Among the doctrines which come before the student of Scripture in his search into its

teaching regarding human destiny, is that of eternal or everlasting life. In order to avoid

the traditional interpretation, and also to keep out of sight any ideas of our own, we shall

transliterate the word translated "Eternal," and call it aionion throughout this enquiry.

Our present quest is to discover as far as possible all that Scripture says regarding aionion

life, to whom it is given, upon what basis, whether it is exclusively proffered to faith, or

to works, or to both; whether it is a present possession, or a future one; whether it has to

do with the final or a transition state, and anything further that may be learned by a

careful and prayerful study.

The first occurrence of the words aionion life is in Matt. 19: 16, "good Master, what

good thing shall I do that I may have aionion life." It will be observed that "doing good"

is directly associated with "having aionion life." The Lord, it is true, corrects the error

contained in the loose usage of the word "good," but does not correct the idea that good

works, or keeping the commandments, were necessary for the attainment of this life, for

He said:--

Reading further, we find the Lord speaking of "being perfect," and of telling the

young man to go and sell all that he had and give to the poor, to follow the Lord, and that

he would have "treasure in heaven." We know how the young man failed. Although he

had "kept from his youth up" all the commandments, yet he did not reach the standard

necessary for "aionion life," or "for treasure in heaven."

One cannot help comparing these two expressions together, and asking whether they

both refer to the same thing. In verses 27-29 Peter asks a question arising out of the

failure of the young man, and is answered, and there again a twofold description is given

of the result of "forsaking all and following." To the disciples the Lord held out the

prospect of sitting upon twelve thrones in the regeneration, and supplements that by a

promise to "every one that hath forsaken . . . . .", that they "shall receive an hundred-fold,

and shall inherit aionion life." Here, in place of "treasure in heaven," is found "sitting on

thrones" and "receiving a hundred-fold." We must also bear in mind that the Lord did

not say that a rich man could not enter into the kingdom of heaven, but that he would

only enter with great difficulty.

It will be observed that the Lord uses the word "inherit" with aionion life. He never

misused words, and it will be our wisdom to keep this idea of an inheritance before us as

we continue our study. Mark and Luke record the incident of the rich young man, and in

their Gospels the word "inherit" is used by the young man himself. Readers must not

think this to be a discrepancy. The young man in all probability spoke Aramaic, and the

Holy Spirit has given us in the translation two Greek words, "To have" and "to inherit,"