How Long Is Everlasting?

Objection:

You obviously misunderstand the meaning of the English words forever, everlasting, and eternal. You give them a sense that twists the Scriptures. If everlasting doesn’t mean forever, then how long is it?

Answer:

We will answer this objection by reproducing a study from the Review and Herald:

The three words forever, everlasting, and eternal are closely related in their Greek originals. Their interrelation as English words is easy to see: forever, everlasting, ever-eternal (contracted to eternal). They can be best studied in the order given. Then, we may take them in typical passages where they occur and note the application of their individual meaning.

“Forever”

This is really two words: for and ever. It is so printed in the Bible, and usually so in England even today. The word ever comes to us from the Anglo-Saxon aifre, Latin aevum, and Greek ai (w)on. The last is itself from two simpler elements: aei, “always,” “ever,” and on, “being.” From the combination of these two into aiōn, comes our direct derivative aeon, now usually written eon. Since this word is the basis of our whole study, it will pay us to notice it a bit further.

Historically aiōn is many eons old. Homer (about 800 BC), and in fact all the poets through the classical period to the time of Alexander, used this word in the sense of lifetime or life. Which, during the same period, easily passed into the more general prose sense of an age or generation, the next generation being spoken of as “the coming aiōn.” From this, it passed into long space of time, era, epoch, but no more definitely marked off than our corresponding terms in English. In the Byzantine period, it retains the general meaning of age. Barnabas uses “the holy aiōn” to refer to the world to come. The LXX uses “from aiōn” in speaking of the giants in Genesis 6:4 as being “of old,” or ancient, and in Isaiah 64:4, “from the aiōn” is used in the sense of from the beginning of the world. Modern Greek uses aiōn for century, as the “20th aiōn,” and for age, as the “golden aiōn”; also in the dialect, like our colloquial, “I have not seen him for an aiōn.”

It is easy to see that the underlying idea in this word is continuity (without a break), whether for a definite or an indefinite period, long or short. The New Testament usage agrees with these variations of the basic idea, as witness the following ten examples:

1. Before the aiōns, before the ages covered by this world’s history (1 Cor. 2:7).
2. From the aiōn or aiōns, from the beginning of the world’s history (Luke 1:70; Acts 3:21; 15:18; Col. 1:26; Eph. 3:9).
3. In the now aiōn, the present world or period of the world’s history (1 Tim. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:10).
4. This aiōn, this world, or period of the world (Rom. 12:2; Luke 16:6; 20:34).
5. The god of this aiōn, the devil, now ruling men’s lives during the age of sin (2 Cor. 4:4).
6. The ends of the aiōns, last part of the world’s periods or ages (1 Cor. 10:11).
7. The end of the aiōn, end of the world (Matt. 13:39; 24:3).
8. The coming aiōn, the future world (Heb. 6:5).
9. That aiōn, the world to come (Luke 20:35).
10. In the aiōns to come, the successive periods of the future existence (Eph. 2:7).

Now, coming back to our word forever, or rather two words for and ever, practically a preposition and a noun, we find their exact counterpart in the Greek, as for example:

“Let not fruit grow on thee henceforward into the aiōn” (Matt. 21:19); “he shall live into the aiōn (John 6:51; Heb. 6:20); “glory into the aiōns” (Rom. 11:36); yesterday, to-day, and into the aiōns” (Heb. 13:8).

These simpler forms are also compounded into more emphatic expressions, as:

“Into all the generations of the aiōn of the aiōns,” the age embracing shorter ages (Eph. 3:21). “Ascends up into aiōns of aiōns,” longer ages embracing shorter ages (Rev. 14:11). “glory into the aiōns of the aiōns,” seemingly more inclusive than the preceding (Gal. 1:5). “I am alive into the aiōns of the aiōns” (Rev. 1:18); “smoke rose up into the aiōn of the aiōns” (Rev. 19:3). “day and night into the aiōn of the aiōns” (Rev. 20:10). “shall reign into the aiōns of the aiōns” (Rev. 11:15; 22:5).

Now, out of 123 times aiōn is used in the New Testament, it is used 55 times as the base of some phrase rendered forever or forever and ever. The conclusion on the use and meaning of forever may be stated as follows:

It seems reasonable to conclude from this study that aiōn, like our age (which the lexicographer traces back to aiōn), denotes a period or state of undefined length. And that to determine its measure, in any given instance, even relatively, we must consider the context and other passages where it is found.

To illustrate: when it is said in Revelation 11:15 that Christ shall reign unto the aiōns of the aiōns, no one doubts that this means ages without end.

When it is said of the punishment of the wicked in Revelation 14:11, that “the smoke of their torment ascends up into aiōns of aiōns,” we must conclude one of two things: (1) that smoke is here used as a symbol of the effect, or result, of their torment. Or (2) that aiōns of aiōns denotes a limited, not an unlimited, period of time; for of the final destruction of the wicked it is said in Revelation 20:9 that “fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them”. (Literally, completely ate them up, as the fowls did the seed by the wayside, the same word being used in Matthew 13:4).

When it says in Revelation 20:10 that the devil and the beast and the false prophet “shall be tormented day and night into the aiōns of the aiōns,” we must not conclude that this means time without end. For they were leaders of the wicked “on the breadth of the earth,” and the next scene after they were cast into the lake of fire (on the breadth of the earth) was a “new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.” Rev. 21:1. The “first heaven” must refer to the atmospheric heaven (for the dwelling place of God does not pass away), and if the old atmosphere passed away, it certainly took the smoke with it. And if the old earth passed away, there must have passed with it both the wicked and the devil and the beast and the false prophet, who were tormented and devoured “on the breadth of the earth.”

This conclusion is consistent with the testimony of Malachi concerning “all that do wickedly,” that “the day that comes shall burn them up” and “shall leave them neither root nor branch,” and the wicked “shall be ashes under the soles of your feet” (Mal. 4:1, 3).

“Everlasting”

In twenty-three out of the twenty-five times that the Greek word translated “everlasting” is found in the New Testament, it is an adjective formed on the stem of aiōn, namely aiōnios. Manifestly when this adjective form is used, we leave off the for and add to ever whatever fits best the idea of the noun which aiōnios modifies. If life, we say ever-continuing, ever-lasting; if a flower, we say ever-blooming; if a tree, we say ever-green; if a certain type of person having only a “form of godliness,” we say everlearning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. In none of these instances do we understand ever to mean continuing without end, unless it be in the case of life.

Hence in the use of ever to render aiōnios, it is clear that it must be subject to the same interpretation as in rendering aiōn itself.

Of the twenty-five times that aiōnios is rendered everlasting, it is used fourteen times with life, every one of which fourteen no one will question means life without end. Of the remaining eleven times, two are used with fire, which we must understand to mean continuing unquenchable till that on which the fire feeds is consumed (see under “Forever,” above). In the remaining nine times, we find aiōnios used as follows: “once with punishment, permanent in effect (see same comment). Once with habitations, doubtless new earth, and without end; once with God, unquestionably without ceasing. Once with destruction, in effect like punishment; once with consolation, unending for the saved. Once with power, ascribed to God, hence without limit; once with covenant, unending in result accomplished; once with kingdom, ascribed to Christ, hence unceasing; once with gospel, which is the power of God (Rom. 1:16), hence limitless in duration.”

In one other place (Jude 6) “everlasting” is from another word, aidios always existing, which comes from the same base as aiōnios; namely, aei, always.

“Eternal”

In every instance of its use in the New Testament, this word comes from one of the two above rendered everlasting, with one exception, in which it comes directly from aiōn itself. From one of the two, aidios, it comes but once. From the other, aiōnios, it comes forty-two times. It is applied to life thirty times, without question life without end. Once to damnation, unending in result; three times to glory without end; once to unseen things, imperishable; once to building of God, standing without destruction. Once to salvation, without end; once to judgment, never-ending in result; once each to redemption, Spirit, and inheritance, all without limit; once to fire, same limit as everlasting (which see).

In derivation, the English word eternal goes back through the Latin to the Greek aiōn. In use, it is a synonym of everlasting when applied to the future, but distinguished from it in that it may refer backward to time without a beginning, as well as without end.

Summary

From the study of forever, everlasting, and eternal, it is easy to see that they are subject to the same variation in interpretation, being mostly renderings of the adjective aiōnios or of the noun aiōn, which latter, in phrase, is rendered forever. In fact, aiōnios itself is once rendered forever (Philemon 15), suggesting the close relation of the three words under study here.

Thus, wonderfully does the word harmonize with itself. Any unprejudiced mind can answer the question, “How long is everlasting?”

(W. E. Howell, Review and Herald, June 22, 1939).