Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

will call them home?"

"We shall still be in them,

and they in us;" but these are not material, not sensual they can find no home in the material universe. And if we have made them the mere captives and hungry dependants of sense, how can they but go out into a world all strange, and alien, and full of torment? Is it wise, then, to neglect this our master part? Is he a true man who sacrifices that which is highest and most enduring in him to that which is most fugitive and lowest ? Is not he dead even while he lives, and damned even before he is judged?

1 The citations are from Matthew Arnold's Empedocles on Etna, Act ii. pp. 64, 65.

V. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE

ÆONS.

We have now examined all the passages in the Gospels and Epistles in which the words "hell" and "damnation" occur. We have found that these words are always a false and misleading translation of the original words of Scripture, since the two verbs rendered by to damn never mean more than "to judge " and "to condemn;" while the three substantives rendered by "hell"" Tartarus," "Hades," and "Gehenna " —all indicate a temporary and intermediate state, not a final and everlasting state.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

The second class of Scriptures we have to examine is that in which the words "eternal" and "everlasting" occur; and in this class a subordinate series in which, as these epithets are applied both to the future felicity of the good and the future misery of the wicked, the logical inference seems to be that the one will last as long as the other.

Now this class of passages is so numerous, the words "eternal," "everlasting," "for ever," and the like recur so frequently, that it will be simply impossible for us to examine them all. We must be content with

some general remarks which will cover them all, and with a detailed investigation of a few leading texts which bear most directly on the subject we have in hand.

And perhaps the very first point we should mark is this: that, though the words "eternal" and "everlasting" are used indiscriminately to translate one and the same Greek word, they are by no means identical in meaning. The word "eternal" bears two great meanings, and is used in two very different senses. Popularly and loosely it is used to denote that which lasts for ever; but as it is used by many of our most eminent thinkers and theologians, instead of denoting that which endures through all the successions of time, it denotes that which is above and beyond time, that which is independent of duration; that which you can no more calculate on the sequences of time than you can weigh music by the pound or measure beauty with a foot-rule. God, for example, and Christ, and indeed all that pertains to the spiritual realm—as faith, hope, charity, righteousness, peace--are eternal in this higher sense.1

They cannot be expressed in terms of

66

1 It must be admitted however that this higher sense has been put into the word: it is not the original meaning of the word: according to its derivation "eternal" means age-long" (see page 119). And if it could be brought back to its original meaning, if it now suggested nothing more, it would be the very word of all words for rendering the Greek αἰώνιος. But that, I suppose, is wholly

impossible.

G

duration. They cannot be brought within the measures of time. God may indeed, and does, act within the limits of time; but He is not confined by them. Faith and love may be quickened and experienced in the hours of time; but they are not to be measured and limited by its sequences and changes. They are

spiritual, eternal.

Now this meaning of the word "eternal," as denoting that which transcends the standards and limits of time, that which is above and beyond, before and after it, that which encompasses as well as penetrates and suffuses it, is clearly the greater and the nobler of the two; it is even held by some modern teachers and theologians to be the only meaning in which the word should now be employed. So that we must not take the words "eternal" and "everlasting" as synonyms

or equivalents. The one indicates that which continues through the whole of duration; the other, that which is out of duration and above it, of which the measures and sequences of time are no necessary part. The one expresses quantity, the other quality. "Everlasting" denotes that which lasts for ever; "eternal," that which is spiritual and divine. And hence to translate one and the same Greek word by either of these words, as if it did not matter which, is obviously inaccurate and misleading.

With this necessary distinction well in our minds,

we may turn to the texts in which these words occur. There are two, and only two passages in the Gospels and Epistles in which both one and the other word are employed to translate a Greek word (ardios) which unquestionably means "for ever;" and though neither of these texts refers to the future and final conditions of men, we will just glance at them, in order that we may put them aside with a clear conscience, as not bearing on the question in hand. In Romans i. 20, St Paul speaks, according to the Authorized Version, of "the eternal power and godhead" of the Almighty; or, as the phrase should be rendered, of "the everlasting power and godhead.' Now that God's power and deity are everlasting, that they endure for ever, that they can know no bound, no diminution, no end, no man who believes in God at all will be likely to deny. The second passage is Jude 6, where Jude, speaking of the angels who sinned and fell, says that God has reserved them "in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the day of judgment." And here the word is used in a poetic and figurative sense. "Everlasting chains there may be, though one hardly sees how any chain should last for ever; and the fallen angels may be bound by them, though one hardly sees how spirits should be held by chains: but they are not to be bound by them for ever, only "unto the day of judgment." All that Jude meant to imply was,

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
« НазадПродовжити »