AIONIOS — THE WORD TO UNLOCK THE FUTURE
by Anthony Buzzard
Two things struck me recently as evidence that the Bible is not holding its own against the winds of theological confusion which are blowing so violently in the 1990’s. Firstly, an article in the Brethren Life Magazine in which only one of ten writers grappling with the issue of homosexuality felt able actually to include in his assessment of the problem the fact that the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin serious enough to keep you out of the Kingdom (salvation). Secondly, an article which presented statistics to show that the born again camp in America generally behaves no better, if not rather worse, than the group which claims no rebirth experience.
If believers really understood what was at stake in being a Christian, I am sure they would find the resources to be radically different from the world. The trouble is, I think, that many do not grasp the awesome nature of their destiny as co-regents with Christ in the coming Kingdom of God. They cannot thrill to Paul’s challenge that we should walk worthy of the staggering invitation we have been given to the Kingdom of God (I Thess. 2:12).
Until the Kingdom comes into focus in people’s spiritual vision, the situation is likely to remain unchanged. In this brief study I suggest that the foggy translation of a key Greek word keeps Bible readers in the dark about their future and the future of the world. It also helps to propagate the monstrous notion that God is going to torture the wicked for ever.
In 1855 Charles Kingsley helped to dispel the darkness with which Platonism had shrouded the truth of Scripture in regard to the future: He declared, “The word ‘AION’ is never used in Scripture or anywhere else in the sense of endlessness (vulgarly called eternity). It always meant, both in Scripture and out, a period of time…. AIONIOS therefore means, and must mean, belonging to an epoch, or the epoch; AIONIOS KOLASIS (eternal punishment) [Matthew 25:46; cp. II Thess. 1:9] is the punishment allotted to that epoch.”
Tradition rose to oppose this idea when Dr. Pusey preached a sermon at Oxford to maintain that AIONIOS (“ay-ohn-ios”) in classical Greek does mean endlessness. But classical Greek is a poor measure of the Hebrew orientated New Testament language. Samuel Cox (for ten years editor of The Expositor) replied by pointing out that “the word AION is saturated through and through with the thought and element of time. The adjective AIONIOS must take the whole of its meaning from the noun AION from which it is derived. In the NT the word is used in connection with the Jewish doctrine of the aeons. Instead of affirming that time shall be no more when men pass out this present order and age, the NT speaks of “ages to come” as well as ages that are past.” The Bible recognizes the patriarchal age, the Mosaic AGE and in the future, “the age of the Messiah” or “the age to come.” No wonder then that Paul spoke of God’s “purpose for the ages.” AIONIOS refers to the great age to come and God’s great purpose for that age (Luke 20:35).
In 1877 Cannon Farrar added the weight of his scholarship to the emerging light of truth by asserting that “it has been so ably proved by so many writers that there is no authority whatever for rendering AIONIOS as ‘everlasting.’ Nevertheless the public were continuing to read in their inadequate translations that God was going to usher the wicked into “everlasting punishment” (Matt. 25: 46) and that the same wicked would suffer “eternal punishment.” In this way the fog of Platonism continued to interfere with the inspired word. The latter could not be heard clearly as long as the confusion of Greek philosophical concepts jam the pure Hebrew signals of God’s word.
Derivation of the word AIONIOS
Moulton and Milligan contend that the Sanskrit aye, to which AIONIOS is related contains the idea of life and long life. In the Septuagint (LXX), AION translates no less than nine different Hebrew expressions, of which the one most familiar to Jews is the famous word OLAM = age. Interestingly, in the vocabulary of Plato the word AION applies to things belonging to the world of eternal ideas. It is that meaning which has been foisted on our translations, as though Platonic metaphysics are the basis of what the prophets and Jesus said about the future. Little wonder, then, that people expect souls to enter at death the eternal, heavenly realm. But nobody could have got that impression from the Bible if AIONIOS had been allowed to retain its Hebraic association with God’s plan of the ages. What the Bible promises is the “life of the age to come” consequent upon resurrection into the Kingdom to be established when Jesus comes back.
Platonically-minded writers and thinkers, then, will use AIONIOS in the transcendent and timeless sense in which Plato used it. In Bible times we shall naturally find this meaning current in Alexandria, that great home of Platonizing philosophy and also in the writings of the philosophically minded first-century Jew, Philo.
Use of the word AIONIOS
In the LXX AIONIOS occurs over 160 times. One of these texts is of paramount interest to us: Dan. 12:2, where it describes the resurrection life of those who after the tribulation emerge from their sleep of death in the dust of the ground. Here AIONIOS modifies ZOE (Life) and it is this famous phrase which was so often on Jesus’ lips and appears 40 times in the NT, along with other phrases endorsed by Jesus and drawn from Daniel, i.e., Son of Man and Kingdom of Heaven. Daniel provided Jesus with a storehouse of phrases and ideas, all of which have been tragically distorted or ignored by Platonically orientated theology.
The phrases “eternal life” and “everlasting life” appear in our standard translations. They reflect the platonizing influence at work on translators. The real meaning of these phrases is “the life of the age to come” or “life in the age to come.” Life in the age to come is synonymous with life in the future Kingdom of God on the earth.
In Daniel AIONIOS refers to the Kingdom to be set up at the return of Jesus. In 7:14 we are told of the “dominion of the age to come.” In 7:27 we read of the “kingdom of the age to come,” and in 9:24 of the “righteousness of the age to come,” to be introduced at the end of the “seventy sevens.” Dan. 12:2 reveals that in that Kingdom the resurrected saints will obtain “the life of the age to come.” The contrasted fate of the wicked is to be “the shame of the age to come,” that is, the punishment which excludes a person from enjoying the life of the age to come. It is that wonderful phrase chayé olam (Dan. 12:2), “life of the age,” which comes across into our New Testament. It should be rendered always as “the life of the future Kingdom-age.” It is indeed immortality, but it is much more specific. AIONIOS tells us that we are going to enjoy life for ever in the Kingdom of God which belongs to the coming age. The translation “everlasting” loses information and obscures the Christian destiny. It is like the difference between “Tomorrow at nine I am going to take you to the airport to catch you plane to Tokyo,” and “sometime in the future you are going to take a trip.”
AIONIOS is the word which describes those precious facts of the Christian future. Those wonderful events associated with the future coming of Jesus can be tasted now through the spirit which grants a downpayment guaranteeing the fullness of the spirit at the return of Jesus. The Holy Spirit gives us a taste of the “powers of the age to come” (Heb. 6:5). That future age will see the new world of the Kingdom of God (Matt. 19:28) and the restoration of all that the prophets foresaw (Acts 3:21). The tribes of Israel will be regathered in the land and the resurrected Apostles will administer them in association with Jesus as the Davidic Messiah (Luke 22:28-30).
Things described as AIONIOS are things which “pertain to the coming age of the Kingdom of God on earth.” Try now substituting that translation of AIONIOS wherever it appears (as “everlasting” or “eternal”). You will see how prominent the future Kingdom-age is the New Testament. The Bible is indeed a forward-looking book, brimming over with hope for a better world to come on this planet. What Christians are to seek as the supreme reward of faithfulness is the Life of the Age to Come in the Kingdom. Christians are called not only to be in the Kingdom but to be the Kingdom, the royal family of priests and kings to assist Jesus in the reordering of our disordered earth (Rev. 1:6; Rev. 5:10; Rev. 2:26; 3:21; 20:1-6; I Cor. 6:2; II Tim. 2:12; Isa. 32:1; Dan. 7:14, 18, 22, 27). The Gospel of the Kingdom is rightly called the Gospel about the Age to Come” Rev. 14:6).
Now try applying this meaning of AIONIOS to the book of Hebrews. In 5:9 we have the salvation which pertains to the coming age, in 6:2 the judgment or administration of that coming age. 9:12 speaks of the redemption of the coming age and 9:14 designates the spirit as the spirit of the age to come. Most appropriately 9:15 speaks of the inheritance [of the Kingdom] of the future age, and 13:2 tells us that the New Covenant has to do with the age to come. Jesus himself spoke of the covenant of the Kingdom and kingship which conferred the right to rule on himself and the apostles. We find this in Luke 22:28-30: “Just as my Father has covenanted to me a Kingdom so I covenant with you a Kingdom….” This Jesuanic covenant — “God has covenanted a Kingdom to me” — is the climax of the earlier Abrahamic covenant — the promise of land and descendants (Gen 12:1-4), and the Davidic covenant (II Sam 7; I Chron. 17) — the promise of a perpetual royal family.
Finally AIONIOS, properly translated, will dispel the monstrous idea that God is intending to torture human beings for ever and ever. The punishment to be inflicted on the incorrigibly wicked is “aionian fire” (Matt. 25:41). It would be quite wrong to think of this as everlasting fire. The very same expression is found in Jude 7, where we learn that Sodom and Gemorrha suffered the penalty of “eternal fire” (so the KJV, etc.). But was that fire literally everlasting? Of course, not. It has long since ceased to burn. It was in fact “the fire of the age to come,” supernatural fire, fire which will likewise burn up the wicked and consume them as smoke (Ps. 37:20).
Christians should take time to show their friends and neighbors these keys to understanding God’s wonderful plans for the future. A proper understanding of AIONIOS sheds a brilliant light on the God’s revelation. This information is readily available to Truth-seekers. Early in this century the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges stated: “The adjective aionios (‘everlasting’) does not in itself mean ‘unending.’” This applies to the same adjective aionios in Daniel 12:2 where the future life of Christians is the life of the age to come. AIONIOS also describes the fire which destroyed Sodom and Gemmorha thousands of years ago. The fire was not ‘everlasting’ (Jude 7).
The world famous scholar of New Testament Greek, the late Nigel Turner, Ph. D, says: “It would be imprecise to translate aionios as ‘eternal.’ It means ‘belonging to the future age or dispensation.’” (Christian Words, T & T Clark, 1980, pp. 452, 455, 456).
Translations of the Bible may sometimes reflect not the Truth of the inspired original but merely a prejudice in favor of established tradtional doctrine. One of the tasks of the Bible scholar is to expose such misinformation.
