Eternal Versus Aion?

By Mark Farquharson

Well we all know eternal is time without end….or forever

But what is Aion? Well it is not an English word…. It is actually a Greek word….The New Testament was original written in Greek, and the Old testament was written mainly in Hebrew.

And can you guess what else?

It is a word that has been mistranslated….

Lets have a look at how it’s variants have been translated:

It has been translated into eight different words in the King James Version: ‘Ages’ twice; ‘Ever’ 30 times ; ‘Ever and Ever’ 21 times; World’ 35 times; ‘Worlds’ twice; ‘Course’ once; ‘Eternal’ twice; and ‘End’ once.

It often appears together with the word “for”, creating the word “forever”

How can Aion mean Eternal and age…? one has an end the other is endless… And it also means world????

This is how we get incorrect teaching, about people spending forever in Hell….

As explained in other articles people spent a period of time in the ‘Lake of Fire’

However the correct translation is:

Eon or eons: A period of time…

Aionion and it’s variants are translated eonian in the CLV and age-abiding in the Rotherham and age-during in the YLT

Eonian: Meaning that which is age-abiding or lasts for the eon/s or lasts for the age or lasts for the ages of time.

By using the correct word, we can see that God has a plan, that covers the Eons…

Some may complain that the correct translation is ‘Eternal’ or ever but if that were the case then you would have:

Matthew 24:3

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the Eternal"

Well Eternal is everlasting, so they want to know when eternal would end… well it never does… so when would Christ becoming?

The translators would have had a problem here, which is why the KJV uses “world.”

Clearly Eon is a better translation, they wanted to know when the Eon would end…

Matthew 24:3 Now at His sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? And what is the sign of Thy presence and of the conclusion of the eon? CLV

Also the plural of aion is used quite frequently in the bible, how can you have more than one ‘eternal’? since the first one never ends, when does the other start? And I thought eternal was without beginning or end?

Ephesians 2:7; . . . “and rouses us together and seats us together among the celestials, in Christ Jesus, in order that, in the on-coming eons, He should be displaying the transcendent riches of His grace” CLV

If eternal was used here, then when is he to display the “transcendent riches of His grace” ?

Colossians 1:26 “the secret, which has been concealed from the eons and from the generations, yet now was made manifest to His saints.” CLV

If the word “aion” were translated “eternal” in the above passage it would not make sense, because then the secret or mystery would never be made known, yet the passage says it now was made manifest to His saints.

Hence the use of “ages” in the KJV.

Of course some would point out that if Aion means Eon, then the saints only life for an Eon….

Romans 6:23 “For the ration of Sin is death, but God’s gracious gift is eonian life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” CLV

This is incorrect thinking, just because the saints live for the eon, it does not mean they die after that…

If I say “I’m going to work tomorrow”, it does not mean I will not work the day after tomorrow, or that I will never work again after tomorrow….

Besides the saints are immortal, so I think they would be save from dying….

Oulm vs. everlasting

Oulm and it’s variants has been translated incorrectly as perpetual, everlasting, ever {often appears with “for” to create “for ever” }, world, long, old and old time.

Oulm is a Hebrew word in the Old Testament which refers to 'indefinite time' and the English equivalent variants are the words eonian or eon/s.

History:

After the time of the apostle Paul the truth concerning the eons became lost, obscure and pagan error started to reassert itself, upon the teachings of the scriptures. After Paul no one seems to have said anything on this until the 1800s. In the past there have been a few exceptions, Herodian end of the second century; Lactanius born about 260 A. D.; Eusebius born about 265 A. D.; Wyclif about 1320.

The Latin Fathers, led by Jerome started this divergence from the original. In 696AD the doctrine of the eons was condemned publicly by a council of the Church. One hundred and fifty years after Wyclif, came Tyndale who established in our English bibles the totally false teaching of endlessness.

Note: There are lots of different views on how many Eons there are.

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