God does things in terms of time, or eons or ages, and has a purpose or purposes for each age. Sometimes we know about these purposes, sometimes we don’t, but it is important to know what He chooses to reveal about what He is doing in a certain time period in order to be cooperating with His purposes and not interfering with them. It’s important to know what age we are living in so we can better understand what God is doing in, to and through us, and not be fighting against Him.
Einstein said time is what can be measured by using a clock. Okay, so I guess that clears that all up, right? God created time, uses it for His purposes, and has complete control over how it works, ends, and how it affects each of our lives and our world. The basic building block of time is an age, or eon. In scripture the term is rendered or translated “ever.” So where we find the term “everlasting,” we could also read it “age”-lasting. An age has a beginning, middle and an end, and generally reflects God’s purposes for that portion of time.
The terms eon, age and ever (lasting) all refer to a specific time period. So when we read “forever and ever,” it’s a time period and a time period, which is different from the idea of eternity or eternal, which refer to a characteristic of God’s nature. He is; He is the eternal now, present, and creator of the past and future. Just because we can’t comprehend this with our finite minds doesn’t mean we should try to pull it into our thought processes to make sense of it. If it quickens life to you, go with it! (Obviously this concept has implications regarding the eternal nature of the soul and nature of heaven and hell, but these need to be discussed separately so they can be given the attention they deserve.)