Featured What does ETERNAL mean?

"Eternal" means eternal, but "aionios" and "aion" do not.

 

I love the Book of Romans. Romans 8:18-23 had a life-altering effect on me, coupled with an experience I had. And Romans Ch. 2 gave me great comfort concerning the fate of those who never heard the Gospel.

 

Really, imagine what a hypocrite they would sound like if we over heard them telling a sinning Christian to help out his brother or sister in need, or to stop any sin they saw them doing. We are supposed to tell each other to stop sinning, that is what the scriptures say.

The Calvinists do NOT believe that the thief on the cross could have even acknowledged Jesus as being the Son of God unless he was already saved first! The thief did do some things before he died, he showed contriteness for his sin of stealing, he also believed in Jesus, and he humbled himself to the Lord.

 

That is right. Your words--any fool can see that the Bible is not saying there is no God, in fact, that is what that Scripture is about, something a fool says."

And all I did was quote Psalm 14. But you say it wasn't teaching what I quoted. You are right, because it was taken out of context.

All you did was quote James. But it wasn't teaching what you quoted, because it was taken out of context just like Psalm 14 was. There is no difference. A man is not justified by works. You can make the Bible say anything you want it to say if you ignore the context--exactly what you do. James is speaking of the fruit of justification. So let me repeat what you said with a slight modification:
"Any fool can see that the Bible is not saying Abraham is justified by works, in fact that is what the Scripture is about, something only a fool would say."
Correct?

In Romans 4 it plainly says that Abraham was justified or made righteous by faith. He took Isaac to be offered because he believed God, not because his works made him righteous.

 

Ann had the best answer here:

http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1805754&postcount=4

 

I want to make an observation -- and trust me, this is not directed at anyone here because I have seen no evidence of it.

But I have encountered people who seem to be almost gleeful that people will be burned or tortured forever in hell. They seem to take a particular delight in their belief in the eternity of it. It seems there is a large element of vengeance to it.

As for me, I trust that God will do right by each individual, and I certainly take no delight in anyone's suffering and separation from God, no matter the length of time.

Hitler may very well be there for an eternity, and he certainly would deserve whatever he gets, but I take no delight in it.

 

I know; I repent.

 

You speak nonsense.

Read the whole Book of James and deny it to yourself.

 

That is just simply not true; I don't know how you can say that.

"Aionios" is an adjective formed from the noun "aion".

 

I already told you. The Greek word in the relevant passage(s) does not mean eternal.

 

It looks as if this is another area where we will have to agree to disagree.

But I have to say that I have done extensive studies on this, and I know beyond doubt that I am correct.

 

>I'd say eternal means forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and . . . .

I think it was Isaac Asimov in "One, Two, Three . . .Infinity" who described a primitive person who counts, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, many." The point being that the primitive person has no way of expressing larger numbers.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_large_numbers


Classical antiquity

In the Western world, specific number names for larger numbers did not come into common use until quite recently. The Ancient Greeks used a system based on the myriad, that is ten thousand; and their largest named number was a myriad myriad, or one hundred million.
In The Sand Reckoner, Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) devised a system of naming large numbers reaching up to
,
essentially by naming powers of a myriad myriad. This largest number appears because it equals a myriad myriad to the myriad myriadth power, all taken to the myriad myriadth power. This gives a good indication of the notational difficulties encountered by Archimedes, and one can propose that he stopped at this number because he did not devise any new ordinal numbers (larger than 'myriad myriadth') to match his new cardinal numbers. Archimedes only used his system up to 1064.
Archimedes' goal was presumably to name large powers of 10 in order to give rough estimates, but shortly thereafter, Apollonius of Perga invented a more practical system of naming large numbers which were not powers of 10, based on naming powers of a myriad, for example,
would be a myriad squared.
Much later, but still in antiquity, the Hellenistic mathematician Diophantus (3rd century) used a similar notation to represent large numbers.
The Romans, who were less interested in theoretical issues, expressed 1,000,000 as decies centena milia, that is, 'ten hundred thousand'; it was only in the 13th century that the (originally French) word 'million' was introduced .

 

As you have every right to do, and I respect that.

Regardless of who is right, I wouldn't want to spend one minute separated from God, or see anyone else in that state, either.