You missed my point. Do we see things exactly as God sees them? Do we think of things exactly as God does? You and I, we don't even have the same definition in our heads of one single word, really. Yet we have the same definition and thoughts as God...?
I assume even with people that there are differences. I assume too that language is imprecise. If I say, "I have a black chair," you will have only a vague idea of what I mean. I could use many more words and still fail to convey an exact description. Now if you saw the chair for yourself, then you would know what I meant.
The Jews have a saying about the Torah that it is written in the language of men. That is a warning to be careful when assigning human qualities to God. If the Torah says God wrote something with His finger, we ought not assume God has a literal physical finger. Rather God did something that if a human had done would have been done with a finger. So what might God actually write with? Who knows? We lack a word for it. The closest word for it is "finger" even though that can be misleading. So that is the word used.
So far as I know, both Hebrew and Greek can be misleading when it comes to translating into English. It's said that "aion" in Greek means "age" and that "from aion to aion" means eternity. The Hebrew strikes me as even vaguer. Christianity started off fairly simple; then theologians entered the picture and began trying to divine more and more about God. They quarreled and the divisions within the church began. I don't find that a useful thing to do. I rely on what Israel was told.
Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
The Bible for me is not an attempt to explain the mysteries of God. It is not a book that says a lot about the afterlife with much precision. I read it as a book meant to help us now in our daily lives. If we do the right things now, we don't need to know everything about God and the afterlife will take care of itself.
I also wonder if the theologians took the story about Eve to heart. It's one of the first lessons in the Bible, yet one that theologians never learned. It's as if they want to know everything God knows.
So what does "everlasting" mean? To me, it means it lasts through time -- and will be there at any point in time. Could it exist also in eternity? Perhaps -- I don't know. I wouldn't want to speculate. For me, I say only God as Creator existed before anything else -- for me only God is eternal. I read that Jesus is the beginning and end. I read those as temporal terms. I do not jump to the conclusions Catholic theologians did in the Third and Fourth Centuries.
Yet there is one thing I can say I am convinced of concerning how divinity and humanity interact. I believe each of us, as spiritual beings, start off the size of a mustard seed or a grain of sand. I also call it "a divine spark." It is part of God.
We read God looked at Adam and said it was not good that he be alone. What did God know about being alone? Here I will speculate. God could exist in eternity without creating anything. How tedious, how boring. But if God is Love, God would want "others" He could love and who perhaps would love Him in return.
How to make them then? You can observe this for yourself. You can say you love a sweater or a blanket or some other physical object; but really now, it can't love you back and you know it. It's also not enough like you that you could love it too much. We can love plants a little more since they are alive; and we can love animals even more since they're more like us with feelings and the ability to show some love in return. It's possible to love other people more -- and we find the better they are, the easier it is to love them. I would conjecture (being unmarried) too that an even higher degree of love is possible between two people -- and that a spiritual union is possible between them where they understand each other completely -- and the Bible uses the word "know" to show that.
We are also told that the "first commandment" is to love God. Yet Adam was not told to love God. He was told to cleave to Eve. Why? Speaking for myself, that commandment to love God confused me for years since I realized God was a mystery to me. How can I love what I don't understand? I found two more clues in the Bible. One is where John says we are liars if we say we love God and don't love other people. The other clue is when Jesus said the second commandment (to love others) is "like" the first one (to love God). The more I learn about others and the more I can love them, the better position I am in to understand God and His purposes and to love Him. Adam could not really love God fully unless he first learned how to love Eve. If Adam and Eve had become one as told to do, one of the mysteries of God would have revealed, so I believe.
For me then every person on this earth is a manifestation of God at some stage of development. I see people daily. It's under my nose. The Bible acts as a guide for me about that. Why worry about eternity when I'm here now? (Take no thought for the morrow.) I do not say the following lightly, and I realize it could easily be taken the wrong way. Some Christians are too wrapped up with Jesus only as if other people don't matter. Perhaps they think some benefit will come to them by that? As if Jesus craves all the attention? His life shows otherwise. Jesus is not a self-centered person who wants compliments all the time. It is possible to call him, "Lord, lord" and have the wrong impression about him.
