The Bible use of the word everlasting.
This word is one which is used in common speech. Every one who speaks intensely is apt to speak extravagantly, and figures of speech are always capable of larger usage than the person who first employs them intended. Round the words eternal, for ever, and everlasting, Christian doctrines have gathered; the words have thus gained a precision of meaning; and it is difficult now to recover for them the simpler, colloquial meanings which belong to their common use in all languages. It is necessary to consider how we use the terms, if we would apprehend how the Bible-writers use them. We vow eternal friendship. We say we will never do things. But man has no right to use such terms, save as expressions of intense feeling.
I. "EVERLASTING" IS A FIGURE FOR A PROLONGED PERIOD. "For eternal remembrance," i.e. for all future time, as long as man can remember anything, "the memory of the just is blessed; but the name of the wicked shall rot." When a thing goes on and on till we can no longer see it, and can think of no agency that can stop it, we call it "everlasting." An illustration may be taken from the familiar garden flower which we call "everlasting," because, in contrast with other flowers, it will last, in our vases, all the winter.
II. "EVERLASTING" IS A FIGURE FOR THE DIVINE. It belongs to the thought of God, because we cannot conceive any causes which brought about his existence, or imagine any forces, or combination of forces, which can make his existence to cease. The word is applied by Moses to God, "The eternal God is thy Refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Mere continuity cannot be the thought. That can only be the figure in the word. What must he be who was, and is, and is to come?
III. "EVERLASTING" IS A FIGURE FOR THE SPIRITUAL. It is when it is applied to men and to men's future. Everlasting life is spiritual life, of which one feature is continuity. Eternal death is spiritual death. And this is explained by the associations of the figure. One of our chiefest "notes of value" is the length of time that a thing will last. The gnat that is born and dies in an evening is esteemed of small value; the cedar tree, that outlasts the generations, is esteemed of great value. In order, then, to bring to us the sense of its supreme value, the spiritual life is spoken of as lasting forever. We raise the value of that which lasts for centuries; we reach the highest value in thinking of that which lasts forever.—R.T.