2 Thess 1:9

[oceanman]

It says in greek eternal destruction. Would any one like to comment on this? Any time I see everlasting or forever I am curious.
Oceanman

[zander]

Its supposed to be translated Aionian destruction.  Aionian, meaning age - abiding, meaning it will eventually come to an end, once everyone has been purged of sin.

use e-sword and study further the scriptures to see my point.

[oceanman]

Its supposed to be translated Aionian destruction.  Aionian, meaning age - abiding, meaning it will eventually come to an end, once everyone has been purged of sin.

use e-sword and study further the scriptures to see my point.

Hi Zander
Thanks for reply. I used the Greek translation and it did not appear Aionian like some other translations do. Isnt that where Aionian comes from the Greek. Iam using Greek-English ir. Thanks
Oceanman/Steve

[oceanman]

Its supposed to be translated Aionian destruction.  Aionian, meaning age - abiding, meaning it will eventually come to an end, once everyone has been purged of sin.

use e-sword and study further the scriptures to see my point.

Hi Zander
Thanks for reply. I used the Greek translation and it did not appear Aionian like some other translations do. Isnt that where Aionian comes from the Greek. Iam using Greek-English ir. Thanks
Oceanman/Steve

I went to e sword and it said the same thing, please answer!!! There is no Aionian.
Steve

[zander]

Hi Oceanman.

ESword should say Aionion, Eonian or something similar.  What it translates to may be somethign different.  i dont have esword on my work laptop so i cant see it.  tell me what it says on your esword.

I would recomend further study into it though.  A good place to start is on Ray's essay on the subject.  http://bible-truths.com/aeonion.htm But Ray is not the only source.  There are many.  i would recommend the first 80 or so pages of a book also called "God's Eonian purpose".  If you dont have access to that, there is a plethora of study on the net.  Compare and contrast it with study where people are convinced that it means "Eternal" too, so you can see both sides.  That way, you are not being holed into one belief, but you also have the benefit of both sides.  I always encourage to see both sides as this is the only way one can see the truth - to compare the rubbish and the nonsense, with the stuff that makes sense.

Personally i use the Firm's (Church'S) argument of context with this word aionian/everlasting, in that i always tell them that put in context, everlasting doesnt make sense in most places. And it doesnt!  For example, in Matt 25:46 it should read in esword something like- Then they will go away to eonian chastisement, but the righteous to eonian life

Pray tell, how can someone be "chastised" forever?  To chastise is to correct in the goal of making one or it better.  See dictionary for clarification

Post me what it says on esword with Thess and we can go from there as like i say, i dont have it on my work laptop and i have more time at home to access it anyway.

take care

[zander]

If someone on this site can show Oceanman the esword on Thess, then please do, as i dont have it right now. I have not downloaded it to my work laptop. Thank you so much.

[oceanman]

If someone on this site can show Oceanman the esword on Thess, then please do, as i dont have it right now. I have not downloaded it to my work laptop. Thank you so much.

I found it thankyou and it does use aion etc etc. Thanks for insight to e sword I like it.
Oceanman

[oceanman]

If someone on this site can show Oceanman the esword on Thess, then please do, as i dont have it right now. I have not downloaded it to my work laptop. Thank you so much.

I found it thankyou and it does use aion etc etc. Thanks for insight to e sword I like it.
Oceanman

By the way I found e sword on google free download!

[Nelson]

Hi folks,

If you are using e-sword then download Vincents Word Studies and check the Additional Notes to 2 Thess 1:9. There's an excellent study on the Greek Olethron Aionian (ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον)

If you don't have e-sword, here's the study for you.

Additional Note on ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον eternal destruction, 2Th_1:9
Ἁιών transliterated eon, is a period of time of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (περὶ οὐρανοῦ, i. 9, 15) says: “The period which includes the whole time of each one's life is called the eon of each one.â€? Hence it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life (αἰών) is said to leave him or to consume away (Il. v. 685; Od. v. 160). It is not, however, limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millennium; the mytho-logical period before the beginnings of history. The word has not “a stationary and mechanical valueâ€? (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many eons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one eon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the eon depends on the subject to which it is attached.

It is sometimes translated world; world representing a period or a series of periods of time. See Mat_12:32; Mat_13:40, Mat_13:49; Luk_1:70; 1Co_1:20; 1Co_2:6; Eph_1:21. Similarly οἱ αἰῶνες the worlds, the universe, the aggregate of the ages or periods, and their contents which are included in the duration of the world. 1Co_2:7; 1Co_10:11; Heb_1:2; Heb_9:26; Heb_11:3.

The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting. To deduce that meaning from its relation to ἀεί is absurd; for, apart from the fact that the meaning of a word is not definitely fixed by its derivation, ἀεί does not signify endless duration. When the writer of the Pastoral Epistles quotes the saying that the Cretans are always (ἀεί) liars (Tit_1:12), he surely does not mean that the Cretans will go on lying to all eternity. See also Act_7:51; 2Co_4:11; 2Co_6:10; Heb_3:10; 1Pe_3:15. Ἁεί means habitually or continually within the limit of the subject's life. In our colloquial dialect everlastingly is used in the same way. “The boy is everlastingly tormenting me to buy him a drum.â€?

In the New Testament the history of the world is conceived as developed through a succession of eons. A series of such eons precedes the introduction of a new series inaugurated by the Christian dispensation, and the end of the world and the second coming of Christ are to mark the beginning of another series. See Eph_3:11. Paul contemplates eons before and after the Christian era. Eph_1:21; Eph_2:7; Eph_3:9, Eph_3:21; 1Co_10:11; comp. Heb_9:26. He includes the series of eons in one great eon, ὁ αἰὼν τῶν αἰώνων the eon of the eons (Eph_3:21); and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews describes the throne of God as enduring unto the eon of the eons (Heb_1:8). The plural is also used, eons of the eons, signifying all the successive periods which make up the sum total of the ages collectively. Rom_16:27; Gal_1:5; Phi_4:20, etc. This plural phrase is applied by Paul to God only.

The adjective αἰώνιος in like manner carries the idea of time. Neither the noun nor the adjective, in themselves, carry the sense of endless or everlasting. They may acquire that sense by their connotation, as, on the other hand, ἀΐ̀διος, which means everlasting, has its meaning limited to a given point of time in Jud_1:6. Ἁιώνιος means enduring through or pertaining to a period of time. Both the noun and the adjective are applied to limited periods. Thus the phrase εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, habitually rendered forever, is often used of duration which is limited in the very nature of the case. See, for a few out of many instances, lxx, Exo_21:6; Exo_29:9; Exo_32:13; Jos_14:9; 1Sa_8:13; Lev_25:46; Deu_15:17; 1Ch_28:4. See also Mat_21:19; Joh_13:8; 1Co_8:13. The same is true of αἰώνιος. Out of 150 instances in lxx, four-fifths imply limited duration. For a few instances see Gen_48:4; Num_10:8; Num_15:15; Pro_22:28; Jon_2:6; Hab_3:6; Isa_61:8.

Words which are habitually applied to things temporal or material can not carry in themselves the sense of endlessness. Even when applied to God, we are not forced to render αἰώνιος everlasting. Of course the life of God is endless; but the question is whether, in describing God as αἰώνιος, it was intended to describe the duration of his being, or whether some different and larger idea was not contemplated. That God lives longer than men, and lives on everlastingly, and has lived everlastingly, are, no doubt, great and significant facts; yet they are not the dominant or the most impressive facts in God's relations to time. God's eternity does not stand merely or chiefly for a scale of length. It is not primarily a mathematical but a moral fact. The relations of God to time include and imply far more than the bare fact of endless continuance. They carry with them the fact that God transcends time; works on different principles and on a vaster scale than the wisdom of time provides; oversteps the conditions and the motives of time; marshals the successive eons from a point outside of time, on lines which run out into his own measureless cycles, and for sublime moral ends which the creature of threescore and ten years cannot grasp and does not even suspect.

There is a word for everlasting if that idea is demanded. That αἰώνιος occurs rarely in the New Testament and in lxx does not prove that its place was taken by αἰώνιος. It rather goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. Paul uses the word once, in Rom_1:20, where he speaks of “the everlasting power and divinity of God.â€? In Rom_16:26 he speaks of the eternal God (τοῦ αἰωνίου θεοῦ); but that he does not mean the everlasting God is perfectly clear from the context. He has said that “the mysteryâ€? has been kept in silence in times eternal (χρόνοις αἰωνίοις), by which he does not mean everlasting times, but the successive eons which elapsed before Christ was proclaimed. God therefore is described as the God of the eons, the God who pervaded and controlled those periods before the incarnation. To the same effect is the title ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν αἰώνων the King of the eons, applied to God in 1Ti_1:17; Rev_15:3; comp. Tob. 13:6, 10. The phrase πρὸ χρόνων αἰωνίων before eternal times (2Ti_1:9; Tit_1:2), cannot mean before everlasting times. To say that God bestowed grace on men, or promised them eternal life before endless times, would be absurd. The meaning is of old, as Luk_1:70. The grace and the promise were given in time, but far back in the ages, before the times of reckoning the eons.

Ζωὴ αἰώνιος eternal life, which occurs 42 times in N.T., but not in lxx, is not endless life, but life pertaining to a certain age or eon, or continuing during that eon. I repeat, life may be endless. The life in union with Christ is endless, but the fact is not expressed by αἰώνιος. Κόλασις αἰώνιος, rendered everlasting punishment (Mat_25:46), is the punishment peculiar to an eon other than that in which Christ is speaking. In some cases ζωὴ αἰώνιος does not refer specifically to the life beyond time, but rather to the eon or dispensation of Messiah which succeeds the legal dispensation. See Mat_19:16; Joh_5:39. John says that ζωὴ αἰώνιος is the present possession of those who believe on the Son of God, Joh_3:36; Joh_5:24; Joh_6:47, Joh_6:64. The Father's commandment is ζωὴ αἰώσιος, Joh_12:50; to know the only true God and Jesus Christ is ζωὴ αἰώνιος, Joh_17:3.

Bishop Westcott very justly says, commenting upon the terms used by John to describe life under different aspects: “In considering these phrases it is necessary to premise that in spiritual things we must guard against all conclusions which rest upon the notions of succession and duration. 'Eternal life' is that which St. Paul speaks of as ἡ ὄντως ζωὴ the life which is life indeed, and ἡ ζωὴ τοῦ θεοῦ the life of God. It is not an endless duration of being in time, but being of which time is not a measure. We have indeed no powers to grasp the idea except through forms and images of sense. These must be used, but we must not transfer them as realities to another order.â€?

Thus, while αἰώνιος carries the idea of time, though not of endlessness, there belongs to it also, more or less, a sense of quality. Its character is ethical rather than mathematical. The deepest significance of the life beyond time lies, not in endlessness, but in the moral quality of the eon into which the life passes. It is comparatively unimportant whether or not the rich fool, when his soul was required of him (Luk_12:20), entered upon a state that was endless. The principal, the tremendous fact, as Christ unmistakably puts it, was that, in the new eon, the motives, the aims, the conditions, the successes and awards of time counted for nothing. In time, his barns and their contents were everything; the soul was nothing. In the new life the soul was first and everything, and the barns and storehouses nothing. The bliss of the sanctified does not consist primarily in its endlessness, but in the nobler moral conditions of the new eon, - the years of the holy and eternal God. Duration is a secondary idea. When it enters it enters as an accompaniment and outgrowth of moral conditions.

In the present passage it is urged that ὄλεθρον destruction points to an unchangeable, irremediable, and endless condition. If this be true, if ὄλεθρος is extinction, then the passage teaches the annihilation of the wicked, in which case the adjective αἰώνιος is superfluous, since extinction is final, and excludes the idea of duration. But ὄλεθρος does not always mean destruction or extinction. Take the kindred verb ἀπόλλυμι to destroy, put an end to, or in the middle voice, to be lost, to perish. Peter says, “the world being deluged with water, perishedâ€? (ἀπολοῦνται 2Pe_3:6); but the world did not become extinct, it was renewed. In Heb_1:11, Heb_1:12 quoted from Psalm 102, we read concerning the heavens and the earth as compared with the eternity of God, “they shall perishâ€? (ἀπολοῦνται). But the perishing is only preparatory to change and renewal. “They shall be changedâ€? (ἀλλαγήσονται). Comp. Isa_51:6, Isa_51:16; Isa_65:17; Isa_66:22; 2Pe_3:13; Rev_21:1. Similarly, “the Son of man came to save that which was lostâ€? (ἀπολωλός), Luk_19:10. Jesus charged his apostles to go to the lost (ἀπολωλότα) sheep of the house of Israel, Mat_10:6, comp. Mat_15:24. “He that shall lose (ἀπολέσῃ) his life for my sake shall find it,â€? Mat_16:25. Comp. Luk_15:6, Luk_15:9, Luk_15:32.

In this passage the word destruction is qualified. It is “destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, “ at his second coming, in the new eon. In other words, it is the severance, at a given point of time, of those who obey not the gospel from the presence and the glory of Christ. Ἁιώνιος may therefore describe this severance as continuing during the millennial eon between Christ's coming and the final judgment; as being for the wicked prolonged throughout that eon and characteristic of it, or it may describe the severance as characterizing or enduring through a period or eon succeeding the final judgment, the extent of which period is not defined. In neither case is αἰώνιος to be interpreted as everlasting or endless.

I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions folks.

Grace and peace to you

Nelson