The Gospel of the Hereafter

by J. Paterson Smyth

The American Revised Version has very wisely removed the word Hell altogether on account of the misleading associations connected with it. It substitutes the word Gehenna, leaving the reader to ascertain its meaning. The English Revisers have retained the word Hell and put the word Gehenna beside it in the margin. I think this was a pity, as it will be hard for the ordinary reader to dissociate the word Hell from the theory which has unwarrantably grown on to it. But at any rate I think we may safely say that no reader who understands the position will ever again use the texts in which our Lord speaks of Hell to prove the absolute certainty of the theory of Endless Torment and Endless Sin. So vanishes another group of the proof texts for this theory.

§ 3

Now take the group of texts with the word "everlasting." It is surely significant that the Revisers have completely removed this word also in every case and substituted for it the word "eternal," a less definite word and which in scholarly usage means rather the opposite of temporal—that which is above the sphere of time and space—that which belongs to the other world. At any rate the fact that they have removed it in every case shows that the word "everlasting" did not seem to them a correct translation.

There is only space for a brief explanation. The original word is the adjective aiônos (aionios) (Eng. aeonian), coming from the noun aiôn (aion) (Eng. aeon), an age, an epoch, a long period of time. This noun cannot mean eternity for it is repeatedly used by St. Paul in the plural "aeons" and "aeons of aeons." As we speak of great periods of time, "the Ice Age," "the Stone Age," etc., so the Bible speaks of "this age" (aeon), "the coming age" (aeon), and "the end of the age," etc. These aeons or ages are thought of in Scripture as vast periods past, present and future in which the Divine purpose is working itself out, e. g., God's purpose is the purpose of the ages (aeons) (Eph. iii. 11). Christ's name is above every name not only in this age (aeon) but in that which is to come (Eph. i. 21). "That in the ages (aeons) to come He might shew," etc.

From this noun, then, conies the adjective aiônios (aionios)—aeonian which may be defined "age long" or "belonging to the ages," etc. Any Greek scholar will assert unhesitatingly that of itself it does not mean endless or everlasting. Sometimes, as when applied to God, it may be thus translated but only because the meaning is inherent in the noun to which it is applied. The word aiônios of itself would not positively prove the endlessness of God. This adjective when applied to any thing or any state of being cannot of itself be used to prove its endlessness.

It is worth notice too that in the Septuagint Greek Bible, the version usually quoted in the Gospels and Epistles, this word aiônios is frequently applied to things that have ended, e. g., the gift of the land of Canaan, the priesthood of Aaron, the kingdom of David, the temple at Jerusalem, the daily offerings, etc. When the noun always means a finite period and the adjective is applied both to that which is ended and to that which is endless it would surely be poor scholarship if the Revisers allowed the word "everlasting" to remain as its translation, or if students of theology should argue from it the endlessness of anything. To which we may add that there are Greek adjectives and phrases which do definitely mean "endless" and which are never used in the Bible of men's fate in the Hereafter.

Be it observed that all this does not prove that the punishment of the future ages may not be everlasting. It only proves that Scripture nowhere asserts unmistakably that it must be so. It simply asserts that it is aeonian.

The thoughtful advocates of Everlasting Torment are of course aware of all this. But they honestly feel that in spite of the indefiniteness of the adjective, our Lord has fixed His meaning beyond question in the one passage that has become so famous as the great proof text in this controversy, "These shall go away into aeonian punishment, but the righteous into aeonian life" (Matt. xxv. 46). Very reasonably they say, "If the word asserts everlastingness in the one case it must also in the other." The answer is that the word of itself cannot assert everlastingness in either case. If this word were our only proof of everlasting life then everlasting life would be a doubtful matter. But the everlastingness of that life like the everlastingness of God is evident all over the Bible quite apart from this. The words here simply tell that the one shall go into the aeonian life and the other into aeonian punishment, i. e., that the one shall go into the life of the future age and the other into the punishment of the future age without exactly specifying the duration of either.

I quite feel that the close connection of the words suggests at least the probability that one is as lasting as the other. Yet even that consideration is weakened by asking if people are willing to apply it to St. Paul's statement, "As in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (the context suggests eternal life). I would point out, too, that a somewhat similar verse is in the Septuagint Bible of our Lord's day in Hab. iii. 6, where the (aeonian) everlasting mountains were scattered before God, whose ways are (aeonian) everlasting. Yet it does not prove that the one is as endless as the other. And in Rom. xvi. 25-26 the mystery hid in the (aeonian) times "before the world began" is now manifested according to the command of the (aeonian) eternal God. But the age "before the world began" is ended.

At any rate I must leave the matter here. I have no space for fuller statement. If any man feels that a world of increasing sin and awful torment growing no nearer to its end after millions and millions of ages does not disturb his conscience or the thoughts of God which he has learned from the whole trend of Scripture this text will probably weigh strongly with him in spite of all that I have said. But to him who is tortured by such a thought of God and yet feels that Scripture binds him to it, it must surely be some relief to feel that even in this great bulwark text of Everlasting Torment our Lord only asserts that these shall go away into the aeonian punishment or chastisement[3] whatever that may mean.