We have concluded, a priori, that the Old Testament must employ the word Aión in the sense of indefinite duration, because that was the uniform meaning of the word in all antecedent and contemporaneous Greek literature. Otherwise the Old Testament would mislead its readers. We now proceed to show that such is the actual usage of the word in the Old Testament.
And let us pause a moment on the brink of our investigation to speak of the utter absurdity of the idea that God has hung the great topic of the immortal welfare of millions of souls on the meaning of a single equivocal word. Had he intended to teach endless punishment by one word, that word would have been so explicit and uniform and frequent that no mortal could mistake its meaning. It would have stood unique and peculiar among words. It would no more be found conveying a limited meaning than is the sacred name of Jehovah applied to any finite being. Instead of denoting every degree of duration, as it does, it never would have meant less than eternity. The thought that God has suspended the question of man’s final destiny on such a word would seem too preposterous to be entertained by any reflecting mind, did we not know that such an idea is held by Christians.
Endless duration is never expressed or implied in the Old Testament by Aión or any of its derivatives, except in instances where it acquires that meaning from the subject connected with it.
How is it used? Let us adduce a few illustrative
Examples.
Gen. 6:4, “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, (aiónos), men of renown.” Gen. 9:12; God’s covenant with Noah was “for perpetual (aiónious) generations.” Gen. 9:16; The rainbow is the token of “the everlasting (aiónion) covenant” between God and “all flesh that is upon the earth.” Gen. 13:15; God gave the land to Abram and his seed “forever,” (aiónos). Dr. T. Clowes says of this passage that it signifies the duration of human life, and he adds, “Let no one be surprised that we use the word Olam (Aión) in this limited sense. This is one of the most usual significations of the Hebrew Olam and the Greek Aión.” In Isa. 58:12; it is rendered “old” and “foundations,” (aiónioi and aiónia). “And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach.”
In Jer. 18:15, 16, ancient and perpetual, (aiónious and aiónion). “Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up; to make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and wag his head.” Such instances may be cited to an indefinite extent. Exod. 15:18, “forever and ever and further,” (ton aióna, kai ep aióna, kai eti.) Exod. 12:17, “And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt, therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever,” (aiónion). Num. 10:8, “And the sons of Aaron the priests, shall blow with the trumpets; and they shall be to you for an ordinance forever (aiónion) throughout your generations.” “Your generations,” is here idiomatically given as the precise equivalent of “forever.”
Canaan was given as an “everlasting (aiónion) possession;” (Gen. 17:8, 48:4; Lev. 24:8,9;) the hills are everlasting (aiónioi;) (Hab. 3:6;) the priesthood of Aaron (Exod. 40:15; Num. 25:13; Lev. 16:34;) was to exist forever, and continue through everlasting duration; Solomon’s temple was to last forever, (1 Chron. 17:12;) though it was long since ceased to be; slaves were to remain in bondage forever, (Lev. 25:46;) though every fiftieth year all Hebrew servants were to be set at liberty, (Lev. 25:10;) Jonah suffered an imprisonment behind the everlasting bars of earth, (Jon. 2:6;) the smoke of Idumea was to ascend forever, (Isa. 34:10;) though it no longer rises, to the Jews God says (Jer. 32:40;) “and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten,” and yet, after the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, Israel will be restored. Rom. 11:25-6.
Not only in all these and multitudes of other cases does the word mean limited duration, but it is also used in the plural, thus debarring it from the sense of endless, as there can be but one eternity. In Dan. 12:3; the literal reading, if we allow the word to mean eternity, is “to eternities and farther,” (eis tous aiónas kai eti.) Micah 4:5, “We will walk in the name of the Lord our God to eternity, and beyond,” eis ton aióna kai epekeina. Ps. 119:43-4, “And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall I keep thy law continually forever and ever.” This is the strongest combination of the aionian phraseology: eis ton aióna kai eis ton aióna tou aiónos, and yet it is David’s promise of fidelity as long as he lives among them that “reproach” him, in “the house of his pilgrimage.” Ps. 148:4-6, “Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the LORD: for he commanded and they were created. He hath also established them for ever and ever: he hath made a decree which shall not pass. The sun and moon, the stars of light, and even the waters above the heavens are established forever,”eis ton aióna tou aiónos, and yet the firmament is one day to become as a folded garment, and the orbs of heaven are to be no more. Endless duration is out of the question in these and many similar instances.
In Lam. 5:19, “forever and ever” is used as the equivalent of “from generation to generation.” Joel 2:26-27, “And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.” This is spoken of the Jewish nation. Isa. 60:15, “Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal (aiónion) excellency, a joy of many generations.” Here many generations and eternal are exact equivalents. 1 Sam. 1:22, “But Hannah went not up: for she said unto her husband, I will not go up until the child be weaned, and then I will bring him, that he may appear before the LORD, and there abide forever.” The remaining of Samuel in the temple was to be “forever” (aiónos) 2 Kings, 5:27, “The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed forever.” (ton aióna).
Undoubtedly the seed of Gehazi is still on earth: but whether so or not the leprosy has departed. Daniel 2:4, “Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriac, O king, live forever: eis tous aióna.” The Chaldean’s live forever meant precisely what the French Vive, and the English “Long live the King” mean. Eternal duration never entered the thought. Jerem. 17:25, “Then shall there enter into the gates of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they, and their city shall remain forever,” eis ton aióna. Eternity was not promised here. Long duration is the extent of the promise. Josh. 4:7, “Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD: when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off; and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever,” tou aiónos. These stones are no longer a memorial. This forever has ended.
Forever and ever is applied to the hosts of heaven, or the sun, moon, and stars: to a writing contained in a book; to the smoke that went up from the burning land of Idumea; and to the time the Jews were to dwell in Judea.[37] The word never is applied to the time the sword was to remain in the house of David, to the time the Jews should experience shame.[38]
“Everlasting“[39] is applied to God’s covenant with the Jews; to the priesthood of Aaron; to the statutes of Moses; to the time the Jews were to possess the land of Canaan; to the mountains and hills; and to the doors of the Jewish temple.[40] The word forever is applied to the duration of man’s earthly existence; to the time a child was to abide in the temple; to the continuance of Gehazi’s leprosy; to the duration of the life of David; to the duration of a king’s life; to the duration of the earth; to the time the Jews were to possess the land of Canaan; to the time they were to dwell in Jerusalem; to the time a servant was to abide with his master; to the time Jerusalem was to remain a city; to the duration of the Jewish temple; to the laws and ordinances of Moses; to the time David was to be king over Israel; to the throne of Solomon; to the stones that were set up at Jordan; to the time the righteous were to inhabit the earth; and to the time Jonah was in the fish’s belly.[41]
And yet, the land of Cannan, the Jews’ “everlasting possession,” has passed from their hand; the covenant of circumcision, an “everlasting covenant” was abolished almost two thousand years ago; the Jewish atonement (Lev. 16,) an everlasting statute, is abrogated by the atonement of Christ; David was never to want a man to sit on Israel’s throne. This aionian line of succession was long ago broken.
We have found the noun Aión three hundred and ninety-four times in the Old Testament, and the adjective Aiónion one hundred and ten times, and in all but four times it is the translation of Olam.
The Noun.
Waiving the passages where it is applied to God, and where by accommodation it may be allowed to imply endlessness, just as great applied to God means infinity, let us consult the general usage: Eccl. 1:10, “Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new! It hath been already of old time, which was before us.” Ps. 25:6, “Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been ever of old,” (aiónos). Ps. 119:52, “I remembered thy judgements of old, O LORD; and have comforted myself.” Isa. 41:9, “Remember the former things of old.” Isa. 64:4, “Since the beginning of the world,” (aiónos). Jer. 28:8, “The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.” Jer. 2:20, “For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands.” Prov. 8:23, “I (wisdom) was set up from everlasting (aiónos) from the beginning, or ever the earth was.” Here aiónos and “before the world was, ” are in apposition.
Ps. 73:12, “Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world,” (time, aiónos.) Deut. 32:7, “Remember the days of old.” Ezek. 26:20, “The people of old time.” Ps. 143:3, “Those who have been long dead.” —Same in Lam. 3:6. Amos 9:11, “Days of old.” Isa. 1:9, “Generations of old.” Micah 7:14, “Days of old.” Same in Malachi 3:4. Ps. 48:14, “For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death.” This plural form denotes “even unto death.” Christ’s kingdom is prophesied as destined to endure “forever,” “without end,” etc. Dan. 2:44; Isa. 59:21; Ps. 110:4; Isa. 9:7; Ps. 89:29. Now if anything is taught in the Bible, it is that Christ’s kingdom shall end. In 1 Cor. 15: it is expressly and explicitly declared that Jesus shall surrender the kingdom to God the Father, that his reign shall entirely cease. Hence, when we read in such passages as Dan. 2:44, that Christ’s kingdom shall stand forever, we must understand that the forever denotes the reign of Messias, bounded by “the end,” when God shall be “all in all.”
Servants were declared to be bound forever, when all servants were emancipated every fifty years. Thus in Deut. 15:16,17, we read, “And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee, then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever.” And yet we are told, Lev. 45:10,39,41, “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. And if thy brother that dwelleth with thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee; thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond servant, but as a hired servant, and as a sojourner, he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee: and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his father shall he return.”
This forever at the utmost could only be forty-nine years and three hundred and sixty-four days and some odd hours. And certainly no one will ascribe endless duration to aión in the following passages: 2 Sam. 7:16,29; 1 Kings 2:45, and 9:5; 2 Chron. 17:27, and 28:4; 2 Chron. 13:5; Ps. 89:4,336,37; Ezek. 37:25; 1 Sam. 13:13; 2 Sam. 7:13,16,25,26; 22:51; 1 Kings 2:33; 2 Chron. 17:12,14,14,23, and 22:10, 28:7; Ps. 18:50, 89:4, and 132:12; Exod. 32:13, Josh. 14:9; 2 Chron. 20:7; Jude 2:1; 2 Chron. 7:3; Ps. 105:8; Gen. 13:15; 1 Chron. 28:4,7,8; Jer. 31:40; Ezek. 37:25; Jer. 7:7,7; 2 Sam. 7:24; 2 Chron. 17:22; Joel 3:20; 2 Kings 21:7; 2 Chron. 33:4; Ps. 48:8; Jer. 17:25; 2 Chron. 23:25; Isa. 28:7; 1 Kings 9:3; 2 Chron. 30:8; Ezek. 37:26,28; 2 Chron. 7:16; Exod. 19:9, and 40:15; 2 Chron. 23:23, 13; 2 Chron. 15:2; Lev. 3:17; 2 Chron. 2:4; Exod. 12:24; Josh. 4:7; Amos 1:11; Isa. 13:20; Isa. 33:20, 34:10; 1 Kings 10:9; 2 Chron. 9:8; Ps. 102:28; Ezek. 43:7.
Many passages allude to the earth as enduring forever — to the grave, as man’s “long home,” to God’s existence, as “Forever, etc.” Often the language is equivalent to “to the ages,” or “from age to age,” and sometimes eternal duration is predicated, never because the word compels it, but because the theme treated requires it.
The Adjective
is applied to God, Zion, and things intrinsically endless, and thus acquires from the connected subjects a meaning not inherent in the word, as in the following passages: Gen. 21:33; Exod. 3:15; Job 33:12; Isa. 40:28, 51:11, 54:8, 55:3,13, 56:5; 60:15,19, 61:7,8; 63:12; Ezek. 37:26; Dan. 7:27, 9:24, 12:2; Hab. 3:6; Ps. 112:6, 130:8.
The Adjective Limited.
But it is found with limited meaning in these and other passages: Gen. 9:12-16; Gen. 17:8,13,19; and Num. 25:13; Exod. 12:14,17; 27:21; 28:43; 29:28; 30:21; 31:16,17; Lev. 6:18,22; 7:34,36; 10:15; 16:29,31,34; 17:7; 23:14,31,41; 24:3,8,9. Num. 10:8; 15:15; 18:8,11,19,23; 19:10,21; 2 Sam. 23:5; 2 Chron. 16:17; Isa. 24:5; Ezek. 16:60; Ps. 77:5; Isa 63:11; Jer. 6:16; 18:15; Job 21:11; 22:15; Isa. 58:12; 61:4; Ezek. 26:20; Prov. 22:28; 23:10; Ezek. 36:2; 35:5; Isa. 54:4; Jer. 5:22; 18:16; 25:9,12; Ezek. 35:9; Jer. 20:17; 23:40; 51:39; Micah 2:9.
Let us quote some of the foregoing texts: “And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever.” “And thou shalt command the children of Israel, that they bring thee pure olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamp to burn always.” “In the tabernacle of the congregation without the veil, which is before the testimony, Aaron and his sons shall order it from evening to morning before the Lord: it shall be a statute for ever unto their generations on behalf of the children of Israel.” “And they shall be upon Aaron and upon his sons, when they come in unto the tabernacle of the congregation, or when they come near unto the altar to minister in the holy place; that they bear not iniquity and die: it shall be a statute for ever unto him and his seed after him.” “Hast thou not marked the old way which wicked men have trodden?” “Fear ye not me: saith the Lord: will ye not tremble at my presence, which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it cannot pass it: and though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; though they roar, yet can they not pass over it?”
To render the word eternal will show how absurd that definition is, in the following passages[42]:
“I will give unto thee, and thy seed after thee, the land wherin thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an eternal possession.” “And thou shalt anoint them as thou didst their father, that they surely be a priesthood through the eternity.” “Then his master shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-posts, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him through the eternity.”
“The water compassed me about —even to the soul;
The weeds were wrapped about my head,
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains;
The earth with her eternal bars was about me.”
Still further do the subjoined texts demonstrate the impropriety of the popular rendering, which would compel us to read[43]: “The Lord shall reign to the eternity, and during the eternity, and longer.” “And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars through the eternities and longer.” “And we will walk in the name of Jehovah our God through the eternity and longer.” But substitute ages and the sense is perfect. Exod. 15:18, “The Lord shall reign from age to age, and beyond all the ages;” Dan. 12:3, “Through the ages and beyond them all;” Micah 4:5, “Through the age and beyond it.”
No one can read the Old Testament carefully and unbiased, and fail to see that the word has a great range of meaning, bearing some such relation to duration as the word great does to size. We say God is infinite when we call him the Great God, not because great means infinite, but because God is infinite. The aiónion God is of eternal duration, but the aiónion smoke of Idumea has expired, and the aiónion hills will one day crumble, and all merely aionian things will cease to be.
While it is a rule of language that adjectives qualify and describe nouns, it is no less true that nouns modify adjectives. A tall flower, a tall dog, a tall man, and a tall tree are of different degrees of length, though the different nouns are described by the same adjective. The adjective is in each instance modified by its noun, just as the aionian bars that held Jonah three days, and the aionian priesthood of Aaron already ended, and the aionian hills yet to be destroyed, and aionian punishment, always proportioned to human guilt, are of different degrees of length. The adjective is modified and its length is determined by the noun with which it is connected.
The Subject Determines The Duration Described By The Adjective.
Prof. Tayler Lewis says, “‘One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever.’ This certainly indicates, not an endless eternity in the strictest sense of the word, but only a future of unlimited length. Exod. 31:16; ‘Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.’ Olam here would seem to be taken as a hyperbolical term for indefinite or unmeasured duration.” Where the context demands it, as “I live forever,” spoken of God, he says it means endless duration, for “it is the subject to which it is applied that forces to this, and NOT any etymological necessity in the word itself.” He adds that Olam and Aion, in the plural, ages, and ages of ages, demonstrate that neither of the words, of itself, denotes eternity. He admits that they are used to give an idea of eternity, but that applied to God and his kingdom, the ages are finite[44]. Prof. L. is eminently learned and as eminently orthodox.
The End of Aionian Things.
Now the Jews have lost their eternal excellency; Aaron and his sons have ceased from their priesthood; the Mosaic system is superseded by Christianity; the Jews no longer possess Canaan; David and his house have lost the throne of Israel; the Jewish temple is destroyed, and Jerusalem is wiped out as the holy city; the servants who were to be bondmen forever are all free from their masters; Gehazi is cured of his leprosy; the stones are removed from Jordan, and the smoke of Idumea no longer rises; the righteous do not posses the land promised them forever; some of the hills and mountains have fallen, and the tooth of Time will one day gnaw the last of them into dust; the fire has expired from the Jewish altar; Jonah has escaped from his imprisonment; all these and numerous other eternal, everlasting things — things that were to last forever, and to which the various aionian words are applied — have now ended, and if these hundreds of instances must denote limited duration why should the few times in which punishments are spoken of have any other meaning?
Even if endless duration were the intrinsic meaning of the word, all intelligent readers of the Bible would perceive that the word must be employed to denote limited duration in the passages above cited. And surely in the very few times in which it is connected with punishment it must have a similar meaning. For who administers this punishment? Not a monster, not an infinite devil, but a God of love and mercy, and the same common sense that would forbid us to give the word the meaning of endless duration, were that its literal meaning, when we see it applied to what we know has ended, would forbid us to give it that meaning when applied to the dealings of an Infinite Father with an erring and beloved child. But when we interpret it in the light of its lexicography, and general usage out of the Old Testament, and perceive that it only has the sense of endless when the subject compels it, as when referring to God, we see that it is a species of blasphemy to allow that it denotes endless duration when describing God’s punishments.
Applied To Punishment.
A few prominent instances illustrate the usage of the word connected with punishment. Ps. 9:5, “Thou hast destroyed the wicked.” How? The explanation follows: “Thou hast put out their name forever and ever,” (ton aiona, kai eis ton aióna tou aionos.) His is not endless torment, but oblivion. Solomon elsewhere observes: Prov. 10:7, “The name of the wicked shall rot,” while David says, Ps. cxii:6, “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.” Ps. 78:66, “He put them (his enemies) to a perpetual reproach.” Isa. 33:14, “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” The prophet is here speaking of God’s temporal judgments, represented by fire. “The earth mourneth; Lebanon is ashamed; the people shall be as the burnings of lime.” Who will dwell in safety amid these fiery judgments? These aionian burnings? “He that walks uprightly.” Earthly judgements among which the upright are to dwell in safety are here described, and not endless fire hereafter.
Jer. 17:4, “Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn forever.” Where was this to be? The preceding verse informs us. “I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in a land which thou knowest not.” Jer. 23:40, “I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you; and a perpetual shame which shall not be forgotten.” The connection fully explains this verse 39, “I will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers. See Jer. 20:11. Mal. 1:4, “The people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever.” This is an announcement of God’s judgements on Edom” “They shall build but I will throw down” and they shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever.”
Everlasting Shame And Contempt.
Dan. 12:2, “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” When was this to take place? “At that time.” What time? Verse 31, chap. 11, speaks of the coming of the “abomination that maketh desolate.” Jesus says, Matt. 24:15,16, Luke 21:20,21, “When ye therefore (the disciples) shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place, then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.” Daniel says this was to be (12:7) “When he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people.” Jesus says, “For then shall be great tribulations, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be.” And when that was Jesus tells us: “this generation shall not pass away, till all these things be fulfilled.” The events discussed in Daniel are the same as those in Matt. 24, and came in this world in the generation that crucified Jesus.
Dust of The Earth.
The phrase sleeping in the dust of the earth, is of course employed figuratively, to indicate sloth, spiritual lethargy, as in Ps. 44:25; Isa. 25:12; 26:5; 1 Tim. 5:6; Rev. 3:1, “For our soul is bowed down to the dust.” “And the fortress of the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust.” “For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.” “But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.” “I know thy works; that thou hast a name, and that thou livest and art dead.”
It was a prophecy of the moral awakening that came at the time of the advent of Jesus, and was then fulfilled. When we come to Matt. 24 and 25 we shall see the exact nature of this judgment. Walter Balfour describes it,[45] “They,” (those who obeyed the call of Jesus) “heard the voice of the Son of God, and lived.” See John 5:21,25,28,29, Eph. 5:14. The rest kept on till the wrath of God came on them to the uttermost. They all, at last, awoke; but it was to shame and everlasting contempt, in being dispersed among all nations, and they have become a by-word and an hissing even unto this day. Jeremiah in chapter 23:39,40, predicted this very punishment and calls it an “everlasting reproach and a perpetual shame.”
These few passages, not one of which conveys a hint of endless punishment, are all that connect our word denoting duration with punishment in the Old Testament.
Out of more than five hundred occurrences of our disputed word in the Old Testament, more than four hundred denote limited duration, so that the great preponderance of Old Testament usage fully agrees with the Greek classics. The remaining instances follow the rule given by the best lexicographers, that it only means endless when it derives its meaning or endlessness from the nature of the subject with which it is connected.
Dr. Beecher[46] remarks that the sense of endless given to the aionian phraseology “fills the Old Testament with contradictions, for it would make it declare the absolute eternity of systems which it often and emphatically declares to be temporary. Nor can it be said that aiónios denotes lasting as long as the nature of things permits. The Mosaic ordinances might have lasted at least to the end of the world, but did not. Moreover, on this principle the exceptions to the true sense of the word exceed its proper use; for in the majority of cases in the Old Testament aiónios is applied to that which is limited and temporary.”
Now if endless punishment awaits millions of the human race, and if it is denoted by this word, is it possible that only David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Malachi use the word to define punishment, in all less than a dozen times, while Job, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Solomon, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Zachariah never employ it thus? Such silence is criminal, on the popular hypothesis. These holy men should and would have made every sentence bristle with the word, and thus have borne the awful message to the soul with an emphasis that could be neither resisted nor disputed. The fact that the word is so seldom, and by so few applied to punishment, and never in the Old Testament to punishment beyond death, demonstrates that it cannot mean endless.
Testimony of Scholars.
The best critics concede that the doctrine of endless punishment is not taught in the Old Testament. But the word in dispute is found in connection with punishment in the Old Testament. This is a concession that the word has no such meaning in the Old Testament. Milman: “The lawgiver (Moses) maintains a profound silence on that fundamental article, if not of political, at least of religious legislation — rewards and punishments in another life.” Paley, Jahn, Whately are to the same purport, and H. W. Beecher says, “If we had only the Old Testament we could not tell if there were any future punishment.”[47]
We should then conclude that the word means one thing in the Old Testament and another in the New, did we not find that the same meaning continues in the New that we have found to prevail uniformly in the Old Testament, and in antecedent and contemporaneous Greek literature.
Three Questions
Here press the mind with irresistible force, and they can only receive one answer. 1st, Had God intended endless punishment, would the Old Testament have failed to reveal it? 2d, If God does not announce it in the Old Testament, is it supposable that he has revealed it elsewhere: 3d, Would he for thousands of years conceal so awful a destiny from millions whom he had created and exposed to it? No child of God ought to be willing to impeach his Heavenly Father by withholding an indignant negative to these questions.
Footnotes / Endnotes:
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- Ps. 148:5,6; Isa. 30: 8; 34:10; Jer. 7:7; 25:5. (↩)
- 2 Sam. 12:10. Joel 2:26,27. (↩)
- Univ. Book of Reference, pp. 106-7. (↩)
- Gen. 17:7, 8, 13; 48:4; 49:26; Exod. 40:15; Lev. 16:34; Num. 25:13; Ps. 24:7; Hab. 3:6. (↩)
- Deut. 15:17; 1 Sam. 1:22; 27:12; Lev. 25:46; 2 Kings 5:27; Job 41:4; 1 Kings 1:31; Neh. 2:3; Dan. 2:4; Exod. 14:13; Eccles. 1:4. Ps. 104:5; 78:69; Ezek. 37:25; Gen. 13:15; Exod. 32:13; Josh. 14:9; 1 Chron. 23:25; Jer. 17:25; Ps. 48:8; Jer. 31:40; 1 Kings 8:13; Num. 10:8; 18:24; 1 Chron. 28:4; 2 Kings 9:5; Josh. 4:7; Jonah 2:6; Ps. 37:29. (↩)
- Gen. 17:8; Exod. 40:15; 21:6; Jonah 2:5,6. (↩)
- Exod. 15:18; Dan. 12:3; Micah 4:5. (↩)
- Note on Eccl. 1:4, Lange’s Com. pp. 45-50. (↩)
- Second Inquiry. (↩)
- Christian Union. (↩)
- Hist. Jews vol. i: p. 117; Div. Leg. vol iii: pp. 1, 2 vol. v: Sermons xiii: Archæology p. 398; Essays, p.44. (↩)