| Most who will read these lines have learned that the eons are not
endless, but as each eon had a starting point and also had a terminal point, so there is
also a limit to the entire number of the eons. They in their entirety had a commencement
and will also have a consummation. The Bible range of vision falls into three great divisions: pre-eonian, eonian, post-eonian. The "purpose" and "promise" which we read of in connection with the times before the eons (2 Tim.1: 9; Tit.1:2) attain to full fruition in the times that lie beyond them. During the eons the Divine purpose is being wrought out and carried on amidst opposition. The concluding verses of Romans give us an index to the character of the eons (Rom.16:25-27), The mystery of the Gospel-- the conciliation--silenced during the "eonian times" is now promulgated among the nations by decree of the "eonian God" with a view to their obedience to the faith. Here we learn that the eonian times are times of estrangement, and the Divine activities throughout their course are directed towards recalling mankind to the path of filial obedience. The great object of the eons is to reconcile the universe to God. Thus the eons are a connecting link between the times before and after them which are characterized by the absence of sin and its resultants, a gigantic span of time devoted to the banishment of sin, and may be compared to a flight of stairs on which the universe rises, step by step, out of the darkness of the abyss to the unending bliss of absolute sinlessness. These considerations should impress upon us the necessity of keeping each truth in its proper place and guard us against importing eonian truth into post-eonian perfection. As an example of the mischievous results flowing from ignoring the divisions here insisted upon, we may instance the much debated doctrine of the Fatherhood of God. Some affirm that God is the Father of all men; others insist that He is the Father only of believers. In this bitter controversy the usual theological tactics have been followed. The advocates of one view fling at their opponents an array of "proof-texts" favoring their position and either ignore or gloss over those uncomfortable scriptures on which their opponents rely to prove a contrary opinion. The doctrine of the eons effectually disposes of the difficulty and shows that the supposed contradiction between these views in reality does not exist at all. The reason why men have made mistakes here is because they have always considered the Scriptures which speak of God's Fatherhood of believers as referring to the same time as those Scriptures which speak of Him as the Father of all men. The truth being that the two classes of Scriptures do not refer to the same identical period, but His Fatherhood of believers has its place previous to the time when He becomes All in all. The one fact is true during the eons; the other becomes true at their close. We thus see that while contradiction and confusion must exist in human theory, it does not exist in Bible truth. The doctrine of the eons renders its greatest service in discrediting the intolerable ideas prevailing on the subject of punishment. Though the dogma of Endless Torment is hoary-headed and has become so firmly established that it seems almost sacrilegious to ask for its credentials, it is actually founded, not upon Scripture, but upon translations colored with the ideas and creed of the translators' age. Basing themselves on those translations, and even regarding them as "inspired,"--which translations fuse two ideas by speaking of the eons in terms of eternity--it was both logical and inevitable that men should conceive of "everlasting punishment" and "eternal judgment." We are not striving to get rid of punishment. That would be contrary to Scripture and reason alike. We merely protest against the false theological notion regarding its character and duration. The thought that sin must be met with punishment is an instinct divinely implanted in the human breast. Proof of this is to be found in the universal disposition to unite wrong with punishment. Nations at the antipodes of civilization are one on this point. The bushman of South Africa, the savage of Patagonia, the cultured Anglo-Saxon--all alike visit misdeeds with punishment. But human thoughts on this subject, as on every other, are being constantly modified by increasing knowledge and experience; harsh conceptions are softening with the march of progress. The ferocious medieval views have been slowly outgrown and replaced by milder and more humane principles. Men begin to perceive the real end of punishment to be the reformation of the culprit rather than a mere infliction upon him of a measure of suffering commensurate with the nature and extent of his offense. Sociology at last discerns the truth that the function of punishment is corrective rather than expiatory, while an ever- increasing number of people acknowledge that whereas punishment is justifiable as a means aiming at good results, punishment as an end is as unprofitable as it is fiendish. Now, if judgment be "eternal," it follows as a matter of logic and clear thinking that it is an integral part of God's forepurpose, and that involves a conception of His nature which makes Him akin to the cruel and vindictive gods that reigned on Mount Olympus. In this connection, it may be remarked that the belief of Christendom in the permanence of evil is demanded by its false cosmogony. Taking the work of the six days as the primeval creation instead of what it really is--a rehabilitation of its ruins--Theology has transferred into Christianity the Pagan dogma of the inherent evil of matter. If Gen.1:2 is an amplification of the preceding verse, then evil springs out of the original constitution of things, and if the very substratum of the universe is vicious, and evil intimately interwoven with the constitution of things, then evil is indeed eternal, there can be no ground of hope, no possibility of redemption. But the One who knows His creatures best sees in them an abyss of mystery, an originative, inscrutable, intense, supernatural element, and in that element He finds the genesis of that evil by which the universe is cursed; and as evil originates in the error of the creature's will, it ceases at once if the erring will be brought into sweet correspondence with the will of the Creator. This dawn of hope in the abyss of our despair brightens into day when we learn of the purpose of God to reconcile the universe to Himself through His Son. Judgment and chastening are corrective agencies, hence Scripture speaks of them as "eonian" (Heb.6:2; Matt.25:46), that is, belonging to the system of things peculiar to the eons. The biblical terms and examples and prophesies and doctrines are eloquent in proclaiming their remedial character. Moses admonished Israel, "Who led thee through the great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where was no water . . . that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end" (Deut.8:15,16). To do good at the latter end--that is the one and only aim of the punitive means which Deity employs. In the individual life we find a ready and apposite illustration both of the function and effect of punishment on a lower plane. In the days of youth we were kept to duty by the austerity of our masters; a whole system of minute and coercive measures was necessary to overcome our laziness, our love of indulgence, our waywardness. The punishments incurred were bitter indeed to some of us; yet we now know it was essential to our progress that we should have been subjected to such coercion. But, growing to manhood, we conceived a passion for knowledge, art, business, duty; larger views opened to us, nobler motives made themselves felt, a sense of dignity and responsibility was created in us; the spur within took place of the spur without, and the whole work of life is now done in a freer, happier spirit. A change corresponding to this is being wrought in humanity at large. During the eons mankind learns the lesson of the unprofitableness of sin. By means of judgment and punishment God breaks down in men the tyranny of sin which is the secret of humanity's woes, and enthrones within their soul the power of love. He will utterly destroy in mankind the egotism, pride, greed, envy, wrath, which render the emulations of society so bitter and destructive at present. No physiological defects, no mental limitations, no perversity of heart can hinder Adam's race from attaining that glorious pattern of manhood of which the person of the Risen Man is the concrete expression. His power shall never cease to work until every individual is transfigured into the glorious likeness of the Saviour. The prophet reminds us that judgment is God's "strange work" (Isa.28:21); that is, work which seems altogether at variance with His glorious character, and with His gracious purpose. And yet judgment is not malevolent, but benign; in spite of its unnameable character, it is constructive, more than it is destructive; its action is to save, to heighten, to perfect. In the prophets, God is represented as a Destroyer with a plumbline in His hand (Isa.34:11; Amos 7:7-9). Now, a plumbline is usually employed for the purpose of building up, but God is represented as using it for the work of destruction. Jehovah is represented as using the plumbline in pulling down, inasmuch as He carries out the reverse of building with the same rigorous exactness as that with which a builder carries out His well-considered plan. The grand idea pictured by the prophets is, that in judgment God accomplishes His purpose of bringing the erring back to Himself. God destroys as He builds, with line and plummet. What a mighty comfort it is, then, to know that the seeming irrationality of judgment is not real, and that all punishment is adjusted to capacity and need! Amid all the confusion, waste, ruin, sweat, pain, tears, and blood of the eonian times, God stands with the measuring-line, dealing to every generation judgment, as He assigns to every man duty, according to its capacity and need. Elihu questioned Job, "Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?" No, we do not know the balancings of the clouds--how God supplements one dark thing with another, how He neutralizes one dark thing with another, how He completes one dark thing with another, how He makes all dark things agree to a bright consequence--all this we do not understand; but we do know that He does balance the clouds, that He sets one thing over against another with such subtle and gracious wisdom that they unfailingly work out the individual and universal advantage. Clouds and darkness are round about Him, but every shadow, bolt, lightning, hailstone, belonging to the economy of darkness is governed by absolute love. The hand of God limits and regulates the severities of life, so that they may serve and not destroy us. We may sing with the poet--
not merely when life flows smoothly, easily, happily, but also in the presence of storms, earthquakes, hurricanes, plagues; though these seem to imply only confusion, recklessness, purposelessness. The blizzard owns the same rule as the zephyr; the storm that scatters is measured as delicately as the sunshine that ripens; one gracious will fashions the flower and points the thorn. In all ages men have felt the austerity of nature, and the older the world grows, the more fully do we realize, the more keenly do we feel, the severity of the laws of the physical universe. The reign of law is universal; it is inevitably associated with unorganized matter, with organized matter, and with sentient beings. Nature knows nothing of indulgence; she makes no concessions to ignorance, folly, or weakness; her profound arrangements are to be respected; and those who dare to defy them are forthwith wiped out. A lofty and unyielding commandment is written over all things, and behind law is a hand capable of enforcing it to the utmost, of exacting the last farthing of the overwhelming penalty. The stern laws which at present govern the majestic proceedings of nature are neither primeval nor eternal: once milder laws and happier conditions prevailed; but since the earth has been modified by sin's intrusion, natural law had to be correspondingly altered to meet the exigencies of the new situation. The laws of Nature, as we know them--imperative, uncompromising, terrible--are only temporary, being designed to regulate the intruding evil forces and turn them to good use. Students of nature have shown with great clearness and power that the severity everywhere discerned is at bottom merciful; for if the stern system of physical laws were relaxed, the creation would sink to mud and chaos. The scientist is reconciled to austere nature, recognizing the fact that "she chooses a lesser evil to prevent a greater." Like the administration of nature, the government of God in human society is marked by a severity men often shrink from, and yet it works out glory and blessing. By laws most exacting and rigorous, God governs the race and conducts it to ultimate perfection. As the catastrophes of nature are preventive of greater calamities, so the strange conflicts and sorrows of individuals, communities, and races, are like a wall of fire securing their salvation from degradations, retributions and miseries. The epigram of Themistocles, that "ruin had averted ruin," often finds palpable illustration in the history of men and nations; but it is only considering "the purpose of the eons" that we fully understand the whole sweep of the policy--by ruin, ruin is averted; by constantly encompassing the course of the eons with ruin, Heaven averts the ruin of the race in its highest powers and hopes. Commenting on the visions of Isaiah, Renan says:
The brilliant Frenchman has seen through the historic ages, that in suffering men and nations have become strong, only to collapse utterly when they attained to wealth and security, and he thinks that this is the eternal order. He would have been perfectly right had he said "eonian order," for, until the ushering in of the consummation, nations are nourished into strength and faculty by the stern law that will not allow the peoples to go to sleep, but involves them in perpetual anxiety. But revelation teaches that this state of things exists only temporarily for ends of discipline, lesser evils permitted for the prevention of the greater; that the whole eonian order is not the carrying out of the original program, but an unnatural condition of things forced by disobedience which is to ultimately give place to a happier state of things. It declares that once reconciliation has been ushered in mankind will need no dark background to enjoy felicity, and that the ultimate state will be preserved wholly by the soft yet irresistible power of love, which during the eons has been allowed only in a very imperfect manner to assert itself. A lady recently related in one of the journals how she went through a veritable blizzard to view a flower-show. With one step she passed out of the wild night, the deep snow, the fierce wind, the biting frost, into a brilliant hall filled with roses, tulips, hyacinths, azaleas, heliotropes, and orchids. So it will be at the conclusion of the eons. Those who had tasted to the full of the bitterness of punishment will emerge from the Second Death leaving sin behind them and will become Sons of God and heirs of all things. The state of affairs during eonian times is only seemingly cruel; the keen strife going on everywhere between plant and plant, animal and animal, bird and bird, insect and insect, the internecine, interminable strife, the push and pull, the storm and strain, the toil and trial of the whole creation, will lift this world out of the bondage of corruption. V. G.
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