The Evangelical Universalist Forum

What is our hope for Eternity?

Thanks Paidion:

Here is JB Phillip’s translation:

1 Corinthians 13

J.B. Phillips New Testament (PHILLIPS)

Christian love—the highest and best gift

13 1-3 If I speak with the eloquence of men and of angels, but have no love, I become no more than blaring brass or crashing cymbal. If I have the gift of foretelling the future and hold in my mind not only all human knowledge but the very secrets of God, and if I also have that absolute faith which can move mountains, but have no love, I amount to nothing at all. If I dispose of all that I possess, yes, even if I give my own body to be burned, but have no love, I achieve precisely nothing.

4 This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.

5-6 Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.

7-8a Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.

All gifts except love will be superseded one day

8b-10 For if there are prophecies they will be fulfilled and done with, if there are “tongues” the need for them will disappear, if there is knowledge it will be swallowed up in truth. For our knowledge is always incomplete and our prophecy is always incomplete, and when the complete comes, that is the end of the incomplete.

11 When I was a little child I talked and felt and thought like a little child. Now that I am a man my childish speech and feeling and thought have no further significance for me.

12 At present we are men looking at puzzling reflections in a mirror. The time will come when we shall see reality whole and face to face! At present all I know is a little fraction of the truth, but the time will come when I shall know it as fully as God now knows me!

13 In this life we have three great lasting qualities—faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love. :smiley:

I’ll quote myself… Phillips is really good! :smiley: :smiley:

In my translation, I tried to be as literal as possible, while using modern English. Phillip’s seems to be more of a paraphrase than a translation.

I am not saying that’s a bad thing. Many people have been greatly helped by Phillip’s paraphrase of the New Testament. It’s just that, for me, I want to know what the writers actually wrote, rather than read a paraphrase of what they wrote. Not everyone has that need.

You are correct. And my post was not to take away from your fine translation in any way!

The story is that he was teaching a group of youth during WW2, and they were saying ‘we just can’t understand the way the writers say things in the bible’ thus he set out to put it in a more accessible form.

It could be that I am a youth at heart :smiley:

I believe C.S. Lewis believed that Time exists in Heaven, but not a kind of endless time. In fact, I believe he said that Time has another dimension not so linear as normally thought of. Yet I wonder if this can truly be understood with the intellect, or ever will.

If we traveled at the speed of light, could we be time travelers & go back to any point in time.

“It turns out time slows down when you travel faster and faster, nearing the speed of light.”

newstatesman.com/sci-tech/20 … d-end-time

Scripture speaks of “before times aionion” (Titus 1:2; 2 Tim.1:9) & “before the eons” (1 Cor.2:7). Should this be translated “before times eternal” & if so what was before “times eternal”, timelessness or no time? Why not just say “before time” without adding aionion? Or should it be translated “before times eonian” referring by “times eonian” to, for example, a period of time during which sin or death exist, or God accomplishes His “purpose of the eons” (Eph.3:11) to head up all “in Christ” (Eph.1:10)? Translators don’t seem to know what to do with translating those Titus 1:2:

New International Version
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,

New Living Translation
This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God–who does not lie–promised them before the world began.

English Standard Version
in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began

Berean Study Bible
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.

Berean Literal Bible
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before time eternal

New American Standard Bible
in the hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago,

Some universalists have said that the eons have a beginning & an end, so eonian punishment cannot be endless, & when they end is when God becomes “all in all”, though they don’t say what happens after that in terms of time, eternity or timelessness. Maybe there are other universes to explore & experience?

I have come to see that the Mind can only have a very limited grasp of Eternity from a very abstract POV. The most common analogy of Eternity as film frames being seen all at once, However, as we know, this goes against the trinitarian idea of eternal dynamism. I think that most people equate activity to time, and therefore see dynamism as something happening over and over again.

Qaz
I think part of the problem is the idea of being stuck in the mind and therefore conceive of Eternity as Endless time.

That eternity is endless time is the only concept that to me is coherent.

The idea of being “outside of time” or of God seeing the events of all ages simultaneously is to my mind meaningless.

Paidon, how do you explain where God was before the universe was created? Can there be time where there is no universe?

Also, what of Scriptures that speak of “before the eons” & “before times eonian” and

Young’s Literal Translation
For thus said the high and exalted One, Inhabiting eternity…(Isa.57:15a)

God begat His Son as His first act, and then created the universe through His Son. That marked the beginning of time. There was no “before” the beginning of time. So you might ask, “if there was no ‘before’ time” how could God beget His Son as His first act? That is indeed difficult if not possible for us to understand. But it is even more difficult to make sense of the idea of all times existing at the same time.

Why the heck does that scare you?

qaz has already explained why. He is afraid of everlasting boredom.

I think that qaz is wrestling with some ideas. To say that he/she is afraid of everlasting boredom may be a bit convoluted.

qaz is a vibrant being, And I think qaz will be totally, realizing what God wants from qaz and that is good.

I find it hard to grasp the ideas that:

  1. God & time go back in the past endlessly.
  2. That time had a beginning.
  3. That the universe is expanding. Expanding into what?
  4. That God is outside of time.

Paidion, you are up there in years, I think when we used to be able to see your info, you were at late seventies maybe early eighties?

I want to ask, have you ever been bored with the life you have been given?

I ask as our back and forth kind of touched on that subject. I have a good friend Don and a few of us try to meet every week. Don is 91. Love the guy. His wife was stricken with Alzheimer’s and passed away last year. Don is not necessarily bored with life, but is getting tired. These things, the thoughts the emotions of what we go through as we age, are very important, and to somehow be able to pass them down to other younger folks would be good. Not sure how that would be done though. But I do think it is within the scope of this thread.

Just an idea. Thanks Don

I completed 80 years of living in February.

NEVER. And because I have never been bored, I have difficulty in understanding the experience some people have who claim to be bored.

You do not have to answer these questions obviously, but if there were five things you could pass on to a younger person, if they had your confidence, what would they be?

Thanks.

I read in the book “Everything you wanted to know about Heaven” by Peter Kreeft, is that Eternity is wholeness, while time is a mere part. I cannot help but think that Time is nothing more than a product of the mind. I think Krishnamurti demonstrated that mind and time are two ends of the same coin. Frankly, I agree, as the more I noticed that the more stuck I get in the mind, the more difficulty I have in being in the eternal now. I find that the more present, the more connected we are to the eternal, which is not achieved through knowledge.

Insightful article on Heaven and the New Testament by N. T. Wright

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