Page 104 - Gods Plan of the Ages

What is Aionian Life?

ote: In this chapter I am using the word "aionian" as a transliteration of the Greek word
Nthat is often interpreted as "eternal" in the most popular English Bibles. Rather than
translating the word as "age-abiding," "age-lasting," or "age-during" as some literal
translations have done, I am presenting it in a form that serves as an English equivalent to
the actual Greek word form.

As I have taught the doctrines relating to God's plan of the ages I have encountered
some common objections to what is being set forth. One of the more frequently raised
protestations is that the same word is used in Scriptures to describe "aionian" fire and
"aionian" life. The saints have heard it proclaimed with such repetitiveness that Christ has
come to bring men "eternal" life, that any suggestion to the contrary is anathema to them.
I am convinced that God never meant to place man's focus upon the length of the life which
He provides. Aionian life is not an unending life, it is a life in union with the Father and the
Son.
The two Scriptures below include the word aionios. Certain things can be discerned
by looking at them.

Jude 6-7
And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He
has kept in eternal (aidios) bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just
as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these
indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in
undergoing the punishment of eternal (aionian) fire.
(NAS)

Mark 10:29-30
Yahshua said, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters
or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, but that
he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age (kairos), houses and
brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and
in the age (aion) to come, eternal (aionian) life."
(NAS)

I have specifically chosen these two passages from the Scriptures as they show forth
the problem of interpreting the Greek word "aionian" as eternal. In the first passage we read
that God has been keeping disobedient angels in bonds until they can be delivered up for
judgment at "the great day." Seeing that these bonds are intended to hold these angels for
a limited period of time, they cannot be eternal bonds. What is spoken of are temporal
bonds.
In the second passage we read that Christ's disciples will receive aionian life in the
aion to come. We have observed previously that the Greek word aion means an age. How
then can one receive eternal life inside the bounds of an age to come? This would be akin
to trying to contain that which is infinite inside something that is finite.
In the passage from Jude we find that the first occurrence of the English word
"eternal" is translated from the Greek "aidios." This word only occurs twice in Scripture.
Numerous Bible translations have rendered this word as "hidden" or "unknown" rather
than "eternal." If we examine the other Scripture in which thisword occurs, we see that it