ATP said:
Ages of the ages is also used in Rev 4:9-10, as well as Rev 20:10. Day and night are also describing the throne of heaven and torment in hell. Heaven and hell are both in the afterlife. Day and night, and age of the ages are both being used to describe afterlife. Rev 4:9-10 is definitely eternal language, so we can safely say that Rev 20:10 is also. I'm not convinced that hell is not eternal based on these facts.
But you the phrase isn't saying eternal. An age is an undefined period of time. The phrase ages of ages denotes something continuous as does day and night. However, that doesn't mean that the something will be eternal. An age could be 100 years of a million years, which it is must be defined by other criteria, so just because ages of ages could or may be eternal in one place doesn't necessitate that it is elsewhere. Suppose I said I'm going out for while and I came be back in an hour. Now, lets suppose the next day that you said you're going out for a while. Does that statement require that you come back in a hour? No, a while is an undetermined short period of time. I can go out for a while and be gone 20 minutes and you can go out for a while and be gone 4 hours. The point is the length of time of the word is not defined. It is the same with the word "age." It's an undefined period of time. The term "ages of ages" is used to denote a longer period time.
Even to day we don't use the word "age" to denote eternity. Science classifies things according to age. They have the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, etc. None of these denote eternity. If we take the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages, we could call that ages of ages, however, it is not eternal.
Even Scripture tells us that an age is not eternal.
KJV 2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the
god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. (2Co 4:4 KJV)
It's the "god of this aion"
KJV Matthew 13:40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this
world. (Mat 13:40 KJV)
The word world is aion we know this aion ends when Christ returns.
34 And Jesus answered and said to them, "The sons of
this age marry and are given in marriage.
35 "But those who are counted worthy to attain
that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36
"nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God,
being sons of the resurrection. (Luk 20:34-36 NKJ)
Here we have two different ages contrasted. Also note that this age and that age are vastly different in length. This age has ending point, yet that age appears to have no end, because Jesus said those who attain that age die no more. The phrase, "die no more" is eternal, no more death, they will not cease to live, thus they are eternal. However, both time periods are called an age, one ends and one doesn't yet both are called an age. Do you see how the length of "that" age is determined not by the word aion, but rather by Jesus words in that age they die no more. It is determine by criteria outside of the word aion itself. Unless we have additional information we cannot tell how long an age is. It's just like a while, we use that word to let someone know that something will be a short time but we don't know exactly how long it will be or we us it when we don't want another person to know exactly how long it will be.
OzSpen said:
ATP,
It's not your or my place to decide what is the best way to teach about what happens at death. As it happens, under the OT regime (before the cross and resurrection), Jesus used the parable of the rich man and Lazarus to teach about what happens at death for both believer and unbeliever (Lk 16:19-31 ESV).
Your view that in the remainder of the Bible, Hades refers to the grave is the teaching of the JWs and not of orthodox Christianity. Arndt & Gingrich's Greek lexicon defines Hades as 'the underworld as the place of the dead' (e.g. Eccl 9:10; Acts 2:27, 31; Matt 11:23; Luke 10:15) (Arndt & Gingrich 1957:16). Hades combines two Greek words (I read NT Greek and have taught it), a (meaning 'not') and idein ('to see'), i.e. not to see - the meaning of invisible or unseen. This is why the eminent NT Greek scholar, A T Robertson cites McNeile in exegeting Matt 16:18, 'In the Old Testament the "gates of Hades" (Sheol) never bears any other meaning (Isa. 38:10; Wisd. 16:3; III Macc. 5:51) than death' (Robertson 1930:133). That has led some commentators to translate Hades as the place of disembodied spirits.
So, the KJV has not correctly translated Hades in every occurrence, which it also did with Sheol. This we know: (1) Hades cannot mean death because Koine Greek used thanatos for that. See Rev 1:18 where Hades and thanatos appear alongside each other so we know that they cannot be synonyms. (2) Hades is not the grave because mneema is the NT word for grave. (3) Hades does not mean hell (contrary to the KJV translations) because the final place of punishment according to the NT is Gehenna. (4) Hades can't refer to heaven because that is ouranos. (5) The place of eternal bliss after the resurrection at the end of the age cannot be Hades because that place is described as the new heavens and the new earth or the everlasting kingdom (see Matt 25:34; Rev 21:1) (with help from Robert Morey 1984:83).
What then is Hades? In the Greek version of the OT (the LXX), Hades was translated as the Greek equivalent of Sheol, so when the NT, thanks to progressive revelation, uses Hades, it deals with what happens to the soul of human beings at death, but the NT provides a fuller revelation. The OT Rabbinic understanding of Sheol became the meaning of Hades in Luke 16:19-31, so 'Abraham's bosom was interpreted as Rabbinic understanding that there was a section of Hades reserved for the righteous and the other section for the unrighteous. One of the problem with using Luke 16 to refer to a fuller NT understanding of what happens at death is that it is still dealing with the OT era. So a NT understanding of life after death needs to go beyond the Gospel materials which predominantly still deal with the Old Covenant. Luke 16 teaches us that prior to Christ's resurrection, believers AND unbelievers went to Sheol/Hades.
However, since the resurrection, the NT teaching is that believers at death enter the very presence of God (see 2 Cor 5:6-8; Phil 1:23; Heb 12:22-23). We know that Jesus went to Hades, the world beyond death (see Acts 2:31). In 1 Peter 3:18-22, Peter tells us that Christ proclaimed to 'the spirits now in prison' that his atonement was now complete. So the NT post-resurrection teaching is that at death, believers now go to heaven to await the future resurrection when they will enter the eternal state. What a day that will be! :wacko:
What, then, happens to unbelievers at death since Jesus' resurrection? Second Peter 2:9 (ESV) provides the specifics: 'then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement', 'To keep' is a present tense infinitive, meaning that it is referring to continuous action. The unrighteous are continuously being kept 'under punishment'. This ESV translation covers up the fact that kolazomenous is a present tense participle and has the meaning of 'continuously being punished'. So right now, the unrighteous are experiencing punishing that does not cease.
There is no Hades as the grave here. That's the false teaching of the JWs. At death, believers go immediately into the presence of the Lord to enjoy God's presence while unbelievers who have died are right now experiencing punishment.
That's why the proclamation of the Gospel is so important in a world that doesn't have a clue about the eternal consequences of their rejection of Jesus. Bertrand Russell's slogan, 'When you die you rot', only applies to the human body and not to the soul.
Oz
Works consulted
[SIZE=11pt]Arndt, W F & Gingrich, F W 1957. A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament [/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]and other early Christian literature[/SIZE][SIZE=11pt]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press (limited edition licensed to Zondervan Publishing House).[/SIZE]
Morey, R A 1984: Death and the Afterlife. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers.
Robertson, A T 1930. Word Pictures in the New Testament: Matthew and Mark. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press.
all of this supposes and unproven premise, that is that man's soul lives on after death. That however, can clearly be shown false from Scripture. Gen 2:7 tells us that a "soul" consists of a man (body) and the breath/spirit of life which is God's
7 And the LORD God formed
man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and
man became a living soul. (Gen 2:7 KJV)
Ecc 3 tells us what happens to the man when he dies.
18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. {that God...: or, that they might clear God, and see, etc}
19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea,
they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
20
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
21 Who knoweth
the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth? (Ecc 3:18-21 KJV)
Solomon says they all have one breath/spirit. We know from Gen 2 that that breath/spirit is God's. When a man dies the breath/spirit returns to God and the body returns to the dust. That's all there is, there is nothing left to live. Both of the "soul's" components have been accounted for. Man is a living soul as long as he has the breath of life in Him, when that brath leaves, man is no longer a soul, but rather dust. A soul by definition requires a body.