"And these shall go away into everlasting[G166 Aionios] punishment; but the righteous into life eternal[G166 Aionios]" Matthew 25:46.
"Who shall be punished with everlasting[G166 Aionios] destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power" 2Thessalonians 1:9.
The english word eternal in Matt.25:46 and 2Thess 1:9 is translated for the Greek word aion. Aionios is the adjective form of the word Aion. Here is the definition of aion from Strongs Greek Concordance and the Blueletter Bible Lexicon. Aion:
1) forever, an unbroken age, perpetuity of time, eternity
2) the worlds, universe
3) period of time, age
Wait a minute. Are they saying this little four letter Greek word has all these meanings? Two things need to be noted here:
1. Those lexicons have aion meaning both age and eternal. How can a word be it's own antonym? In other words, how can aion mean both age and eternal when age and eternal have opposite meanings? That's against the the laws of grammer.
2. How can aion mean world, age, and eternity when the Greeks had specific words for those english words? Case in point, The Greek word for world is Kosmos[G2889] not aion. The Greek word for eternity is Aidios[G126] not aion. And the Greek word for age is aion[G165]. If the writers wanted to convey the idea of forever in Matthew 25:46 and 2Thessalonians 1:9, they would have used the Greek word aidios[G126].
So aion always means age never eternal. A better translation of aion would be eon or the dictionary spelling aeon, because eon has an adjective form where as age does not. For instance, the adjective form of the Greek word aion[G165] is aionios[G166], likewise, the adjective form of the english word eon is eonian. Also, get a good dictionary that traces the orgin of words and look up the english words eternal and eon. You will find eternal is traced back to latin, and you will find eon, which means age or a period of time is traced back to the Greek word aion. The Bible of course was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, not Latin.
And one other point: Aion and the dictionary spelling of eon(aeon) almost spell the same, aion-aeon. That's because many of the letters of the Greek aphabet are similar to the letters of the English alphabet.
But believers in eternal torment and annihilation object to this. They say that if aion and it's adjective form mean age or eon, then not only does the punishment of the unbelievers come to and end but also the eternal/aionios life of the believers must come to an end as well, since the same word aion is used to describe the punishment and life of both groups. I will address that objection in my next post. Blessings.
