:-) ... no, "temporal" does not mean "temporary"...
think
of it like this: my little daughter was playing ball with her friends,
when she threw the ball wildly and hit our window...
we
forgave her (forgiveness unasked for, given), but we asked that she do
something for the price of the glass, the work time the maintenance
folks had to put in (forgiveness asked for in repentance and repaid by
her), plus every time after she went out to play with any ball, we had
to watch her with our hearts in our throats... (that is temporal
punishment, or reconciliation, which takes time)...
each act of ours requires repentance, repayment, and reconciliation...
now,
say a child, all grown up, had killed somebody... he repents, and
repays it by going to prison or whatever the other parents feel (the
government puts limits on this) is repayment... but reconciliation takes
time...
a child who murders repeatedly requires the
same kind of forgiveness... even if he is caught, and spends the rest
of his earthly life in prison, there remains the threefold forgiveness
cycle: repentance, repayment, reconciliation... which can take even
longer ... he cannot remain in prison longer, nor can he ever repay
fully the lives he has taken... but he can repent, he can seek to repay,
and reconciliation is out of his hands, just like it was out of our
daughter's hands... it wasn't even in our hands... it was in God's
hands...
and THAT's what "temporal" means... :-)
