Is there a teaching of the eons in the Bible?

Or more concretely, is there a chapter anywhere in the Bible with a comprehensive and concrete description of the biblical times? A chapter, then, that introduces us plainly to the meanings of the word eon?

The answer to such a question is simply: No. There is no such summary. Among other things, there is a chapter on the resurrection (1Cor 15), but many other topics in the Bible are not so clear to look up anywhere.

Of course, this does not mean that there is no information. However, these mentions are not in a single place, but are found in various places. From these various passages, a picture can be created that gives an insight, so to speak, into the understanding of the times of the writers and listeners of that time.

One would have to deal with many statements of the Bible in a similar way. It is not about special doctrines, but about understanding the statements of the Bible better also in context – and taking into account the temporal indications. Time is an important element in God’s action. Concepts of time therefore play a role again and again. He acts in time. Time is not the main subject, but time is part of His action in and on this world.

Theodicy

In the question of theodicy, for example, the time aspect is not mentioned but presupposed.

The question of theodicy is as follows:

“If God is almighty and God is love, why does He allow suffering in this world?”.

What is not said here – but resonates – is the assumption that God must change something here and now, and immediately. This expectation is not directly mentioned and it is easy to look past it. However, it is a prerequisite for this question and the time aspect should therefore be taken into account in the answer.

Man does not want to suffer and usually defends himself against perceived injustice. He thinks he is in the right with the assertion that a God “must” work here and now, otherwise He cannot be an almighty and loving God. One concludes from oneself to God, as if God were a human being. This is another basic assumption not mentioned, which leads to the question mentioned. To conclude from oneself to God seems a bit silly, if one takes a God seriously, or at least estimates the concept of a God as correct. If one does not do this, the question is superfluous and one probably only shows one’s own bossiness.

Let us assume here that there is a God who also deserves this name. A being higher and greater than man. A creator of everything, if you will. Then there is a real difference between this God and human beings. Of course, this question can then be asked seriously and authentically, because who is not dismayed by the misery in this world, by injustice and by the mortality that is inherent in all of us?

We have now named two assumptions not explicitly mentioned in this question:

1. The time aspect resonates in the question
2. One should at least have a working hypothesis that there is a God.

The time aspect

People want or even demand an immediate solution. Understandable, but this view is limited. How to explain a mayfly the importance of a week? How to explain to man something that may exceed his own lifetime?

If God meets the suffering of the world at a later time, and then gives salvation – would the question be answered? Does that change the perspective? If God has time, and ultimately accomplishes everything, is He measured by the result or by any point along the way toward the result?

Or in other words: If the doctor treats the patient tomorrow rather than today, and the patient can then start on the road to recovery, is it appropriate to sue the doctor today? It is of fundamental importance that we learn to recognize the understanding of time in the biblical statements from the goal.

God’s “Purpose of the Aeons

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes in the third chapter that God’s wisdom proceeds “according to the purpose of the eons, which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11). This is clearly about a time frame. There is no doctrine of the eons in the Bible, but there is a doctrine of God’s wisdom made known and accomplished in and through Christ. It is a plan, a resolution, which received the temporal frame as “resolution of the eons”.

This plan or purpose, which extends over the eons, also runs within the eons. The eons form, so to speak, the temporal framework for how God works in and on the world. However, the aeons are not central, but it is always about God’s action in Christ. The Bible is Christocentric. Nothing should distract from that.

If we want to understand God’s action in Christ, and if we want to see how He is progressing with this world, then we must take seriously these concepts of time that He Himself links to His action. It is about a “resolution of the eons” and this resolution was “made in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Two views

Once you get to grips with the concepts of olam and aion, you quickly realize that the one-dimensional understanding of an “endless eternity” is not appropriate. A differentiation of the understanding of time is needed. The Bible itself compels us to do so.

There are two views that would like to be juxtaposed here. The views concern the interpretation of certain expressions. This is especially important because interpretations of what eternity is supposed to be vary widely. Is eternity endless time, or just a timelessness? Are they ages and can there be more than one? Should there be more than one, do you mean that there is an infinite sequence of ages?

These questions can all be answered from the Bible. There you can read how people at that time thought about these terms and what meaning they gave to them. So we can look back in history in the Bible and see the understanding of that time. If the biblical statements are more important to us than later traditions, we can compare the statements of the Bible with those of tradition. Then we can notice differences and try to understand those in order to come to our own understanding.

Singular or plural?

For instance, if Ephesians 3:11 speaks of the “purpose of the eons,” what is it meant to express? Here is a plural form. Can there be more than one eternity?

There are different interpretations. One view says, “It’s a plural form-what’s wrong with understanding it simply as plural?” Another view, however, leans heavily on the notion of a single endless eternity, and now explains the plural form as poetic license, in keeping with Hebrew thought, thus creating a Impression, more than a number should be described. One wants to reduce the grammatical plural form to a singular form. If one speaks in the Bible of “eternities” or “eons” the plural form is to be understood as a poetic description of the infinity, as if endless rows with eons would point to an endlessness.

One can have sympathy for both approaches. One view simply wants to believe what is written. One starts from the text and wants to understand this text literally. If there is talk about different aeons, one should let them be valid for the time being. “There is a plural form there, so I assume multiple eons.” The other view recognizes that words do not resemble mathematical number sequences. Words are there to tell a story. Then one recognizes: The desire to an exact definition of the eons and their composition, might miss here and there the aim of the texts. However, both ways of looking at things can contribute something to understanding.

However, this understanding should not lead to the fact that a single word (gr. aion / hb. olam) should receive contradictory meanings in itself. Ages and eternity are not confusable in the usual understanding. Now the Bible does not speak with any special word of an endless eternity, and the words used point without exception to ages, as this has already been discussed to some extent in past articles.

The use of the terms in the writing

There are many remarkable statements about the eons:

• God made the eons through the Son
  “Son, whom He made the lot-holder of all things, and through whom also He made the eons” (Heb. 1:2).
  “By faith we understand that the eons were prepared by a saying of God” (Heb. 11:3).
• There are the aeonic times
  “the mystery … which was kept secret in eonian times ” (Rom 16:25).
• There were times before the eons
  “God’s wisdom … which God predestined before the eons for our glory” (1 Cor. 2:7).
  “God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before eonian times…” (2Tim 1:9).
  “…in expectation of eonian life, which the infallible God promised before eonian times ” (Titus 1:2).
• Jesus contrasts this eon with the future eon
  “But whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be remitted to him, either in this eon or in the one to come” (Matt. 12:32).
• The current eon is completed once
  “What is the sign of Your presence and of the end of the eon?” (Mt 24,3)
• It is spoken of the completions of all the eons as a whole
  “us … to whom the completions of the eons have come” (1 Cor. 10:11).
  “But now He[Christus] has revealed Himself once (for the rejection of sin for the closing period of the eons) by His sacrifice” (Heb. 9:26).
• There were eons (plural) before us
  “Is there a thing of which one says, “Behold, this is new”? Long has it been for the ages (hb. olamim) that have been before us.” (Eccl. 1:10)
• There is the current / this / present eon
  “the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might take us out of the present evil eon , according to the will of our God and Father” (Gal 1:4. See also Mt 12:32 and many more).
• There is the future eon (singular)
  “who … tasted the powers of the eon to come ” (Heb. 6:5. See also Mark 10:30, etc.).
• There are the coming eons (plural)
  “He raises us up together … to display in the eons to come the all-surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6-7).

Who now thinks that these are vague hints of an endless eternity, should recall the statements of Jesus, in which He makes a very clear difference between the present eon and the future one: “But whosoever shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be remitted him, neither in this eon, nor in that which is to come.” (Mt 12:32). It is a clear difference and marks eons as different periods of time with a certain imprint.

How many more details can now be brought to light is the task of further study. The aforementioned biblical passages are startling, because they definitely tear down from the pedestal a time-honored idea of “endlessness”. It is astonishing that many an idea about the Bible cannot be traced in the Bible itself.

Ages instead of endlessness

In the Bible, for example, Jesus talks about the coming age that will replace the current age. Several ages are mentioned, which take place one after the other. From this, we can already see a few things:

• “Eternity” is not a terminus, but each eon is a section of the “purpose of the eons, which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph. 3:11).
• All eons are merely periods of time on the way to a greater goal.
• We are somewhere on the way in this world, and are thus part of God’s action.
• It is not the eternities – the eons – that are most important, but what is accomplished through those times.

In this sense, the eons have also been described as different acts in the same play, or as the stage on which the story takes place. In it now develops section after section, up to the fulminant end. The eons are the greatest periods of time in God’s activity. They form, so to speak, the framework of salvation history within which the world we know – and in it God’s action – unfolds.

What about theodicy?

Briefly we talked about the question of theodicy. It can perhaps be answered in such a way that, although not everything is resolved today, the Bible writers knew a God who is enthroned over all the ages and already has the end firmly in mind today. He is working toward His goal, which can hardly be grasped in my own life. The outlook of the Gospel, however, is that we in the Spirit are already participating in the goal today and that He will one day lead all back to Himself and be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). At the latest then the question of theodicy is solved for everyone and the world is led back to God redeemed.