What is your view of the concept of Ages? Since ‘aion’ refers to limited periods of time known as ages, rather than eternity, I was wondering how you saw it? Are ages simillar in concept to dispensations (from dispensationalism)? If so, how many ages are there, how many are there yet to be, and what age are we in now?
Or do you see the concept of ages as something different?
You ever see those history timelines like are in a lot of study bibles? They have overlaying time periods for each civilization or between whats going on say in the northern kingdom vs judah vs egypt. I see the ages like that. I think there are macro ages: adam to noah, noah to abraham, abraham to moses etc etc. Then there are ages within ages even personal ages. Jonah was in the fish for an owlam(age).
I wonder if there are greater ages. Like whole other creations or something to that effect. You know the spiral of life? I think its called theta?? The golden triangle. You take a rectangle then make another smaller rectangle on the top third then keep repeating that in the smaller rectangle. Anywho something like that 
I was just listening to Gerry Beauchemin’s audio files of his book, Hope Beyond Hell, yesterday, and it was talking about this. That an age was determined by the subject to which it was applied. Sort of the adjective being modified by the noun. Thomas Talbott also talks about this.
Anyway, he made the point that an age can pertain to a life span, and in that sense an age for a tortoise would be very different from an age for a fruit fly (my example). An age for God would in fact be eternal while an age for His chastisement needn’t be – it would last for the duration of the chastisement (until the uttermost farthing is paid, for example). In this sense an age could also apply to the lifespan of a dispensation such as the Aaronic priesthood, whose lifespan endured until the inauguration of the Melchizedek priesthood.
I’m not sure we can delineate things out into neat and tidy ages or dispensations. Like all living things, ages are messy and vary with circumstances, and are perhaps impossible to pin down. But I am convinced and convicted that God’s dispensations, however complex and seemingly messy are nothing short of absolute perfection which in the end will fit together with such precision we will all marvel and give Him wondering praise for His love and mercy and His illimitable beauty and wisdom in working all things together for nothing less than our and His ultimate good.
Blessings, Cindy
“At the End of the Ages. The Abolition of Hell” by Bob Evely has Bob Evely’s chapter on “ages” attached, which I think is one of the best summaries I’ve come across. I do think there’s a fair bit of flexibility/fuzziness with the Bible’s use of ages so I wouldn’t want to sit down and be dogmatic about defining them exactly. Although Adolph E Knoch did an awesome digram showing how he thought they all fitted together, I just can’t find it at the moment 
While I’m at it…
chart from Lighthouse Library, 8 eons in total, author claims it’s inspired (you need to zoom in a lot)
Martin Zender and the Eons, chart provided bt Saviour of All fellowship
Thanks, that’s the one - I looked for an age but couldn’t find it 
The other two are impressive too
That’s pretty awesome! I wouldn’t mind having that poster on my wall somewhere.
I think there are many overlapping ages – ages within ages, with grander ages encompassing many ages. All things have their age, and an age is merely a period defined by some thing. “The Middle Ages.” “The Elizabethan Age.” “The Age of Exploration.”
Sonia
