Without a doubt, the single most important interpretive aspect of the doctrine of universal reconciliation is found in the understanding of the Hebrew word olam and the Greek word aion.

In all of our modern translations, the word eternal, everlasting, always, forever, and forever and ever are found numerous times throughout.  But for a few exceptions, the Hebrew word used is olam and the Greek word is either aion or the adjective form aionios.  We get our English word “eon” from this root.

Both olam and aion mean the identical thing and should be translated “age.”  An “age” is not eternal but limited.  And whenever these words were used both in ancient Hebrew writings or the Greek classics it was always used in reference to time.  It could be used to denote a man’s lifetime (the age of a man), or a longer period such as the millennial kingdom, or it could simply be an unknown period of time.  I could literally site many examples, but to keep this chapter brief, I will cite only a few examples.  An in-depth word study can be found on the Internet.  I have these listed in the appendix.

Hebrew scholars, almost universally, say that the Old Testament does not teach eternal punishment.  Certainly there were penalties and rewards, but the vast majority of these scholars say that these recompenses were always earthly and did not relate to some future punishment.  Knappius, a Hebrew and Greek scholar of undisputed reputation says, The pure idea of eternity is too abstract to have been conceived in the early ages of the world, and accordingly is not found expressed by any word in the ancient languages.  The Hebrews and other ancient people have no one word for expressing the precise idea of eternity.

I will quote J.W. Hanson:  Is it possible that our heavenly Father had created a world of endless torture, to which his children for thousands of years were crowding in myriads, and that he not only had not revealed the fact to them, but was so short-sighted that he had not given them a word to express the fact, or even a capacity sufficient to bring the idea of the eternal suffering to which they were liable, within the compass of their cognition?

The word aion has been used by Aristotle, Plato, and other Greek classical writers to mean “limited duration” and not “eternal.”  There was one word used in classical Greek which was the closest to our English word eternity—and that word was aidios.  Aidios is found in only two places in the New Testament (Rom 1:20, Jude 6).  And in neither of these two cases are the Scriptures talking of man.  Jesus very carefully chose the word aion when talking about the future punishment of man.

He could have used the word aidios if He wanted to convey the idea of eternal.  But instead He chose to use a word meaning “age.”  If the doctrine of eternal punishment were true, then why did Jesus choose a word that clearly was not used to denote eternity?  It seems to me that if this awful doctrine were true, God would not only have made it extremely clear by the words He used but also by the frequency of use.

I will again quote J.W. Hanson:  If God’s punishments are limited, we can understand how this word was used only fourteen times to define them.  But if they are endless, how can we explain the employment of this word only fourteen times in the entire New Testament?  A doctrine that, if true, ought to crowd every sentence, frown in every line, only stated fourteen times, and that, too, by a word whose uniform meaning everywhere else is limited duration!  The idea is preposterous.  But if it means endless, how can we account for the fact that neither Luke nor John records one instance of its use by the Savior, and Matthew but four, Mark but two, and Paul employs it but twice in his ministry, while John and James in their epistles never allude to it?  Such silence is an unanswerable refutation of all attempts to foist the meaning of endless into the word.  The word means limited duration all through the Old Testament; it never had the meaning of endless duration among those who spoke the language, but Jesus announced the doctrine of endless punishment, and selected as the Greek word to convey His meaning the very word that in the Classics and the Septuagint never contained any such thought, when there were several words in the copious Greek tongue that unequivocally conveyed the idea of interminable duration!

Does this make sense to you?  The very fact that we have such ambiguity in the Bible should cast great doubt on this doctrine of eternal torment.  In the very beginning when Adam sinned, when all the consequences of his sin were mentioned, eternal punishment was not one of them.  Certainly God would have introduced this “truth” when sin first entered the world!  Moses never received any such teaching from God.  The law, with all of its consequences for not obeying it, never once mention eternal punishment.

The proponents of eternal torment will say that a truth need only be mentioned once for it to be true.  I will not argue this point.  However, I am very uncomfortable clinging to a doctrine that is mentioned only a handful of times in the entire Bible.  And then, the word used to denote eternal is, in itself, unclear whether it has ever been used in that sense.  In addition, we shall see in the next chapter that the word hell cannot be found in any of the original writings.  This, to me, casts great doubt on this doctrine.  All this, along with the very many number of Scriptures which indicate the salvation of all (listed later) should give any open-minded believer something to think about.