I feel no compulsion to use MLA or Chicago-style footnotes):

Cleon: The adjective ‘eternal’ literally means age-long and everything depends on the length of the age.  In the NT there is never a hint that the coming age has an end (ref 2 Thess 1:9, page 483); Eternal life contains a temporal reference but stresses the qualitative reference.  It refers to the Jewish concept of life in the age to come (ref Matt 19:16, page 43); Eternal life is the life of the age to come which is gained by faith, cannot be destroyed, and is a present possession of the one who believes (ref John 3:15, page 185)

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels: Said a lot.  I’m not going to type it out, but basically said that the believer’s eternal life starts now and continues in the age to come (pg 380-381)

Dictionary of Paul and his Letters:  [Eternal life is used as] qualitatively different from life as it is presently known, a life bestowed by God as part of the age to come (page 554).  So then I went back to Cleon and looked up Romans 5:21 and this is what he had to say about its usage there- ‘Eternal life is not only related to the future, but is organically related to the actual life lived and is a present possession of the believer (pg 326)

BAGD: Listed four possible meanings for ‘aion’ and three more for ‘aionios’ (page 27)

‘aion’- a very long time, eternity (of time gone by, of time to come); a segment of time, age (present age, nearing its end or the age to come, the Messianic period); the world as a spacial concept; the Aeon as a person (Hellenistic deity worshipped originally in Alexandria)

‘aionios’- without beginning (long ages ago), without beginning or end- of God

Kittel: Plato used it in reference to timeless, ideal eternity.  Aristotle used it to refer to a relative period of time allotted to each specific thing. It talks about a couple of different meanings, but says that it is only in the light of context that we find out if it is referring to eternity in the strict sense or simply ‘remote’ or ‘extended’ or ‘uninterrupted time’ - and even then it is difficult to know (pg 198-199, vol 1).  

Kittel said a lot of other things, but by then my head had begun to throb, so I decided that was enough.

Conclusion time:  Does the Greek really refer to ‘eternity’ the way we think of it, or are there nuances there that we don’t see in English translation?

Based on my extremely limited research, I think the answer is yes.  I didn’t find anything about the intensity of feeling thing, but I’m not going to write off the possibility based on one Thursday night’s worth of research.  The rest seems plausible, though not certain.  

What I think is most interesting, though, is the recurrence of words like ‘qualitative’ and ‘present possession’ in reference to eternal life.

Which brings us back to the book.

To Quote:

Our eschatology shapes our ethics.

Eschatology is about last things.

Ethics are about how you live.

What you believe about the future shapes, informs, and determines how you live now.

This definitely took a turn I wasn’t looking for, but what if thinking in terms of ‘What will heaven be like?’ is completely missing the point?  

What if this life was the beginning of whatever ‘eternal life’ is?  

What would that change?

I think it means we might have the power to bring heaven here.  If we are living a qualitatively different life now, instead of looking for it to start after we die, what does that mean?

It means restoration. 

It means being made new.

It means seeing the world through new eyes.

If Heaven is where God’s will is done, and we are living a life in pursuit of God’s will- being constantly renewed by His Spirit, taken from glory to glory- doesn’t that mean that Heaven starts here, now?

What does that mean?