The scriptural doctrine of the destruction of sinners.
With a view of ancient Jewish opinion and Christian
belief during the first and second centuries.
BY J. M. DENNISTON, M.A.,
AUTHOR OF
"ANCIENT LANDMARKS," " THE SACRIFICE
FOR SIN,"
ETC. ETC.
Second Edition.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND COMPANY.
1874.
For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them
that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savor of death
unto death; and to the other the savor of life unto life. And who is sufficient
for these things? 2 Cor. 2. 15, 16.
"The one (i.e. the souls of the pure), appearing
to be worthy of God, do not die at all; but the others are punished so long as
God pleases both that they should be, and should be punished." JUSTIN
MARTYR, Trypho, § 5.
IF it be true that the doctrine of endless suffering
furnishes at once a most formidable obstacle to the reception of the Bible, and
a subject of agonizing perplexity to many of the most devout believers—while
yet the Bible itself gives no sanction to the doctrine—then no apology is
required for any sincere attempt to clear away from the pure page of
Inspiration that dust which has unhappily gathered around it in connection with
the present subject. And if, on the other hand, the very popular theory of a universal
restoration to God and bliss be as really an error of the most un-scriptural
and pernicious kind, then on that ground also, it must be of the last
importance to exhibit what the Scripture actually teaches in regard to the doom
of the ungodly. As a compromise between these two extremes, the idea has lately
been started that an existence spent in everlasting fire may, after all, be a
state not of wretched antagonism, but of quiet submission, to the righteous
Judge—a condition of dishonor rather than of suffering.
The one antidote to all such views must be sought in
an unbiassed interpretation of the divine record. And that there now prevails a
widespread dissatisfaction with the special interpretation so long and
generally received admits not of question. Tokens of this meet us on every
side. Thus in such a publication as the British and Foreign Evangelical Review
(Oct., 1872, p. 702), we find a minister of the Scotch Free Church, writing:
" The idea of permanent and unrelieved, not to say endless suffering, is
intolerably oppressive, and every one longs to see some escape from it. Yet
there is in the popular mind a fundamental honesty and instinct for truth which
have hitherto prevented men from throwing off the belief in eternal punishment,
though few discoveries would be hailed with more universal joy than that which
enabled us to believe that one day, however distant, all men should be
delivered from suffering. If we could even take advantage of the cloud which
undoubtedly does rest on the future of the wicked, and believe that death
eternal might amount to an extinction of consciousness or of being, that would
be a welcome alleviation. But certainly we can find little comfort or see
little promise of alleviation in any theory of universal restitution that we
have yet heard."
To assist such enquiries is the special aim of the
present volume. And it is high time surely that candid men should cease
attempting to damage our cause by contemptuously hurling at us the term
destructionists.' For such, doubtless, were our Lord and His apostles as much
as we, the only question being in what sense they were so. But for one believer
in the Bible thus to treat another too much resembles the practice of the
professing Christian who sneers at other professors as being ' saints,' or
whatever else the Bible calls them.
Suffice it to add that in the present edition the
first part has been entirely re-cast and considerably enlarged, thus supplying,
it is hoped, a more suitable contribution to this radical truth in the Christian
system, that however protracted and terrible the retribution awaiting the
wicked at the judgment-day, there is yet no real immortality for sinful men
apart from fellowship with God's Christ as dying for them and living in them.
JAMAICA, January, 1874.
SCRIPTURAL VIEW.
1. Alleged Presumptions in favor of Unconditional
Immortality
2. Immortality in the Old Testament
3. Immortality in the New Testament—Miscellaneous
Passages
4. Everlasting Life—especially in the Gospel of John
5. Life and Death
6. The Living God
7. Destroy, Perish as used in the Septuagint
8. (Destroy) in the Gospels
9. (Lose) in the Gospels
10. (Perish) in the Gospels
11. Further Teaching of our Lord in regard to
Punishment
12. Our Lord's Teaching (continued)
13. The Unquenchable Fire—Undying Worm—Everlasting
Judgment
14. Everlasting Punishment
15. The Everlasting Fire
16. Apostolic Teaching
17. (Perish, Destroy) in the Epistles to the
Corinthians
18. Remaining Epistles of Paul
19. Apostolic Doctrine of Destruction (concluded)
20. The Doctrine of Future Punishment in the
Apocalypse
21. The Doctrine of Destruction in relation to other
Truth
22. Some Objections considered
23. Thoughts on Universal Restoration
24. God All in All
HISTORICAL VIEW
25. Ancient Jewish Opinion as to Future Punishment
26. Ancient Jewish Opinion as in the Book of Enoch,
the Book of Isaiah, the Talmud, and Josephus
27. Early Christian Belief—the Apostolic Fathers
28. Christian Belief in the Second Century
29. Theophilus; Athenagoras; Tatian
30. Clement of Alexandria
31. Irenaeus
Alleged presumptions in favor of unconditional
immortality.
THE question to be discussed is not whether all shall
rise from the dead with a view to judgment; nor do we dispute either the
severity or the long continuance of the retribution that awaits the ungodly. Regarding
all that the Divine Word is too definite to warrant a doubt. As little do we
question whether man was originally destined for immortality. But we ask
whether man, as a fallen creature, is still destined for it—irrespectively of
his participating in the salvation of Christ. The question is a great one,
involving issues of the utmost moment, both as regards the character of God,
and the interests of man. And yet, as we are well aware, it is one which, at
the hands of many, may expect but little toleration. The point at issue they
regard as conclusively settled long ago, and therefore entirely without the
range of things that may legitimately be investigated now. The very heathen
will be summoned up by them to rebuke the irreligiousness of the enquiry; while
the whole constitution of the Christian redemption will be held as solemnly
condemning it. And then there is the formidable array of authority which can be
pointed to. We may be reminded of all who, from the days of Plato to those of
Butler, have strenuously upheld that which we are arrogantly attempting to pull
down. The great Romish system and the Churches of the Reformation, however
differing in other things, have, as we may be reminded, agreed here. And yet
all this will not settle the question. We still venture to ask what Moses, and
Jesus, and the Apostles taught. Nor dare we to take
it for granted that they must have taught a particular thing, simply because so
many of the great and good say that they did. There are always reasons enough
why we should call no man, nor yet body of men, master; while in this case, and
at this time, there are very urgent reasons why we should strictly examine what
the Divine Word says on the subject. To go against that stately array of
authority which declares so positively in favor of an unconditional immortality
may be hard. To run counter to the word of God, if it declares otherwise,
should be not hard, but impossible.
Before proceeding, however, to the direct Scriptural
teaching on the question, it will be of consequence to attend to certain
alleged presumptions in support of the ordinary view of immortality, which have
been much relied on as supplying a ready negative to the view for which we
contend.
(1)
The soul is immaterial (it is urged by some), and therefore
immortal. But why, therefore? Would it not be more reasonable to say, Created,
and therefore destructible'? For how can we conceive of the power to create,
without a corresponding power to destroy?—of the power of an Almighty Being to
bestow, without an equal power to withdraw? Is it imaginable that He who brings
into being should not have the ability and liberty to put out of being again?
True, it is said; but the soul being immaterial is essentially simple and
un-compounded, and therefore incapable of that dissolution which we understand
by destruction.' But who, I ask, knows anything of the constitution of a soul?
We can only speak of it as having no material parts: Are we equally certain
that it is without constituent parts or elements of a spiritual kind—entirely
in the dark as we are as to what any spiritual substance or being consists of?
One thing we know—that the smallest organism or organ in the material creation
presents in its little self a world of wonders of endless complexity.
Are we quite sure then that soul or spirit is in utter
contrast to whatever is physical; and, as being immaterial, is absolutely
simple and structureless? For we should need to be sure of this ere we could
legitimately affirm that a soul, unlike a body, was incapable of destruction in
the sense of dissolution. And suppose we were sure of that, or—such certainty
being unattainable —suppose we assume it, what will follow? Simply this, that
while the body, as a compound thing, is destroyed by dissolution of its parts,
the soul, as being uncompounded, would have to be destroyed in some other way.
For that the fact of creation involves the quality of destructibility we must
admit, unless we are prepared to think of the Creator as mastered by His own
workmanship—as having voluntarily brought into being a thing which, from the
necessity of the nature given to it, can never be deprived of being again. And
this too, although that creature has become so utterly opposed to the Divine
mind, that to exist forever can only mean to maintain an everlasting opposition
to the Creator, with all the miserable consequences entailed by such opposition—and
all because the Creator has chosen to endow that creature with an immaterial
principle!
(2)
The analogy of the whole material creation is
constantly adduced to show the extreme improbability of—observe what—the soul's
annihilation. But why say annihilation?—thus gratuitously introducing into the
case a purely metaphysical difficulty. Why not say destruction,' in accordance
alike with the phraseology of Scripture, and of the doctrine objected to? And
then all nature, instead of furnishing an analogy against, will furnish one
unbroken analogy in favor of that doctrine. For of all natural things there is
not one more flagrant than the fact of organized beings coming to an end
through a process of destruction—whatever the destination of their component elements.
In a word, this argument from analogy is manifestly
fallacious. For, either the soul is a complex spiritual organism after the
analogy of material organisms, or it is not. If it be—then like these it can be
dissolved, and so destroyed, without any departure from analogy, or recourse to
that annihilation which is held, rightly or wrongly, to be incredible. If it be
not—there is no room for analogy between the cases, and none therefore for the
violation of it. The two classes of objects would then be so unlike in their
mode of existence as to remove all room for comparison in the manner of their
destruction.
(3)
It is maintained that man, as created in the Divine
image, cannot properly be regarded as otherwise than immortal.
A common answer to this is, that the fact of such
creation no more involves our immortality than it involves our omnipotence or
omniscience. And yet it may fairly be urged, that while the Divine image in man
cannot involve the absurdity of a creature's participation in the attributes of
infinity, still such a resemblance as was certainly established between man and
his Creator would ill comport with the design of a merely temporary existence;
and that, in fact, God must have intended for immortality those whom He was pleased
to honor with a moral likeness to Himself. Granted. Does it therefore follow
that man, after losing the image, still retained the immortality designed for
him? Does it not rather seem as if the immortality were a part of the image—the
two being kept or lost together? And if it be so unnatural to view the ' divine
' in man as only temporary, it may be as unnatural to view the devilish' in him
as everlasting. What, in a word, if the points of connection be these
The image of God, and immortality;
The lost image, and lost immortality;
A capacity for the image, and a capacity for
immortality;
The regained image, and regained immortality.
This, of course, is addressed to those who believe
that man, having lost his Creator's image, requires to be renewed in it. (Col. 3.
10; Eph 4. 24.)
(4)
Man's wonderful capacity for advancement in knowledge
and wisdom is held to be another presumption in favor of a universal
immortality. For why such capacity, without the scope for its exercise? Why an
unlimited expansibility, with only a limited field for expansion? The idea is a
natural one; but the case is by no means so very simple as the supposed
question assumes. Mere power of expansion cannot of itself furnish any
presumption of permanence. Every day we find men expanding in the exercise of
their ingenuity, till it becomes needful to put an end to their liberty, and
perhaps their life. And if it be so in secular concerns, how much more under
the government of the All-holy, where nothing is esteemed but goodness only,
and where the eating of the tree of knowledge may be the direct means of
exclusion from the tree of life. Intellectual expansibility a presumption for
immortality! Speak rather of expansion in goodness as the pledge, and earnest
of it. But even then leave it to the Judge Himself to say what He accepts as
goodness—the Judge who has already declared it to be the universal character of
the race for which the immortality is claimed, "
There is none righteous—there is none that doeth
good—no, not one." For, whatever men may presume, thus has God
pronounced—" The world passes away, and the lust thereof: but he that
doeth the will of God abideth forever." (1 John 2. 17.)
The argument from human capacity is drawn out by Dr.
Channing in his sermon on immortality with his usual power. His points are
these. (1.) While the perfection of a tree lies in a definite product, that of
the mind lies in an indefinite energy. (2.) While the indefinite growth of the
tree would interfere with every thing else, the
indefinite expansion of mind harmonizes with and perfects the system of nature.
(3.) To the tree destruction is no loss; "but the thought of the human
faculties being extinguished—of truth and virtue, those images of God, being
blotted out—of progress towards perfection broken off almost at its
beginning—is a thought fitted to overwhelm a mind conscious of its own
spiritual nature." (4.) While the tree is useful in its destruction, mind
would be useless. [All this, it will be observed, refers only to mind as in its
right moral state, and therefore can prove nothing against our view. It is
added however.] Again. (1.) Even crime shows the greatness of mind, by proving
moral freedom. (2.) Men sin through temptation; but temptation is indispensable
for the exercise of virtue. [But if indefinite advance in goodness proves
immortality, how can the contrary course lead to the same end? Is it imagined
that man is too great to permit of his being legitimately destroyed?] (3.)
Guilt anticipates and proves future retribution [which however is not
immortality]. (4.) The evil in the world gives occasion to great moral
strength, and to singular devotion and virtue in the good [and therefore, of course,
adds to the argument for their immortality].
What, after all this, we ask, is the meaning of
saying, "Heaven is not for those who live in sin now: Immortality should
begin here" I For what is that but just our doctrine?
(5.)
The longings and anticipations, as well as the fears
of men, in regard to the future, are regarded by many as sufficient evidence of
immortality. For we would never, it is argued, have been permitted to entertain
such sentiments, if it were not the Creator's design to substantiate them. So
clearly, in fact, has every appetite been provided with its appropriate
satisfaction, that the longing in question may safely be accepted as a proof of
the thing longed for, and the fear of the thing feared.
But what after all is the object of these
anticipations? What is it that the restless human spirit concerns itself so
anxiously about? About an actual immortality and eternity? or simply about a
future with a much-desired good or much-dreaded evil?—a future which, however
certain in itself, presents to its expectants no very definite aspect either as
to the filling up or the duration of it? Which of these views forms the basis
of that anxiety which has been more or less common among Men? The latter, we
are strongly inclined to believe. But be it so that it is a strict immortality
which man in any case contemplates and pants for; what sort of immortality is
it? Is it either a state of ultimate good commencing with the pains of a
purgatory, or a state of unmitigated evil stretching out into the torments of
an endless hell? Is such the immortality that man desires? Or is it not rather
for an immediate entrance upon a state of unbroken felicity that he longs? Such
doubtless is his dream. And the dream proves either the thing longed for, or
nothing at all. For the anticipation of an immediate heaven can by no possibility prove either a state of agonizing
discipline to begin with, or a state of woe insufferable and unending. A desire
may prove the natural capacity of him who entertains it; but it can never prove
that the thing desired is to be his, in spite of any obstacles that the Divine
government may have put in the way. Nothing has been more common among men than
to say, Peace, peace; but the expectation is not held to be any guarantee for
the enjoyment.
(6)
The alleged prevalence of the belief in immortality in
all ages and countries is held as a strong presumption of its validity. The
following is the most extreme of the statements of this sort that we remember
to have met with: "As there is in the human heart a conviction of
immortality implanted there for the wisest and holiest of purposes, so there
never has been a nation, never a tribe, and probably never an individual, who
did not, whatever profession he might make, believe in the endless existence of
a soul." "The conviction remains (in spite of all attempts to choke
it), that, in breathing into man's nostrils the breath of life, God infused
into him a portion of His own eternity."—Rev. H. Christmas, Echoes of the
Universe, 7th edit. p. 273.
For how can this belief have arisen, it is said,
except from a primeval revelation? In reply we ask, Does the fact really stand
as thus alleged? Is it immortality, as now contended for, that has been so
generally accepted among men? We firmly believe not. A universal belief in
immortality! Buddhism alone numbers amongst its adherents a third part of the
human family; and it precludes the very idea of immortality by proclaiming the
absorption of souls into the one great All. We may judge also of the style in
which the Eastern nations held immortality, when we see with what ease they
cast it away for nirvana. Nor need we wonder; for whatever they might have
heard of the immortality of the soul, there was but little room left for the
immortality of the man, amid the endless metempsychosis with which they had
been made familiar. As for the Greeks—not to speak of the extraordinary
barrenness of their early belief in regard to futurity—we have in later times
the testimony of no less than Plato,' that "most men assert that the soul,
when separated from the body, will be immediately dispersed and
destroyed." To what extent the Romans came to be of the same mind we need
not say. Other great families of the ancient world held much more firmly indeed
by a belief in futurity; but futurity, we must remember, is not immortality.
Thus, while it may be clear enough that the modern African and the aboriginal
American cherish the same belief, nothing could be more unwarrantable than to
say that they entertain the thought of immortality. No people perhaps, or rather
priesthood, has shown so strong a tendency to the idea of the everlasting,
apart from Scriptural revelation, as the Egyptian. And yet even in regard to
them we find it said, " It is not clear how long the beatified state was
to last, or whether it was to be eternal;"—while "the duration of the
state of woe is also left uncertain, and it is by no means clear that the
philosophy of the priests, still less the popular belief in such mysterious
subjects, was fixed and determinate."
So much for the alleged belief in immortality. And
thus, when asked how the fact is to be accounted for, we might fairly pause
till we see that it is a fact. But without waiting for that, and taking the
statement at the very utmost of its real value, we account for the belief just
as we do for other very ancient and widespread beliefs—namely, as the human
corruption of a Divine revelation, or primeval tradition. God having originally
" set eternity in man's heart," both put im-mortality before his
eyes, and engaged for its restoration, through the woman's Seed, when lost. And
this, we are persuaded, is amply sufficient to furnish the basis of all that
can really be shown as to the world's belief. But if every article in regard to
man's innocence, fall, and redemption—yes, everything connected with
religion—has been so grievously corrupted, it would be more than strange if
this matter of immortality had escaped the universal fate. Hence the view that
that has been generally accepted by men, in some such form as it was revealed
by God, is as unlikely as possible to be correct. On the contrary, we may
safely conclude that it was not revealed as it has been maintained. The
conclusion is that, if we want to know the primeval revelation on the subject,
we must, as in regard to all such matters, go for it to the Bible.
(7)
To mention one more of these arguments—Those whose
nature the Son of God assumed, and for whom He died, cannot be less than
immortal. And truly it is inconceivable that for any merely temporary purpose,
or on behalf of creatures not framed for immortality, such a transaction could
have taken place. The design and issues of the Atonement must assuredly be of
an infinite reach. Yes, and let it be freely granted that the evil from which
it delivers has its own infinity as truly as the good to which it conducts. But
if eternal life be an infinite good, is not everlasting destruction as
certainly an infinite evil? And who, in attempting to settle the proportion
between the great Sacrifice and its results, will venture to pronounce that the
Redeemer's offering must have been either meaningless or extravagant, unless,
in addition to the infinite evil of everlasting destruction, he be permitted to
assume the infinite horror of everlasting torment? And yet there are those who
declare that the whole basis of redemption is gone unless an assumption so
extraordinary be allowed them And there are those who decline all fellowship
with us, because we no longer agree with them in regard to that from which
their Savior’s death has delivered them.
Such are the chief presumptions commonly adduced in favor
of unconditional immortality—the ready inference being that it is so, and must
be so. Any other conclusion, in short, is held unworthy of consideration —any
other view of humanity as too degrading to be entertained. Hence the confidence
with which the doctrine is maintained—the impatience, the irritation, the
bitterness, with which the denial or question of it is so frequently met. To
speak of man as liable to perish, in the ordinary sense of that word—to
represent him as not inherently, unconditionally, immortal—but as under a
veritable death-sentence, and as graciously offered an actual immortality with
all its glory, as God's gift through Christ— this is held to be such a
degrading and demeaning of man as would overturn the whole moral constitution
of our world. It is regarded, on the other hand, as an essential ingredient in
man's dignity that he be endowed with the capacity not only of resisting his
Maker, but of spending eternity as an incorrigible rebel, and an immortal
sufferer—ever receding further and further from his God—sinking lower and lower
into a bottomless abyss of woe! Yes, such is the dignity contended for! Such is
one of the objections to conditional immortality, that it takes away from human
nature the one element which supplies at once the capacity and the opportunity
for endless sinning and endless suffering!
Immortality In The Old Testament.
PROCEEDING from alleged presumptions to Scripture
evidence, and commencing with the Old Testament, we ask whether that contains
one single direct statement, or one hint however indirect, or one distinct
principle the most general, which should induce us to believe in an
unconditional immortality. That such proof is constantly held forth everyone
knows; and our present concern is to form a just estimate of its value. Is it
unfair, then, to say that the proof attempted consists very much in a reference
to Gen. 1. 26; 2. 7; Isa. 33.14; Dan. 12. 2?
The subject of the Divine image in man, as it appears
in the first of these passages, has been before us already, and will be again.
The second of them informs us that " God formed man out of the dust of the
ground; and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul."
"Breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
"—and how, it is very confidently asked, can this involve less than a true
immortality? Nay rather, let us say, how can we regard it as involving anything
approaching to that, when we find the same expression, only in a stronger form,
applied to every living thing that perished in the flood? " All in whose
nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died." (Gen. 7. 22.) Yes,
but " man became a living soul," it is urged. And so, we reply, did
" the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath living
soul;" and to every beast, fowl, and reptile, " wherein is living
soul," was the green herb given for meat. (1. 20, 30.)
Take now the next passage: " Who among us shall
dwell with the devouring fire? Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"—a
passage regarded by many as an unanswerable proof for the sufferings throughout
eternity, and therefore for the immortality, of the wicked.' But whence, in all
fairness we may ask, does such proof come? Not certainly from the general style
of thought exhibited by the Old Testament. For not from beginning to
end—unless, strange to say, here only—does it suggest the idea of a miserable
immortality. And as little does it anywhere present us with aught akin to the
extraordinary spectacle of conviction and alarm supposed to be thus expressed
by certain sinners of Isaiah's day.
Is it the word everlasting,' then, that shuts us up to
so extraordinary a conclusion? Neither can we listen to such an assertion for a
moment. For it is notorious hat that word (olam) is
constantly employed in another sense. Its ordinary application, in short, is
either to the entire duration of the subject in hand; or, as very frequently,
to a long but indefinite future. Thus we find not only the ‘earth' and the
hills' spoken of as everlasting, but Canaan is an everlasting possession' for
Israel, and the allotted ground for the Levites; so Jerusalem was to be a place
for God's name, and the temple a house for Him forever.' The Sabbath, the
sacrifices, the Aaronic priesthood, the Levitical ceremonies—all were to be
everlasting; nor is there any phrase more common than that of everlasting
statute' in regard to things so soon to "wax old and vanish away."
Thus also the slave might become his master's forever,' and David was to be,
for an equal term, the servant of Achish. The stones of Gilgal were to be an
everlasting' memorial, and the desolation of Ai as permanent. Caleb's
inheritance and Gehazi's' leprosy were both to be their children's forever.'
Young Samuel was to appear before the Lord 'forever,' that is "all the
days of his life; " and Eli, as well as the priest after him, was to walk
before the Lord forever.' Considering, in short, how the word is constantly
employed, we can no more argue for an eternity of suffering from the passage in
Isaiah than we can argue against a resurrection from the one in which Solomon
speaks of the grave as man's everlasting home,' or Jeremiah of death as an
everlasting sleep.' (Eccles. 12. 5; Jer. 51.39, 57.) How is it possible, then,
considering all this, to disjoin the fire' of the verse in question from the
consuming fire of the context?—" Your breath, as fire, shall devour you;"
“The people shall be as the burnings of lime; as
thorns cut up shall they be burnt up in the fire." Or how can we overlook
the kindred notice in the next chapter of the judgment on Edom?--" The
land shall become burning pitch; it shall not be quenched day nor night; the
smoke thereof shall go up forever." (34: 9, 10.) Such is the actual
context of the passage before us. And even if it were not, with what conscience
or intelligence could we ignore the regular prophetic style according to which
it is said—" I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in a land which thou
knows not; for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger which shall burn forever"?—"
I will kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of
Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched;"— " Lest my fury go out like
fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your
doings." (Jer. 17. 4, 27; 21. 12.) Can we question, after this, what the
sinners of Isaiah's time meant when they said, " Who among us shall dwell
with the devouring fire? Who shall dwell with burnings forever? " For what
aroused their alarm but the Divine threatening? And what threatening but such
as are thus recorded?
It seems hardly needful after this to refer to Dan. 12.2—"
Some to shame and everlasting contempt." For, even if the word ‘everlasting'
had in the Old Testament that general usage which it has not, still the
expression here employed must refer to the duration of the sentiment
entertained towards the wicked, not the duration of the wicked themselves. Just
as Cain, who passed away in the world's infancy, is still its abhorrence, and
will be while it lasts; or as the threatening ran against the rebels of
Jeremiah's day—" I will bring upon you an everlasting reproach, and a
perpetual shame which shall not be forgotten." (Jer. 23. 40; cf. Ps. 78. 66.)
So the land of Israel was to be " an everlasting hissing;" while of
the people " the everlasting confusion should never be forgotten."
(Jer. 18. 16; 20. 11.)
So much for certain assumed proofs from the Old
Testament of an unconditional human immortality. Some will be surprised to find
adduced with the same view the passage, "How shall man be just with God?
" (Job 9. 2.) And yet we have been told that "this question indicates
an awful conviction that man is . . . in danger of everlasting
punishment." (See Connection of Old and New Testaments, by Dr. W. L.
Alexander, p. 129.) Our answer is, that the passage teaches neither more nor
less than Ps. 130. 3; 143. 2. And if we want an Old Testament view of the bar
and the judgment, we have it in the first psalm.
The references on the other hand to futurity are
extremely impressive, and clearly indicative at times of the immortality of the
righteous.
Thus, for example, we have a future life distinctly
pointed to—as when Job (allowing such to be his meaning) revels in the thought
of a resurrection (Job 19. 25); or Isaiah glowingly foretells it (26. 19); or
David speaks of going to the child (2 Sam. 12. 23); or Solomon declares that
" the spirit of man goes upward," while that of the beast " goes
downward; " and again, that " the dust shall return to the earth as
it was, and the spirit shall return to God who gave it." (Eccles. 3. 21;
12. 7.) This last, however, though it certainly proves a futurity, proves no
immortality of the spirit, any more than it proves the endless sleep and final
dissolution of the body at death. Enough that the spirit shall return to God
for judgment. As to the issue of the judgment there is nothing here.
We find in the same book a striking expression worthy
of notice: " He bath set the world (olam) in
their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God doeth, etc. (Eccles.
3. 11.)" But why not read, " Hath put eternity in their heart"?—that
is, bath imprinted in them a sense of the eternal,' which, being at serious
variance with the common style of viewing present things, becomes the occasion
of much perplexity. Now anyone may, without affecting our general conclusion,
explain this of eternity' in the strictest sense. But it is certainly more in
harmony with Old Testament usage to regard it as expressive of an undefined
futurity.
Again, in such great facts as the translation of Enoch
and Elijah; also in such a circumstance as the appearance of Samuel to the king
(1 Sam. 28.), we have distinct views of a future state of being. With these we
may class the representation of the king of Babylon in hades (Isa. 14.), which
recalls the general announcement, " The wicked shall be turned into hell,
and all the nations that forget God." (Ps. 9. 17.)—" Thou wilt not
leave my soul in hell" (Ps. 16.), though in a very different tone, teaches
the same lesson. " I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever;"
[Psa. 23] " I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness;"
[Psa. 17. 15] " The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning,
but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave;" [Psa. 49. 9]
" O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction;"
[Hosea 13. 14.] " The Lord is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.
Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory;" [Psalm
73. 24] these and other such sayings sufficiently express the hope of a happy
futurity. That the patriarchs lived and died in such a hope is distinctly
taught in the New Testament, the evidence for it being this, that they so
behaved as to " show plainly that they sought a country—a better country,
even an heavenly—looking for the city which hath the foundations, whose builder
and maker is God." [Heb. 11. 10.]
Nor can such hope be regarded as cancelled, either by
the absence of more positive declarations, or by those sad outbursts of anguish
which we sometimes meet with in the Old Testament saints at the prospect of
death. For a state so full of darkness in regard to its opening scenes—a
darkness perhaps of long duration—might well cloud the mind of a troubled
Hebrew, notwithstanding that confidence of continued fellowship with God which
seems to have been, not so much a matter of mere hope as an essential element
of his spiritual being—an unfailing intuition of his living and lasting
relationship to the living and everlasting God. When God, in addressing His
people, styled Himself " the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of
Jacob," He plainly spoke as " the God not of the dead, but of the
living." And in so speaking He certainly meant it to be understood, as our
Lord explained, that none who have been His servants, whether still in this
world or out of it, are any of them extinct, but all "alive in regard to
Him" (Luke 20. 38); and sure therefore to continue alive so long as He
retains the title of their God. But the more meaning we allow to expressions
like these, it is all the more observable that they contain no assertion or
implication of immortality as a thing common to all. Let us see whether, on the
other hand, the Old Testament does not furnish a very sufficient negative to
the idea of such an immortality.
Here, then—to begin with the earliest Divine treatment
of man—is our first father, with the liberty of eating, one only excepted, of
all the trees of the garden. Among these is the ' tree of life.' And, while
that continues open to him, he has the assurance of 'living forever,' body and
soul alike, in a happiness which nothing can disturb. That this is the meaning
of the arrangement made with him is commonly allowed. But, coming to the one
forbidden tree, here is the alternative: " In the day that thou eats
thereof, dying thou shalt die." Did this also signify immortality; that is
to say, a true and real life in endless misery, whatever the interruption, for
a time, of the alliance between his body and his soul? For if Adam, as such, is
really to retain his place among God's creatures, he can never be permanently
transformed into a disembodied spirit. Is this, then, the difference between
the life promised and its alternative death—that the one was immortality to the
man in a state of happiness; and the other, immortality to the same man in
misery? Could it be thus that a God who had made Himself so familiar with His
creature intended to be understood? Was it possible for our first father, in
any measure, so to understand the Divine Ruler? How much, indeed, he was able
to take in of the fearful character of the death threatened, whether as to its
entire period, or the mode of its infliction, we have no means of determining.
But if we can understand anything at all, either of the language employed, or
of Adam's capacity for taking it up, we can see that, as the words in their
plain sense pointed to an end of the man's being, so he had no alternative but
to anticipate, sooner or later, in one form or another, just such an event. For
such is the meaning of death —the simple understood Meaning of it—that meaning
from which all the partial or figurative applications of the term derive their
force. And it would require some very decisive reason indeed to show that the
language, as addressed to Adam, was intended to be taken, not in this its
plain, natural, accustomed sense, but rather in a sense immeasurably different.
But let us look a little more closely into the matter.
"In the day that thou eats thereof, dying thou
shalt die." The meaning is, Thou shalt surely die, or utterly die; or why
not both in one? For, beyond all doubt, the destruction threatened would be as
complete as it would be certain. " The wages of sin is
death,"—whether that be viewed in connection with the body and its
lamentable dissolution, or the soul and its miserable separation from the
living God. Thus, from the moment of his eating of the forbidden tree, Adam, as
a man fallen from God, would become a mortal, perishing, ruined creature. How
far the sentence was to be actually carried out on the day of his sinning he
could but little understand; and, in regard to that, may have miscalculated
greatly. The event, however, would correct the miscalculation, even if a
sufficient explanation did not follow close upon the offence. For then, at
least, he came to understand that he was, beyond doubt, a perishing man. Now
what that meant in regard to the body will hardly be questioned. To die, in
that respect, certainly meant to cease to live, or be. And as we know of no
resurrection of the body except as through the Second Adam, it follows that,
apart from redemption, there must have been not a temporary, but an endless
cessation of bodily life to man. That is to say, man in one department of his
nature, or, which amounts to the same, man as a complete human being, each time
that death overtook him, would have ceased to be. So opposed to all sound
principle is it to assert that death in no sense indicates the end of human
existence. But what right have we to assume that the same sentence of death, in
its reference to the other part of human nature, instead of meaning the same or
anything similar, involved an idea so entirely contrary as that of an endless
and wretched existence in a state of penal separation from God? Can it be
possible that there is so little analogy, or rather so violent a discordance,
between the destiny of these two elements which make up the one nature and
being of man—and that too where the same word has been employed to express the
treatment of each?
And coming from the threatened penalty to the actual
consequences of the transgression, whether does it seem that the view now given
is set aside or confirmed?
" Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt
return." Such is the description given of the impending death; and such a
view, however partial, ought surely to be taken as at least pointing in the
direction of the actual and entire evil—not certainly in some direction alto-gether different from the one in which that evil really
lies. For the returning to dust' is plainly a very important part of the
sentence, " Dying thou shalt die," according to our view of the case.
But how minute a part in any way, and how strangely unrepresentative of what
becomes the great leading idea, if we take the contrary view—a view which more
properly amounts to this, "Dying thou shalt never die!" Take, on the
other hand, according to a very safe principle, the outer world as a parable or
symbol of the inner.; and take the soul and the body as very intimately united,
whether in sin or in sentence; and then the returning to dust,' while it
represents to the eye the death of the one, will represent also the penal
dissolution of the other—not as of an immortal and indestructible substance,
but as of a guilty agent, full of corruption, and worthy of death —a
dissolution occupying any length of time, and attended with any amount of
suffering which a righteous Judge may see fit to appoint.
An act of strange significance now follows the
sentence as thus reiterated: " Lest the man put forth his hand, and take
also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever; therefore the LORD God
sent him forth from the garden." This tree, we know, pointed to the grant
of immortality as promised to Adam. But now that he has forfeited the blessing
promised, no such anomaly can be allowed as the continued enjoyment of the
empty symbol in the loss of the precious substance. Besides which, it is plain
that the permission to eat of the tree of immortal life would have been as good
as an engagement to continue that which the Sovereign had already
withdrawn.—" So He drove out the man." Is not this the true account
of the arrangement? And who are they that are to live forever' now, but those
only to whom by grace it is given " to eat of the tree of life in the
midst of the paradise of God "?
And was not this also, dimly indeed, yet truly,
shadowed forth at Eden? The man is driven from the garden; the dying Adam is
forced to turn his back upon the tree of life; and yet there takes place no
blasting of the garden, or uprooting of the tree. These are allowed to stand as
before; only for Adam is there no entrance now. The flaming sword effectually
prohibits that. There is something better than a sword, however, at the gate of
Eden. These cherubim—" living creatures " of future vision, nearest
of created beings to the throne of the Eternal—they surely signify, in some
form or other, that dying man may yet live, and, living, may eat of the tree in
the midst. Nor was the road which led to a life so glorious left altogether in
the dark. For even now did the dying victim, as it yielded up its life-blood,
signify that through death there was to be a redemption of the forfeited life;
and with this was combined the assurance that " the seed of the woman
should bruise the head of the serpent." But the serpent was " the
devil that had the power of death; " and the victory over him could not
mean less than the complete abolishing of the death which he had occasioned.
Thus, if man by sin has lost his immortality, there is
provided One through whom he may regain it. To live forever' is no longer the
property of Adam, or the inheritance of his children. But enhanced beyond
degree shall that highest of gifts come into the world again through " the
Second Man, the Lord from heaven:"—" That, as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord."
There is an important point worthy of attention here,
though not bearing directly on immortality; and that is the manner in which
life and death are spoken of in the promises and threatenings
of the Old Testament. We are not speaking of the few cases in which life' is
employed to express, entirely or partially, a good spiritual condition—such as
" Your heart shall live that seek God," " Let my soul live, and
it shall praise Thee," " Hear, and your soul shall live." We
speak simply of the ordinary views of life and death as presented in the Old
Testament. And as the ground of all these there lies the principle, " He
that doeth those things shall live by them" (Lev. 18. 5; Rom. 10. 5)—the
doing' being expounded, and the living' re-asserted by a prophet, as in Ezek. 18.
5-9. Now there is no question here as to the developing of the living' into
something higher in another state; nor yet as to the amount of satisfaction
that might accrue to the obedient now. Enough that the living' refers simply to
the temporal existence promised to the righteous; and the dying' to the
counterpart evil as threatened to the unrighteous. That dying' might, indeed,
be a shadow of something worse—being itself preceded or attended by great
unhappiness. Still is the dying' itself just that which occurs every day before
our eyes—the only supposable difference lying in the clearer manifestation of
Divine judgment in connection with it. But come as they might, the executioners
of the judgment were simply such matters as sword, famine, pestilence. And so
when any one on whom the death was coming repents of his evildoing, " He
shall surely live (it is said of him), he shall not die." (Ezek. 33. )
Precisely in the same way are we to understand the much used and abused
sentence, " The soul that sinneth, it shall
die." (Ezek. 18. 4.) The transgressor shall be cut off—such is the entire
sense. Temporal death is still the evil threatened. Hence it is wrong to employ
that sentence as any proof of the doctrine of the final destruction of souls.
That it does not prove, however it may foreshadow it. But this, in connection
with the promises of life, these and other such words do prove; namely, that
the Old Testament, whether in its earliest or its latest portions, handed over
to the New, in all the entireness of their accepted sense, its promises of life
and threatenings of death. And thus, though these
give no direct information regarding the immortality of the soul, they are of
great value as illustrating the terms in which that subject is settled
afterwards.
Note.—The following from the Memoir of Dr. John
Duncan, 2nd edition, p. 230, will show how the Old Testament evidence for
immortality appeared to such a man.—" Words and things which in themselves
seem to have little weight acquire infinite importance when Jehovah is
concerned in them. For example, the transactions of the first chapters of
Genesis. Bearing this in mind, the account of man's creation shows that he was
designed for immortality [italics our own). In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,' evidently implying
that while he did not eat he should live. After the fall, that God still
designed man for immortal life appears from His condescending to deal with our
first parents, instead of instantly cutting them off; and still more from the
nature of the promise, The seed of,' etc. What did man forfeit by the fall P
Life. It was death that the Tempter had introduced. To overcome the serpent,
therefore, was just to overcome death; and all God's intercourse with man from
that time was a proof of man's immortality. Abel, in the very act of offering
up an accepted sacrifice, was cut off, while Cain was spared. Enoch was a
living proof of the truth that immortal life was the portion of God's people.
Passing on to Abraham, God appears to him, and offers Himself in all His
fulness—' I am God all-sufficient, walk before me.' This was in fact a grant of
life, the brightest and strongest that could be. The self-existent, the living
God, gives Himself—'I am thy God,' *I will be a God unto thee.' It could not be
that God was not able; and if He had not been willing that His people should
live forever, was He a God ' to them? (See Heb. 11. 16.) And here lies the
point of our Lord's argument with the Sadducees, 'God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living.' From the first, therefore, in all His dealings with
men, it has been about the communication of immortal life. Nothing less was worthy
of Him. And when God gives Himself to be His people's blessedness and reward,
that is in the strongest way possible a grant of life everlasting. Passing down
to David and the Psalms, we find in them all the life of religion—the desire
and enjoyment of God Himself, without which there is no religion—and this
necessarily implies immortal life. And all this the Psalmist found in the Law.
(See Psalm 119.)"
We need hardly say that all this is just what we
should have desired to write ourselves. Let us remark—(1.) It is plainly
immortality as such that is here treated of. To live'
and ' die' mean to be' and cease to be.' (2.) It is allowed that, by the fall,
man lost immortality. For by that he forfeited life, i.e. the immortal life
spoken of throughout. (3.) The fact that " God still designed man for
immortal life " must have reference to a gracious design—both from what
has been said of the life lost by man, and because all the evidence given for
the statement refers to gritcions Divine dealing. It
was thus that He dealt with our first parents. (4.) "All God's intercourse
with man, from that time, was a proof of man's immortality." But this
refers only to gracious intercourse, and can therefore prove nothing but a
gracious design of immortality. Besides, all the cases given are purely of such
intercourse; Abel, Enoch (" a living proof that immortal life was the
portion of God's people"), Abraham, in whose case we see God "willing
that His people should live forever." (6.) The remaining references are of
the same character. It was natural, indeed, for one who believed in
unconditional immortality to speak of the "proof of man's
immortality." But of that no evidence is even hinted at except God's
gracious provision for His own people. $o when he speaks of "God's dealings
with men" as "about the communication of immortal life," he
evidently means gracious dealings as conveying something which did not belong
to the human race indiscriminately.
The reflections of one still more eminent on the
consequences of the Fall, may be seen in Paradise Lost (10. 770-844); where
Adam is made to balance the thoughts that "all of him cannot die;"
the question being decided by the Divine announcement (11. 57-66.)
"I, at first, with two fair gifts
Created him endowed—with happiness
And immortality: that fondly lost,
This other served but to eternize woe;
Till I provided death " . . .
Immortality In The New Testament—Miscellaneous Passages.
WE commence with the very distinct statement of our
Lord to the Sadducees, in reply to their captious question as to the conjugal
relationship in the world to come:—" They which shall be counted worthy to
obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are
given in marriage; neither can they die any more; for
they are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."
(Luke 20. 35, 36.) Now who can say in regard to these words, as is so freely
said of similar words elsewhere, that this ' dying no more' is a purely
spiritual matter—referring to the holy and happy, as contrasted with the sinful
and miserable, aspect of endless existence? Who can deny that language like
this, employed for the confutation of Sadducees, points to an actual and
endless continuance of being, that is to say, immortality for the righteous, in
opposition to the Sadducean belief of the indiscriminate extinction of human
existence, body and soul alike, at death? What, then, becomes of those who do
not share in the happy lot of these children of God? Is it equally true of
them, " Neither can they die anymore?" Is that, in short, the natural
birthright, and inalienable possession of every child of Adam, which our Lord
so emphatically represents as the peculiar property of the children of God?
If the answer be that the ‘dying no more' refers only
to the immortal bodies of the saints—then, we ask, Do you not equally believe
in the immortal bodies of the lost? Believing, in short, as it seems you must,
that this language refers to an unbroken existence in the full sense of the
term, how can you regard our Lord's statement as meaning less than that immortality
is a thing peculiar to the righteous? And how, with such a statement in view,
can you feel at liberty to teach men that the simple fact of their having been
born into this world involves the certainty of their living forever in the next?
The view thus naturally suggested by these words is
confirmed by the meaning which our Lord attaches to the declaration, " I
am the God of Abraham," etc. For from this it follows, as He teaches, that
the patriarchs are still numbered not as among the dead but the living —all
being alive in relation to Him who is their God. He thus plainly speaks of life
in the sense of existence—and yet, of course, an existence so conditioned as to
involve all that is truly blessed.
We now turn to what may be regarded as the most direct
statement on our subject in the Apostolic writings:
" Who hath abolished death, and hath brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel." (2 Tim. 1. 10.)
Now it is surely a mistake to draw any argument for
the natural immortality of man from these words. For it is plain that, putting
life and immortality on precisely the same footing, the Apostle speaks of them
not as ordinary, natural endowments of humanity, but as special Christian
blessings—blessings which, though now revealed by the gospel, originated in
" the purpose and grace of God which was given us in Christ Jesus;"—blessings,
in short, springing not from a general creative, but a special redemptive
purpose of God.2 And this should be enough to settle the whole question,
whether immortality comes to us simply in virtue of our creation, or specially
by redemption.
And what, then, is the thing at last revealed?—"He
hath abolished death." But in whose favor is it that death is abolished?
In favor of those whose whole state, here or hereafter, is represented by this
very word death'?—those who in being raised up from the first death are only
raised to the ' second'?—those, in a word, as regards whom resurrection and
immortality awake no idea of blessing at all, but only of curse unmitigated and
endless? Let any one candidly answer—all algebraic
criticism apart—whether such can be any part of the boon connected with our Savior's
having abolished death. And if it cannot be, then where are the unsaved in
regard to that which has been brought to light?
Again—if Christ has abolished death, that surely
refers to its entire range and dominion, as to body and soul alike. He has
abolished the death which is the opposite, at some point or other, of all that
is involved in life and immortality.' But how has He hi
every sense done this, unless it was the fact that in every sense death had
obtained dominion and needed to be abolished? What the dominion and what the
abolition are may thus be better understood.
"And hath brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel." But what is life? Ilas it now come
to signify existence only—with its capacity of being filled up, as the case may
be, with happiness or misery everlasting? That life which we are continually
hearing of as the very synonym of blessedness—has it become at length, in
regard to myriads of souls, nothing but the occasion for wretchedness? That, in
short, which has been held by our opponents, equally with ourselves, to be the
very opposite of the whole state of the unregenerate, present or eternal,—is
that now the prime element of their condition also? For, unless life be thus
regarded, what ground can there be for so regarding immortality? If the lost
have no share in the one, what share can they have in the other of the two
benefits which have equally been brought to light through the gospel?
What, then, is life'? Our Lord Himself and His
Apostles will answer.—" He that believeth on Him that sent me is passed
from death unto life;" " The Bread of God is He that giveth life unto
the world;" " Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life;"
" I am come that they might have life;" " He that hath the Son
hath life;" " Christ who is our life shall appear." Thus does
man recover that life of God' from which he was alienated.' So much for the
life;' and wherever it comes, there comes immortality' with it. It is true that
the original word does not answer in its mere syllables to the word
immortality.' But the sense is unquestionably the same. For both the word here
used, as well as its kindred adjective, distinctly expresses the idea of
incorruptible,' in the sense of indestructible,' or not capable of being
brought to an end.' [3 The places where these words occur in the New Testament
are the following: Rom. 2. 7; 1 Cor. 15. 42-50, 53, 64; 2 Tim. 1. 10. Even in
Eph. 6. 24 there is no reason for departing from the ordinary meaning,
'imperishable'—. Rom. 1. 23; 1 Cor. 9. 25; 15. 52; 1 Tim. 1. 17; 1 Peter 1. 4,
23; 3. 4.] And thus it would appear that only with the true life does there come
immortality. So contrary to the Apostle's statement is the theory of an endless
life in death, or an endless death in life. For no one surely will affirm that
the immortality' is for men as such, saved and unsaved alike—while the life' is
for the saved only. And yet, strange as it may seem, it is something very like
this that really appears to be assumed.
What shadow of a reason remains, then, for affirming
that the life and immortality spoken of are, jointly or separately, natural
endowments of man, instead of special bestowments of grace? Is there in the
entire passage, either expressed or implied, any reference to natural
endowments at all?— any reference to anything but the provisions of grace?
Whether was it the business of the gospel to bring to light what was obscure as
to the duration of human existence in general, or to unfold the special
deliverance from sin and ruin as undertaken by grace? Is it blessing and curse,
or blessing only, that is really set before us as the object and substance of
the Christian revelation? And in what sense would life and immortality be a
blessing to the lost? And thus we are brought back to the question, For whom
are these designed? Be it so that there was a vail of the very thickest hanging
over the future, and that the gospel, by its revelation of life and
immortality, has rent that vail—how can that prove the natural, or let us say,
the continued, and unconditional, immortality of man? It is immortality for man
that the gospel as the mouth of the eternal thought has disclosed. Now this
being so, it is very evident that man is a being fitted for immortality. But
the immortality of man is another thing altogether. And however strangely the
two thoughts have been confounded, and the second of them thrust upon our text,
it seems all the while extremely plain that the former only, or the immortality
provided for us in Christ, has any place in the text. As well plead from this
passage, that life' in the Scriptural sense is man's by nature as plead that immortality'
is.
Coming now to the important statement in Rom. 2. 7,
What, we ask, does the Apostle mean when he speaks of a certain class of
persons as having eternal life ' for their reward—namely, " those who by
patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and immortality,"
or, which amounts to the same, indestructibility," incorruptibility?' Does
this consist with the idea of a natural immortality as the common destiny of
all men, whatever the course pursued by them now? Why, in short, hold forth the
advantage of seeking for immortality, if it is to be ours whether sought or not?
Besides which, let it be observed that, while the Blessed God had just been
spoken of as incorruptible,' man had been characterized as corruptible' (1. 23).
Should not this help us, if help were needed, to a correspondent understanding
of incorruptibility' in this place? And does it not all tend to the same
conclusion, that, in a passage where every element had been heaped together
that could add awfulness to the picture, it is the life only that is spoken of
as everlasting—leaving us to conclude, in accordance with so many other
lessons, that the " indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish,"
in store for the evil-doer, are the appointed means of his actual destruction,
as of one not attaining to immortality?
Proceeding to the fifth chapter of the same Epistle,
do we find any reason for abandoning what we took as the direct meaning of the
original sentence of death, when viewed simply by Old Testament light? If the Hebrew
law-giver left us so far short of the goal of an unconditional human
immortality, does the Christian Apostle seem to have enjoyed a light which made
either the road or the end plainer to him? "Death," says he, "
came by sin." But what kind of death? Eternal death?—meaning by that an
endless life in a state of misery—is that the idea? Hardly, when we consider
how plainly he here speaks of death as that notorious thing which the human eye
could see, and to which age after age had borne unbroken witness: "And so
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Now, without
needlessly entering into the Apostle's argument, we may yet ask with all
confidence, Does Paul, in thus speaking of death, really go beyond the simple,
natural sense of the words, " In the day thou eats thereof dying thou
shalt die"? That is to say, does he, by one single expression or
implication, in the least degree supplement, in regard to any proper human
immortality, what may have been left unrevealed in the primeval threatening?
Again—" If by the offence of one the many died," does that teach the
doctrine of an unhappy life in a state of everlasting death? Or, "If by
one man's offence death reigned by one"? Or, when ‘death' without a
qualification is so expressly contrasted with the ‘life' which is qualified as
'eternal,' does that point to the conclusion for which we are pleading, or to
the one which is reckoned as alone orthodox and safe?
Nor let us leave this passage, without considering how
far the ordinary view really harmonizes with the Apostle's comparison of the
reign of sin with that of grace. Take, for example, the 17th verse: " If
by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive the
abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one,
Jesus Christ." Now, if we suppose the reign of sin through Adam to prevail
over men to the extent of temporal death to all, and of evil very dreadful
indeed, but still not interminable to any, then we can understand how the eternal
life which comes through Christ should impart to that side a glorious much
more.' For the good involved in such life must infinitely transcend any amount
of the sin and suffering which are not eternal. But, if the sin which comes
through Adam continues to run its course as an everlasting evil, followed by
everlasting suffering in the case of countless millions of the human family,
then what room is left for that much more' which forms the very crown of glory
on the head of the Second Adam? So, in regard to the much more' of the 15th
verse, the same question suggests itself. For if it be true that, by occasion
of the offence of one, the many be dead—that is, all alike in the temporal
sense, and the unsaved in the sense of an inevitable doom to endless woe—then it
is hard indeed to see the force of the comparison, " Much more the grace
of God hath abounded unto the many;" or, " Where sin abounded, grace
did superabound." For how could the Apostle have so glowingly celebrated
this superabundance of grace if he had seen, on the other side, as rising up
before him that measureless mountain of eternal evil, and as spreading out
under him that fathomless ocean of eternal woe, which all the unpardoned sin of
all generations of men is supposed to have drawn together? What abatement of
the difficulty is it to say that probably, or at least for aught that we know,
the saved will finally outnumber the lost? Be it so. Still there stands the
mountain of evil, and there boils the ocean of woe, each of them unmitigated.
Could any one, then, in the face of all this have
declared, without a certain tinge of falseness either in his reasoning or his
rhetoric, that grace and life had so completely overshadowed sin and death?
Yes, and without once suggesting that possibility or probability of the
numerical kind, which after all would only somewhat lessen a quantity which,
diminish it as you will, can never become less than infinite. What, in short,
could have inspired Paul with the sublime thought of the superabounding of
grace, but just the assurance that, while sin had reigned unto death, grace was
now reigning unto LIFE ETERNAL? For when was the thought ever absent from his
mind, that " the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God ETERNAL LIFE,
through Jesus Christ our Lord"?
Once more, we have the statement—" The world passes
away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."
(1 John 2. 17.) Mark the contrast to the evanescence of earthly things as thus
drawn by an Apostle, and compare with it the other contrast which runs in such
terms as these—’But the soul of man is immortal, and can never pass away.'
Is it possible, we ask, to adopt both these views at
once? In a word, can we imagine the Apostle as having set up his contrast
between the godly man and the perishing world, if yet he had believed that all
men are alike imperishable? It will be hard, surely, in this case to find
refuge in the idea that permanence itself is not here referred to, but
character only. For it is precisely that which is referred to, if language
could express, or the connection demand it. Permanence, in short, is the thing
asserted, while character is only implied;—a very different matter from the
converse method so strangely contended for; as if the happiness was the thing
expressed in all the Scripture statements of immortality—the permanence being
simply assumed as the attribute of all immortals! The Scripture method, in
fact, is to state the permanence, and leave it to be understood that, where God
makes a creature to share in His eternity, He makes the same to share in His
blessedness also. If, in the present case, anything be still wanting to justify
our conclusion, we find it in the strictly parallel comparison as drawn by
another Apostle, when he sets up the incorruptible seed (i.e., the living and
abiding word) in contrast with the corruptible; and again, " the word
which abideth forever," in contrast with the withering grass and the
fading flower. (1 Peter 1. 23-25)
Mr. Hinton objects to the view that the contrast in 1
John 2. 17 lies betwixt the world as evanescent, and the godly man as
enduring—maintaining that the points contrasted are the evanescent satisfaction
afforded by the one, and the enduring satisfaction enjoyed by the other. (J. H.
HINTON, in Works, vol. 3. pp. 184, 223, 307.) Now this is certainly not the
manner in which the Apostle puts it; and it is for the Bible-student to say
whether he can accept of this view (however correct in itself) to the exclusion
of the one which the words express.
So much for the direct evidence as furnished by these
passages against the belief of an inherent immortality. And there is an
indirect evidence of great weight to the same effect. We all know the natural,
let us say the unavoidable, style of those who, believing in the ordinary
doctrine, are led to address their fellow-man as one born for eternity, urging
upon him the interests of his ' never dying soul.' Now is this the style in
which we find our Lord and His apostles speaking of men, and to men? Is there,
in fact, one sentence in all their sayings or writings declaring the
immortality of man as such? —one appeal to man as possessed of an 'immortal
soul,' or as a creature destined to live forever? Do we find the wicked told
that the eternity belonging to them, as human beings, is to be a wretched one;
or the righteous that theirs, in the same view, is to be a blessed one? In a
word, do we find a trace of the doctrine that, in addition to a common
immortality, there shall be evil to the one, and good to the other? Observe,
the question is not whether in one or two places there seems any color for the
assumption that the wicked are threatened with a miserable eternity. It is,
whether, apart from this, there is any appearance of immortality about them, as
the prerequisite of their endless woe. It is freely granted, of course, that
their immortality might be proved by the unequivocal description or assertion
of such woe as in store for them. We are only remarking at present on the very
notable want of any reference, direct or indirect, to a natural immortality,
whether generally in regard to man as such, or specifically, in regard either
to the righteous or the wicked. And then, when we remember all that is said of
the 'losing of the soul,' and the 'perishing' of men; when we reflect that this
word perish' is the one used to represent the entire doom of the entire mass of
those who have sinned without law (Rom. 2. 12), that is to say, by far the
greater portion of mankind hitherto; when we think how our Lord, while speaking
so often of destruction' under various forms, speaks in one place of
everlasting punishment, but without ever, as we shall find, giving utterance to
the idea of everlasting suffering; —when we think of all this there seems
little alternative left as to our belief in regard to human immortality. We can
well understand, indeed, how all that has been, or may be urged, will be met
with the sentiment that our doctrine is an extremely hard one for any devout
Christian to receive—involving not a little of very bad feeling and very bad
religion. And is it, we ask, so very hard to think that the blessed God, while
permitting man to fall, should yet have arranged that neither his sin nor his
sufferings should be endless—that is to say, that neither should God be
eternally rebelled against by His own creatures, nor be under the necessity of
eternally tormenting the rebels? Does it seem very strange to consider such a
provision against eternal evil as having been involved in the original
threatening of death? Is it so very dreadful a thought that there is really no
immortality for man in sin—no immortality for him at all, except in Christ? Or
rather, is there not something both strange and dreadful in the thought, that
not only has God chosen, in His Sovereignty, to withhold His salvation from the
great mass of men hitherto, but has actually, by His bestowment of such a
constitution on our race, renounced all right and power ever to destroy that
moral agency which cannot be eternally continued, except at the cost of
everlasting provocation to Himself, and everlasting suffering to the agent?
Remarks on Rev. J. H. Hinton's view of Luke 20. 36, as
given in his Tract, " Who shall live forever?"
THIS is the passage that he chooses as the most direct
proof of human immortality, contending that the words, "Neither shall they
die any more," are spoken of all men
indiscriminately. It may be observed that, while he always interprets our
Lord's expressions everlasting life' and live forever' as denoting a happy
immortality,' he intends his own question, as given above, to allude simply to
'endless existence.' Let us notice how he meets the principal difficulties that
stand in the way of such an interpretation.
(a) There is the expression, "They that shall be
counted worthy to obtain that world." This seems decisive against the view
of every one obtaining it. Mr. Hinton pleads, however, that the expression '
counted worthy' (naraIto6a0at) is 'redundant.' On this we offer two remarks.
(1) It is a hazardous thing to introduce in any case the plea of 'redundancy;
but especially where so much depends upon the word. It is very unlikely that
such an expression means nothing; and few probably will feel much satisfaction
in the rendering which the proposal yields. In two other cases the same
redundancy, it is thought, occurs. One of these is Luke 21. 36, " Watch
and pray, that ye may be counted worthy to escape," etc. Now what right
has any one to say that, character being ignored, only the consequence is here
pointed at, the whole sense being That ye may escape'? The second case is,
" They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His
name." (Acts 5. 41.) But who would refuse the disciples the deep
satisfaction of being now counted really worthy of suffering for their Lord P
In the only other case where the word occurs there can be no question about
redundancy, as the sentence would be nothing without it—" That ye may be
counted worthy of the kingdom of God." (2 Thess. 1. 5.)
(a) There is an entire ignoring in our author's
argument, of the vital element "they who "—" They who shall be
counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection." And thus by the
plea of redundancy, to get quit of character, and by overlooking this clear
specification of persons, the sentiment, " They who shall be counted
worthy to enter upon," is reduced to, "When men enter upon that
world."
(b) In regard to the three expressions, "Equal to
(or, on a par with) the angels;" " Children of God;" "
Children of the resurrection"—they only mean, it is argued, ' deathless as
the angels;" deathless as God;" persons who have entered on the
future life.' That is to say, our Lord's statement would amount to this—"
When men enter on that world, and the resurrection (or future life'), they do
not marry; for they can die no more—for they are deathless as the holy angels,
deathless as God, persons who have entered on the future life.'"
(c) It has been generally considered that the title
" The God of Abraham," etc., shows that the blessing referred to was
peculiar to God's own people. But now we are told that that title "must
have been used in a carnal sense, since it was used respecting the entire
posterity of Abraham in this line." Now the question is not in what sense
He was the God of the people, or the God of the Jeroboams and Ahabs, but the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob—who on
their part showed plainly that they sought a country—and in regard to whom
"God was not ashamed to be called their God." We must thus judge what
weight is due to the view that the "covenant relation to Abraham was only
incidentally in our Lord's contemplation;" and that "the whole design
was to point out the relation of God to dead men."
(d) In regard to the general style of our Lord's
argument, I remark that since the Pharisees denied all future life, it was
enough if He proved any; and above all that of the fathers of the nation. This
being done, He was well entitled to stop there. And thus when He says,
" All live to Him," or rather, " All
with respect to Him are alive "—the ' all' rightly belongs to those of
whom He has been speaking, 'all of theta.' It would be very hazardous to argue
that this sense would, according to New Testament usage, have required the
article "they all." The same might be said of the sentence, "Ye
are clean, but not all"— where all' does not mean all men,' but all of
you.' In a word, the reasoning plainly requires the linking of the all ' who
are alive' to those who have the Lord for their God.
Everlasting life—especially in the gospel of John.
Everlasting Life
IF there be in the New Testament a word with more
variety of meaning than another it is perhaps ' life.' It is easy, indeed, to
speak of the natural," literal,' simple,' as contrasted with the
metaphorical sense of the word. But it is by no means so easy to show, in any
given case, that precisely the meaning thus assumed, and no more, is the thing
intended. This, however—it is important to remember, that life in the natural
world means the exercise of the functions of an organized being—the cessation
of that involving the death of the being with dissolution of the structure. As
to how this life originally came into the human organism, our information
is—" God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life." And so of
death: " Thou takes away their breath, they die." (Ps. 104. 29; cf.
Job 24. 14, 15.) Such is bodily life, and bodily death—neither of them little
spoken of in the Bible; and each of them significant of something which is
higher or deeper than itself.
Now such being life in its simplest form, a full and perfect
life must consist in the full and perfect exercise of the organic
functions--everything short of this being decay or disease with its tendency
towards death and disorganization. This full measure or action of life we are
accustomed to regard as the perfection of health—of which we sometimes say,
This is life.' That we have thus got far beyond the idea of mere existence is
obvious.
Suppose now we apply the same idea to the soul. This
also has got, if not an organism, something closely akin to it at least, in its
wonderful system of faculties or capacities, intellectual, moral, spiritual. In
the possession, or rather exercise, however partial, of such endowments,
consists the existence of a human soul; or, according to the other term, its
life—a term which will be readily accepted by those who hold that every soul
has to live forever. And yet we can see at once how far such a circumstance is
from exhausting the whole idea of a soul's life. For if. health be to the body
its life in the highest sense of the word as so applied, then will holiness, or
moral resemblance to the living God, with whatever is involved in that, be in
the same high sense the life of the soul. Then will the soul experience the
bliss designed for it in the full exercise of its wonderful functions. For then
will man know the life of God' in its perfection. Thus we can see how wide is
the sweep of meaning embraced by the word life,' as ranging from the worm to
the seraph, and, by a still wider interval, up to the living God;—or, as in our
own case, commencing with natural life under the simplest aspect (" our
life is a vapor"), and from this reaching on to the high doctrine or
experience, " He that hath the Son hath life," "To me to live is
Christ." No wonder if, with such a field to traverse, the word be
variously employed. Even in the Old Testament, as we have seen, there are
indications of the high view of life; although the instances of this are rarer
than might at first appear. [Cf. e.g. Ps. 119. 175 (let my soul live) with 116.
8, 9; 30. 9; 66. 9. So if we take life' in Ps. 30. 5, in the highest sense, it
will be hard to say that anything can be ' better,' as in 63. 3.]
As to New Testament usage, there is no room for
question, either as to the variety of meaning or the elevation of thought
connected with the word. And hence we cannot wonder if it be difficult to fix a
'plain,' ‘literal,' sense of life' when presented to us in all its perfection,
and with the additional element of everlasting continuance. Such being the
case, we shall not plead for any single sense as the literal one of the word;
since a figurative sense is both perfectly admissible, and in certain cases
most likely to be the true one. Happiness,' indeed, we should object to as the
highest figurative sense of life;—such a term falling far short of the
condition signified. We should rather think of a state which, while including
that, embraces at the same time something much higher and grander. As for
example, when the Apostle says, "Now we live, if ye stand fast in the
Lord," it is surely something beyond happiness that his intensely
spiritual mind is busy about. He is thinking, in short, of the full exercise of
all the principles of his Christian life, rather than about the enjoyment
connected with the exercise.
Be it so, then, that everlasting life' might be
figuratively used to express the everlasting 'perfection,' 'happiness,"
bliss," glory' of the redeemed, and nothing more; that is not a reason for
saying that it is so used. The possibility leaves us far short of the proof.
For how stands the case? It stands thus—that the possession of everlasting
life,' in whatever sense we take it, certainly includes the possession of
everlasting ' existence.' What, then, if the giving of the everlasting life by
special grace includes the similar giving of the everlasting existence Does the
Scripture teach us this? We hold that it does, and notably in the Gospel of
John. In other words, we hold that the Scripture denies everlasting existence
to all to whom it denies everlasting life; or, which is the same, that it
teaches the bestowment of everlasting life in such terms as to show that it
means distinctly to affirm the bestowment of everlasting existence. This we
shall endeavor to prove; and this will preclude the necessity of showing how
much or how little, as to character and enjoyment, may in any case be signified
by the mere expression life.' For that really is not our question. The question
is whether the ' existence forever' in the lowest sense belongs to any to whom
the life forever' in the highest sense does not belong. And we maintain that it
does not. In other words, man, as a fallen creature, attains to immortality in
the ordinary sense, just as he attains to everlasting life in the scriptural
sense.
Now there can be no doubt that the words everlasting
life' would, in an ordinary way, be understood ,to signify what they sound,
namely, a 'living everlastingly.' And it does seem a strange thing to affirm
that all men are to live forever, or everlastingly, but only some to have '
everlasting life,' according to the New Testament! But it would be stranger
still if this were the view of Him who taught that immortality (" neither
can they die any more") was the peculiar property of a class which He
characterized. (Luke 20. 36.) That is to say, it would be extremely strange
if—knowing that all should ‘live everlastingly' in the ordinary sense—He had meant,
in speaking of everlasting life,' to signify that only some should have it in
His sense! Let us see whether there be any ground for attaching so very
peculiar a meaning to our Lord's words as recorded by the disciple who knew Him
best.
Gospel of John
Take the first case presented to us —" As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted
up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life." 14, 15.)" Now if we take ‘perish' in the unquestionably
natural, ordinary sense of coming to an end, or ceasing to be, it will be very
hard to avoid the conclusion that everlasting life' is represented as the
opposite of the extinction thus set forth as its only alternative. That is to
say, there is no escape from perishing—no possessing of endless
existence—except as we obtain the everlasting life spoken of. But then we are
met with the assertion that perish' does not here mean cease to be.' This also
is to be taken in a peculiar sense, and as pointing to the misery of a soul
immortal and imperishable. And so everlasting life,' being the opposite of
this, does not signify living forever' in the ordinary sense; but it signifies
the everlasting happiness of a soul which in any case has to live forever! Some
who have been long accustomed to this conclusion may perhaps be startled if
they review the process by which it is reached. But this is not the place for
examining this extraordinary view of perish.' Enough to remark now that it is a
very different view which our Lord suggests to Nicodemus, when He illustrates
His redemption of perishing souls by the healing of those perishing murmurers
who were being " destroyed by serpents." Can we venture, then, on the
grounds commonly alleged, to assume, as a new or very peculiar sense of
perish,' one so foreign to its common acceptation—and that in the face of the
direct reference to the dying Israelites? For, unless we can do this, we seem
shut up to the conclusion that, in promising everlasting life to believers, our
Lord promised them the only imperishable existence possible for man now.
But stop, we hear it said, there is at the end of the chapter
a comment on the Savior’s language which gives quite another view of the
matter—" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth, on him;
"—from which it is inferred that the true opposite of life is a state of
endless suffering under the endurance of wrath. But how does that come? How
does it appear that the soul which loses everlasting life ' is, after all, a
soul which lives everlastingly,' and therefore, through the wrath abiding on
it, suffers everlastingly? Can there be no such thing as divine wrath abiding
on a human soul, so as to take away all hope of everlasting life, without
supposing that that soul is essentially immortal, and must therefore continue
in the conscious experience of the wrath forever? Why rather should not the
wrath come upon the unbeliever in execution of the sentence of perishing,' and
abide upon him, without shifting or lightening, till his doom be complete? Is
not this, in fact, the only thing that can find place in the state of a
creature sentenced to the loss of EVERLASTING LIFE—even if it were not so expressly
declared that that creature was to perish? Or must we still suppose that there
is some incongruity between a true ‘perishing' and a true abiding of wrath? But
where is it? Suppose the prodigal, while sullenly continuing in the far
country, to send home the message, I perish with hunger,' and his father to
reply—' Yes, and thou must perish; for, except thou return, my displeasure
abides upon thee, and thou canst see life no more,'—what incongruity would
there be between the two elements of the condition thus represented? And much
less is there room for anything of the kind in a case where the process of the ‘perishing'
may be so protracted, and the abiding of the wrath so peculiarly dreadful.
Take now another case in which the contrast, though
not so direct betwixt everlasting life and perishing, is yet distinctly
implied—" Labor not for the meat which perishes, but for that meat which
endured' unto everlasting life." Is it not clear that our Lord's design in
this is to contrast the two kinds of meat, and the two kinds of life sustained
by them? The one meat is essentially perishing; the other alone is enduring and
imperishable. And so the one life is essentially perishing; the other alone
(shall we hesitate to say it?) is what the divine meat is—a thing that endures forever.
Once more, we have the contrast between the two lots
which alone are possible to us;—" I give unto them eternal life, and they
shall never perish." (10. 28.) Does our Lord, then, instead of indicating
by ‘perish' a real extinction, mean to express a suffering which is to be
inextinguishable?—thus allowing us to conclude that by eternal life' He means
nothing but the happy form of an existence endless for all alike? In answer to
this we only refer to that actual 'destroying' and 'perishing' of sheep which,
throughout the passage, He has been holding up in illustration of that from
which He saves His sheep. A true shepherd always tries to save his sheep from perishing
and to procure for them life. The Good Shepherd does this very thing in a
superlative degree. The one will expose his own life in order to save that of
his sheep. The other actually gives up His life, that He may bestow upon us
life eternal.' Does it seem from this, then, as if the word perish,' when
contrasted with everlasting life,' were used in any very peculiar sense?
In connection with this instructive contrast we may
allude to a similar one which we find in chap. 12. 25; " He that loveth his
life shall lose it, and he that hated his life in this world shall keep it unto
life eternal;"—where the life which is called eternal' is represented as
that which a man keeps, in contrast with what he loses.
So much for this special help to the understanding of
our Lord's view of everlasting life. We may get further help of a similar kind
by returning to the sixth chapter, where He follows out the contrast betwixt
the two sorts of bread and of life. Mark, then, the subject is everlasting
life' (verses 40, 47, 54), and see how He handles it. He tells His hearers that
"their fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and died;" but now there
has come down that Bread " of which a man may eat, and not die." (49,
50.) This is extremely like a comparative view of mortality and immortality in
the ordinary sense of the words—the one in spite of the manna, the other by
means of the living Bread. The word 'died' is certainly the one commonly used
to signify mortality;' while the expression shall not die' has as regularly
been employed to denote immortality.' And then, besides this negative
expression, we have a positive one quite as exact immediately subjoined:
"He that eats of this bread shall live forever." (5. 51.) And again,
" Not as your fathers ate manna and died: he that eats of this bread shall
live forever." (5. 58.)
What, then, do these words teach if not everlasting
duration as belonging only to those who eat of the living Bread? The
immortality of such will assuredly be all that is blessed. Still it is not (in
this case at least) the character of the immortality that the words point to.
That is an inference, and an unavoidable one, or rather an accompaniment well
understood to be never absent from the Scriptural immortality. The one thing
really announced is that, through Christ the living Bread, there comes to
believers an endless duration which did not come by the manna—the clear
understanding being that in no other way than through that Bread can such
duration be theirs.
There is another passage in the same chapter (5. 57)
which in a remarkable manner confirms what we are thus taught in regard to life
' and life everlasting;'—" As the living Father hath sent me, and I live
by the Father, so he that eats me, even he shall live by me." Now it is
plain that the life thus spoken of embraces the very highest possible life,
whether in the creature or the Creator. But it is equally plain that it
includes the simplest also. It is life, in short, in the widest aspect, at once
in God and in us. If any one can believe, indeed,
that the Son has His life in the sense of existence apart from the Father, and
only the bliss of it in the Father, then he may also believe that we too have
our endless existence or immortality apart from the true Bread; while through
that we only enter upon the right and happy use of such existence. But if, on
the other hand, the Son's existence as well as blessedness is by the Father,
then how can we admit the divine parallel here presented, and yet resist the conviction
that everlasting life, as including existence, comes to us only through the Son
as the Bread of Life?
Take another assertion of what we venture to call
immortality;—" Whosoever lives and believeth in me shall never die."
(xi. 26.) This, like the other expressions, is plain, so long as we consider
die' to denote a definite event. But if, on the other hand, we regard it as
pointing to an indefinite and endless term of suffering—an endless life in
death, as it is called—then how shall we combine the ideas represented by words
like these—' He shall never be in a state of endless suffering,' He shall never
spend a life in endless death?'
There is still an important passage to be considered;
and we have reserved it for the close, on account of the objection to our view
sometimes drawn from its context. " He that heareth my words, and
believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life." (5. 24.)
We go as usual to the context for light upon the
language; and there we read of the Father as raising up and giving life to the
dead, and of the Son in like manner as giving life to whom He will. (5. 21.)
Now the life thus imparted is a new thing; in other words, it is the fact of an
existence communicated that is asserted. For there certainly is reference made,
at the very least, to a bodily existence not possessed antecedently to the
life-giving act. Such existence, like all other, will depend for its character
upon the character of the raised.
To the same purpose, in regard to a sphere immensely
higher but no less distinctly brought before us, we find our Lord
declaring—" As the Father hath, life in Himself, so hath He given to the
Son to have life in Himself." (5. 26.) Here also is plainly involved the
fact of existence—an actual divine existence, first in the Father then in the
Son. No one of course dreams that it is existence only that is thus
communicated. And just as false would it be to maintain that existence as such
is not pointed at. For it is existence, and that none the less because of the
essential purity and blessedness associated with it. And if our Lord thus
speaks of life, with such distinct reference to the fact of existence—whether
as, on the one hand, restored to the dead; or as on the other, necessarily
belonging to the Father and communicated to the Son—can we safely overlook such
considerations when we read of everlasting life as given to believers? Can we
allow ourselves to think that these differ from others, not in respect to the
existence itself which is made so prominent in the whole of the illustration,
but only as regards its character and circumstances?
But here comes in the objection alluded to as drawn
from verse 25, "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they
that hear shall live;"—the argument being, that, as to be dead' does not
mean to be without an existence, so to live' does not mean to get one; but dead'
plainly means dead in sin,' and live' means to obtain the favor and love of
God. Hence, as it is possible to be dead now while existing here—so it is
possible to be dead forever, while existing somewhere else.
This may be specious, but that is all. There can be
two reasons for our being fitly called dead, and these may not only harmonize,
but be inseparable. Thus a soul may truly be called dead' which wants the life
of God. And, as far as mere time goes, such a state is as conceivable for an
eternity as for a day. But then it may be that the soul thus dead is under
sentence of death as well—that is to say, a sentence of losing its life in
every sense—existence being the foremost of all. And surely, if you offer life
to a man condemned to die, you offer him a real existence—nor that the less
because of his having life at present. And you offer him by this something much
better than the mere continuance of what he has. For that is only a convict
life; but you offer him a life of liberty and comfort—and yet still an
existence. And now if you thought fit to speak of the man while under the
sentence as a dead man —having respect at once to the character of his present
existence, the certainty of his doom, and the shortness of his term—you would
be much surprised to find some one understanding you
to mean that, as the criminal might be called dead' while alive in the prison,
so he might be represented as still living for an indefinite period after
having died on the scaffold;—in other words, if he could be called dead' here,
and yet have his existence, so he might be called dead anywhere, and equally
continue to have it! Such a style of representation would, in ordinary matters,
be counted impossible. And yet what better argument is it to maintain that an
actual death, or end of being, is not to be thought of in regard to us, because
of the sinner being spoken of as even now dead—whether the reference be to his
present spiritual state, or his ultimate destiny as one who is " condemned
already"? Thus the language under consideration furnishes no objection to
our view of the gift of everlasting life, as involving the grant of everlasting
existence. The only question is whether there be sufficient evidence for that
judicial cutting off which we contend for as the penalty of sin and the doom of
the unsaved. If so, then it is plainly competent to offer life, even in the
view of existence, to those who are in possession of existence already. The
principle is no other than we meet with at every step in the Old Testament. For
in what sense is it said, " Seek the Lord, and ye shall live " (Amos
5. 6), but this, that those addressed were doomed to a death inevitable except
through repentance? " We be all dead men," might such, like the
Egyptians, have exclaimed—there being one means only by which they could become
living men again. So when the offer of life is made to those who are already
obedient (see Lev. 18. 5; Ezek. 18; 23), the idea plainly is that those living
now shall still live—and that with a decided accession to the blessing enjoyed
by them already.
We need not, after this, say much on the similar
objection as drawn from the words, " He is passed from death unto
life." It may be quite true that death under one aspect denotes a certain
state of existence. And it may, at the same time, be equally true that such a
state is the sure road to a real destruction.
It only remains that we refer to the opening word in
our Lord's prayer—" Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He
should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." (17. 2.)
For, according to the uniform teaching of this Gospel,
man is perishing; his state is death—his end is death —the life that he has
being no more a lasting thing than that of those who ate manna and died. But
now there is One who has power over the whole of this dead and dying mass, to
give eternal life to those who have been given to Him. " And this is life
eternal, to know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast
sent." Thus, as man by the first tree of knowledge lost at once the
knowledge of God and life everlasting, so by this new tree of knowledge he can
recover them both at once. And thus does the Savior, in bringing us back to
God, give us that endless life which is only to be had in Him. Thus in Jesus we
have not only all the good and glory of life, but the life itself—yes, all of
it under every form—not only all that shall fill up the immortality, but the immortality
itself to be filled up.
Scripture opposites to eternal life.
"ALL words," said Dr. Angus (Three Letters
on Future Punishment), "are best known by their opposites. The common
opposite of eternal life is simply condemnation and wrath." In proof of which
he gives nine passages, as "a list of the Scripture opposites of eternal
life." Even these passages, however, fail to make out his assertion; and
the failure is not lessened when to his nine instances we add eleven more. For
out of these twenty cases there are only two in which "the opposite is
simply condemnation and wrath;" viz. Matt. 25. 46 and Rom 2. 7-9. In two
more there is such an opposite, but not simply —there being added to it the
other opposite of death' and not see life;' viz. John 3. 30; 5. 24;—while in
the remaining sixteen cases the opposite' is simply some word akin to death;'
viz. in six cases perish;' in five ' death;' in three ' die' and have no life;
' in owe lose the life;' in one ' corruption.' The passages containing the
opposites' are as follows (the expression ' eternal life' occurring in the same
verse, or its context)—John 3. 16, 16; 6. 27, 50, 53; 10. 28; 12. 26; 17. 12;
Acts 13. 41; Rom. 5. 21; 6. 16, 21, 23; Gal. 6. 8; 1 John 3. 14; 5. 12. Thus,
if the principle alleged be a correct one, it does important service to the
cause which Dr. Angus opposes.
Life and death.
THIS is a subject of such moment that, before
proceeding further, we are constrained to return to it. For many seem to think
that they can at once demolish all our arguments by a simple application of
such statements as—"To be carnally minded is death; to be spiritually
minded is life and peace; "—the inferences which they draw from them being
these, (1) That neither does life refer to existence, nor death to the
cessation of it. (2) That life signifies simply a right spiritual condition,
and death a wrong one. (3) Which two conditions, extended into the next world,
and there developed, become respectively everlasting life and everlasting death.
Hence, it is maintained, all the statements in the New Testament as to the
living,' the ' never dying,' the everlasting life' of believers have no
reference at all to the continuance, but only the character of their being;—while
the multiplied assertions and descriptions of the perishing, 'destruction,"
death ' of the ungodly do not mean what such language invariably means
elsewhere —in the Bible or out of it — but, instead of that, the endless evil
and misery of souls that are imperishable.
A serious conflict indeed betwixt the Old Testament
and the New in their employment of the same language —yes, betwixt the New and
everything else, not excepting itself! Let us see what ground there is for so
remarkable a procedure.
It is extremely plain, then, as we have already seen,
that life' in the New Testament is used to signify more than mere existence,
and ‘death' more than the loss of that. But does it follow that permanency of
existence forms no part of the gift of everlasting life,' and the want of such permanency no part of what is meant by
death'? For this, however overlooked, is the only pertinent question here.
Life' may be ever so often used to express something over and above existence,
and ‘death' may be used to express the bad spiritual state of persons regarded
as still existing; and yet possibly the ‘life' only may involve an existence
which is to be endless—and the death,' while used in one view as descriptive of
the condition of existing persons, may be utterly incompatible with the idea of
their existence being permanent. Just as we can say of anyone that he is dead
to all that is good, or even that he is a dead man, without at all intending to
signify that death is a form of existence. We call him by a certain well-known
use of language dead,' without meaning that he is to continue so always, or
perhaps for another day.
After what was said in the last chapter of the life of
the body and soul respectively, we now ask more particularly in what the latter
consists.
We answer (1) That man, as made in the divine image,
got, simultaneously with his bodily life, another life altogether different,
but admirably harmonious. He was thus endowed with the capacity for knowing and
loving his God. And not with the mere capacity—which unemployed would have made
him a rebel from the outset; but with the actually knowing mind and loving
heart. This was the image of God; this was life indeed. And an essential part
of this life is the immortality bound up with it. For it was the life of God
that was communicated, and that must be an everlasting thing. He is the living
God; and the creature that wears His likeness, enjoys, in so doing, an
existence which is deathless. Thus the life of man was designed to consist in
an endless relationship to God, as His obedient, happy creature. And what
shadow of reason have we for the thought that an endless existence ever became
man's in any other way than this? Thus is the endlessness one essential element
in the life—which, without that, would not be " the life of God."
Hence with the loss of the image comes the loss of the endless life. Such, we
maintain, is the unvarying doctrine of Scripture in regard to man and his
destiny. And in the light of this we explain the passages adduced against us.
Take the most prominent of these. " To be
spiritually minded is life and peace." Now, to mind the things which the
Spirit of God minds is plainly to have the mind of God; and that is to have the
image of God, the life of God. And if for character, then surely for
continuance. That is to say, an endless existence is essentially bound up with
the life of God in the soul.
So we can understand our Lord when He says, "This
is life eternal, to know Thee the only true God." Nothing can be wider of
the mark than to infer from this, as is often done, that eternal life differs
from its opposite in character only, not in continuance. For if such life
consists in the knowing of God, so does the true knowing consist in the true
loving. (1 Cor. 8. 3; 1 John 4. 7, 8.) Hence the life really lies in having the
image of God, whether as to its moral element of purity, or its natural element
of permanence. That is to say-, the character alone involves the continuance.
Or take the words, " Being made free from sin . .
. . ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." (Rom.
6. 22.) Holiness is thus a fruit of the new birth. But holiness is the very
image of God—a character of which one constituent (or, which amounts to the
same, one essential concomitant) is endless duration. Hence, the fruit being
holiness, the end of that is everlasting life.
Again, we are told that " God by His divine power
has given" to His children " all things that pertain to life and
godliness." (2 Pet. 1. 3.) Now surely if one of the things connected with
life be godliness—or allowing more than the words express, even that life is
godliness —yet it 'is just as clear that the life as such involves the element
of permanence also. For the persons thus blessed with "life and
godliness" have been already " made partakers of a divine nature;"
and if anything
F
66 LIFE AND DEATH.
can ensure endlessness, it is certainly that. But
shall we venture equally to believe that, without one trace of such a nature in
its purity, without one spark of life or godliness, we yet (and that simply as
human beings) are essentially partakers of the same divine nature in no lower
an attribute than its very eternity? Is it easy to believe that, after losing
this nature in everything that could make us morally like to God, we retain it
in that only which must make us eternally unlike; thus uniting in our corrupt
and wretched being the contradiction of an everlasting likeness and an
everlasting contrariety? And yet such is the necessary belief of those who
plead that the unrenewed man in the coming world has lost the divine image in
all but an actual faculty of thought, and an extinct capacity for goodness, as
combined with an endless existence! It can be little wondered at if the
revulsion from such a view has, on the one hand, led many to deny the loss of
the divine image at all; and many, on the other, to maintain its universal
restoration.
And to sum up this view of the case, we are assured
that that birth, through which we regain the divine image, comes to us "
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, the word of God, which lives and
en-dureth forever." (1 Peter 1. 23, 25.) Could
words more distinctly teach that only the godly' is the ' endless'? All seed
merely natural is perishable; and whatever springs from it is the same. The
seed of the word, on the other hand, " lives and abideth," like Him
whose word it is. The life therefore that springs from that is the only life
everlasting. Is not this the lesson of the
LIFE AND DEATH. 67
passage? And if to this we add the accompanying
sentiment, " All flesh is as grass," and then compare the whole with
the statement made to Nicodemus—" That which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit "—can we fail to
perceive that at least one object of our Lord in these words was to intimate
that all merely natural being is perishable, and that only spiritual life is
immortal?
(2) If such now be the case—viewed from the moral
point of view, or the relation between endless existence and the divine image
in man—it is the same when regarded in that judicial aspect which arises from
our relation to God as sinners redeemed and justified. For if redeemed by the
blood of Christ, then it is from a death righteously due to us that we are
redeemed. And if really redeemed from that, then immortality is secured to us.
Thus " he that believeth hat& everlasting life," having "
passed from death unto life." Again, if we are "accepted in the
Beloved," the divine favor is certainly ours. But in God's favor is life.
So long therefore as the favor lasts will the life last also. And how can the favor
have any shorter term than that name of THE BELOVED which supplies at once the
channel for its conveyance, and the guarantee for its exercise? Thus so long as
our standing ground before God consists of the alone merit of His Son, we have
a ground and a plea from which nothing can be taken, and to which nothing can
be added—a ground as solid, and a plea as valid, for an eternity as for a day.
And thus we can see at once that the gift of God to a believing soul can be
nothing less than eternal life. For in having Christ, we have life, so far as
the unending favor of the Most High is such. And—to return for a moment to the
other aspect of the case—in having Christ, we have Him as the spring and power
of a new life within us, a life which must be ours while He is ours. Thus as
the merit of Christ giving Himself for us' is an endless thing, and as the
abode of Christ living in us is endless—whoever has this Christ, as at once his
" righteousness and sanctification," has life indeed, and life
eternal.
If such, then, be the truth in regard to life, it will
be plain at once what is meant by death. For the one must form at each point an
exact contrast to the other. Thus, if life morally regarded be a participation
in the moral image of God—then the absence of this will constitute any one
"dead in sin." So, if the soul with such a life is immortal—then the
soul that wants it will for the same reason want immortality. Again, if life
under the other aspect consists in the favor of God, and in this view also stretches
out into immortality—then will the death which arises from the absence of the favor
involve in this respect also the want of the immortality.
All this seems plain. But there is an objection which
must be noticed. For, after saying that " to be carnally minded is
death," the Apostle adds, " If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die;
"—thus intimating, we are told, that, as the present ‘death' is only the
bad state of the carnally minded, so the threatened dying' must be a state of
precisely the same character— a state involving a continuance, and if so why
not an eternity, of existence.
Now such an inference is surely the very opposite of
correct. For even if we allow that the ‘death' first spoken of is nothing but a
bad moral state, it will only be the clearer that the dying' threatened as a
retribution cannot be the same. A crime is one thing; its punishment is
another. The one is a wrong thing forbidden; the other is a right thing
inflicted.
Having thus seen that the permanence of the true life
arises from its very nature, we can understand how life and everlasting life
come to be so naturally interchanged in our Lord's discourses.1 It seems, in
short, that spiritual life is of necessity immortal. But this only makes it the
more unlikely—to say nothing of the express statements on the subject—that
spiritual death should be immortal also.
As in Matt. 19. 16, 17; John 5. 24, 39, 40; 6. 27, 33,
54, 67; 10. 10, 28.
The Living God.
MARVELLOUS indeed is the slowness to believe that the
fact of endless existence is anywhere in Scripture asserted of God's people,
instead of being, as is constantly said, merely assumed of them in common with
others. For surely it is not so strange that such a thing should be predicated
of the people as of the God. And yet there is no truth in all the Bible brought
forward with anything like the frequency of this one. For, in the first place,
by each separate use of the word Jehovah—virtually equivalent to the I AM—that
truth of truths is expressly announced. And then, besides the title itself,
there is the frequent assertion that His name is Jehovah —with the
never-forgotten object of His government, that men may " know that He is
Jehovah."
But this is only one form of the announcement. Another
constantly recurring one is in regard to His living. Thus we need only refer to
the expressions, The Living God;" As God lives;" As the Lord lives;"
As I live, saith the Lord.' And then there are cases in which the ‘divine' and
the ‘human' are brought into the closest contact;—" As the Lord lives, and
thy soul lives." Now what is this but an appeal to the simple fact of
existence—existence literally, and nothing else, on the human side,—existence
as literally, but with all that is of necessity involved, on the divine side?
Again, we have the statement of existence, divine and human, in such solemn
language as this—" As I live, saith the Lord, . . . . he shall surely
live." That is to say, as surely as Jehovah lives shall the repenting
Israelite not be cut off, or lose his life, among the transgressors.'
Nor does the assertion of divine existence stop here.
It is coupled again and again with the express mention of its
endlessness—" Abraham called on the name of Jehovah, the everlasting
God" (Gen. 21. 33);—" I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live forever"
(Deut. 32. 40);—" The Eternal God is thy refuge " (33. 27);—"
From everlasting to everlasting Thou art God " (Ps. 90. 2);—" Thou
art the same, and thy years shall have no end" (Ps. 102. 27);—" Hast
thou not heard that the everlasting God fainted not?" (Isa. 40. 28);—"
Whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" (Micah 5. 2);—"
I honored Him that lives forever" (Dan. 4. 34);—" He swore by Him
that lives forever " (7. 7).
Connect with this such an application of the same
language as that in Job 19. 25, " I know that my Redeemer lives."
To all which we have the most perfect parallels in the
New Testament.
Thus, in regard to the simple fact of existence, we have
that expressed at once in the most elementary and the most enlarged form.
" Before Abraham was I am " (John 8. 58);—" He that cometh unto
God must believe that He is" (Heb. 11. 6);" I am Alpha and Omega, the
beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is
to come " (Rev. 1. 4, 8); —" O Lord, which art, and was, and shalt be
" (4. 8; 16. 5);—" O Lord God Almighty, which art, and was, and art
to come" (xi. 17). Then, even oftener than in the Old Testament, we have
the expression Living God, and several assertions corresponding with it, such
as, " Because I live, ye shall live also" (John 14. 19);—" I am
the First and the Last, and the Living One " (Rev. 1. 18);—" The
First and the Last, which was dead and lives" 8);—" Of whom it is
witnessed that He lives " (Heb. 7. 8).
And then as before, in addition to the expression '
live,' we have many distinct statements of endlessness. " I am alive forevermore
" (Rev. 1. 18);—" They worship Him that lives forever and ever" (4.
10);—the last expression being exactly equivalent to the one in the preceding
verse, " Which was, and is, and is to come." " He swore by Him
that lives forever and ever " (10. 6; 15. 7).
Further, the God of the New Testament is still the
Everlasting God' (Rom. 16. 26);— the Incorruptible God' (1. 23);— the King
Eternal and Immortal' (1 Tim. 1. 17);— Who only hath immortality' (1 Tim. 6. 16).
Add to all this one remarkable view as presented to us
by the disciple who was honored to record so much of his Lord's teaching in
regard to everlasting life. " The life was manifested; and we declare unto
you the eternal Life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto
us." (1 John 1. 2.) It is, speaking grammatically, the abstract for the
concrete. Christ is called the Life,' as being at once the real life-haver and
the real life-giver. He is called the eternal Life,' because, according to His
own teaching, He, as God's Son, had in Himself an essential life, from
everlasting to everlasting; and because, having this, He came for the giving to
us an eternal life which was not ours. Our concern now is simply with the
circumstance that the eternal life spoken of is no mere mode of everlasting
existence—but that existence itself in all its grandeur. The marvel was that
that should be incarnate. The result is that, in proportion to our capacity, it
is communicated to us.
Thus, then, we are told of divine existence; and that,
not as a thing assumed in connection with something else, but directly asserted
and put forward by itself, as a truth of the utmost moment. The gods of the
heathen were vanities.' (Acts 14. 15.) They were to 'perish.' (Jeremiah 10. 15.)
They were all nothing.' (1 Cor. 8. 4.) The God of salvation was the Living
God—the Everlasting God—the true I AM. Such is the teaching. It was never
meant, of course, by language like this, to assert a mere existence in God. The
existence referred to, at once independent and everlasting, must needs be pure
and blessed beyond degree. Still it is the existence itself that is predicated,
and set forth as the root of all besides. This, in a word, is the thing
expressed; while the character of it is only implied.
And what tolerable reason can be given for so
differently treating language altogether similar, when applied to us? If we are
said to obtain, through Christ, ‘life everlasting,' why should we not recognize
in that a direct assertion of the gift of an endless existence—instead of
constantly maintaining that it is not existence at all, but only a certain mode
of it that is affirmed? Why follow in this our own case a method the very
reverse of that which we must follow in the divine case—always afraid of
admitting that such a common matter as ‘everlasting existence' can be anywhere
really asserted of us; when it is so clear that even that could never be
represented as the gift and purchase of redeeming love, without there being
associated with it all that is pure, and good, and glorious? For when we find
such pains taken to ascribe life, and everlasting life or existence to God—can
we not see the grandeur of the ascription of a similar life or existence to His
children? And why should we be so eager to reject the application of the words
in the sense which—with whatever other, is certainly a natural one—on the
ground that, as endless existence belongs to all in common, it can only be the
happy mode of it that is dignified with the name of ' everlasting life'?
Belongs to all in common! And is it so clear that God communicates to all in
common that which is made to be so descriptive of Himself? Let us look into
this matter for a moment.
Of all expressions, then, for the divine existence
there is none equaling in fulness and grandeur the simple utterance, I AM THAT
I AM.' Such was the revelation that He was pleased to give of His nature and
character to Israel. It is the full expression of the title JEHOVAH. Nor will
it be doubted that the great I AM thus declares Himself to be the BEING OF
BEINGS—the one True Fountain of all being and of all blessedness. It has been
said, but not too often, that all being is in God and from God—all life, power,
wisdom, justice, love—all excellence of whatever kind, actual or possible. It
has been said, too, and surely with truth, that all evil is but the want—the
guilty want and opposite of the good that is in God. But that it comes from
God, any more than that it resides in Him and belongs to Him, is a thought
abhorrent to every devout mind. What, then, is evil, viewed in this clearest
and strongest of lights, but an excrescence or disease in the body of
creation—a rebellion in the moral world—an interruption to the harmony of the
universe? It is not of God—not according to God. It has no connection with the
true being, any more than with the true blessedness, which go to constitute the
I AM. Is it easy, then, is it natural, is it honorable to God, to regard as
permanent—as eternal—that which is at direct war with the first principle of
all life, all creation, all government—even the very nature of the I AM? Is it
easy to suppose that THE ETERNAL has voluntarily made—and to eternity will
voluntarily maintain—that which rather is not than is, when viewed in its
relation to Himself? ' Being' and ' blessedness,' it seems, should go
together—if so be that the Author and Fountain of the two is ONE. Whether is it
easier, then, to regard sin with its consequent suffering as an everlasting
condition of moral beings;—or as a blot to be expunged—a disease to be swept
away—a rebellion to be extinguished?—easier, in a word, to regard being and
blessedness as eternally dissociated in the case of countless myriads of
rational creatures—or to regard the ' being' which is without blessedness as
only for a time—permitted, indeed, in the mystery of God's providence, as an
interruption of harmony—but, according to the very necessity of His nature,
calling for everlasting destruction from before His face? "HE ONLY HATH
IMMORTALITY." To whom, then, and to what should He communicate that
glorious property of His nature? —To that which abhors Him and is abhorred by
Him? —or to that which, by His grace and the creature's choice, has been "
made partaker of a divine nature "? This immortality which is so divine
that the I AM alone HAS IT—is it so little divine that it may be—must be—by
some necessity, shall we say fatality?—communicated to those in whom it can
only perpetuate rebellion and wretchedness? That grand summary of the divine
excellencies, I AM THAT I AM, seems to teach us a widely different lesson.
And now, in addition to all this, we have information
as to the origin and character of the eternal life' in us, directly showing the
analogy between that and the divine life. " Because I live, ye shall live
also," says our Lord to His disciples. Now His life, as we are sure, is of
necessity most blessed. And so therefore must be that which depends upon our
union with Him. But this, however clear and certain, is not what He here
expresses. The thing asserted in regard to Himself is life or existence, in
contrast with death, dissolution, passing away. And the life which He thus has,
He communicates. What less can we see, then, in His gracious engagement than
this—that an existence like His own, in a blessedness and endlessness which are
inseparable, becomes through Him the life of His members?
And still more expressly—" As the Living Father
hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eats' Me, even he shall live
by Me." (John 6. 57.) But can we doubt now the real meaning of Living
Father'? Can we deny that living' denotes here, not so much the blessedness of
an existence already assumed, as the fact of the existence itself—the
blessedness being an unavoidable accompaniment? Or can we doubt in what sense
the only begotten Son lives by the Father? Can we venture to say that not
existence in the proper sense of the word, but only a certain mode of it under
the aspect of blessedness, is the thing here indicated? For what else can be
designed by the comparison thus drawn than where it is said, "As the Father
hath life in Himself, so bath He given to the Son to have life in Himself
"? (John 5. 26.) And if so, how else can we accept this assertion of our
living by the Son than as a declaration of the way in which we also may have an
endless as well as glorious existence? Thus the Living One becomes our life.
The Eternal Life that was manifested is the spring of an eternal life to us.
And as He lives in no partial way, but so as to embrace in Himself the whole circle
of all that is real in life, from its earliest breath to its utmost
blessedness—so in the same way and sense do we come to live by Him. Thus, while
His " goings have been from of old, from everlasting," He becomes to
us " the Everlasting Father;" or, as the expression indicates, The
Father of Eternity. (Isa. 9. 6.) And what can be meant by such language, as
compared with the other statements on the subject, but to represent the
Immanuel as the direct root of an everlasting being to us? What remains for us
now but to be grafted into Him as the Resurrection and the Life—thus escaping
all the death that sin has brought, and winning that life which is in Him forevermore?
Such a being must be blessedness.
Destroy, Perish As Used In The Septuagint.
IF the Jewish mind was familiar with any one thing
from the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, it was with the idea and fact of
destruction.' To express this there had been employed, especially in the Greek
version, a great variety of terms'—one of these being the vitally important
word—the word employed by our Lord for expressing the awful truth of the
perdition of the ungodly. It is surely of consequence, then, to know what that
word had for so long signified to the Jews. And this, happily, is as easy as it
is important. For they certainly understood the word precisely as the Greeks
had done before them. With both alike destroy' meant to bring to an end,' and
perish' to come to an end.' There is no question here about a future existence
of the wicked. The destruction spoken of in the Old Testament refers generally,
or rather always, to some external act as manifestly putting an end to their
present life. It is still, of course, competent for us to suppose any
continuance or resumption of life elsewhere, for which there may be the needful
evidence. But of that there is no question in any of the statements now
referred to. Enough that the life, as seen and spoken of, has been—and probably
through violence—put a stop to. Thus, for example, the word is used to express
the destruction of Sodom and its people—the destruction of Egypt's chariots and
horsemen—the destruction of the Canaanites, whether by the divine Governor, or
the human instrument;—the rebellious Israelites being threatened, in their
turn, with a similar destruction. So we read of the edict of Ahasuerus to
destroy the Jews, and of the Jews destroying their enemies instead. Again, we
have Nebuchadnezzar's edict to destroy the wise men of Babylon—with the
consequent danger of perishing on the part of Daniel and his fellows. To the
same purpose, the crew of Jonah's ship, and the men of Nineveh, are alarmed at
the prospect of perishing. So we are told that the thoughts, desires, hopes,
remembrance of the wicked shall perish. And, once more—" The wicked shall
perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall
consume; into smoke shall they consume away." (Ps. 37. 20.)
This last passage is peculiarly important as
presenting to us with great exactness the Old Testament idea of perish,' and
the use especially of the word lurOklvp.t in the Septuagint. For there is
hardly a supposable help towards the defining and understanding of the sense
which the context does not supply. Thus (1), as synonymous with perish' in 5. 20,
we have the equivalent expression leakt9p€16 applied to the same party in verses
9, 22, 28, 34, 38. Again (2), the same persons are to " be cut down like
the grass, and wither as the green herb and be slain " by their own
sword." (verses 2, 15.) And (3), as a sufficient climax to all this,
" The wicked shall not be; he passed away, and lo he was not; I sought
him, but he could not be found" (verses 10, 36)—the same expressions being
used in similar connections in Pss. 49. and 92. (4)
As the contrast to all which we have the permanence of the righteous expressed
by " dwelling in the land," " inheriting the earth," "
dwelling forevermore," "being preserved forever," "their
inheritance being forever." (verses 3, 9, 11, 18, 22, 27, 28, 29, 34.)
Now it is certainly a mistake to refer to a passage
like this, as directly showing that there shall be a final and everlasting end
of the wicked. For such statements are perfectly compatible with an after
state, of the duration of which they give no hint. And it is a still greater
mistake to refer, for the same purpose, to the statement, " Man that is in
honor and understands not is like the brutes that perish," All this is a
misapplication of the words. They teach nothing directly of the future of the
wicked. For, so taken, they would prove too much. But they do teach the
Scripture usage of a vitally important word. They teach that that word means
coming to an end' in regard to the sphere and the life indicated by it.
Such, in exact accordance with- unvarying Greek usage,
had been the application of the word in the Septuagint, as signifying destroy,'
and perish;' besides its other very common sense of lose.'
In spite of all this, however, there is a strong
disposition to make it appear that the word is also employed to denote not the
bringing,' or coming to an end,' but the inflicting' or 'suffering of grievous
trouble.' Thus in a few cases—and they are very few—it is applied to objects
which, as not in a common way liable to destruction, are considered as of necessity
subjected to quite another treatment. And this treatment is held to furnish an
analogy to that of the wicked, as expressed by the same term in the New
Testament. Or, to put it otherwise, if it can be made out that the word
(17rWtvim, as used by the Septuagint, signifies, in any connection whatever, to
cause to suffer,' or afflict—then that is held as justifying a similar
application of it when employed of sinners by our Lord or His apostles, and
that, throughout eternity. A very remarkable assumption indeed! Let us notice
the cases commonly alleged in support of it.
Isa. 14. 20. " Thou hast destroyed thy land, and
slain thy people." From this it is inferred that, as a land cannot be
destroyed in the sense of passing away, but only in that of suffering a severe
devastation, so the word destroy, when applied by our Lord to the human soul,
must be similarly interpreted. Now surely we might find, amid all the
multifarious instances of human destruction in the Old Testament, more suitable
analogies to the destruction of a soul than in such a notice of the destruction
of a land. Take the case, however, as adduced—and what does it amount to? It is
common enough, surely, in speaking of a land, to have in view its produce—as
when we say that a man lives by his land. And why, then, may we not in this
sense understand the complaint that the king of Babylon has destroyed his land,
when he has, by some means or other, occasioned the destruction of those fruits
of it which were the life of his people? For when it is urged that, in no way
but by grievously afflicting it, did that tyrant destroy his land, the question
at once arises—In what sense did he afflict it, but just by destroying its
fruits? And thus we come, after all, to the proper sense of the word ‘destroy'—only
by a very circuitous road, and a very unreasonable assumption of its having a
certain peculiar sense, which it really has not.
Again, there is the passage with the frantic cry of
the Egyptians in the hour of their country's agony—" Know thou not yet
that Egypt is destroyed?" (Exod. 10. 7.) From which it is argued that, as
Egypt still exists, therefore the fact of destruction in our case can consist
with the indefinite, or endless, continuance of any party said to be destroyed.
But is it right or satisfactory to make use of excited language like this, as
justifying a very peculiar interpretation of the word destroy,' in no less
grave a matter than the sentence of the Judge of all upon a world of sinners?
Is the word when applied to human beings, so ambiguous as to require
elucidation from the quarter thus appealed to? And suppose we accept the
appeal—unreasonable as it is—what comes of it, but just as in the previous
case, that the precious fruits of the land had been in a great measure, not
grievously afflicted, but actually destroyed? And thus, when the people ask the
king if he was really unaware of a certain terrible fact, this was precisely
the fact which they meant. In no other sense bad Egypt been destroyed. But in
this sense it was perishing indeed. The land was actually, whether as to river
or field, ceasing to be the bountiful mother who was wont so liberally to
supply her children with bread. And now that Jehovah had shown Himself as so
dreadful an avenger—now that stroke was following upon stroke with such
terrible and abiding effect—each destroying some new source of the nation's
life—while yet Pharaoh seemed madly bent on provoking new judgments, till
nothing should remain un-destroyed in the land—what more natural than for the
Egyptians to express their misery by the cry, ‘Egypt perishes,' Egypt is
destroyed'? It is not in cases like this that human tongues are supposed to use
words with the very barest accuracy. And an earthly judge would certainly be
surprised to find that a well-known expression in one of his most solemn
decisions had had a very peculiar sense attached to it, because some imagined
that the passage required that sense; and because, by a certain construction of
the word in an old chronicle, it seemed as if it had something of that peculiar
sense there—contrary to the well-understood application of it, not only when
the decision was published, but also throughout the chronicle itself!
Once more, we find in Jer. 48. 8, the expression, "
The valley shall perish." It should suffice to remark that we have no
reason to interpret the judgment thus denounced otherwise than in the previous
cases. Or if this be thought inadequate here, then let us add that it is by no
means unusual for valleys actually to perish, that is, to cease to be valleys,
and pass away like other matters.
Here are two cases of another kind which have been
adduced to prove that the word does not always mean, to put an end to.
Eccles. 7. 7. "A gift destroyed, the heart,"
etc.; or as the verse stands in Septuagint—" Flattery circumvented the
wise, and destroyed the heart of his generosity."
Jer. 4. 9. " The heart of the king shall
perish." But why should the expressions here used not have their ordinary
sense of causing to end, and ceasing to be? What is more natural than to speak
of vice as destroying virtue in general, or generosity in particular—and that
in the strict sense of the term? Or what more fit —where a king is threatened
with the loss of hope, courage, and all royal feeling—than to say, " The
heart of the king shall perish"?
Another assumed instance of a peculiar sense in
Septuagint is Jer. 23. 1, " Woe to the pastors that destroy the
sheep," etc. "Must the sheep" (asks Dr. Angus) "be
annihilated, before we can pronounce a curse on those that destroy them?"
Answer: The shepherds spoken of were acting as wolves to the flock—bringing
down upon it, through their unfaithfulness, nothing less than excision, by the
constantly threatened " sword, famine, and pestilence." As to the
future, there is nothing intimated. As to the present life, the 'destruction'
does mean 'putting an end' to it.
And what better than any of these cases are the following
three from the Apocrypha, as given by Schleusner, New
Testament Lexicon, in his extreme anxiety to make out that it has among its
meanings that of ' making wretched' (miserum reddo)?
"An unwise king destroys his people."
(Ecclus. 10. 3.) " There is that, through shame, destroyed his own
soul." (20. 22.)
"For wine has destroyed many." (31. 30, or
34. 25.)
But what is there in any of these cases to forward the
proof wanted? As to the first, nothing is more certain than that kings, simply
through foolishness, have achieved the literal destruction of their people.
This is peculiarly true of Eastern despots—who, by their want of wisdom in
relation to such matters as war, famine, pestilence, have as terribly destroyed
their subjects as their worst enemy could have wished. Nor is the meaning of
the passage any other than this, as appears when we take the whole—" An
unwise king destroyed his people, and the city shall be peopled through the
understanding of the rulers."
Take the next case—" There is that destroyed his
soul (or life) through shame." And what is more certain than that many a
man has brought upon himself not only great trouble (as the wish is to make
out), but all the destruction "possible, just through that shame which
would not let him do right? Have we forgotten the warning, " Whoso is
ashamed of Me and of my words," etc.? Or need we recall the circumstance
of the self-confident disciple doing, simply through shame, all that was wanted
for the destroying of his soul?
In regard to the third case, one wonders still more
how it could ever be thought needful to modify the sentiment conveyed by the
language. For if it be notoriously true that "wine has made many
wretched," it is as true that it has, in the most terrible way, destroyed
many.
Other cases often referred to for the same purpose are
these.
Prov. 29. 18. " Where there is no vision the
people perish," What this sentiment would mean is no question with us now;
for the Hebrew, instead of perish, says is unbridled;' while the Septuagint
renders, 'A disobedient nation shall not have a teacher.'
Hosea 4. 6. " My people are destroyed for lack of
knowledge." Here the Septuagint does not employ any word for destroy;'
while the Hebrew indicates nothing short of a real cutting off.
Hosea 13. 9. " O Israel, thou hast destroyed
thyself." Again, the Septuagint makes no use of it. But however we may be
inclined to explain destroy' here, as having another meaning than cut off,' the
passage itself gives little countenance to such an idea. For the destruction
intimated is nothing less than that which comes through the lion, leopard, and
raging bear.
Prov. 1. 32. " The prosperity of fools shall
destroy them." The word used is not equivalent to its important compound.
And yet even here it would be hard to get quit of the idea of a literal
destruction; especially after the parallel, " The turning away of the
simple shall slay them."
ON CERTAIN APPLICATIONS OF lab WORD
It has been strangely argued that this word may be
taken in the most indefinite sense, because in the Septuagint it is found
standing for some Hebrew word of which the meaning is probably different. Thus
in Numb. 32. 39, the Hebrew has " Machir dispossessed the Amorite,"
while Septuagint says destroyed.' And this is quoted in a paper read at the
London Clerical Conference, as one of the cases which prove that "this
verb is continually used in other senses than to annihilate or put out of
existence." But what if the 'dispossessing' of the Amorite was literally
putting him out of existence'? And that it was so we are expressly told in
Deut. 2. 33, 34; 3. 3, 6, where the word is used three times in reference to
the extermination of the same people. It simply follows that whatever the
Hebrew said the Septuagint meant destroy in the fullest sense. So in Numb. 14. 12,
" I will smite them with the pestilence, and destroy (Heb. disinherit)
them." The sentiment manifestly in such cases is altered, but of the sense
in the Septuagint there can be no question.
The following cases, for anyone who has sufficient
interest in the matter, are as strong as any that could be quoted. But no one
reflecting on the free character of the Septuagint version can with any
fairness maintain that the word must be regarded as having all those meanings
which the Hebrew words represented by it had. In such a case we have only to do
with the fact that the translator chose for some reason or other so to render
his original. His text may have differed from ours. Or he may have taken liberties
in rendering it which we should not think of taking. But it would be quite as
reasonable to maintain that the Hebrew word in question has the meaning of the
Greek one, as the Greek one of the Hebrew. And, in fact, there is no important
word in the Septuagint that could not be shown on the principle contended for
to have many more meanings than anyone ever thought that it had.
The instances alluded to are: Jer. 47. 4, "To
spoil all the Philistines," in Septuagint "to destroy all the
aliens." Ezek. 32. 12, "Spoil the pomp," Septuagint,
"Destroy the pride." Isa. 43. 28, "I have given Jacob to the
curse," Septuagint, "To destroy Jacob." Jer. 14. 21, "Do
not disgrace (Septuagint, destroy) the throne," etc. Prov. 11. 23,
"The expectation of the wicked is wrath" (Septuagint, shall perish).
In Job 42. 8, Septuagint gives as a free translation—"Except for him I
would destroy you."
Destroy In The Gospels.
OF all words this is the one most frequently used to
express the doom of unbelieving, impenitent, unsaved souls; and it is equally
employed with that view in its various senses and voices. Its senses are, to
destroy (or bring to an end), and to' lose (or cease to have). The other voices
will, of course, present the ideas, to be destroyed, to be lost, and to perish
(or cease to be).
We begin with the word in the sense of " destroy;
" it being thus applied to the soul. " Fear Him who is able to
destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt. 10. 28.) Does this important
word, then, mean here what we are alleging? In order to answer the question
with some satisfaction, let us see what it means in all the other passages of
the Gospels where our version gives it as destroy.
" Herod will seek the young child to destroy
it." (Matt. 2. 13.)
"They consulted how to destroy Jesus."
(Matt. 12. 14; Mark 3. 6; 11. 18; Luke 19. 47.)
" He will miserably destroy those wicked
men." (Matt. 21. 41; Mark 12. 29; Luke 20. 16.)
" He sent forth his armies, and destroyed those
murderers." (Matt. 22. 7.)
" To ask for Barabbas, and destroy Jesus."
(Matt. 28. 20.)
" Art thou come to destroy us? " (Mark 1.
24; Luke 4. 34.)
" It hath cast him into the fire, and into the
waters, to destroy him." (Mark 9. 22.)
" Is it lawful to save life, or to destroy?"
(Luke 6. 9.) " The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to
save them." (Luke 9. 56.)
" The flood destroyed them all." (Luke 17. 27.)
" It rained fire . . . and destroyed them
all." (5. 29.)
" The thief cometh to destroy." (John 10. 10.)
One of the strange questions sometimes asked of us is,
Did Jesus mean to signify (John 2. 19) that the Jews were at liberty to
annihilate His body when He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days
I will raise it up "? The answer is easy—(1) The word which He employs has
nothing to do with it. (2) Nothing less was really meant than that, though they
should destroy, take to pieces, put an end to, the temple in question, He would
set it up again.
In which of all these cases, then, does it mean destroy,
with any other idea than that of ‘putting an end to'? In what other sense did
Herod seek to destroy the child Jesus, or the Jews the man? What but this did
the lord of the vineyard do to the wicked husband-men, or the king to the
murderers? Did not Jesus mean to signify that it was more in accordance with
law to save life than to put an end to it—declaring at another time that He had
come with the one object, and not the other? The flood and the fire alluded to
did surely enough put an end to the lives of the evil-doers. When the thief
comes to kill and destroy, he means to put an end to the sheep. Nor did the
evil spirit aim at less by casting the youth into the fire and the water. There
is only one case, in fact, in which an objection seems fairly possible; and
that is where the demoniac asks, " Art thou come to destroy us?" (See
Mark 1. 24; Luke 4. 34.) Now it is surely an excessive liberty with this very
important and definite word to argue that it does not mean here what it means everywhere
else, because of a case in which a like party intreats not to be tormented.
(Matt. 8. 29; Mark 5. 7; Luke 8. 28.) For what right have we to say that ‘destroy'
in the one case means torment,' any more than we should have to say that
torment,' though it were used as often in its own peculiar sense, meant in this
one case destroy'?
But the two words, it is said, are interchanged.
No—the two incidents are entirely distinct. The first two passages refer to the
case of the demoniac in the synagogue at Capernaum, the other three to that of
the Gadarene demoniac (or, two demoniacs, as in Matthew). In connection with
the one case, destroy' only is used; in connection with the other only
torment.' Thus the terms are not interchanged. And hence the very utmost of the
plea would be—Demons speak of being tormented, and demons speak of being
destroyed; therefore destroyed' and tormented' are equivalent; since demons
could not fear being destroyed in any other sense. To this I answer—(1) What
authority have we for such an assumption? For, whatever may be our private
conviction as to the indestructibility of demons, are we prepared to say that a
word indubitably meaning destroy cannot have that meaning in a question
relating to them — however confusedly or mistakenly asked? (2) What right have
we to say that the question is put by demons at all, and not by the demoniac
(or the two), as it is expressly said to be? That the demons had a share in the
question is certain enough. But what that amounted to, who can tell? And
because they had a part, shall we give them the whole, in spite of the positive
statement just referred to? Rather let us be content to allow to them what is
plainly imputed to them—" They besought Him, saying, Send us into the
swine." And (3), Suppose we allow that the two separate questions are from
the demons, what right has any one to assume that they are identical in
sense—the destroying," tormenting,' and sending to the abyss' (as has been
said) " only expressing the same thought in three forms"? For,
granting all the premises, it would simply follow that the abyss' is the
dreaded place, the torment' the dreaded process, and destroyed' the dreaded
issue. Is it wonderful, then, if such a prospect should force from demons the
exclamation ascribed to them? For the place would be a hateful prison—the
process a long agony—and the issue galling alike to their malice and their
pride.
Thus in all the cases in which destroy means
destroy'—putting aside the one in question—it presents no trace of the sense
'grievously afflict,' or 'make miserable.' Much less does it lend the least
color to anything like the idea of a painful judicial action eternally endured
by creatures essentially indestructible.
Is it not a very serious matter, then, to tamper with
the sense of this expression when solemnly used by our Lord as distinctly
descriptive of the Divine actions towards the impenitent, body and soul alike?
"Fear not those that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul; but
rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt.
10. 28). Only allow, on the other hand, that the word as here used, means ‘destroy'
in the same sense as elsewhere, and then all doubt is removed as to our Lord's
doctrine in regard to the soul.
We assume that the action is Divine as the only
tolerable view. But, suppose any one to prefer the extraordinary idea of its
being Botanic, that will not affect the meaning of the word. In Luke 9. 56 we
read, The Bon of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them!'
These words, though probably a later addition, are still very ancient, and
therefore important as illustrating the usage of Greek. Their meaning is still
further defined by the contrast between the 'not destroy' here, and the consume
in verse 54.
But then, as is contended, such cannot be the meaning
here—because, the soul being indestructible, the word which elsewhere means 'to
put an end to' must have another meaning in this place. It must apply, in
short, not to the soul itself, but to its well-being:—thus coming to mean not
really destroy,' but disorganize," distress," torment '—till at last
the entire sense turns out to be the inflicting of endless misery. The manifest
answer to all this is—Why, then, not use some expression which would have
distinctly signified as much, instead of saying, with another meaning, that God
would destroy that which cannot be destroyed?
But this is not all that can be said for the natural,
and against the alleged, meaning of Greek. Both the context and the connection
of ideas absolutely forbid any such liberty with the word, and oblige us by
every rule of language and thought to take it here as elsewhere.
For (1) instead of any such tremendous discordance as
would thus be implied between the human killing ' and the Divine destroying,'
there is the most simple and direct transition from the one to the other.
" Fear not them that can kill the body only" is the appeal—thus
painfully putting an end to that;—" but fear Him who is able to destroy
both soul and body in hell "—thus putting an end far more dreadfully to
these. The second idea is, in fact, a terrible climax to the first. And thus,
instead of going off in another direction, it includes all, and more than all,
that is involved in the other.
(2) It would be highly unreasonable to suppose that
the destroying' of 'soul' is quite a different thing from the destroying' of
body.' Nor, indeed, will this be contended for. Rather in this case will it be
admitted that each is the same—namely, a grievous distressing, or tormenting.
But on what ground can this be urged as to the body? The alleged reason for
saying it of the soul is that that is indestructible, and therefore can be
spoken of as destroyed only in the very peculiar sense contended for;—that
sense being sure for the same reason to suggest and commend itself to all
honest hearers or readers. But this cannot be said of the body. The body can be
destroyed. What reason, then, was left for using language in regard to it which
furnished no climax to the ordinary killing,' and which, in fact, naturally
taken, signified the very contrary to what was expressed?
Such is the character of the attempt to explain away
the decisive word ‘destroy' in this place. Nor does there appear (if the
conclusion thus aimed at is to stand) any alternative but the idea of
some—that, while God is indeed able to destroy both soul and body in hell, it
is most certain that He never will! That is to say, physically. He can, but
morally He cannot—having distinctly bound Himself to the contrary! And such is
the ground on which He is to be feared so much more than the mere killers of
the body—namely, that, while they both can and do kill, He can, but never does,
destroy! Convince anyone of this, and then wonder not if you have also
convinced him that, while God has power to cast into hell (as elsewhere said),
He never does, and never will use it.
Mr. Hinton (Works 3. p. 217) gives a peculiar view of
this passage. "It has (says he) no reference to the punishment of sin.
God's being able to destroy both soul and body in hell concludes nothing as to
the curse of the law." Again, " The whole verse is a warning
addressed by Christ to timid disciples under circumstances of persecution"
(p. 304). What, then, is the warning? What is the thing which it is said that
God can do? And is it meant to signify in regard to that—whatever it be—that,
though He can, He never will?
We now ask whether any better objection can be brought
against us than this, that our doctrine is impossible;—' destruction' being a
thing out of the question, as contrary at once to all right thought, and divine
teaching? Even so do many argue that the Deity of our Lord is an impossibility.
They cannot, in short, and will not, believe it. And thus when they read,
"The Word was God," the plea is at hand, that an expression like this
must be taken in a peculiar sense. Nor is it ever hard to find some such; since
there is no word in any language but is at times used with a certain degree of
liberty. And so it fares with the grand truth of the Savior’s sacrifice for
sin. Nothing can be allowed to prove it in the genuine sense of the terms
employed to express it; because (as is urged) it is impossible.
The parallel passage just referred to, Luke 12. 4, 5,
has been very unfairly made use of in support of the ordinary doctrine. For it
has been taken as teaching that God can, after killing body and soul, cast both
of them into hell; thus showing that the killing here (and therefore the
destroying' elsewhere) does not involve an end. Instead of which there is no
hint of the killing of the soul before casting it into hell; but of the natural
killing of the body only.
Thus does man treat Scripture truth; and ever will, so
long as he can permit himself to speculate, when his only business is to
submit.
If now asked whether, by all this, it is intended to
teach annihilation'—the answer is, of annihilation we know nothing as regards
mind, any more than as regards matter. We only accept what the Scripture
teaches of destroying;—as when it says that " Herod sought after the child
to destroy it;" or, " The king sent and miserably destroyed those
wicked husbandmen." Nor is it fair—considering the physical difficulty
attaching to annihilation '—to substitute that word for destruction,' and then
charge us with believing accordingly. ‘Destruction' is the Scriptural word;
why, then, not agree to abide by it? Have we any reason to dislike it? And more
than this, the two ideas are far from being equivalent. A thing is ‘destroyed'
when its condition is so changed that it has ceased to be the organized object
which it was before. But, knowing nothing about its proper substance, we cannot
say that it has been annihilated. Besides which, the word ‘destroy' leaves
ample room for the period or process of dissolution, if it does not even
suggest it; while annihilate ' would suggest a view differing from the reality.
NOTE.—
The following are instances of the attempt to find
examples of the peculiar meaning attached to (destroy). Archbishop Tillotson,
who is considered to have handled the subject (Ser. 35) in a very thorough
manner, thus dismisses this point—" Nothing is more common in most
languages than by perishing' to express a person's being undone and made very
miserable. As in that known passage in Tiberius, his letter to the Roman
senate—' Let all the gods and goddesses destroy me worse than at this very time
I feel myself to perish;'—in which saying the words 'destroy' and 'perish' are
both of them used to express the miserable anguish and torment which at that
time he felt in his mind, as Tacitus tells us at large."—We ask the following
questions: (1) If "nothing is more common in most languages," why not
give us several examples from the Greek, rather than a single one from the
Latin? (2) Is it satisfactory to give passionate expressions like these as safe
guides to the interpretation of language so dispassionate as the judicial
utterances of our Lord in regard to the destroying of the soul? (3) Is it
clear, after all, that the wretched emperor would have accepted of the
sentiment which the English divine imputes to him? Is it not more probable
that, thorough Epicurean as he was in practice, he was Epicurean in principle
also, and meant by destroy' and perish' just what the words meant—while
shuddering of course, as such a man would certainly do, at the "anguish
and torment" incidental to the destruction?
The following case is given by Dr. Angus to show that
the word lorok1 vim may be used by a Greek writer of those who still survive
the destruction indicated. His reference is to Herodotus who, he says,
"tells what the Getae believed became of men when they were destroyed,'
and how they were supposed to go afterwards into the presence of one of their
gods." To see the inadequacy of the argument, we need only refer to the
case.
The circumstance alluded to (4. 93) is simply this,
that the Getae, every five years, sent a peculiar embassy to the god Zamolxis. Selecting an individual, they tossed him in the
air, so that he might fall on the points of javelins—being regarded, in the
case of his dying, as their messenger to the god, and being spoken of as
destroyed or perishing. That is to say, the body of the man was destroyed,
perished, came to an end—while the spirit survived and went on the embassy. And
this they took as an evidence for immortality. A good proof of that, indeed (if
a proof of anything)—so long as' immortality' is taken simply to mean the
soul's existence after the death of the body. And a proof also that Herodotus
used the word in no other sense than 'we contend for. Let us add that in the
same book (c. 68 and 69) he uses the word of putting to death,' just as in
Matt. 12. 14. The following are instances of the easy way in which our Lord's
testimony in Matt. 10. 28 is disposed of.
(Lose) In The Gospels.
WE give again each case, proceeding from the simplest
to those which are more complex, and coming to those that speak directly of the
losing of the soul. Let it be observed, then, whether there is in the whole
catalogue one case in which lose' does not mean to cease to have'—whatever
other idea may be involved.
Matt. 10. 42. " He shall in nowise lose his
reward." So Mark 9. 41. [Here the idea differs from the one expressed in
all the other cases only as 'fail to have' differs from cease to have.']
Luke 15. 4, 6, 8, 9, 24. " If he lose one sheep
doth he not go after the lost till he find it?" " My sheep which was
lost;"—" If she lose one piece;"—" My piece which I had
lost;"—" My son was lost, and is found."
John 6. 12. " Gather up the fragments, that
nothing be lost."
And then three striking cases in which the Savior
speaks of not losing souls—" That of all which He hath given me I should
lose nothing" (6. 39);—"Those that thou gayest me I have kept, and
none of them is lost" (17. 12, where we see that keeping is the opposite
of losing);—" Of them which thou hast given me I have lost none." (18.
9.) Now, as to the meaning of lose in these cases, there can be no question. It
must mean ceasing to possess.' Have we any right, then, to say that the meaning
is entirely, yes infinitely different, when the same language is applied to a
man in regard to his own soul—as different, in short, as ceasing to have is
from continuing to have in a state of endless misery?
Matt. 10. 39. " He that finds, his life shall
lose it; and he that loses his life for my sake shall find it." We observe
here the opposite of 'lose' in the word 'find.' Mark 8. 35. " Whosoever
desires to save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for
my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." It is superfluous to
inquire whether life' here means more than natural life. For, however that may
be, it is clear that lose' means to part with,' so as to cease to have. The
same is true of Luke 17. 33. " Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall
lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it" (i.e. he
that loses his life in one of the two ways alluded to shall gain it in the
other).
John 12. 25. " He that loveth his life shall lose
it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life
eternal."
We can see now the force of the expression, "
Lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matt. 10. 6; 15. 24)—an expression
already made familiar to Jewish ears by the language of the Old Testament. It
means, of course, in all cases just what it means in the parable—namely, the
sheep which the shepherd has, for the time, ceased to have. It may be lost
beyond hope of recovery or not. That has nothing to* do with the sense of the
word, Nor does the question of destruction come in here, as far as the mere
word goes; for a sheep may be lost,' and not destroyed.' Hence the extreme
weakness of the common questions: Was the lost sheep annihilated? Were the
asses of Kish annihilated? No one ever thought that they were, and yet not the
less did the owner cease to have them while they were lost. Think of David's
lamb as out of his hands into the lion's mouth, and see in what sense it was
lost to him. Viewed thus, we can well enter into the deep pathos of the divine
lamentation, " My people have been lost sheep." And if a sheep be
lost forever, does the shepherd ever have it again? Or if friends, instead of
having to sympathize with him in such a loss, should have to mourn over him as
having lost his life—what, in that case, would ‘lose' mean? Or, in the case of
his losing his soul—what then?'
What further question now remains as to Matt. 18. 11,
and Luke 19. 10—" The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which
was lost "? The expression has come, of course, from the familiar and
affecting one of the lost sheep;' and in the idea of being thus lost, all
possible wretchedness is manifestly included. For what Can be more awful than
the fact of a soul getting out of the loving hands of God—whether into its own
self-destroying ones, or into the power of the enemy spoken of as "a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour "? And such is assuredly the idea
expressed by lost.' It is the fact of separation from God, with all the evil and
all the woe attaching to such a condition. Thus, in coming " to seek and
save the lost," the Son of man has come to bring back to God's heart and
hands those who were hopelessly estranged from Him. And what but such a
restoration is the joy of the prodigal, as his ears ring with the voice, "
This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found "?
Thus do we see what an extreme of wretchedness pertains to the condition of the
lost,' so soon as we take into an account what in such a case the simple
'ceasing to have' amounts to. We see too that any other mode of interpreting
the figure must fail—both as overlooking the meaning of the word and the
bearing of the illustration.
We come now to the most solemn application of the word
‘lose' within the compass of Scripture:—" What is a man advantaged, if he
gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?" (Luke 9. 25.) Is
it possible, then, it may be asked, for a man to lose himself—actually to lose
his very self? The Lord Jesus says that it is, and we believe Him. But can you
venture, it will be said, to take words so peculiar as these in their strict
literality? for His meaning, surely, must simply be that a man may lose all
that is worth having about himself—so that, in such a maimed, disordered state,
he would prefer, if he might, to lose rather than keep his existence. Our Lord,
I repeat, has said, that a man may 'lose himself;' nor can we find in the New
Testament any other sense to the word ‘lose' than the one for which we are
pleading.
And as little, to save the meaning of 'lose,' dare we
tamper with the word himself.' In no way but by supposing a highly figurative
style to be employed can we maintain that the 'losing himself,' only means the
losing of what is good, and necessary for his happiness. But our Lord's style
in this case is not figurative. It is one thing, in short, when using the
language of strong feeling, to throw out an expression of this kind, in support
of something else which it is the object directly to put forward. For then the
feeling and the subject explain the language. But to make a direct declaration
of such a kind by itself is altogether another matter. For then there is
nothing to explain the declaration except itself; and therefore there is no
alternative but to take it as it stands.
Now all this is strongly confirmed by the parallel
passage in Matthew and Mark, where, instead of the wider expression, 'lose
himself,' it is simply, lose his own soul.' And it is not difficult to see how
the latter expression gives less opportunity for figurative interpretation than
even the former. But, before leaving the passage in Luke, it may be well to
give a reason or two why the announcement there made should and must be taken
in its simple, self-suggestive sense.
(1) The word ‘lose' has been twice used in the
sentence immediately preceding, as the opposite of save,' and as unquestionably
meaning cease to have,' in reference to life. Yes, and the present statement is
made in direct continuation of that one, and is, in fact, so dependent upon it
that to interpret differently the vital word ‘lose' would introduce into the
whole an element of hopeless and inexplicable confusion. (2) The ‘losing' is
fixed down to its proper and ordinary sense by the contrast with gaining.' For
the supposed case is that of a man actually gaining, or coming to have the
world, and losing, or ceasing to have himself. The contrast is absolute; the
loss being such that the gain becomes nothing. On the other hand, suppose a man
to lose his well-being, but not himself, it would be no way absurd to regard
him as having a possible gain, because a possible mitigation of his calamity in
the possession of the world. And (3) to the terrible expression (lose himself)
there is added an equivalent which serves to confirm the sense otherwise
arrived at. In our version that additional expression is, or be cast away.' But
this certainly fails to convey the precise idea. The only sense of the word in
the Greek Scriptures is that of losing or suffering loss. Thus, " If any
man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss "—the loss coming in the
way of retribution (1 Cor. 3. 15); —" For whom I have suffered the loss of
all things, and count them but dung, that I may win Christ " (Phil. 3. 8)—the
same contrast being observed as in our passage between the losing and gaining.
How to find English, indeed, corresponding to, as occurring after, without
repeating in some form the word lose,' I do not know. This, however, is
plain—with what a fearful decisiveness the natural sense of the expression
first used is confirmed by the addition of the other. Nor can we avoid the
impression that the new thought conveyed is that of suffering loss as a
judicial infliction. If we knew an English word sufficiently akin to loss,' we
might thus render the two expressions—" If he lose, or suffer the — of
himself."
Coming now to the parallel passage already referred
to, we shall find it to present partly the same, and partly a new feature or
two. "What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his own
soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16. 26;
Mark 8. 36.) Here, as will be observed, the word which was appended in the
other case to the expression 'lose himself' is now used with soul' to indicate
the losing' of that. For that such is still the meaning is clear both from the
sense of the word itself, and from the train of thought as connected with the
previous verse of which the whole subject was that of saving and losing," losing
and finding.' What the distinction may be between these two terms for ‘losing'
we cannot say—farther than that the one here employed (as already hinted) is
more directly expressive of penalty' or suffering loss '—being a more
comprehensive term than Greek, which of itself can refer only to the fact of
'losing.' This, however, is clear, that hard as it must ever be to show that Greek,
does not signify ceasing to have, it would be as hard to show the same of Greek—
hard to show that it only means being punished with loss in, but no loss of,
that which is positively said to be lost.
And now, as before, this very simple conclusion is
confirmed by the context—the whole case being distinctly one of having or not
having the things in question. For (1) the supposition is of a man gaining,' or
coming to have the world; and losing,' or ceasing to have his soul. Can it be
that the use of the peculiar word for ‘lose' indicates the judicial action in
regard to him, for having preferred the world to his soul? (2) There is another
circumstance which very strongly exhibits the whole matter as one of the having
or not having of the soul; we mean the question, " Or what shall a man
give in exchange (i.e. in payment, or compensation) for his soul? " The
man supposed has gained the world, and is on the point of losing his soul.
What, then, has he amid all his treasures to offer in ransom for that soul, so
that he may still keep and not lose it?
Thus, then, the awful fact of extinction, or. utter
destruction, is announced in the plainest terms—in the most solemn spirit—in
the most judicial style. We may still, if we can, cry, Impossible! Whatever be
said, something else than this must be meant. I cannot believe it; my whole
nature, human and Christian, revolts from it.' Yes, we may say so. Still there
stands the word of our Lord announcing it. Nor does there seem any way of
escaping from the conclusion, except, on the one hand, by taking in an unknown
sense the two words employed to signify lose; ' or, on the other, by showing
that himself' does not mean himself,' or soul' mean soul,' when used in
connection with these words!
(Perish) In The Gospels.
WE come now to the same important word (as found in
the middle and passive voice) with the sense of ' perish' or ' be destroyed.'
Let us take (a) the cases in which the reference is to
a purely natural perishing.
Matt. 8. 25; Mark 4. 38; Luke 8. 24: Lord, save us, we
perish.
Matt. 9. 17; Mark 2. 22; Luke 5. 37: The bottles
perish.
Matt. 26. 52: All that take the sword shall perish, or
be destroyed, by the sword.
Luke 11. 51: Zacharias perished between the temple and
the altar.
Ch. 13. 33: It cannot be that a prophet perish out of
Jerusalem.
Ch. 21. 18: There shall not a hair of your head
perish.
John 6. 27: The bread which perishes.
Ch. 11. 50: It is expedient that one die, and that the
whole nation perish not.—His fear was lest the Romans should come and take away
both their place and nation; and thus the nation cease to be.
Ch. 18. 14: It is expedient that one die (perish) for
the people.
Now it is beyond dispute that in all these cases means
‘perish' in the one unambiguous sense of coming to an end. There is no question
of physical annihilation; and no notice of the actual process or duration of
the event. The circumstance invariably indicated is that of an end being put to
the object as such. Thus in regard to the case last quoted, it can serve no
good purpose to ask, " When Christ died for the people, was He annihilated?
" For the question is not what He was, but what Caiaphas wished might be.
And that, certainly, was that He, and everything about Him, might come to an
end at once.
(b) Betwixt these instances of a natural perishing,
and those of a spiritual sort presently to be noticed, there occurs one of a
mixed kind. That is to say, we have a distinct view of natural perishing in a
parable where the object is to represent the same evil in its spiritual
aspect.—" I perish with hunger." (Luke 15. 17.) Now the prodigal in
the figure certainly means to signify that his life is coming to an end through
famine. Are we to believe, then, that the prodigal in the fact can never occupy
such a situation—his actual ‘perishing' consisting in the hopeless misery of an
imperishable being?
(a) The remaining cases refer directly to the
perishing' of the soul. But each of them contains, either in its own terms, or
in its context, a reference to some illustration drawn from natural perishing: with
such extreme definiteness is the meaning brought out in every instance.
Matt. 5. 29, 30: " It is profitable for thee that
one of thy members perish, and not that thy whole body be cast into hell."
It is the final ' perishing ' of soul and body that is threatened. Better one
member perish by the amputating knife than the whole man by the condemning
sentence. Better put an end to an evil passion by the pain of self-denial, than
lose all in the fire of hell. Such, clearly, is the lesson of the passage.
Matt. 18. 14: "Even so it is not the will of your
Father in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." But how
perish? " Even so," as the wandering sheep, but for the shepherd's
care.
Luke 13. 3, 5: " Verily I say unto you, Except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish" (or be destroyed). Yes, as surely as
the Galileans by Pilate's sword, and the eighteen at Siloam by the fall of the
tower.
"The meaning," says J. H. HINTON (Works, 3. p.
218), is "that sinners should be as surely punished as those referred
to—the comparison contemplating neither the manner nor the nature of the
punishment inflicted, but the certainty of the punishment itself." We fail
to perceive the right of any one to say that the word ' perish' means simply to
be punished'—and that, so as even to exclude Out sort of punishment which the
word directly suggested.
John 3. 14-16: " As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever
believeth in Him should (not perish, but) have eternal life. For God so loved
the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish, but have everlasting life." Let us see how this, the
greatest, perhaps, of all our Lord's words, came to be spoken. Nicodemus has
come to Him, believing that, if any class of men were sure of the kingdom of
heaven, it was his own. To meet this and other of his ideas, Jesus tells him
that without a new birth, as originating a new life, no man on earth could enter
that kingdom; adding as the explanation of this birth and life—" That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit." The Pharisee still stumbles at the doctrine; and so Jesus,
without further explanation or defense of it, addresses to him that gospel word
which, if received, would infallibly prove the incorruptible seed of the new
birth within him. (1 Pet. 1. 23.) Again, the Pharisee has come, believing in a
future state of protracted existence for all, with everlasting life for himself
and such like.' With a view to all this, the heavenly teacher announces that
" Whosoever believeth in Him (and such only) should not perish, but have
everlasting life." The connection of ideas is manifest. Israel was
perishing—visibly, miserably, perishing in the natural way, and recovered the
forfeited temporal life by looking at the uplifted serpent. Even so are all
men, as sinners, perishing in the spiritual way, but can be saved from that,
and obtain the life everlasting, by looking at the uplifted Savior. Now,
however much the ' perishing ' of the soul may exceed in awfulness the. '
perishing ' of the body; and however much the ' living' of the soul may exceed
in blessedness the ‘living' of the body—yet surely the substantial meaning of
the words should be the same in the spiritual as in the corporeal department.
But what argument is it to say, as is constantly done, that, because the life
is eternal, the contrary to it can be nothing less than a suffering equally without
end? But why so? Is not the contrast sufficient between a life that is eternal
and the loss of the soul forever? Who has a right to say that the strictest
propriety demands a contrast different from this; yes, and one neither
expressed nor suggested—and, as we venture to say, not permitted by the
words—and all because of some hard necessity for it? For where is the necessity?
The contrast is surely a very terrible one between eternal life (though taken
in the very highest sense), on the one hand, and the perishing of a human soul,
with all its attendant horrors, on the other.
And now, in the closest connection with such an
announcement—he that believes, we find, is saved;' he " is not condemned;"
" he hath everlasting life." While, on the contrary, " he that
believeth not is condemned already;" " he shall not see life, but the
wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3. 17, 18, 36.) Thus, to be saved' is
to obtain life—and that, the only life which we read of God's bestowing upon
man as an everlasting possession. To ' perish' is to be ' condemned' to the
loss of this life—and (under the pressure of the wrath which abides on the
unbeliever) to experience the retribution due to him, on account of the
darkness that was loved, and the evil that was done. (verses 19-21.)
Thus clear is the meaning of ' perish' in all the
ordinary cases. And if it had so widely different a meaning in the spiritual
ones, we might surely have expected. something to indicate the divergence—some
trace of the stage at which the word turned off in a direction so strangely
different. Whereas we have in each single case the most distinct linking on of
the spiritual event to some natural circumstance, for the very purpose
apparently of illustrating the significance of the spiritual.
Very true, we can suppose it said, and very plausible;
and yet there is sufficient reason for taking the word perish' when it refers
to the soul in that sense which has generally approved itself to Christians.
Matter and spirit differ so entirely in all their properties, that 'perish,'
instead of meaning precisely the same thing in reference to each, must have a
different application, once that a common analogy has been observed. That
analogy will consist in the dissolving and destroying of each, so far as its true
integrity, and the divine end of its formation, goes. But inasmuch as matter is
destructible, and spirit—whether in its own nature, or by creative purpose—is
not; therefore, though the ‘perishing' of the one signifies its passing away,
the perishing' of the other can only signify its endless continuance in a
perverted and unhappy condition.
Now it is marvelous with what ease it is thus assumed
that the unsaved soul is imperishable. Strange, indeed, that in such a case the
word of all others most frequently used to express its doom should be a word
directly teaching that it shall perish—that is to say, a. word expressing an
impossibility in regard to it! And why such an anomaly in a matter so solemn
and vital? What better than a mockery of instruction was it to say that that
should perish which was imperishable? Was the Greek language so poor as to
afford no term more suitable to represent the reality of the case than one
which so flagrantly misrepresented it? If the object was to express the idea of
endless wretchedness in a disorganized and undone condition, then the word
employed signally failed in that object. For, whatever reference it had to
disorganization at all, it was only as to something which might serve to
introduce that real destruction or cessation of being, to express which was the
design of the word. Strange, then, if a teacher speaking Greek should have
employed the word to signify (and that under so unutterably awful a form) the
disordered state which at the utmost was only incidental to the real meaning;—and
should have done this, too, in such a way as to put that incident in the place
of the fact which actually constituted the meaning of the word! and strangest
of all if that teacher was the Lord Jesus Christ, calmly announcing the decision
of God, and the destiny of man!
In a word, then, while matter and spirit differ as
they do, let there be by all means a corresponding difference in the ‘perishing'
of each, that is, in the mode or character of. it. But still it must be a true
perishing, not another sort of calamity—much less an entirely contrary, not to
say an infinitely different thing, called by the same name. The mode of coming
to an end may in the two cases differ extremely.
But if the language is to be relied on at all, we are
surely bound to believe that the thing affirmed by it really takes place. Why
say that a thing is to perish, if by the nature of the case such an event is
impossible—the meaning, all the time being, not that the thing itself is to
perish, but only certain of its properties? Why not at once, in such a case,
use an expression plainly indicating the endless misery which is to be, instead
of inevitably suggesting a passing away' which can never be?
It will be urged perhaps that—seeing how distinctly
the unsaved soul is elsewhere sentenced to everlasting fire—the perishing'
threatened in the places adduced cannot be anything but endless suffering.
Suffice it to observe here—reserving for another place the consideration of the
fire—that everything in regard to it would naturally be understood by our
Lord's hearers, in its connection with the allied truth of the perishing' or
losing of life, of which He spoke so much more frequently. We are bound, in
short, to take the various expressions of each class at their true and full
value. Whoever asks for the strict meaning of everlasting,' we on our part are
ready to grant it, and only ask in return for an equally strict meaning of the
no less vital word perish.' It would be a serious thing, indeed, to find any
real conflict between expressions of such moment. Before, however, assuming
this, we should surely examine our own view of any other assertions supposed to
bear upon the case, in order to see whether they really do teach that the soul
as such is imperishable. And no such assertion can we find.
If it be now asked, whether by perishing' we mean an
instantaneous ceasing to be'—it is hardly needful to say that we do not. Or a
painless? Neither do we mean that. We mean simply perishing—whatever the time
or the suffering which it may involve.
Perishing' of body may be a process very lengthened
and very painful. So may the perishing of the soul be. The very mention of it,
in fact, is such as to excite a horror beyond that of any other calamity. And
thus we meet an objection which arises from a total misapprehension of the
case. It is this—' So, then, you make the punishment to mean two entirely
different things—namely, perishing' as the real end, and something which is not
perishing' as the precursor to it; and all this as coming under the one term.'
Such a style of argument may be striking, but that is all. We object as much as
any to make the word mean two different things—taking it in its one simple
sense, at its one recognized value. And, so taking it, we say that, of
itself—even were that all—it would be something unutterably awful as the lot of
a human soul. But, instead of stopping at that bare idea, dreadful as it is, we
look to see what circumstances are in Scripture associated with it; and then we
accept the whole as the divine revelation on the appalling subject. Such is the
perdition that we believe in. For who, except in this case, ever dreams of
attaching any other meaning to the term? Thus, when we hear that someone has
perished, we conclude that he has ceased to be. Asking how he perished, we are
perhaps told—By hunger, or thirst. How he must have suffered I we say. Or, he
was tortured in a dungeon for half a lifetime. What an agony And yet he has
perished; and such—all the circumstances combined—is the meaning of the
announcement.
In conclusion, then, let us say, as regards this and
the other uses of Greek, that if there be in all the New Testament a word of
which the sense is more distinctly fixed —whether by ancient and constant
usage, by great variety of verbal connection, or by illustrations both numerous
and decisive —we must confess our ignorance of it. It is not easy, indeed, to
recall any word in the whole book expressive of an important revealed truth,
with as much evidence in favor of one clear, uniform sense. It need not be
wondered at then, if, out of simple loyalty to our Lord, we feel absolutely
incapable of resisting the evidence. Nor should it seem strange, if we even
suppose the Master still marveling at the slowness of His disciples to believe
what He so plainly taught; and, instead of that, attributing to Him a doctrine
as foreign from His teaching as it is fearful in theirs—a doctrine which, if
unscriptural, gives a view radically false of the character and government of
God.
Note.
For a very peculiar handling of Greek see Cremer, Biblical
Theology Lexicon N.T. Greek. He first asserts that the word is "used
specially by Paul and John," "with reference to the everlasting
misery of man." After that he says, "The most probable conclusion is
that in the New Testament the word denotes utter and final ruin and perdition.
And then he adds, "Nevertheless we must always keep in mind the expression
lost sheep'—which illustration warrants us in a state which may be
reversed!"
Further Teaching Of Our Lord In Regard To Punishment.
THUS, in language with the most distinct possible
meaning, and in connections of the most decisive character, did our Lord teach
the destruction of sinners. He taught that God was to be feared as One who was
" able to destroy both soul and body in hell; " that every impenitent
sinner should certainly perish, while those who believed in Him should not
perish, but live everlastingly. He represented it as the very utmost calamity
for a man finally to lose his soul,' or himself,' after all that had been done
to save the lost' Beside all which, He was in the habit of putting the same
truth in a great variety of forms; and to these we now ask attention. Before
doing so, however, it will be proper to notice certain words on the same
subject as spoken by His heaven-sent forerunner. "And now," said
John, " the axe is laid unto the root of the trees; every tree therefore
which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."
(Luke 3. 9.) Now it was never yet questioned what this figure meant in any case
but the present one. For fruitless trees have never been spoken of as cut down
and cast into the fire, with any other idea than that of their being consumed.
And yet the Baptist does not stop at the figure of a tree, with reference to
the object of its being cast into the fire. For with the tree he associates the
chaff; and to the implication of destruction he adds the express declaration of
burning up,'—" He will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He
will burn up with unquenchable fire." (Matt. 3. 12; Luke 3. 17.)
"This does not refer (it has been said) to the
final destiny of the wicked, but must be regarded as having been fulfilled in a
series of temporal calamities inflicted on the Jewish nation, in consequence of
their rejection of the Messiah. The same remark applies to Matt. 3. 12, as
connected with Mal. 4. 1, and Matt. 7. 19." (J. H. HINTON, Works, 3. p.
303.) Now it has generally been allowed that such expressions in the Old
Testament did indeed suggest the analogous ones in the New. But to say that the
New stops where the Old did is a very different matters and introduces a
principle which would carry us much further than we might wish to go. Would it
be also maintained, we may ask, that the Baptist had respect simply to what was
temporal, when he said, " Who bath warned you to flee from the wrath to
come?"
The only possible question here seems to be Was the
speaker giving utterance to a divine truth, or only to some prevailing or
private sentiment? For what can more exactly express the belief for which we
contend than the declaration that the chaff shall be burned up? No one doubts
that, to a certain extent, the figures are to be taken at their proper value.
The righteous are to be treated as wheat, the wicked as chaff—the one as
precious, the other as worthless—the one as preserved by the owner for his own
use, the other cast into the fire as useless. So far there will be no question.
Is it not as clear, then, and as certain, that the burning up' means
consumption or utter destruction — even as the gathering into the garner
indicates a preserving from destruction and yielding satisfaction to the divine
Proprietor? Who, in listening to these words of the Baptist, could have
imagined that, while all else corresponded so exactly, the ' burning up' in the
figure pointed to something so incongruous in the fact—even to a burning on and
on and on—the very contrary, in short, to what the world has always understood
by burning up '? Is it thus, we ask, that inspired men use their figures? And
if so, then whether do they manage to represent or to misrepresent what is in
their minds? And does it never occur to those who plead for such an unnatural
interpretation that they may thus be serving another cause quite as much as
that of the orthodoxy which is so dear to them?
True, it is answered, if that were all. But then, the
soul being indestructible, the figure of burning up' can only mean burning on forever.'
And why, then, we ask, did John, with this in view, use such language? Why not
rather tell us at once, as one of the Fathers, in professed explanation of his
words, has done, that the wicked are to be like burning mountains, ever
burning, but never burnt out, or like a garment of asbestos, itself unconsumed
in the midst of the fire? What is it, in short, but that very rationalizing, so
earnestly deprecated by those opposed to us, that ever led them to see in the
expression burn up' the meaning of burning on forever '?
But then, the " unquenchable fire "—what do
you make of that? we will be asked. Nay, that is not our question now. The
chaff burnt up '—that is the question. The continuance of the fire may, in
another respect, be a fair question also. For a fire would properly be called ‘unquenchable'
which nothing could quench till it had consumed all that it laid hold of, as
well as a fire which should burn for long after it had done this. As to whether
that turned out to be a year, or a century, or an eternity, would matter
nothing as regards the real sense of the ' burning up.' The two things have, in
short, no real connection—the duration of the material burnt up, and that of
the fire which consumes it.
Why then, it will be said, speak of the fire as
unquenchable? Because, perhaps, it really is so, absolutely and eternally. .Who
can say it is not? This, however, as already intimated, is not our question
now. Enough that Scripture uses such language in connection with utter
consumption—and that too in eases where both the burning up of the object and
the burning on of the fire are of unquestionably less moment than in the case
before us. Thus in regard to strictly temporal judgments, and in passages of
which some have been already quoted (see chap. 2) we have the most express
mention of fire that cannot be quenched. (Ezek. 20. 47; 2 Kings 22. 17; Isa.
24. 10, cf. 1. 31; Jer. 4. 4; 7. 20; Amos 5. 6.) Can anyone read such passages,
and quietly conclude that the same language in the Baptist's mouth not only
proves an eternally burning fire, but that the chaff is said to be cast into
that fire for the burning of it up, in no sense but this, that it also is to
burn, and burn, and burn on, throughout the same eternity?
Thus taught the servant, and how did the Master follow
it up? He taught, in addition to what we have already met with, that "The
broad way leads to destruction"—destruction as the opposite of the life to
which the narrow way conducts. (Matt. 7. 13.) And of this destruction He gives
some very significant illustrations. Thus He speaks, on the same occasion, of
the fruitless tree as " hewn down and cast into the fire." (5. 19.)
Then of the withered branches we read, that " men gather them, and cast
them into the fire, and they are burned." (John 15. 6.) And still more
explicitly in regard to the tares, "Bind them in bundles to burn them up.
As therefore the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire, so shall it be in
the end of this world: the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they
shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do
iniquity; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire." (Matt. 13. 30,
40-42.) Shall we, then, on pain of being branded as heretical, be required to
believe the very contrary of what is suggested by such language, and to see in
the tares that are thus burnt up an emblem of sinners preserved as completely
and permanently in the agonies of hell, as saints in the bliss of heaven?
Again, we find the disobedient hearer of the word
likened to the man that built his house upon the sand —the consequent calamity
being one which is well known to involve both building and builder in a common
ruin. And this too, after the views of destruction which had just preceded.
(Matt. 7. 26, 27.)
We have also the parable of the drag-net cast into the
sea, and gathering of every kind; i.e. every kind of fish, of which alone the
question here is—the issue being that the fishermen, " drawing the net to
shore, gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away." Thus the one sort was preserved
for use, and the other consigned to destruction—which, sooner or later, was the
end, and the designed end, of the casting away. " Even so shall it be at
the end of the world; the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from
among the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire." (Matt. 13. 47-50.)
Such is the parable. And while some think it enough to accept the analogy in so
far as it relates to the rejection, they ought not to wonder if we take one
step more, and accept it in regard to the destruction also;—yes, and if we feel
that in doing this we have no alternative; inasmuch as the rejection in this
case is so manifestly nothing else than a giving up to destruction.
Once more, we have in another place a picture of
destruction as complete as any of these; and then of destruction in a still
more intense form—namely, where our Lord speaks of the man as broken' "who
shall fall on this stone," but of him as ground to powder " on whom
the stone shall fall." (Matt. 21. 44.) Here again we may, if we will, in
applying the illustration, reject one of the essential elements of it. But we
should not wonder if others cannot thus set aside an idea so essential to the
entire sense and fitness of the illustration.
In leaving these cases, then, the question simply is,
whether the figures are significant of an end which, as figures, they
represent;—or of an endless condition of which the language, figurative as it certainly
is, is not a figure at all!
To this style of argument we can imagine just one
objection having any amount of plausibility. It may be said that the argument,
if good for anything, would prove too much; since the illustrations employed by
our Lord commonly imply the immediate end of the objects referred to—without
leaving any room for that process or period for which we constantly contend.
Hence the analogy, it might be said, is designed to indicate the severity and
certainty of the sinner's doom, without being at all meant in the spiritual
case to extend to any such actual destruction as that which obtains in the
natural one.
To this we answer that the one leading idea in the
illustrations now referred to is precisely that of destruction,' and nothing
else. Attendant circumstances must be supplied from other sources. But if the
analogy fails as to the matter of destruction—a destruction akin to that in the
illustration—it fails altogether, and would never have been employed. For what
but rejection and destruction is the lesson conveyed by chaff, tares, and trees,
being given up to the fire, or worthless fish thrown to the refuse-heap? If,
however, we add to such illustrations those drawn from human beings, who are
susceptible not only of destruction, but of its accompanying pains, we can then
see a foreshadowing of the process that is elsewhere distinctly taught. Thus
the prodigal is " perishing with hunger; " and how long his
sufferings are to last will depend upon a variety of circumstances. He that is
' broken ' by falling upon a stone may linger, we cannot tell how long, until
the injured life, is done out of him. And so, if the whole body is to perish
with any sort of analogy to the case of an amputated limb, there is ample room
left for suffering at once protracted and severe. An illustration, in short, must
not be pressed further than it professes to go; so that the only fair question
is, as to what it does teach, not as to something else which it was never
intended to teach.
Our Lord's Teaching Continued.
How, after such lessons, would His hearers understand
Him in His ordinary teaching as to the doom of the wicked? Or, as we may put
it, is there anything in the rest of that teaching (not to speak now of the
passages which contain the word everlasting') to counteract, or modify, or in
the least degree affect, the announcements thus freely made of a coming
destruction? What, in short, would be the natural bearing of those other
portions on the express statements now considered?
Thus we have in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5. 21,
22) a striking view of divine judgment in regard to transgressions against the
sixth commandment. This matter, as our Lord intimates, the scribes were in the
habit of settling with great ease. For, according to them, the whole amounted
to this, that the outward act of ' murder ' entailed the punishment of natural
death by the sentence of the court called the ‘judgment'. Starting from this
circumstance, He states three forms of anger—each more guilty than the
preceding one—but all of which He represents as virtually murder, in the sight
of God, and punishable as such by His judgment. Then, as answering to these
three degrees of guilt, He mentions as many degrees of punishment. Now here is
the important circumstance. All these are figuratively stated in language
borrowed from the three modes of capital punishment in use among the Jews. Thus
the ‘Judgment' employed one mode; the ' Council' (Sanhedrim) a severer; while
the sentence might be further aggravated by consigning the carcass to the fire
in the valley of the Son of Hinnom. " The most important thing to keep in
mind is that there is no distinction of kind between these punishments, only of
degree. In the thing compared, the scepter is (judgment) inflicted death by the
sword, the (council) death by stoning, and the disgrace of the (hell-fire)
followed as an intensification of the horrors of death; but the punishment is
one and the same—death. So also in the subject of the similitude, all the
punishments are spiritual; all result in eternal death; but with various
degrees (the nature of which is as yet hidden from us), as the degrees of guilt
have been."
So far, then, there was in the allusion to hell-fire
nothing to suggest anything beyond a very painful, and possibly protracted,
destruction—nothing, in fact, but what was suggested by the reference to fire
in the case of the chaff and the fruitless trees.
And what other view is presented when, immediately
after, we find Him pleading with His hearers on the advantage of one member
perishing, rather than that the whole body should be cast into hell? For what,
as already pointed out, is the idea here suggested but that a man had better
lose a part than lose the whole? The partial losing would be painful, the total
unspeakably more so. But in each case it would be equally a losing."
Or take the case of the man " without the wedding
garment," who is "bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness,
where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth." This, again, is a reference
to an earthly proceeding in which the punishment was of a lingering and
agonizing kind—while yet the worst of it was that it would or might end in
death. And thus there was suggested the same result in connection with that
divine procedure which was to be illustrated. And not only so, but in regard to
greater criminals than this one in connection with the same event, it is
expressly said that " the king destroyed those murderers." (Matt. 22.
7, 13.) And if such be the view presented in this case, it is enough that we
compare with it the analogous cases in Matt. 25. 30; Luke 13. 27, 28—not
overlooking the severer punishment of the tyrannical and profligate servant,
whose end is certainly a very painful destruction, whatever the precise form of
that may be, and however long it may be his lot to languish in the place of
weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt 24. 51.)
If this, then, be the view given us of future
punishment in such expressions, what else could be designed where it was said,
" Thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be brought down to
hell?" (Matt. 11. 23.) While—as compared with Capernaum and her
Christ-despising sisters—Tyre and Sidon, yea, Sodom
and Gomorrah, were to have a doom " more tolerable in the day of
judgment." But there does not seem, after all, so very much to choose
between, if the whole of these were to be equally consigned to everlasting
torments. And this reminds us of that very explicit statement on comparative
punishment, which must ever remain a strange enigma on the supposition that the
least as well as the greatest of its measures is alike unlimited in duration;—"
The servant which knew his Lord's will, but did not according to it, shall be
beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy A
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes." (Luke 12. 47, 48.) Ingenuity,
we are aware, will never want a plea for any paradox. But let sound sense only
dare to stand its ground against the ablest advocacy of the contrary—and what
will it say to the cleverest pleader seeking to convince us that the numberless
sufferings of endless ages can be spoken of, however comparatively, as "
FEW STRIPES," in any other style than that of cruel mockery? Just think of
one severe bodily pain—as endured throughout eternity, without alleviation—spoken
of as a punishment of few stripes! Think of the outer darkness, the undying
worm, or the unquenchable fire—under the mildest form of everlasting
suffering—spoken of as few stripes!
Or take (as we find it in His ordinary teaching,
omitting for the present Matt. 25) our Lord's division of the human family into
two great classes as to their future doom;—" All that are in their graves
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the
resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of
damnation." What light is cast upon this from what we have already met
with need not be repeated. Enough to point out now that our Master, besides here
naming ‘life' as the opposite of condemnation,' had just given the passing from
death to life,' as the equivalent of the no-condemnation.' (John 5. 24, 29.
Compare with this chap. 3. 14-18, 36, as noticed above.)
Or take a case in which there was reason to speak in
the very strongest terms of the future of the lost. It occurs in a passage
which presents to us in the most striking colors the fearful picture drawn by
the prophet—" Their soul abhorred me, and my soul loathed them"
(Zech. 11. 8); and yet what is the utmost that He sets before such? " If
ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." (John 8. 24.)
Once more, if we go to that denunciation of His
bitterest enemies in which He pours out His soul in a burst of indignation to
which there is no parallel, what do we find as the very utmost to which His
aroused spirit impels Him?—" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites 1 for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretense make long prayers;
therefore ye shall receive greater damnation;"—" Ye serpents, ye
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" (Matt. 23.
14, 33.)
There remains just one passage to be noticed in this
connection—namely, the case of the rich man in torments. Strange, indeed, how
any should imagine that they can see here the proof of natural immortality and
endless suffering! The wretched man begs that Lazarus may be sent with a drop
of water to cool his tongue. The answer is that there is an insuperable bar to
all further intercourse on either side, an impassable gulf betwixt the place of
woe and Paradise. A very good argument indeed for the future existence, and
against the final restoration of the lost; but no argument at all for the
eternity of their sufferings. To such a thing there is no shade of allusion in
the reply of Abraham. The man is in a torment of the utmost intensity, and also
in an agony of concern about his surviving brothers. In these circumstances he
is informed that there is no possibility either of alleviation to himself or of
assistance to them. Such is literally the whole of the information in regard to
the future of the wicked which this case supplies. If any think that Abraham
might have volunteered some information regarding the decision of that judgment
day for which his petitioner was being reserved, we can only answer that we are
not surprised at his declining to assume to himself either the judicial or
prophetical function.
The Unquenchable Fire—Undying Worm—Everlasting
Judgment.
MARK 9. 43-48. This is a passage much relied on for
proving the doctrine in dispute. What it really does teach let us carefully
consider. "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to
enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the
unquenchable fire." But this is the fire which is elsewhere said to burn
up the chaff; and, as the New Testament uses the expression only there and in
the present passage, it cannot be unreasonable to regard it as here employed in
the same manner as we have already found it—especially when we see that the
comparison, which lay before between wheat and chaff, lies now between a body
preserved through the losing of a member, and a body which, for want of such
wholesome sacrifice, must itself perish, and that by being cast into the
unquenchable fire.
So far, then, there is nothing new here. But the
undying worm'— How' (it will be confidently asked) can you get over that as a
decisive proof of endless suffering?'
Now the question might be a little more formidable, if
the sentence ran as so frequently quoted, Where the worm dies not.' But every
semblance of difficulty is gone when, instead of the worm,' we read, "
Where their worm dies not." For, while ' the worm' might denote something
with an existence of its own, their worm' can have no existence independently
of those to whom it belongs. If their existence is endless, then so is that of
their undying worm. If, on the contrary, their existence has a certain fixed
term to run, their worm has the same. Nothing can be plainer than such
language, or surer than such a principle. For what is their worm'? The answer
even among the most orthodox will be that it is the sting of their accusing,
tormenting conscience. But what is that conscience except the capacity or
faculty for certain thought and feeling as inherent in the guilty sufferer? And
to say that a man's conscience will never cease to trouble him —or, keeping the
figure, that the gnawing worm will never cease to prey on him—simply means that
he shall so suffer as long as he lives. But upon the term of his existence,
short or long, temporary or endless, the expression throws no light whatever.
All information as to that must be obtained elsewhere, and applied here for
determining the duration of the worm.
Nor would the case be materially altered even if the
worm were regarded as a separate existence in the man. For it would still have
to derive its support and continuance from the vitals on which it fed; and
these, again, cane have no place, apart from the person whose they are. And
thus, to speak of any one as tormented by a worm which dies
not'— whether here or in another world—must simply mean that his misery is to
coexist with his being.
True, it may be said, but this very passage contains
within itself the proof that the existence of the lost is no temporary matter.
For " every one shall be salted with fire;"
and does not that indicate the preservation and continuance of the wicked in
the fire and by the fire—their term presumably coextending with the endless
duration of the fire itself? It indicates, we answer, not that at all, but the
very contrary. For the salt spoken of, instead of being used to preserve, only
added to the intensity of the flame by which the sacrifice was consumed. And
this will hold equally, whatever view we take of the sort of sacrifice alluded
to. It is sufficient, in short, to know that salt had nothing to do with fire
in the matter of sacrifice, except as now pointed out. So utterly at fault is
the argument drawn from this circumstance.
We now come to the solemn utterances in which our Lord
actually uses the word everlasting' in connection with the doom of the lost.
The expressions are three—Everlasting judgment, or condemnation (Mark 3. 29);
Everlasting punishment (Matt. 25. 46); The everlasting fire (Matt. 18. 8; 25. 41).
We commence with the first—only premising, what will come out more fully
afterwards, that in each case we take the word everlasting' in its full sense
of endless.
The passage runs thus —" He that shall blaspheme against
the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness (hath no forgiveness forever) but is
liable to everlasting condemnation." In Matt. 12. 32 the language in
regard to the same sin stands thus —"It shall not be forgiven him; neither
in this world, neither in the world to come."
Here, then, in the expression, everlasting
condemnation' or 'judgment,' we have a noun denoting a distinct act coupled
with an adjective expressing endless duration. Now the act cannot, in the
nature of things, last forever; for, as soon as the sentence is passed, the act
is over. And yet the condemnation is spoken of as everlasting. What, then, can
this mean, except that the sentence is everlasting in its consequences? But
what are these? That is another question, and to be answered from other
sources. Meanwhile the information is that the result of the sentence is
endless—for the simple reason that the sentence itself is not capable of being
so regarded. Such therefore—without the least reason for calling it a
subterfuge—without its being even an inference from the statement—is really the
meaning of the language in question. Suppose, then, the same teacher to have
taught over and over again that the unsaved man perishes'—that the body and
soul of such shall be cast into hell and there ‘destroyed'—cast into the fire,
just like the tares which are burnt up' at harvest time—suppose Him to have
taught all this, and much more to the same purpose—suppose Him even to have
spoken of " the damnation of hell" in connection with these other
references to it—what alternative is left us but to conclude that, in now,
speaking of 'everlasting judgment,' He means a judgment of which the result
is—in the very definite language of His own Apostle—' everlasting destruction'?
And what objection can be brought against our thus
taking judgment' as being what it really is, namely, an act capable of being
characterized as ‘everlasting' only in respect of its result—that result being,
not endless suffering, but the irremediable ruin which so many statements and
illustrations declare it to be? What one objection, we say, can be brought
against our thus regarding the matter, except it be the idea that there is some
incongruity between everlasting condemnation,' and the state of souls not
endowed with immortality? But suppose that the destruction which might have
been reparable and temporary is, on the other hand, irreparable and
everlasting, is not the condemnation to such destruction properly called an
everlasting condemnation'? And thus if it should be urged that, on the same
principle, every capital sentence ever passed might be called an everlasting
judgment'—the answer is simply this, that no such judgment is or can be
everlasting, since it clearly extends only to what would otherwise have been
the term of the criminal's natural life. And thus there is betwixt all such
cases and God's everlasting judgment' a difference as wide as betwixt time and
eternity. In the one, a human body has lost a life of which the longest
possible term was but a span. In the other, a human being has lost a life with which
was bound up a capacity for everlasting bliss. The earthly judge thus sentences
to an evil of a day; the Heavenly to one that is most truly everlasting.
So much for the expression everlasting condemnation'
or judgment.' We must not omit to notice, however, that there is a much
approved reading of the passage with giving the sense, is guilty of everlasting
sin.' Now this, in the view of some, furnishes a fresh argument for endless
suffering. For, if sin, as to the practice of it, be everlasting, then, as they
rightly argue, so must be its consequences. But what hint is there here of the
everlasting practice of sin? For if the thing spoken of be really sin ' instead
of condemnation,' then it is no other than the sin against the Holy Ghost.' It
is strictly of this sin, as already committed, that there is no forgiveness. It
is this that is spoken of as everlasting; and on what possible principle but
the one we have been upholding already, namely, that its consequences are
endless?
Everlasting Punishment.
WE come now to a passage commonly regarded as
altogether decisive and unanswerable,—" These shall go away into
everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." (Matt. 25. 46.)
To settle the whole question, indeed, it is thought sufficient to assert that
if punishment be not everlasting, neither is the life of the righteous, nor yet
the kingdom and glory of God—the duration of all these being announced in
precisely the same language.
Now, as to the punishment being strictly everlasting,
we have no difficulty and no doubt. But there is a fallacy in assuming, as is
so commonly done, that punishment' and suffering' are of necessity identical.
For surely a capital punishment would still be a punishment, even though
carried out in the absence of suffering. And, granting it to be accompanied
with ever so much of pain, no one would plead that the punishment necessarily
came to an end with the end of that accompaniment. Suppose a young, vigorous
life penally cut short—who would regard the punishment as at an end with the
last gasp of the sufferer? What more proper than to measure it by this, as at
least one element in the case, namely, the natural duration of honor and joy
that has been interrupted by the judicial infliction? And what difference would
it make in the principle of our reckoning, if—instead of the natural
probability of a certain indefinite time—we could know that no less a term than
fifty years of happy life was cut short by the executioner's stroke? Should we
not at once, in such a case, regard the punishment as being extended over the
same term? Or would it seem strange if the judge, so understanding the matter,
should sentence the offender to such a punishment? For if the loss of liberty
for fifty years would be a punishment of that duration, would not a similar
loss of life be a punishment equally prolonged? Extend the idea to any length
of time, and the principle remains intact. Extend it to eternity, and where is
the difference? To speak of the everlasting punishment of any one incapable of
everlasting existence would indeed be a mockery. If, on the other hand, man was
really destined, and still is fitted for such existence, but through rebellion,
impenitence, unbelief, is adjudged to the loss of it, so as to undergo a real
destruction, then what more fit than to speak of such a punishment as truly
everlasting'? Does not an Apostle combine the three ideas which are so
generally regarded as incompatible—the ideas, namely, of punishment,
destruction, and eternity—when he speaks of being "punished with
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord"? (2 Thess. 1. 9.)
Now if the Apostle thus formally and in the same
breath explains the punishment announced by him as destruction, did not our
Lord, if less formally, yet as distinctly, and far more fully, represent, under
the same aspect, the doom of the ungodly? If He did not, then our cause is
lost, and we have nothing more to say for it. But if He did, then what
alternative have we but to conclude that, when He spoke as here of everlasting
punishment,' He meant as elsewhere a punishment consisting of
destruction—destruction not for a term, as is conceivable indeed—such in short
as comes on the body through the first death—not this, but a destruction
irreversible and everlasting? And thus, as we contend, the whole scope of our
Lord's teaching, as well as its every statement on the subject, has fixed in
the clearest possible manner the character of the punishment announced by Him;
and should have rendered it forever impossible to impute to Him that doctrine
which is now regarded as so eminently Christian.
And not only so, but in this identical place has He,
by the mention of its opposite, furnished us with a key to the meaning of the
everlasting punishment spoken of. For that opposite is everlasting life—the
very thing so often set up as the alternative to perishing.' But if, as seems
so natural, and has been fully argued already, the gift of everlasting life'
involves the gift of an everlasting living' or existence, that is to say, a
true immortality—then it appears that all the everlasting living, or immortal
being, is for the righteous only
—the wicked going away into a condition from which the
idea of such living is utterly excluded. Prove, indeed, in defiance of all that
our Lord taught, the natural immortality of man; and then, from His words as
now before us, and some others besides, you can well prove the doctrine of
endless suffering also. But how tremendous the cost, and how bitter the
consequences of such a proof! For where are we if all His previous teaching
turns out so contrary to what it seemed and sounded? On the other hand, show,
as it seems so easy to do, that man as he now is is
not immortal, nor ever was made so by any divine arrangement; show that, on
account of sin, and by a judgment irreversible except through Christ, he
miserably but most really perishes—and then you show to a demonstration that
everlasting punishment consists truly and literally, as in the language of the
Apostle, in being "punished with everlasting destruction." For so
long as the destruction' set forth in the Bible is a real punishment,' then
just as clearly is 'everlasting destruction' an 'everlasting punishment.'
NOTE.
THE following, from an American writer, presents the
objection to the above as strongly, perhaps, as the case a limits of:—"Eternal
death, as the penalty of sin, in the sense of annihilation, is an intelligible
idea; but that would not be eternal punishment. The death itself, in the sense
of non-existence, would be eternal; but the punishment would be its own
limitation. It must cease when there was no longer a being to receive it. We
can as well conceive of a man as punished a thousand years before he begins to
be, as a thousand years after he has ceased to be."
Now we thought that betwixt penalty and punishment
there was the same relation as betwixt principle and fact. And, therefore, we
should have concluded that, where you could " conceive of eternal death as
a penalty," you could also conceive of "death as an eternal
punishment." But no, we are told, for the fact of being punished' involves
the element of existence, so as to preclude all correspondence between eternal
punishment' and the penalty of eternal death,' even in the sense in which the
latter has just been recognized as ' intelligible.'
Our answer is that the objection, as thus put, makes a
difficulty where there is none. For the idea under trial for intelligibility'
is not that of a non-existent person being punished, but of an existent person
being sentenced to a punishment, namely, that of eternal death. It is quite
true that we should not speak of a person as being punished after non-existence
had taken place. Nor do the Scripture statements present any difficulty to us
in this respect. For each of the two cases where punish' is found in connection
with 'eternity' represents the man, not as being eternally punished, but as
given up to the ' punishment of eternal death, as the penalty of sin'—in the
sense, as we understand it, of what this writer calls 'annihilation,' or the
Scripture, 'destruction.'
In regard to the last sentence of the quotation, let
us just ask of anyone who has been regarding it favorably—Can you, after
admitting that eternal death [in our sense], as the penalty of sin, is an
intelligible idea,' can you as well conceive of a man being given up to this a
thousand years before he was born as you can imagine him to continue given up
to it a thousand years after he has ceased to be? The one you admit to be an
'intelligible idea;' the other is, under every possible form, an impossibility.
How, then, are the two equally conceivable?
(punishment). This word has been so misrepresented
that it is of importance to note its true meaning. Originally it signified
corrective, as distinguished from vindicatory punishment;—the same relation as
between castigatio and intro. So Plato and Aristotle
explain the two. This distinction, however, soon ceased to be strictly
observed, for even Plato and Xenophon (Cyrop. 1. 2,
7) use them indiscriminately. Thus came to stand for punishment in general. Nor
does the other passage in which it occurs in the New Testament present any
other view—" Fear has" (1 John 4. 18), that is, a penal element
connected with it. This is borne out by the similar application of Greek in the
two places where it occurs, Acts 4. 21; 2 Peter 2. 9. We find it used of
capital punishment by Chrysostom. (Hom. on 2 Cor. v.)
And so do we find Greek used where the punishment is death. Thus in Wisdom of
Solomon (19. 4) we read that the Egyptians " were made to forget the
foregoing judgments, that they might fill up the punishment still wanting to
their torments." Again, it is said (3.4) " that the righteous, though
seeming in the eye of the senseless to die, or be punished, yet have a hope
full of immortality." In 2 Macc. 4. 38, the slaying of a murderer is
spoken of as the punishment due to him.
But what right do we thus get, it has been asked, to
say that 'crawls means annihilation'? No right at all. We simply say that it
means ' punishment ' —even though the punishment consists of ' death' or '
destruction,' as that of the Egyptians did. The word itself tells us nothing of
the mode in which the punishment is carried out. That must be elsewhere learnt.
The Everlasting Fire.
THIS expression occurs in two places—Matt. 18. 8,
" It is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than
having two hands or two feet to be cast into the everlasting fire; " and
25. 41, " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire."
In order to a right understanding of the former, two circumstances
may be noted. (1) The everlasting fire' is the same as " the fire that is
not quenched " in the parallel place, Mark 9. 43-48, the meaning of which
has been considered already. (2) Another parallel to our passage appears at
Matt. 5. 29 (see p. 110)—where we see plainly the design of casting the body
into hell — namely, to perish, as the amputated limb does. And thus, as it is
better to lose a limb by the knife and save the body, than to keep the limb and
lose the body; so, it is better (our Lord teaches) that sin be mortified by the
knife of grace, than the sinner destroyed by the , fire of judgment. Such is
the fair meaning of the passage, whatever may be the bearing of the word
everlasting' as applied to the fire. The fire is the instrument, in fact, by
which the Judge punishes and destroys the guilty;—through suffering, indeed,
and suffering fairly meted out to guilt—but not endless. For, surely, it is
hard to believe that the expressions in question were intended to teach an
immortality in suffering, when it is so difficult to establish on Scriptural
grounds any natural immortality at all. Is it not, on the other hand, as much
more reasonable and reverential, as it is more agreeable, to suppose that those
expressions were intended to be understood in the light of that doctrine which
seemed never absent from the Savior's mind—the doctrine of eternal life, as the
gift of God for the believing, and of a miserable, but real, destruction for
the unbelieving of mankind?
Why, then, is the fire called everlasting'?
To this it might be answered, 'Because its
consequences are so;' that is to say, because it is the means of effecting a
destruction which is everlasting. Nor would it be easy in the want of a better,
to set aside such a reply. It would be, at least, a harmless one, possibly
correct, and certainly not in conflict with the plain doctrine of Scripture, in
passages so many and varied regarding future punishment.
Or, it might be said that the fire is called
everlasting, because it is to continue while the sufferers exist. In favor of
which view the meaning of Greek might be urged, as applying frequently to the
entire duration of a company or individual. And such an answer would certainly,
like the other, have the merit of avoiding that serious conflict with another
great truth which the prevailing view involves.
It is difficult, however, to rest with either of these
answers. The first seems inadequate, because the ‘fire' is not a definite act,
event, or process, as condemnation' and destruction' are; and, therefore, we
are not in a position to plead that it can be everlasting only in its results.
The second answer fails, in not sufficiently bringing
out the connection designed between the fire and the glory, as regards their
duration. Besides which, we may venture to say that the word is nowhere found
throughout the New Testament in such a partial sense. But if this be so, it
will be hard to establish a plea for that sense in this single case—a case
demanding all the accuracy which must surely characterize the final sentence of
the divine Judge. Besides which, as we have seen, there is every reason to
accept of the strict and full sense of the word, in the kindred expressions
everlasting judgment,' everlasting punishment,' everlasting destruction.' And
thus the license which certainly belongs to the word in the Old Testament
cannot fairly be allowed to overrule all these demands for a stricter
interpretation of it in the New.
For how stands the case there? Three instances we
dismiss at once, as referring to the past ages or times, and therefore throwing
no light on its application to a coming eternity. (Rom. 16. 25; 2 Tim. 1. 9;
Titus 1. 2.) Another case may be questionable (Philem. 15);—for though it would
certainly be fair to consider the Apostle as alluding simply to a life-long
friendship, yet even here, if we with our cold hearts are in the habit of
speaking of an everlasting fellowship with one another, it seems hard to regard
the ardent Apostle as meaning less when he thus uses the word—hard to think of
him as applying such an expression to that which death might cut short in a
day. Dismissing, then, this case, we find the word used in the New Testament,
in regard to futurity, no less than 66 times. In 43 of these cases it is
eternal life' that is spoken of. In the remainder we have—' the everlasting God
the everlasting Spirit His eternal glory to whom be honor and power everlasting
'—‘ the everlasting kingdom eternal glory the everlasting covenant,'
salvation,' redemption," gospel," consolation.' Then we have—' the
eternal house,' habitations," inheritance,' weight of glory,' and things
unseen; '—leaving seven cases, in four of which there need be no question as to
whether a proper eternity is meant—namely, everlasting destruction' (2 Thess.
1. 9); judgment' (Mark 3. 29; Heb. 6. 2); and punishment' (Matt. 25. 46).
There now remain the three cases in which the word is
connected with fire;' one of these being in reference to Sodom, the other two
from our Lord's own mouth. Is it right, then, to overlook such a concurrence of
usage, and attach any but the otherwise universal sense to the expression in
question? Besides which, it would be difficult to answer the oft-put
question—If everlasting' means only a 'very long period,' in regard to the
fire, what security have we that it expresses a true eternity in regard to the
glory?
It might be argued indeed, that, as the everlasting
fire' in Matt. 18. 8 is the same as the unquenchable fire in Mark 9. 43; and,
as this latter is taken from a purely millennial scene in the Old Testament
(Isa. 66. 24), therefore its equivalent cannot reasonably be held as referring
to a strict eternity in the New. Still it remains true, that the sense of an
expression must be determined, not from the figure or circumstance which gave
rise to it, but from the use that is plainly made of it on the field to which
it has been transferred. We are thus constrained, by every consideration, to look
for more exactness and completeness in the words of our Lord than any of these
views admit of. How, then, are we to understand everlasting fire,' in
accordance at once with the genuine sense of the language, and with the
Scripture doctrine of immortality?
In attempting to answer this question, we point (1) to
the exceedingly definite character of the fire. It is not 'everlasting,' but
'the everlasting fire.' (Matt. 18. 8; 25. 41.) Even in Mark 9. 43-48, where we
read of ' their worm not dying,' it is still the fire that is not quenched.'
Does not this point to a fire independent of the guilty of mankind? Does it not
teach us that, while the worm, as already noticed, is entirely their own
—lasting, in short, while they last—the fire, on the other hand, is something
entirely apart from those who are cast into it—something which, as it was
before them, may well continue to exist after them? And the distinction thus
observed, is the more important, inasmuch as there is no trace of it in the
original prophecy —" Their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be
quenched." (Isa. 66. 24.)
(2) This fire, we are taught, is "the one
prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 25. 41.)
What, then, if there be a fire kindled by God for some
great purpose—a fire called THE EVERLASTING FIRE'—designed originally for the
first and most notorious of rebels—but into which, as well befitting them also,
sinful men may justly be cast 1 Why, in short, may we not suppose that, upon
the first outburst of rebellion among His creatures, the blessed God kindled a
fire—of some sort, we cannot tell what—in some place, we cannot tell where—but
distinctly expressive of His whole mind in regard to sin and its desert—a fire
which He designed to continue forever— and forever to proclaim that mind to the
intelligent universe? There is, indeed, a mystery about sin which the intellect
of man attempts in vain to fathom. But so long as there is a Lawgiver must His
law bind penalty to disobedience; and while penalty waits upon law must
punishment wait upon transgression. Are we going beyond either reason or
revelation, then, if we believe in a place as well as in a principle of
punishment?—a place long ago prepared, but not yet taken possession of even by
its proper inhabitants—a place, with its unquenchable fire, never itself to pass
away—and into which may be cast the deceived as well as the deceivers of the
great family of transgressors—even though not sharing in the eternity of the
fire itself.
Does it seem as if such an arrangement would be out of
keeping with the real character of sin, as nothing less than the creature's war
against the eternal order of the universe and government of the Most High? And
when, above all, we view this war in the light of the great propitiation;—when
we think of the God-man as eternally exhibiting in His own Person the tokens of
His atoning work, is it strange, or rather, does it not seem eminently fit,
that there should be, on the other side, a standing manifestation of that holy
wrath which sin drew forth, and to meet which the Redeemer died? That "
OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE" is as true as that " GOD IS LOVE."
Need we wonder, then, if this God has kindled a fire which He designs for an
everlasting expression, as regards sin, of that mind which has made for itself
another, and so strangely different an expression in the Cross? Is it strange
if there be kept up such a memorial of the ages that are past—such a warning
for the ages that are to come? Would it seem more fit that there should
entirely pass away, after a time, every trace of an evil so dreadful that only
the Cross could save from it? There is reason enough surely why we should
neither, on the one hand, object to the endlessness of the fire; nor, on the
other, to the limited existence of those who go into it—if our Lord has
distinctly affirmed the one, and has no less distinctly, however much more
frequently, signified the other.
But what propriety, it will be asked, can there be in
sending to an everlasting fire those who are not to last forever themselves?
And why not? They perfectly understand the peculiar intensity of the sentence;
and is not that enough? For, turning to ordinary matters, suppose a volcano as
burning from time immemorial, and as still having an indefinite period to
burn—would it be without meaning to adjudge criminals of a certain class to be
cast headlong into the boiling crater of the everlasting fire'? The great fact
of human mortality would prevent all misunderstanding, while it would take away
nothing from the severity of the sentence.
And here we must refer to the remarkable statement,
regarding eternal fire' by one of those who had been conversant with our Lord
upon earth, and had heard what He had uttered on the subject—" Even as
Sodom and Gomorrah are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of
eternal fire." (Jude 7.) But how do they suffer such a vengeance? Did they
not perish in the fire? Did not the fire even cease when it had done its work
upon them? And yet the fire'—not the fire of the world to come, but the actual
fire which Lot escaped and Abraham gazed on—is called eternal.' And they'—not
the disembodied inhabitants of in-visible realms, but the very Sodom and
Gomorrah so long steeped in the vileness of their occupants—these, as now a
blackened ruin, are represented as still suffering the vengeance of that fire.
But how was this, except that the pitchy traces of the scorching rain remained
behind as memorials of the judgment which had swept over the plain? May these
guilty cities, then, be thus spoken of by an Apostle of Christ as, even in his
time, " suffering the vengeance of eternal fire"? And may not the
wicked be said in a similar—though unspeakably more awful sense—to go away into
the everlasting fire'?
Or, taking the words in the precise order of the
original, and as some do in the hope of evading our conclusion—" Sodom and
Gomorrah are set forth as an example of eternal fire—suffering vengeance."
Thus will the burnt up plain furnish to all the world an example of the eternal
fire; if will show what kind of thing that fire is—as a fire utterly consuming
and destroying the transgressor, while yet leaving its own mark, and
maintaining its own action, after its victims are no more. A faint image
truly—and yet, says the Apostle, an example of that everlasting fire into which
his Lord had said that the wicked should depart
Apostolic Teaching.
IF such was the teaching of our Lord, how, we ask, was
it followed up by His Apostles? Did they, as guided by the Spirit into all
truth, supplement it, or develop it, or represent it in any other light than
that in which their Master had done? Did they, in a word, make the subject of
future punishment in the least degree more terrible, or more like the doctrine
of a wretched immortality than He had made it? Nay, rather, if we are to
compare the two, might it not seem (saying nothing now of the symbols of the
Apocalypse) as if the Apostles had been less disposed than their Master to
dwell upon the darker features of the case? But enough; this question has been
sufficiently answered from the other side. For it is a favorite sentiment, that
not one of the Bible preachers equals in awfulness the meek and lowly One
Himself.
Commencing, then, with the Apostolic teaching, as
recorded in ' the Acts,' what light do we find thrown upon the subject of the
sinner's ruin? It is all summed up, we answer, in a few words from one Apostle,
and the same from another.
Acts 3. 23, " Every soul which will not hear that
prophet shall be destroyed from among the people." How this last clause
came to stand in this connection with the prophecy of Moses (Deut. 18. 18, 19)
is not our question. Enough that the important word for 'destroy'—whether as
arising out of the real expression of Moses, or as added by the Apostle from
other sources—is as expressive a word as could have been found to denote entire
destruction,' in the sense of dissolution' and extinction.' To be satisfied of
this let any one observe the use of it in the kindred
passage, Dent. 7. 4, 10, 17, 23, 24. And thus, beyond doubt, if Moses had been
asked what he understood by Require it of him,' he would have answered, Destroy
him from among the people.'
Another expression, too important to be overlooked, is
where Peter says to the sorcerer, " Thy money perish (be for destruction)
with thee." There can be no doubt what sort of fate is invoked on the
money. It is nothing short of a real perishing, or ceasing to be Simon's. In no
stronger language could it have been signified, Let there be an end of thy
money.' And yet observe, it is in company with the man that the money is to
perish.; it is only bidden go the road which he is going already. We may thus
see the value of the very common question, Was the money annihilated?".
The passage from the other Apostle is this—"
Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish." (42. 41.) The word however
it got into the Sept. of Hab. 1. 5, is peculiarly expressive, and in the
writings of the prophets had no doubtful meaning. Enough to remark that such is
the Apostolic contrast to that "everlasting life" of which his Jewish
hearers " judged themselves unworthy "—the everlasting life for the
gaining of which a large portion of the city had come to be ' ordained,' or '
ordered ' as if in battle array. For there never was witnessed a grander conflict
than in that Pisidian city, when the place was divided between those who had
set their heart on things present and perishing, and those who, having chosen
eternal life for their portion, believed on the Lord Jesus as the one means of
securing it.
EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.
Can anyone doubt whether the writer of this Epistle
was acquainted with the views of futurity which generally obtained among the
Romans of his day? That these were not the sentiments of Plato is sufficiently
notorious. On the other hand, it is clear that, in so far as the Romans did
harmonize with that philosopher, the Apostle, if sharing in the same
sentiments, would never, by his sweeping assertion in regard to ' perishing' (2.
12), have assumed such an attitude of antagonism to those who held them. So
far, in short, as the question of an unconditional immortality (or let us say,
of a possible perishing) went, the Apostle, by that and other assertions,
plainly declared himself as agreeing with the Romans where they differed from
the Platonists. And so far, on the other hand, as it came to be a question of
retribution for all, and immortality for some, did he as decidedly proclaim the
most awful truth in opposition to the Epicureanism which as a flood had come in
upon Rome. Thus writing to the members of a community, at once acquainted with
the speculations of the Greeks, and aware of its own so widely different
sentiments, let us see how the Apostle addresses the Christians of Rome.
(1) Observe how he represents the judicial consequence
of sin as being death; —" Knowing the judgment of God, that they which
commit such things are worthy of death." (1. 32.) Now it can be no
deathless death,' or life in death,' that is, endless woe in separation from
God, of which he thus speaks. For it was not to that that the Gentile
conscience, as is here asserted, bore witness, but to something which the
parties in question were supposed to understand and acknowledge as their due.
Are we met with the objection that those Romans who anticipated nothing after
death made no distinction of persons, but talked or dreamed of that as the
final lot of all—the good as much as the bad? Precisely so; but what
acquaintance had men with goodness who could so speculate do the fate of those
supposed to be endowed with it? For when did anyone with a spirit of child-like
obedience to the Living God ever accept of condemnation to death as the best
that he dared to look for? And is it not equally plain, conversely regarded,
that the Epicurean theory of a universal death arose out of the tacit
recognition by conscience—however glossed over by philosophic pride —of a sin
and guilt equally universal?
Chap. 3. 23. " All have sinned, and come short of
the glory of God." And what but life everlasting is the glory of God' thus
missed and lost by all— even that glory which, as regained for him in Christ,
the believer is said to glory in the hope of? (5. 2.)
Chap. 5. 12-21. On this portion we refer to what has
been said above in chap.
Chap. 6. 21, 23. " The end of those things is death;"
—while of holiness and its fruit " the end is everlasting life."
" For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life
through Christ Jesus."
Chap. 8. 10. " If Christ be in you, the body is
dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." If
now it be allowed that the former of these statements refers to that bodily
death which has come on all through sin, then it seems that the other must
describe the way in which immortality comes to the spirit.
It only remains to add the testimony of 5. 13, "
If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." (On this see
p. 69 above.)
Such are the various statements in this Epistle
regarding death. We thus give them for comparison with the various statements
in other language to the same effect; and in order to a complete view of the
teaching as to future punishment. Our object is to ascertain whether the
Apostle gives any countenance to the view that every human being is naturally
destined to live forever.' And certainly his utterances in regard to death do
not seem to favor that belief.
(2) How, we ask, does he himself explain this death?
Does he give us any hint of his designing it to be taken as the wretched state
of an imperishable creature hopelessly estranged from God? No; whatever might
be in his mind, nothing of that sort escapes his pen. Instead of that, his
synonym for 'die' is 'perish;' and for 'death,' ‘destruction.' "
For," says he (still treating of the 'wages of sin'), "as many as
have sinned without law shall also perish without law." (2. 12.) Does
perish,' then, we must again ask, mean to continue forever imperishable in sin
and suffering'? For if so, then such an eternity is the inevitable doom of all
"who have sinned without law." After this, no one, professing to
abide by the Scripture, need say that he knows nothing about the future state
of the untaught heathen. For we are plainly enough told that they shall perish.
Now perish' must mean here just what it means elsewhere. And so if it be used
in other places to describe the hopeless misery of unsaved, immortal,
Israelites, it can mean nothing else when applied to the case of the sinning,
but not saved, immortal, heathen. If, on the other hand, there be those who
feel that reason and righteousness alike revolt from so strange an application
of the word in this case, then they are bound to reject all such application of
it in every case. For if it cannot denote endless woe here, neither can it
anywhere.
We come now to the solemn words in chap. 9. 22, "
What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured
with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" How
this passage has harassed, let us say tormented, some of the most devout and
thoughtful minds, need not be told here. And no wonder, so long as those minds
are ruled by the belief that destruction' means the consigning to endless woe.
Nor need it much surprise us if others have had their dislike of God's electing
grace deepened by such a view of that word;—while others again, by the same
means, have had their hearts fearfully embittered against God Himself. Only
allow, on the other hand, the very definite word destruction' to determine the
meaning, and all the difficulty is gone which springs from the idea of eternal
torment' as the end of the divine procedure described.
But it is not the word only; the context as plainly
teaches the same. For there we find Pharaoh set up as one of the most fearful
examples of the principle that was being illustrated; and Pharaoh, we know, was
destroyed. Yes, and that in no forced or unnatural sense, but simply and
literally destroyed. Then we have the illustration of the potter doing as he
will with the clay—part of his liberty and practice being to destroy vessel after
vessel when they displease him. And if, in reply to this view, we be told that
the potter, as here represented, does not destroy at all, but simply makes one
vessel to honor and another to dishonor, our answer is that the " making
to dishonor" has no resemblance to the supposed consigning to endless woe;
whereas the actual destroying of souls is the most effective possible bringing
of them to dishonor. And thus—while the vessel " made unto honor"
furnishes, from the extreme delight which it gives to the potter, a lively
image of the pleasure which the divine Artificer takes in saved souls—the
vessel "unto dishonor" represents the rejection and destruction of
others, instead of an endless antagonism in them to Him, as giving rise to
endless vengeance on His side, and endless suffering on theirs. And, once more,
there is in the same illustration a reference to ‘glory' which, as we have
already seen, is the proper equivalent of everlasting life, even as here it is
the opposite of destruction.
Still further, in illustration of the destruction
spoken of, the Apostle quotes a prophet as saying, "Except the Lord had
left us a seed, we had been as Sodom, and had been made like unto
Gomorrah." But what picture could be drawn more decisive of actual
destruction? And clearly in the same sense are we to accept the other
quotation, " Though the number of the children of Israel be, as the sand
of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." Thus everything conspires to rescue
the critical word destruction' in that most alarming passage from any except
its direct proper meaning.
There is one case, however, in the Epistle which is
thought to justify the new and peculiar sense ascribed to destroy.' That sense
is thus given by Schleusner in his New Testament
Lexicon—" I make miserable; inflict punishment; cause trouble and vexation;
"—under which meaning he ranges the important passages, Matt. 10. 28; 18. 14;
John 3. 15, 16; Rom. 2. 12. And why? Because in Rom. 14. 15 the expression,
" Destroy not with thy meat " occurs after, " If thy brother be
grieved with thy meat "—thus showing an analogy between destroying' and
grieving; ' and because in 1 Cor. 8. 11, 13, perish ' and scandalize ' are
similarly connected! Extraordinary argument—as if one could not be first
grieved, and then destroyed, without the word ‘destroyed' meaning ‘grieved'!
Why not as well pronounce that ‘grieve' has in the New Testament the peculiar
sense of destroy'? And equally strange is it to argue that— because the Apostle
exhorts the Corinthians to do nothing " by which a weak brother might
perish"—adding that he himself is determined to avoid 'whatever might even
stumble him—therefore perish' comes to have the sense of being stumbled'! Why
not as well say that stumbled' has in this place the peculiar meaning ‘perish'?
And yet such is actually the style in which a learned lexicographer and
theologian strives to show, from New Testament usage, that has the sense of
making miserable '— because in one case it is associated with grieve,' and in
another with ‘scandalize'! And on such grounds we are asked to believe that
when our Lord and His Apostles, in referring to sinful men, spoke of perishing'
and destroying,' they meant something utterly different from what was ever
meant by the same language in any other case!
But, apart from such extraordinary reasoning, these
two passages are so much relied on for supporting the peculiar view taken of
that we cannot leave them without trying to show what they really do mean.
Why then, we ask, should not destroy,' in Romans 14. 15,
mean what it means in an ordinary way? The answer will probably be—Because in
this case it cannot mean put an end to,' and therefore must mean something like
injure," distress," annoy.' Now surely if the Apostle had meant to
suggest any such thought, he could easily have got a suitable word for
it—especially as we find him, in the very passages alleged, speak freely of ‘grieving,'
‘stumbling,' ‘wounding.' Might not this satisfy us that if to these he adds
destroy,' he means that as well? And why should he not? It was a temptation to
no less than idolatry that was being addressed to a brother. Why should not
that, then, be spoken of as tending to destroy' in the very utmost sense? For,
be it observed, the real question now is, whether the word is here used in its
utmost sense, not what that precisely is. The design of those who employ the
passage against us is not to give an instance of the full sense from their
point of view, but simply to set aside ours as the necessary one. And then, as
soon as the sense of ' distress' is made out, it seems easy to add to it the
idea eternally.' A hazardous process surely of arriving at truth!
First, to take a word in a new, but very modified,
sense, and from this to deduce an intensification of that sense to an
incalculable degree, through some new association under which the word has now
come. Suffice it, however, for settling the entire case, that he who
deliberately tempts to sin goes about to destroy. The question is as to his
action, not his success. Just as when in the same passage it is said, "For
meat destroy not the work of God." It is just as if, seeing a good work
endangered by the introduction of certain foolish ceremonies, we should say, Do
not for trifles like these be destroying the work of God'—by which we should
mean no less than the breaking it up and bringing it to an end; and that, even
though satisfied that no real work of God could actually be destroyed.
The same will apply to the use of the word perish' in
1 Cor. 8. 11. For the perishing' of the brother in the fullest sense—possible
or impossible as that may be regarded—would be the genuine fruit of the conduct
pursued towards him. And it is surely more reasonable to understand the word in
this case from the many others which present it to us directly, than to tamper
with the sense of it in those others, because of an assumed difficulty in
adjusting to the full measure of that a case so partial and indirect as the
present one.
(3) We have now seen how the words die' and death,"
perish' and destruction,' are employed to express the doom of sinners. But it
may be that the Epistle contains at the same time some intimation of
immortality sufficient to justify the peculiar meaning assigned to those terms;—enough,
in short, to prove that, as referring to undying beings, death' means a
deathless existence in evil,' and perish' an imperishable existence in misery.'
The Epistle does contain an express notice of immortality, but not of that
sort. Immortality, as we saw above, is here presented to us, not as the natural
endowment of all, but as the reward of those who rightly seek it,—" To
those who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and
immortality (He will render) eternal life." (2. 7. See on this passage p.
36 above.)
(4) Once more—to show what is involved in this dying,'
‘perishing,' losing of immortality'— we find that " On those who obey
unrighteousness there shall come indignation and wrath, tribulation and
anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of
the Gentile." 8, 9.) Very dreadful truly! But still not a word or hint in regard to
everlasting suffering; — nothing but what is strictly consistent with the most
straightforward view of perish' in the context.
(Perish, Destroy,) In The Epistles To The Corinthians.
IN these writings the Apostle of the Gentiles uses
this word nine times—besides connecting with the information thus conveyed
certain kindred statements of the most decisive character. Now the sense in
which the term was regularly employed among his Greek readers, admits of no
question. It meant perish' and destroy,' in the sense of coming to,' and bringing
to' an end. But, while this is too notorious to require proof, there is one
circumstance which deserves special notice; and that is the constant employment
of the word by Plato, when discussing this very question of the perishing' of
the soul.' That the soul cannot perish' he is constantly arguing throughout one
elaborate treatise, and occasionally in others.' That it can, ‘perish' our
Master, using the very same terms, had as positively declared, and is now
followed by His Apostle teaching the same truth in similar language. Thus was
the Greek reader of the New Testament familiar not only with the word in this
its natural sense, but with this particular train of thought in connection with
it.
See, then, how the writer employs the word. " The
preaching of the Cross," says he, "is to them that perish
foolishness," (1. 18.) What he means by this should be plain enough from
the usage just referred to, unless there be other considerations sufficient to
counterbalance that, and establish a different meaning. And it would require
strong evidence indeed to show that the word, which elsewhere regularly means
to come to an end,' means as regularly in the New Testament to be endlessly bad
and wretched.' What evidence, then, had ever been presented to the Corinthians
for this extraordinary revolution in language? They may have accepted Plato's
doctrine of the soul's imperishability, or they may not. But they certainly understood
as he did the word by which he had expressed his belief.
Leaving, then, the universal Greek usage of the word,
do we find in these Epistles any trace of the new sense attempted to be put
upon it? On the contrary, we find it in the very next verse, under the active
form destroy' used as everywhere else, in the sense of bringing to an
end'—" I will destroy the wisdom of the wise." And so in another
chapter—" They were destroyed (perished) by serpents"—" They
were destroyed by the destroyer." (10. 9, 10.) The passage about the weak
brother perishing, in chap. 8. 11, can throw no light on the sense of the term.
What it means elsewhere it must mean there'
In the second Epistle we find a recurrence to the same
expression as denoting the condition of the unsaved—We are a sweet savor of
Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish." (2. 15.) Now,
besides the well-ascertained sense of the word, we have in this passage the
vitally important circumstance that the triumphal scene, as here employed in
illustration of human bliss and woe, derived its peculiar solemnity just from
the presence in it of the saved and the perishing—of those, that is to say,
whose lives were granted to them by the lordly conqueror, and those who in the course
of the pageant were to be cut off and pass away. Could a Corinthian doubt after
this whether to retain or reject his life-long understanding of the word ‘perish'?
And what it meant in this case it certainly meant where we read—" If our
gospel be hid, it is hid to the perishing." (4. 3.) And so when we read a
few verses onward, " We are cast down, but not destroyed," we have no
difficulty in adapting, as is needful at times with all words, the general
sense of the expression to the idea specially designed; namely, that, whoever
might come to destruction, it was certainly not the faithful soldiers of
Christ.
Turning now to 1 Cor. xv., we find some very material
help in our enquiry. It is true that the direct subject is the resurrection of
the bodies of believers. But what if there be indications as plain that the
immortality of their souls stands on precisely the same ground; namely, union
with the risen Savior? " If there be"—is the argument—" no
resurrection of the dead," then there was no resurrection of Christ—then
the gospel is a lie, and salvation a dream—" then they also which are
fallen asleep in Christ are perished;"—for after all that we have
believed, hoped, done, "we are yet in our sins." We had fondly
fancied, indeed, that the salvation of our departed ones was secured, and their
happiness begun. But, alas! it is all delusion. They have perished like others,—just
as they must have perished had there been no Christ. to save them. Now it
cannot be denied that the conclusion thus indicated would involve a total ruin
of soul as well as of body. But what sort of ruin? That which we understand by
destruction'?—or a ruin supposed to consist in the ceaseless doing and
suffering of evil? This is the question; and the passage which suggests it
furnishes important assistance towards the answer. For (1) we have the very
definite expression perished, as fixing the character of the destruction. (2)
We have that expression as applied to body and soul in common. Now as to the
former, the perishing' spoken of would certainly prove at some time or other
the end of it. Can we believe, then, that in regard to the soul the same perishing,'
instead of being its end, was to be, on the contrary, a misery without end? Is
it possible that the Apostle, in arguing against Greeks who were so hopelessly
confused on the whole subject of the future life, could have written in such a
style—using this one term to express the ruin of the entire man, if all the
time he had held that, with Christ or without Him alike, there was no
possibility of any such perishing' of the soul as, beyond a doubt, he meant to
affirm of the body? (3) There is still another consideration which forces us to
the same conclusion. It springs from the 32nd verse, where the argument is
this—' What profit is there in all my sufferings, " if so be that the dead
rise not?" What better, in that case, can I say than, " Let us eat
and drink, for to-morrow we die "'? For observe, the alternative, as it
plainly appears to his mind, is not between, a happy and an unhappy
immortality, but between the immortality which he was actually expecting and no
immortality at all. But how so? Would not even Socrates have taught him that,
after all the miseries of this life, and the wreck of the corrupt and
corrupting body, there was a happy futurity, perhaps immortality, for the
emancipated spirit?—yea that, only with the removal and dissolution of the
body, the spirit's true life commenced? But no—the Christian Apostle is
impervious to all the theorizing of the philosopher. In the absence of his Savior's
resurrection, the entire ground as to futurity is gone from under him; nor is
there aught left in nature or its religion to take the place of it. Immortality
with Christ, or extinction without Him—such is the teaching of Paul. Deprive
this Christian man of Christ, and henceforth Epicurus, not Socrates, becomes
his companion,—" Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."
Thus decisively does the Apostle settle what he meant
by that perishing ' which, apart from the Savior's resurrection, he had
pronounced to be the fate of all the departed. Thus distinctly does he—as the
only alternative to Christian hope—deliberately accept of a principle so
abhorrent to his exalted nature. For he finds himself, in the case imagined,
absolutely forced to give in his adhesion to the well-known maxim which so
unambiguously expresses the utter extinction of the human being. Let us now
then, with this in view, calmly determine what is the treatment due to the
doctrine of the never-dying soul.' Having thus found Paul accepting, as apart
from Christ, the Epicurean in opposition to the Platonic principle—whether
shall we rank him with those who have believed in an unconditional, universal,
natural, immortality; or with those who can see no evidence of immortality at
all for any of our fallen race, except such only as shall have obtained a new
life through the death and resurrection of their Redeemer?
And now in connection with all this, we must still ask
attention to some expressions in the sequel of the Apostle's argument (verses 45,
47-49).
It is plain that the object here is to point out
succinctly the vast difference in the inheritance of men, as it comes to them
through the first Adam, or through the Second. The former was only " a
living soul," and could give no more than he had got. The latter is "
a life-giving Spirit " in the highest possible sense. The one was earthy;'
the other is heavenly'—each communicating his peculiar image to all the members
of his numerous family. But the ‘image' of the heavenly Adam certainly
involves, in all who possess it, an ever-lasting existence of the purest order.
Such is the life predicated of all believers in Christ. Does it seem, then, as
if there were also room for the same everlasting existence— only without the
happiness—apart from Christ? Does it seem that the living soul' which comes to
us through the earthly Adam is a never-dying soul,' equally with the immortal
spirit' which furnishes an essential element in the image of the heavenly? For
observe, if through the first Adam we get a soul, we get also a body which is called
‘soulish,' or ‘natural; ' and that body dies; while, at the same time, there is
a body which is spiritual, and which never dies. Now surely all this teaches us
that Adam was earthly, and (in so far as he was liable to sin) perishable, not
only as having a soulish ' body, but as being himself a living soul.' And his
earthly image' we, in the first instance, bear; that is to say, like him we are
perishable in regard to body and soul alike. Sinlessness, indeed, would have
given him immortality; or, which is the same thing, sin took it away; and
taking it from him, it took it from us. What becomes, then, of the very sharp
distinction so commonly made between the dying body' and the ‘never-dying soul'?
Does it not rather seem that, apart from Christ, all is death, and that only,
in connection with Him, is there life at all, whether for soul or body—life,
that is to say, in the sense of immortality—the immortality so clearly spoken
of in the present passage—an immortality never disjoined from holiness, and the
consequent blessedness? And thus, instead of confining himself simply to the
body, as the mere argument would have allowed him to do, is it not plain that
the Apostle takes man as man—not, as a Plato or a Butler would do, with some
natural immortality, more or less, of this kind or that, but as all dying in
the first Adam, or all alive in the Second?
Remaining Epistles Of Paul.
HITHERTO we have found in the Pauline Epistles no
trace of the doctrine of an endless existence in misery. Let us see whether
there is anything more like it in the remaining ones. Our question, be it
remembered, is not whether there may be found in these any expressions reconcilable
with such a belief, supposing that to be otherwise announced;—but whether there
is, either in the general tone of thought throughout, or in the special meaning
of such expressions, anything involving that belief.
The following are the references to divine retribution
in the coming world as contained in these writings.
Gal. 5. 21. " They which do such things shall not
inherit the kingdom of God."
Chap. 6. 8. " He that soweth to his flesh shall
of the flesh reap corruption "—as contrasted with " reaping life
everlasting."
In two of the following Epistles the allusion to
future evil is contained in the statement that the doer of certain things
" hath no inheritance in the kingdom of God;" but that, on the
contrary, " the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience."
(Eph. 5. 5, 6; Col. 3. 6.)
In the Epistle to the Philippians we find two
references to destruction—" which is to them an evident token of
perdition;" "whose end is destruction." (1. 28; 3. 19.) The
allusion in the first case is to an army in battle gathering, from the progress
of the fight, a clear token of its own victory, and of the destruction of the
foe. In the other case the entire style of the passage is such as to call for a
very matter-of-fact view of the destruction intimated—in' opposition to the
style of exposition which would bring out the idea of misery without end, or an
existence ruined for all good, but still indestructible in evil.
In the Epistles to the Thessalonians the references
are more numerous, one of them being the very strongest in the writings of this
Apostle. In that case he evidently expends at once all the thought and
sentiment which he had to utter on the subject. The passages are these: In the
first Epistle (chap. 1. 10) we read of " the wrath to come," from
which Jesus delivers, and which " to the uttermost " is coming upon
those Jews who refuse the Deliverer. (2. 16.) " God has not appointed us
to wrath" (it is again announced), " but to obtain salvation by our
Lord Jesus Christ." (5. 9.) On the other hand, when the careless world is
lulling itself to sleep, " then sudden destruction cometh upon them, and
they shall not escape." (5. 3.)
In the next Epistle comes the picture in which the Apostle
develops what had been all along in his mind, whether as regarded wrath or
glory; and in which he exhibits these in the darkest or brightest colors
anywhere employed by him.
" The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not
God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be
punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from
the glory of His power." (1. 7-9.)
"Destruction (says Mr. Hinton) is a punitive
banishment from the presence of the Lord Jesus, and exclusion from those
displays of His glory which will constitute so large a portion of the
blessedness of His saints." (Works, 3. p. 26.) Why, then, not at once have
said 'banishment' or exclusion'—either of which would have exactly expressed
the sense intended—instead of using a word which, whatever may be intended by
it, certainly expresses something else, or sounds as if it did P
Everlasting destruction—let us see if we can discover
any element of uncertainty as to the meaning of these words. What that would
be, had they been spoken by a common author of any common thing, would admit of
no doubt. Does it admit of any here? Thus, suppose we are told that Sodom or
Babylon has been visited with an everlasting destruction—what is our
understanding of the statement, but that its end is complete, and its doom
irreversible? Jerusalem's destruction, on the other hand, although as complete,
was not everlasting. And so it rose up from its ruins, and will yet rise to
outshine all its past. Is it needful to say that destruction' was not
annihilation' in any of these cases—while yet the disorganization was so
thorough that the original object, whether for a time or forever, ceased to be?
Babylon might demand centuries for its dissolution, and may have furnished the
material for cities large and famous; but it has been as completely destroyed
as was Sodom, although that came to its end in a day, leaving only a smoking
furnace behind. So we have heard of a world being destroyed; nor should we ever
raise a question as to the meaning of " everlasting destruction," if
affirmed of it—even though quite aware that its fragments were still in
existence and circling somewhere in space.
True, it may be said cities can be thus destroyed, and
worlds can be thus destroyed, but not men. It must be in another sense that
they are ‘destroyed.' Why, then, we ask, if the word is inapplicable, is it
applied? Why, if the thing is impossible, is it affirmed? And then, as we must
also ask—what is the other sense thus quietly assumed?
It is, we shall be told, such an overthrow and
confusion as destroys all that formed the man's well-being —thus giving him up
as the hopeless victim of an unmitigated and endless wretchedness. And in this
sense the man is said to be everlastingly destroyed—because in this sense alone
can everlasting destruction be possible for an immortal being.
Most truly it would be so; and therefore, since we
must believe (so long as we believe the Bible) in a genuine destruction of
disobedient, unbelieving, unsaved men—which this is not—we must decline to
believe in that unconditional immortality which would
make the destruction affirmed impossible. We must
believe, in short, that destruction' when affirmed of men, in no loose,
excited, rhetorical style—but with all the calmness and precision of a judicial
utterance, indicates somehow or other the bringing to an end—however long the
period or terrible the shock. For we cannot believe that it indicates an act in
everlasting progress—always proceeding, but never effected— a ceaseless round
of destroying, destroying, destroying—without any symptom or possibility of the
result as indicated by the decisive word destroyed.' And if it be said in
answer—' Yes, the actual, complete destruction took place at once, even with
the passing of the sentence;—all that now follows being but the result of
that.' And thus you too hold, it appears, the very thing that we have contended
for in regard to everlasting condemnation, namely, that everlasting
destruction, instead of being an everlasting process, really indicates an act
of which the consequences are everlasting! To this you feel driven, it seems,
by the natural force of the language. And, if you wish to be ruled by that, you
will have to go one step further, and confess that—however an object may be
spoken of as incurably marred or injured, and as suffering accordingly, during
the whole course of its future being—nothing is ever spoken of as in the full
sense 'destroyed,' except where the design is to represent it as coming to an
end, in regard to that which constituted its very being or existence. A machine
or an animal may be thus marred or injured, and may give or suffer extreme
inconvenience, without by any means coming to an end. But you can with no
propriety say that any such thing is destroyed, so long as it continues to wear
the form, and discharge, however badly and hurtfully, the function connected
with its formation. Thus it might be an animal which had lost all that was good
and useful, and had taken to the work of devouring all that came near it, or in
default of that—itself. Such a creature may have been incurably injured;
destroyed—it has not been.
Or suppose you find, after traversing the length and
breadth of English literature, some instances where destruction is used in a
looser sense than we are now insisting on—what have you gained? Nothing at all.
You have still to show that in such a loose sense the Jew or the Greek would,
or could, understand the expression, as so solemnly and explicitly used by the
Apostle.
The Jew—how would he understand it, but as he had
invariably understood the ' destruction' of which his own Scriptures were full?
For, whatever might, as to the future, be in reserve for the sinners spoken of
as destroyed throughout the Old Testament—of that future no account was taken
in such descriptions. Enough that a complete destruction was effected on this
visible stage to which the description referred.
And not only was the general idea of destruction so
distinctly marked in the Jewish mind, but there was the special connection of
that with the idea of endless duration which we find in our passage. Thus,
" Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that he
perish forever." (Numb. 24. 20.) " God shall destroy thee forever: He
shall take thee away, and root thee out of the land of the living." (Ps. 52.
5.) " When the wicked spring as the grass, it is that they shall be
destroyed forever." (Ps. 92. 7.)
And the Greek—how was it possible for him to
understand the Apostle in any sense but ours? He was well aware of the long
unsettled dispute among the philosophers as to this very subject of ‘destruction:
Plato had largely discussed the question, 'Whether the dissolution of the body
brings destruction to the soul,' using in his discussion the very word which
our passage employs—and meaning by the question, whether, through natural
death, the soul should cease to be. He had also in the same section argued, or
rather assumed as a truism, that " if the immortal be also indestructible,
it is impossible for the soul, when death approaches it, to perish."
Such was the usage with which the Greek reader was
familiar. And hence, the interpretation now so common, and in whose interest
our view meets with such pitiless contempt, would, we venture to assert, be to
him simply impossible. For never could the idea have found an entrance into his
mind that the destruction of anyone could mean, not the bringing him to an end,
but an act continued and repeated throughout eternity, with a view to the
destroying simply the happiness or wellbeing of one whose own being was
indestructible. Such a thought would be as foreign to the mind of a Greek when
reading the Apostle, as to that of a Jew when reading in the Psalmist the words
which probably suggested the others to the Apostle—" As wax melts before
the fire, so let the wicked perish from the presence of the Lord." (Ps. 67.
2.)
If such then be—as in accordance with all sound
principle and analogy—the sense in which the Apostle speaks of destruction,' it
is of consequence to observe that he speaks of being punished with it. And if
destruction' can be spoken of as punishment,' then everlasting destruction' is
an everlasting punishment.'
In the same Epistle we have further notices of future
retribution. Let us see whether they confirm or correct the impressions already
received. The subject of the picture is the Man of sin, to whom is given the
corresponding title of the Son of perdition. That is to say, his work is Sin,
pure and simple; and his end is perdition, equally unmitigated. This second
title is one that obliges us to think of Judas—and that remembrance obliges us
to another one, namely, where Jesus, in His mention of the son of perdition,
says, " Except him, I have lost none." But not only this, the son of
perdition undergoes a judgment, pictured to us by expressions distinctly
significant of utter destruction in the simple and natural sense of that
word—" Whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and
destroy (Karapylicre0 with the brightness of His coming."
And, as with the leader, so with his followers. He
operates "with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that
perish"—" who received not the love of the truth that they might be
saved;—that they all might be damned who had pleasure in
unrighteous-ness." (2 Thess. 2. 3, 8, 10, 12.)
In the next Epistle (1 Tim. 6. 9) we read of "
foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition".
The former of these words may be regarded as pointing to the destroying process
or agent, and the latter to the result. Hence is often used for havoc, or
carnage; the two ideas being sometimes combined by the use of both words as in
Prov. 1. 26. 3 Thus in the case before us the lusts ' first ruin by their
destructive action, and then bring their miserable victim to the loss of his
very self. The figure of drowning also seems to embrace these ideas of process
and result, as expressed by the terms, thus pointing to the pool in which the
lovers of money are drowned.
NOTE.
The following dilemma in regard to destruction, as
given by Dr. Angus, is worthy of notice.—" Most who hold ultimate
annihilation hold that it is preceded by years or ages of suffering. Either
these ages of suffering are 'the destruction,' or they are not. If they are,
then, clearly, destruction is consistent with continued life. If they are not
the destruction, but only precede it, then the destruction is not inflicted
when Christ comes, as it is said to be. (2 Thew. 1. 9.) . . . . From one or
other of these conclusions I see no escape."
The dilemma is probably as good a one as the case
admits; but the escape from it is easy. The alternative (as given in italics)
is not exhaustive, but omits the very thing which we hold to be the
truth—namely, that "the ages" in question neither simply are the
"destruction," or are not—but are partly the one and partly the
other. It is true that they only precede the destruction as consummated.
It is equally true that they form a part of it as in
progress.
The same auth or thus gives his view of destruction:'—"
Destruction is the opposite of salvation, just as life is the opposite of
death; so that as salvation is not merely continued life, neither is
destruction the cessation of life. Each is both present and future, and the
future of each is only the present in its blessed or its awful completeness."
Repeat here the indispensable word merely,' and the conclusion will stand thus:
"Neither is destruction MERELY the cessation of life." In this form I
heartily accept the argument; but in such a form it is of no use to Dr. Angus.
Apostolic Doctrine Of Destruction Concluded.
IN the Epistle to the Hebrews we find the
following—" How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? " (2.
3.) " So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest." (3.
11, etc.) " The ground which bears thorns and briers is rejected, and is
nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned." (6. 8.) That is to say, the
ground that defied all attempts at improvement was, with its worthless
productions, given up to the fire and finally abandoned.
Very observable is the awful passage in the tenth
chapter. Mark how far its language leads us. " There remains," we are
told (verse 26) " no more sacrifice," and consequently no pardon, for
the willful sins of those who renounce the truth which they had once embraced;
but, on the contrary, " a certain fearful locking for of judgment, and
fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries." True, the word here
used is not burn up,' or consume;' it is not even 'eat up,' but simply eat.'
Enough that no fire such as is here described ever does aught in the way of
'eating' except to devour' or consume;'—besides which the fire in question can
be no other than the wrath of Him who is "a consuming fire." (12.
29.) And such is the sorer punishment' in store for him who hath trodden underfoot
the Son of God, and done despite to the Spirit of grace; sorer' than was
adjudged to him who, having " despised Moses' law, died without
mercy." A strange sort of expression truly, and a strange style of
illustration, if the secret meaning had been that, whereas the Old Testament
sinner had to die,' the New Testament sinner was adjudged to the endless misery
of an undying state! Strange indeed, that such a punishment, instead of being
held forth as utterly incommensurable with the other, because infinitely worse,
should be spoken of as simply sorer,' and be described as arising from a
devouring' fire! And yet such is the connection in which we find even a word so
dreadful as that—" Vengeance belongs unto Me." In harmony with all
which we have the concluding words of the passage—" We are not of them who
draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the
soul." Let us remember, then, what is the ordinary sense of the word ‘perdition;'
let us compare it with the devour' and the die' in the context; and then say
whether we can find good reason here for taking it to mean the misery of an
indestructible being.' Let us at the same time take into account the peculiar
force of the expression save' at the end of the verse. It is the same as when
our Lord says, " By your patient endurance ye shall acquire possession of
your souls." (Luke 21. 19.) And what less can that indicate than the
winning of immortality—that immortality which the sinner in the picture so
miserably loses?
In the next Epistle, with more appearance of sternness
than we meet with elsewhere in the New Testament, do we find anything to
support the view that is now counted orthodox, or to rebuke us for our
presumption in discarding it? The answer will appear from the references to the
subject in hand.—" Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."
(James 1. 15.)
" He shall have judgment without mercy that hath
showed no mercy." (2. 13.)
" There is one Lawgiver, who is able to save and
to destroy," (4. 12.)
In accordance with all which the Epistle concludes,
" He that converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul
from death." (5. 20.)
In the 2nd Epistle of Peter we have a very free use of
some of the words most distinctly expressive of destruction. Thus we have
" heresies of destruction"—" swift destruction"— and
"destruction which slumbered not." (2. 1-3.) Then we have those two
notorious examples of destruction—that of " the world of the ungodly
" by water, and of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. And still further, the
highhanded rebels referred to are described as " natural brute beasts made
for capture and destruction," who " shall be destroyed
(aaractiOapicrovra0 in their own corruption." (5. 12.) The expression ‘destroyed'
is the same as in the Greek of Gen. 6. 17; 9. 11—" I do bring a flood of
waters on the earth to destroy all flesh." Thus, what with the reference
to the flood and to the rooting out of wild beasts, there is not much wanting
to complete the picture of an utter destruction.' And thus " are the
ungodly reserved unto the day of judgment to be punished" (5. 9)
" This does not refer to the final destiny of the
wicked generally, but to special punishment awaiting the troublers of the early
churches, who, acting a part worthy only of irrational animals in speaking evil
of what they did not understand, would by merited judgments be driven from the
Church, as wild beasts are " taken and destroyed" for the security
and tranquility of mankind." (J. H. HINTON, Works, 3. p. 305.) Now, let it
be granted that the reference is not to the final destiny of the wicked
generally; it may still be to that of a certain class of them. And is it not so?
We say it is. For the destiny' spoken of is identical with the swift
destruction,' the not slumbering destruction,' the quick damnation' of verses 1,
3—it is the punishment of the day of judgment (5. 9), after the model of
devils' punishment (5. 4). It is the doom which consists in a "latter end
worse than the beginning" (5. 20); involving, as it does, "the mist
of darkness reserved" for the very worst of men (5. 17). We appeal to Mr.
Hinton's readers whether they can do otherwise than thus connect our passage
with its context; and whether, in doing this, they can subscribe to his
conclusion.
In the next chapter we read of " the perdition of
ungodly men," and of the divine unwillingness that any should perish. (3. 7,
9.) And without hesitation we interpret these expressions as we have been
constrained to do all along. In doing this, however, it is possible that we may
be met with an objection having a momentary speciousness. The word perish is
also used, it may be said, of the antediluvian world (verse 6) and yet that
world remains till this day. Yes, but (1) the word ‘world' is constantly used
for its inhabitants, as " The whole world lieth in wickedness;"
" The world hath not known Thee," and so on. (2) It is plainly so
used in the present passage; because the mere place of men's abode is expressly
in the context, and that four times, spoken of not as the world, but the earth.
(verses 5, 7, 10, 13.) And (3) to remove all doubt, the Apostle uses the word ‘world'
twice in the previous chapter (5. 5)—in precisely the same connection as here,
and in the very sense that we contend for—"He spared not the old world,
but saved Noah, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly." And
it is with this that the (perdition) destruction of ungodly men is compared in
chap. 3. 7. Once more, (4) if it be still thought that the comparison of "
the world as overflowed with water " and " the earth as reserved for
fire " demands a cosmical rather than a human view of world,' the answer
to this lies in the comparison itself. For be 'the world' what it may—the mass
of human beings alone, or that, in connection with all the human workmanship
destroyed and effaced, or anything else whatever—it is still in the Apostle's
view " the world that then was"—but now is not— having, in the sense
in which he used the expression, really perished or passed away—and thus being
properly contrasted with the earth which now is.'
Once again does Peter use the word destruction—"
They wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction."
The only special help to the meaning as furnished by
the passage is in the following verse, where the same persons are compared to
thoughtless travelers snared by evil men and falling into ruin.
Of the two remaining Apostolic writers, John speaks
much of life," eternal life,' and death.' In regard to the very worst of
sins, his declaration is—" There is a sin unto death." (1 John 5. 16.)
In Jude we read of everlasting chains in which the
fallen angels are "reserved unto the judgment of the great day" (5. 6)—where
it is sufficiently plain that the everlasting extends, according to the Old
Testament usage, to the period when the chained captives shall be produced for
judgment.
Again, we have Sodom and Gomorrah represented "
as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." (5. 7.) But
surely it is no design of the Apostle to refer to the unseen condition of the
souls of the guilty Sodomites. Nor yet would it suit him to refer to the state
of those souls as suffering throughout eternity. For in neither of these
respects could Sodom be spoken of as an example, inasmuch as its whole doom
would be a thing beyond human observation. Besides which, the same thing if
true in the case adduced, would be equally true of all the impenitent dead. And
how, then, could that be referred to as peculiarly an example of endless
suffering? How, in short, was there any peculiarity in regard to Sodom and
Gomorrah at all, except that, throughout all the ages which had intervened, the
doomed plain exhibited, as it does still, the awful memorial of the fiery
deluge which had over-whelmed it? And in what sense, then, but this are we to
look for the " example of the vengeance of eternal fire"
Such expressions may throw some light upon that other
one which sounds so awful, and is so awful—" Wandering stars, to whom is
reserved the blackness of darkness forever." (5. 13.) But interpret it as
we may, we are entirely at liberty to maintain that the pall of everlasting
darkness is a different thing from the pain of everlasting burning.
It only remains to point out that Jude attaches no
other sense to ‘perish' and ‘destroy' than we have already met with. For he
speaks of sinners of his own day as having "perished in the gainsaying of
Korah." (5. 11.) And the perishing of Korah was, we know, a very complete
passing away of him and his company. So another reference fixes the sense in
which he understood ' destroy;'—" I will therefore put you in remembrance
that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed them that believed not." (5. 5.)
"Alluding to the natural phenomena, of the Dead
Sea," says Alford. This we can understand. But what follows we
cannot—" Undergoing the punishment, as may even now be seen [?] of eternal
fire; of that fire which never shall be quenched."
Having advanced thus far, how can we but remark upon
the circumstance that, whatever the word everlasting' has been connected with,
we have met with no one instance of its connection with suffering. We have met
with everlasting life,' and 'everlasting punishment,' everlasting destruction,'
and the everlasting fire;' but everlasting suffering'—never.
The Doctrine Of Punishment In The Apocalypse.
Is it unreasonable to assume that we have now had
sufficient opportunity of learning the doctrine of Scripture in regard to
future punishment? And yet it would be a serious matter if anything in the
closing book should clash with what seems so plainly taught in the preceding
ones. But it would be strange also if —after the profound silence which we have
met with, whether in the Savior or His Apostles, on the subject of endless
suffering—we should now discover that a revelation so awful had been reserved
for the hard symbols and dark visions of the Apocalypse. We have good right,
surely, for extreme jealousy in regard to any appearance of proof for such a
dogma— all unproved as it has been hitherto. It would be hard, indeed, to say
what amount of symbol or vision, as vouchsafed to the seer of Patmos, should be
allowed to disturb the confidence with which we regard the doctrine of
immortality for God's people only, as presented to us, directly or indirectly,
by Moses and David, Christ and Paul, Peter and John—yes and by the Apocalypse itself.
For, after all, the doctrine of this book in regard to the future state is
still the doctrine of life and death—and that apparently in no other sense than
the one with which we are already familiar. This we say, both because of the
confidence reasonably due to the harmony of faith, and because of the evident
linking on of life and death in the Apocalypse with the life and death that
were so prominent in the original Eden.
Thus in regard to Life—we find " the Tree of life
in the midst of the Paradise of God," as graciously reserved for food to
him that overcomes (2. 7), and as standing in the midst of the street of the
new Jerusalem ready to welcome and reward the obedient. (22. 2, 14.) Then we
have " the Book of Life " from which true disciples' names shall
never be blotted out (3.5); —all not found written in this book being shut out
of the holy city (20. 12, 15; 21. 27; 22. 19). And once more, we have the water
of life as the gift of grace now to the thirsty and willing (21. 6; 22. 17),
and the enjoyment hereafter of the faithful and per-severing; while the Lamb
leads them by its fountains, and the river, with the tree of life on its either
side, proceeds out of the heavenly throne (7. 17; 22. 1, 2). What, now, is all
this but Paradise regained;—immortality restored through the Second Adam to all
who are His?
And so in regard to Death, it seems equally the
thunder of Paradise still; only it is no distant muttering, no partial
scorching, this time—but the full outburst of the cloud with all its pent-up
bolts, and all the aggravation that the intervening mercy has called forth. For
just look at the passages that bear upon the subject.
" He that overcomes shall not be hurt of the
second death." (2.11.) The first Adam was hurt by the first death. By sin
he became death's victim—he lost his immortality. He who faithfully follows the
Second Adam shall not suffer from the second death—he has regained, and shall
enjoy his immortality.
We cannot refrain from adding that there is hardly
anything in this book of visions more prominent than killing, destruction,
death —and always in the way of putting an end to human beings, when the
reference is to the visible field. Why, then, should we interpret them
otherwise, when employed with regard to an invisible field P Thus, why should
we understand, "I will kill her children with death" 23), in an
entirely different sense from, "He that killed with the sword must be
killed with the sword." (13. 10)—because the one refers to the future
world, and the other to the present?
The title Apollyon—This is thought to show that the
word can well bear the sense of 'torment'—because Apollyon or Destroyer appears
as the king of the Scorpions, whose business it was not to kill men but to
torment them five months.' But how does the work of tormenting, as committed to
one who is characterized as a Destroyer, show that destroy' may mean torment' P
What can be more fit than to commit such a work to him who is the prototype and
prince of destroyers, without his thereby becoming less of an actual destroyer
F Suppose some special piece of corporal chastisement committed to one whose
business it was to execute,' would it follow that execute' meant in that and a
great many other cases to ' flog'?
And what or where is the second death? "The lake
of fire"—" the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: this is the
second death." Into this is " cast whosoever was not found written in
the book of life." And, once more, Death and Hades, after delivering up
the unsaved dead, are themselves cast into the lake of fire. (20. 14, 15; 21. 8.)
That is to say, the first Death with its Hades is swallowed up in the lake of
fire, to which these now give place. The keepers and their prisoners are at
last consigned to one common lot —even a place in the great prison-house of the
SECOND DEATH. But now if the second death is at all, as its name would import,
like to the first death;—if it is to correspond in any way to the judgment with
which the history of the world opens—then there need be no difficulty in
concluding that, instead of the unnatural sense of an endless continuance in
misery, it must indicate a real ending of existence itself.
And what else should it indicate? The first death is
the quitting of the world now visible, with dissolution of the body. What,
then, should the second death be but the quitting of the world now called the
invisible,' with dissolution of the soul and all? It may be a long time,
indeed, before the lake of fire' shall have done its dire work;—and very awful
will, certainly, be its action upon its miserable victims. Still, it will be
the SECOND DEATH. All that was left undone by the first will be taken up and
consummated by it. The retribution so exactly meted out in the court above will
then have come down to the uttermost. The destruction so often announced will
then be complete. That ancient word UTTERLY DIE,' will stand 'out in all its
dreadfulness. And surely there will not thus be left,—as some strangely
fear—any room for God's loyal subjects to complain that the threatening of time
have been inadequately fulfilled. For then—whatever we may regard as the true
end of punishment; whether the full expression of God's mind in regard to sin;
or the vindication of His government; or the abolition of sin itself;
then—instead of an infinite, and interminable process of punishing, as if
somehow, at each successive cycle of the eternal ages, the Judge had still
failed to work out His object—instead of any such incomplete exhibition of
principle, or execution of purpose, suggesting feebleness on the one hand, or
cruelty on the other—instead of anything approaching by the minutest degree to
this, will the whole design of the Governor, and the whole doom of the
offender, stand forth conspicuous by the casting of the impenitent into that
" lake of fire, which is the SECOND DEATH."
Such, we say, is the doctrine of the Apocalypse in
regard to future punishment. But, as is well known, there are expressions in
two passages highly symbolical (19. 3; 20. 10; and the liberty is taken of
adding a third, 14. 11), which are constantly quoted as sufficient to prove the
dogma of endless suffering.
" Her smoke rose up forever and ever." Such
is the first of the two passages; the argument being that the expression here
used for duration can signify nothing but an actual eternity. And, were we to
plead for any other meaning, we should not unnaturally be accused of tampering
with invariable usage, in the same fashion as that of which we have so often
complained. Let it be freely granted, then, that ‘forever and ever' means here
what it means everywhere else in the New Testament.
The expression—"to the ages of the ages,"
occurs in Gal. 1. 5; Phil. 4. 20; 1 Tim. 1. 17; 2 Tim. 4. 18; Heb. 13. 21; 1
Peter 4. 11; 5. 11; Rev. 1. 16, 18; 4. 9, 10; 5. 13, 14; 7. 12; 10. 6; 11. 15;
15. 7; 19. 3; 20. 10; 22. 5.
But this, however clear it be, does not settle the
case. Whose smoke, we have still to ask, was it that rose up? And the answer
is, The smoke of " the great harlot which corrupted the earth." But
that is not a person, nor to be confounded with any individual in the matter of
punishment. It is no other than " Babylon the Great " which was to be
burnt up—consumed in fire—and to excite the wailing of all who should see the
smoke of her burning. (18. 8, 18.) Already had the literal Sodom afforded such
a spectacle of ascending smoke; yea more —" an example of eternal
fire," after its inhabitants had been all consumed. (Jude 1.7; Gen. 19. 28.)
Already had a similar word been spoken, and, according to its designed meaning,
fully carried out in regard to the literal Babylon—" The dust thereof
shall be turned into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning
pitch: it shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up forever."
(Isa. 24. 9, 10.)
Now, surely, it is not possible to dissever these
pictures of judgment from the case in hand, Individuals there were who suffered
in the ancient Sodom and the Chaldean Babylon. But it was Sodom's smoke, and
Babylon's smoke, not theirs, that went up. So, in regard to the modern Babylon,
it will, in so far as it is a city, have its inhabitants; in so far as it is a
system, its agents; and these will be punished, as individuals, according to
their deeds. But still the truth remains—it was "her smoke that rose up forever
and ever." And if asked for the fair meaning of such a picture, we can
only answer—in accordance, we think, with the entire Scripture style and
teaching on such themes—that it points to the designed exhibition or memorial
of God's vengeance against that monstrous system by which His glory both has
been and will yet be so fearfully mocked —even that " man of sin "
that exalts himself above all that is called God, concentrating in his oneself
more than has ever yet been done or dreamt of in the way of insane rebellion
against the being or rights of the most High. How this vengeance is to be
accomplished it is not for us to tell. But one thing we can very plainly see;
and that is, a most distinct harmony between it and the everlasting fire, as
pictured by our Lord.
We ask now, whether this view seems to be corrected or
confirmed by the second case (20. 10) adduced in favor of endless suffering? Is
there any other reasonable way of explaining the symbols there?—"The devil
that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast
and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and
ever." Now mark, there is still not a word here about individuals of
mankind;—even such as " worshipped the beast," and were "
deceived by the false prophet." Not even when individuals (the kings of
the earth and their armies) are represented as serving under the beast, and the
beast and his ally are spoken of as cast into the lake of fire, is there a word
about these individuals being cast with them. (19. 19, 20.) And why this
distinction, but to display the difference between the parties in the vision?
What, then, are we to understand by " the beast
and the false prophet"? The one is the huge world-power of the 13th
chapter—represented by a monster, in the form of a leopard, with the feet of a
bear, and the mouth of a lion—having seven heads and ten horns. The other is
the second beast—with horns like a lamb, and speaking as a dragon—which acted
so much as the vicegerent of the first. (13. 11-17, cf. 19. 20.) Is not this enough
to show that the fire, into which such parties are cast, is a thing which can
exist independently of individuals I It is even a fire which sends up its smoke
forever and ever, in the case of the beast which is cast into it, and which, as
so cast, is said " to go into perdition." (17. 8.) It is exactly, in
short, as in Daniel's vision, where the beast—the same beast, no doubt—is
represented as having " its body destroyed and given to the burning
flame"—the explanation being —" They shall take away his dominion, to
destroy and consume it unto the end." (Dan. 7. 11, 26.)
Is it right, then, we deliberately ask, can it be
right, to take these visions of divine judgment and endless fire as connected
with systems so monstrous, and hold them up before men, as equivalent to that
exclusion from God's kingdom which awaits the unregenerate mass—that perdition'
which is in store for the whole company of the impenitent? Above all, can it be
right to make use of such pictures as illustrative of some strange complacency
with which the blessed in heaven, in union with the Father, Son, and Spirit,
are supposed to contemplate the everlasting agonies of the lost?
It only remains that we examine the third case alleged
with the same view. And here it must be granted that the passage adduced sounds
more to the purpose than the preceding ones. For, instead of its being some
monstrous beast or Babylon that is now to be dealt with, it is actually
individuals of mankind who are to be punished—namely, the worshippers of the
beast, of whom it is said, " The smoke of their torment ascends up forever
and ever." (14. 11.) But then the expression denoting the period is no
longer the forever and ever' of the other cases; it is no more the well-known
and strong expression for an actual eternity. On the other hand, it is an
expression met with here only. That is to say, instead of the ages of the
ages,' as elsewhere, we now have simply ages of ages'. But are not the two
expressions, it will be asked, really equivalent—differing at the utmost in
form only, not in sense? To assume that, we answer, is more than any one is
entitled to do. The whole question is one of usage; and usage depends just upon
such matters as form and idiom. The fuller of the two expressions we accept as
indicating eternity—because, as already pointed out,' such is the constant
application of it. The shorter one we cannot so take, because we know of no
such application of it.' If told that our objection is only technical, and our
argument nothing but special pleading—Far from it, we answer; for here, out of
three texts, all of which are considered decisive of endless suffering, we have
to deal with the only one —yes, and the only passage in the Bible—which even
professes to connect such suffering with individuals of mankind. And finding
that the expression relied on as decisively pointing to eternity is really
unknown in that connection, we think we are more than entitled to object to
such an application of it. Had we, indeed, as much —or one-tenth as much—of
scriptural support for the dogma in question as, we have against it—then we
might admit the probability that the expression, peculiar though it be, really
refers to it. But, believing that neither authority nor ingenuity can bring
such a sense out of any other portion of the divine word, we think we have a
right to resist the finding of it here. We are constrained, in short, for such
reasons, to accept the expression before us as answering very much in sense as
in form to our own phrase ' ages upon ages;' that is to say, a very long but
indefinite period. And why should we not regard it as really intended to
signify—what the form of the words seem to suggest—a period taken out of the
eternity which the full expression denotes—a certain number of ages belonging
to the in-finite series of the ages? But be this as it may, it would be a
rashness, from which we shrink, to assume that this one instance of a peculiar
phrase can carry on its own head the tremendous weight of the proof of
everlasting torments.
ON THE EXPRESSIONS FOR DENOTING THE DURATION OF FUTURE
SUFFERING.
STATEMENTS like the following have been extremely
common: " If," says Moses Stuart, "the Scriptures have not
asserted the endless punishment of the wicked [i.e. as immortal beings],
neither have they asserted the endless happiness of the righteous, or the
endless glory and existence of the Godhead. The one is equally certain with the
other." And Dr. Angus (Three Letters on Future Punishment, 1. 6), after
referring to the three expressions, adds, "These are the only phrases used
in Scripture to set forth the duration of the future glory of the redeemed; the
duration of the honor of God Himself; and all are used to set forth the
punishment with which those are visited who reject the gospel. Every form of
words employed in Scripture to denote everlastingness our Lord and His Apostles
employ to describe the state of those who die in sin and unbelief." Now
this might be true, and yet not involve the doctrine of endless suffering. But
as the statement is far from accurate, it is important to show how the matter
stands.
Besides, then, these three expressions (one of which,
Jude, 5. 13, is used only of the wicked), there are at least seven others which
are accepted as describing everlastingness,' but are never employed in regard
to punishment. These are, (Rom. 1. 26; 9. 6; 11. 36; 16. 27; 2 Cor. 11. 31;
Heb. 13. 8); (Heb. 5.6; 6. 20; 7. 17, 21, 24, 28; 1 Peter 1. 26; 1 John 2. 17;
2 John 1.2);
And then, besides the use of phrases like these, the
New Testament employs still other methods for setting forth the duration of God
and Hie saints. For, is there no note of 'everlastingness' in such expressions
as, The Living God," The Living Father," The incorruptible God,"
Who only hath immortality," The Father who bath life in Himself.' The Son
who hath life in Himself,' 'The First and the Last,' ' Who was, and is, and is
to come '—together with the various passages in which the eternity of the
divine existence is directly affirmed (see chapter 6)! And is it nothing, in
connection with such language, that some should be spoken of as obtaining
incorruptibility' (Rom. 2. 7); that ' life and incorruptibility' should be
represented as springing out of the purpose and grace of God which was given us
in Christ Jesus' (2 Tim. 1. 9, 10); that 'this corruptible' should put on
incorruptibility, and this mortal immortality' (1 Cor. 15. 63); or that He who
is alive forevermore' should declare, Because I live, ye shall live also. (Rev.
1. 18; John 14. 19.) Thus we see that, while some of the expressions denoting
eternity are applied in common to the future of the saved and of the lost,
those on the one side are so employed, in connection with all that involves
life, and those on the other with all that indicates destruction.
The Doctrine Of Destruction In Relation To Other Truth.
EVERY Christian truth must be related to, and in
harmony with, every other; and this harmony will afford no mean test of the
soundness of a belief. Let us see, then, how the belief now maintained stands
in relation to certain other truths.
1. In its relation to Sin. Now what is sin? " Sin
is lawlessness " 1 John 3. 4), or the setting aside of the law. But the
law is the divine method of setting up God. Sin, therefore, aims at the putting
down, or dethroning of God. It would, in fact, if it could, take away the very
life of God. For it is impossible to conceive of sin, when it reflects at all,
under any lighter form than that of the thought—' I wish He were not so holy,
at least not towards me. I wish He would not thus obtrude His presence upon me,
insisting upon His will, His way, His glory!' But so to desire the end of God's
presence, holiness, will, glory, really differs in nothing from desiring an end
of Himself—Himself as He is, and ever must be. For take away these His high
attributes, and God is God no more. Such is the meaning of every thought of sin
when it thinks at all.
Such is the meaning of all its un-thought, when it so
stupefies the mind that it cannot, or will not, think.
"The blackness of the heathen idolatry was in the
changing the glory of the incorruptible God (Rom. 1. 23), and erecting
resemblances of Him contrary to His immortal nature, as if the Eternal God,
whose life is as unlimited as eternity, were like those creatures whose beings
are measured by the short ell of time. There is in the nature of every sin a
tendency to reduce God to a not-being. He that would put an end to God's glory
by darkening it, would put an end to God's life by destroying
it."—CHARNOCK on the Divine .Attributes—Sermon on Eternity.
This being the case—may sin, we are led to ask, be
properly regarded as an infinite evil? It may; and it may not. It may, so far
as its object is concerned; inasmuch as the wicked thought, if realized, would
result in an evil strictly infinite. But it may not be so regarded, as far as
the subject is concerned; since no finite being is really capable of any
feeling or act which can be truly regarded as infinite. Combine these two
thoughts, and it appears that man, in sinning, is as nearly guilty of an
infinite evil as his nature admits of. Thus may he regard himself; and thus may
he expect the righteous Judge to regard him. Has the sinner aimed, then, at the
overthrow, the death, the end of the law and the Lawgiver? So let the law and
the Lawgiver pronounce his death, his end. The evil of sin was in one sense
infinite; so, in one sense, will the penalty be infinite also. But as there
must ever be an infinite difference betwixt infinite guilt and the guilt of a
finite creature, so is there an infinite difference betwixt the everlasting
suffering of wrath, and the loss of everlasting life. And yet even, with the
latter, the retribution is perfect. The creature, for virtually seeking the end
of the Creator's life, is condemned to lose his own. ' Let God die' was the
impotent voice of the sinner. ‘Let the sinner die' is the terrific thunder
which heaven rolls back as its response to the cry of godlessness.
2. In relation to Divine Justice.—Now it is undeniably
a first principle in government that justice will always proportion punishment
to offence. And, according to our doctrine, there is ample room for such a
proportioning, from the least to the very greatest amount of moral evil ever
committed. It admits of "few stripes " for sins of ignorance, and of
stripes however " many " for the sins of the duty-knowing,
God-defying rebel. On the other hand, there neither is nor can be any
proportion between the sin of a day and the, suffering of an eternity. It is
vain to attempt the proof of it. The mind staggers under the weight of the
attempt, and the heart shrinks with horror from the imagined success of it.
Once prove, indeed, that man has committed evil bearing the stamp of infinity,
and then it may seem as if you had also proved his just liability to infinite,
that is everlasting, suffering. But no, not even then. For why should not he
who has, in a day, clone what is infinite as to sin, be able in less than an
eternity to endure what is infinite as to woe?
Of what use is it, then, to be ever reminding us that
the sin of a moment is constantly followed by the punishment of years? The fact
is too notorious to be for an instant overlooked. Nor can the perpetual
exhibition of it as a solution of our problem serve any end, but for the
exercise of that rhetoric which is far too freely expended on this awful theme,
For still there is a proportion, most solid and distinct, between the sin of
the moment and the suffering of the lifetime. Each has its own character,
whether as regards offence or penalty; and the design is that these be brought
into as close a relation as a human tribunal can arrange. It is in the same way
that a very slight force rightly applied to some complex mechanical combination
may serve to move the heaviest weight. That only proves the perfection of the
relationship between the things combined. But it is vain-to seek for any
analogy betwixt temporal suffering however protracted, and a supposed eternal
suffering however light—as a retribution proportioned to the respective
offences that have to be punished. And for this simple reason, that there is no
proportion betwixt time and eternity.
Thus one is more than surprised to find in how easy a
way the whole moral difficulty attaching to endless suffering is sometimes met.
For " after all," as we have been told, " it is only a question
of degree." Do you think so? I ask. Can you really regard the difference
between time and eternity as only a question of degree? To my mind it is one of
infinity. To me billions of billions of ages are infinitely less than eternity;
and the heaviest of sufferings for any ages thus counted not to be named beside
the lightest for ages that are countless. So when it is urged that the one real
difficulty lies in the permission of moral evil, with its inevitable
consequences;—when it is said, ' Explain this to me, and I will explain to you
the mystery of endless suffering,' my answer is—Sin is, certainly, a mystery
which I, for one, make no attempt to solve. But there is surely a difference
among things which have the common property of being mysterious, and which are,
in some respects, alike inexplicable. Hard dialectic may proclaim that there is
none, and may endeavor, in its own way, to make good the assertion. But I am
much mistaken if either the reason or the conscience—not to say the heart of
man—can find no difference between the two difficulties or mysteries in question—namely,
sin with terminable, and sin with interminable consequences. The ideas are, as
far as I can apprehend them, infinitely farther apart than the most widely
removed conceivable objects in thought-confounding space. The views that they
give of the government of God are as different as the views that they give of
the destiny of man. And, as to the Bible, it seems a different book from
beginning to end, according as the sin which it details is regarded, on the one
hand, as involving a suffering which is endless—or, on the other, as followed
by sensible results which, however protracted or awful, are yet not
interminable.
A more plausible and extremely popular way of
reconciling eternal justice and eternal woe is to urge as an easy axiom, that '
Endless sin must entail endless suffering.' But mark the difference. The
theologian considers his case perfect when he justifies or explains the
sufferings of the lost as nothing more than the fit, righteous, necessary
accompaniment of ever-renewed and never-ending sin. The Bible, on the other
hand, rejects, as justice ever does, all idea of sentencing to suffering for
prospective sin—not to say endless suffering for presumedly endless sin; and,
instead of that, explicitly declares the punishment in the Judge's sentence to
be the award not of any accumulation of evil, possible or certain, but strictly
and solely of the deeds done in the body. Such is the theology of the Bible.
Who will point out to us the trace of a contrary? When, then, will theologians
have done with that constructive habit which has conjured up so many monsters
on the religious stage, and consigned so many of the truest believers to all
the sufferings which time at least would allow of?
And again, such a plea for God's justice can be
maintained only at the expense of His goodness. For why the endless sin? Why
the immortal sinner? If the deeds done in the body' are sufficient to warrant
the endless suffering—then say so. But if not, what an idea it gives of the
All-righteous One to represent Him as sustaining throughout eternity—with no
alternative but their sinning forever and suffering forever—those who, when
judged for their deeds, had not as yet merited the sentence to such suffering!
Could there be a more flagrant inventing of an argument in support of a
desperate conclusion already determined on?
3. In relation to God's gift of His Son;—upon a right
view of which single point the whole question, we are often told, may be
confidently staked. Many speak, indeed, as if this, that is to say, their
opinion about it, should overrule every consideration at variance with the
doctrine of eternal woe as the due wages of sin. Redemption, they plainly
declare, would be no redemption to them, except as it delivers from that; and
the sacrifice of Christ, if offered for any lower purpose, they could only
regard as grossly extravagant, or utterly unintelligible.
Now truly there might be some temptation to such
sentiments, if it were maintained that the Incarnation and Atonement had taken
place on behalf of creatures incapable of immortality. Then indeed the divine
gift and the matchless Sacrifice might well be regarded as the acme of
extravagance. But if, on the other hand, the truth be that man was framed, and
still is fitted for immortality; that by rebellion he has lost, and through the
Cross regains it: and if, besides this, it be distinctly held that the
perishing' from which Christ saves involves all the retribution, whether as to
intensity or duration, which justice can award consistent with the loss of
immortality—then surely we have little need to seek for any unnatural sense of
the Savior's language, when He represents it as God's object in the giving of
His Son, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have
everlasting life." For who will venture to say that such a redemption was
unworthy of the Father's love and the Son's sacrifice, unless we introduce into
it an element which we have not yet met with in the book of God? Is not the
human soul, when thus regarded, a thing of sufficient value; and sin, with its
attendant death, an evil of sufficient magnitude —to justify at once in the
divine regard, and in the view of the moral universe, the great transaction
between the Father and the Son? By what measuring-line shall we presume so to sound
the depths of eternal justice, as to pronounce that sin and ruin, when thus
regarded, afforded no sufficient occasion for the Christian redemption? Be it
that sin is an infinite evil, Is not the everlasting loss of the soul an
infinite evil too? If the slain Lamb has, with His own blood, bought us FOR
GOD, then there was for us, as unbought, nothing but the outer darkness, and
the second death, with no possibility of our being God's anymore. And are we
not, with all this before us, in a position to respond, with our whole mind,
and heart, and conscience, both to the demand of justice and the grant of love,
when God spared not His own Son?
4. In relation, to the Savior's substitution. What,
then, can be imagined more complete than the correspondence between this and
the sentence under which the sinner was to die? Guilty life ransomed by
innocent life sacrificed; deserved death averted by undeserved death
endured—such is our doctrine. And what more is wanted in order to feel the
perfection of the harmony than to view the simple picture which the Scripture
thus presents to us?
But no,' we are told. You may say what you will, there
is no harmony in the matter—only discordance and confusion. To meet the case
according to your principles, the Savior should have been annihilated. That
would have been the true substitution—the only death admissible, as a ransom
from the death proclaimed by you.' Such is the objection by which we are met in
our meditation upon what seems so simple and complete. Now even to understand
the objection is hard enough; but to hear it from those who contend that
endless suffering alone can fill up the just measure of sin's wages is more
than strange. Is it possible that such could be remembering their own creed
when thus objecting to ours? Did it escape them that their view requires that
the Savior should be now at some point in the cycle of everlasting suffering,
quite as much as our view requires the thing alleged?
And what, after all, is there in our belief to excite
such astonishment? We were to have died, and Christ died for us. Our life was
forfeited, and He gave His as a ransom for many. So says the Scripture; and all
that we do is to take the sentence of our death as meaning that we were to have
lost our own life—putting beside this the fact of the Savior's giving up His
life for ours. In doing which, we profess to see a perfect and sublime
correspondence between the ruin and the redemption, the debt and the payment.
But if, after all, there be about the God-man and His death something so
gloriously peculiar as to preclude the possibility of a complete parallel, it
is neither we nor our belief surely that can be held responsible for that.
Enough if there be between the two elements of the case all the correspondence
that the circumstances admit of. To overstep that would not be to realize but
to ruin the harmony. Do we not find, then, all that is wanted for harmony in
the fact that Christ gave up as our ransom that life whose worth depends upon
the worth of His very Deity—gave it up with every token of the absolute
surrender due from a creature, and every accompaniment of the suffering due to
a sinner? How, we ask, could there be harmony as between our obligation and His
sacrifice, if this be not? Let God die,' had been the sinner's thought; and the
Law—not able to unmake itself in the interest of lawless mercy, but meting out
the exact award due for such offence, replied, Let the sinner die.' And now the
strictest justice and the tenderest mercy have agreed that the God-man shall
die instead—in order that the sinner may live. And there is, you tell us, no
harmony here. But rather, we are to seek it in some imagined correspondence
between two things so little commensurable as these—the death due to us under
the form of an existence in endless misery, and the giving up by the Savior of
His life for us during a portion of three days. And this is the harmony in
comparison with which our doctrine of life for life' is held to be contemptible!—the
doctrine, that is to say, that the life of the Redeemer, in the only sense in
which He could part with it, was sacrificed and surrendered in order to the
redeeming and restoring of our life as a thing already condemned and forfeited.
There is one case in particular which belongs to this
head—furnishing, as we think, at once a strong confirmation of our view, and a
severe test of the contrary. It is that of infant-redemption. Redemption we
say; for there is no question here of a moral renewal. What, then, is any dying
infant redeemed from? Death, of course —eternal death. As to that we agree. But
what is eternal death? Eternal woe? Then from that the infant is redeemed. And
if redeemed from that—then to that it was justly liable; and none need be
ashamed either to believe or to confess it. This, then, is the test—Can you
believe that an infant, as an immortal creature, is graciously redeemed by the
blood of Christ from the death justly due to it [the contradiction is not ours]
in the sense of endless suffering? Some (many, we shudder to think) will fearlessly
accept the test, and say, Yes, we believe it.' Such we leave to their
belief—only remarking that those who believe that should not wonder at the
power of belief on the part of any, or in favor of anything. Others again will
be staggered at the thought—will feel it to be as near as possible to an
impossibility—that the redeemed babe—all incapable of an evil thought or deed
as it ever was—should, by the triumphant shout, "Thou hast redeemed me to
God by Thy blood "—intend to signify that it was justly liable to an
eternity of suffering, from which it needed the dying Lamb to rescue it. Some,
we say, will reflect ere they conclude thus; and some of these will be
constrained to say, No—it is impossible.' What, then, we repeat, is the death
from which that morally unconscious human being is redeemed?
5. In relation to the Love of God.—Let us here
disclaim at once all attempt at reconciling with divine love the appalling
facts of human sin and misery. There are those, we know, to whom this is quite
an easy task. They have their formula always at hand for the solution of any
difficulty. Others go farther, speaking of justice as only a form of love—all
punishment temporal or eternal being purely an exercise of divine benevolence.
This we do not profess to understand. Enough for us to submit where we cannot
explain—believing that the divine action is altogether righteous, and in
accordance too with the perfection of love, even where the harmony between them
is as yet veiled.
We must allow the difficulty, then, to stand
untouched. Sin, we confess, presents a mystery to us unfathomable; but sin
being granted, punishment follows with extreme simplicity. So far we can
subscribe to the idea of the challenge, Explain to me sin, and I win explain to
you suffering.' But it will make a marvelous difference in the task, so far as
goodness is concerned, whether the suffering be temporary or eternal. That is
to say, it is an altogether different problem whether, on the one hand, we
regard the creature who is permitted to sin as thereby given up to everlasting
sinning and everlasting suffering, in virtue of his immortality; or, on the
other, as losing his immortality, and so cutting short his suffering by the
very act which originally occasioned it. In regard to justice, of course the
problem is in either case the same; for that can as little arrange or share in
wrong-doing for a day as for an eternity. Goodness, on the contrary, may for
certain high ends allow, not to say arrange, many things for a season, when it
would be impossible for it to contemplate the same for eternity. One of the
reasons, indeed, actually essential to its permitting of some supposed
arrangement, may just be the temporal and provisional character of the same.
Now it can avail nothing to plead that it might be necessary for Goodness to
submit to the fact of everlasting suffering, on the ground that Justice
demanded it, and therefore Goodness in yielding to the demand could never cease
to be goodness. Suffice it to reply (1) That, while Justice nay be conceived of
as demanding the punishment of a sinner so long as he exists, it cannot be
conceived )f as demanding that he shall eternally exist in order to be
punished. (2) And thus Goodness, in presiding over the arrangement, could
always remove the occasion for such a demand. No creature, in short, has an
eternity-of its own; and it depends upon the pleasure of the Creator whether or
not it shall have it from Him. And therefore, if His goodness forbids the
maintaining in endless existence of a creature who can use that existence only
in sinning, and can reap no fruit but of suffering—then the thing which it is
so appalling to think of can never be.
Thus, without approaching the harassing problem of the
harmony between the benevolence of an Almighty Being and His permission of
evil, we are in a position to view, in their respective relation to the love of
God, the two systems—of the actual destruction of the unsaved on the one hand,
and their endless sufferings on the other. And the result of the comparison
will be this—that the difficulty of the desired reconciliation is infinitely
greater in the one case than in the other. Infinitely, we say, in the strictest
sense of the word. And that, because eternity is infinitely longer than any
possible period. According to the one view, a portion of the human race is
saved, and inherits a blessedness infinite in its amount, because boundless in
duration—the other portion continuing unsaved, and inheriting a misery of the
same amount, and that for the same reason. According to the other view, the
good and happiness only are infinite, the evil and suffering finite. And thus
it seems that when the whole sum shall have been made up of the sin and death
which have accrued to mankind through the first Adam, whether in this world or
the next—that sum will prove in the balances of Eternity as an absolute nothing
when weighed against the life and blessedness which, through the Second Adam,
have become the portion of the redeemed.
And thus we can see one glorious harmony, at least,
between Justice and Love, even in that most tremendous of all divine
dealings—namely, in the closing act of the drama of ' everlasting destruction.'
For, if we regard that as the deed of Justice, we can still see Love as looking
on, and can hear the shout of its Amen, as the last agony of the lost is
breathed out. And thus, as Hell fills up its witness to the truth that "
Our God is a consuming Fire,"—there will be even in that a strange harmony
with the glorious counterpart—that " GOD IS LOVE." And then, if we
happily are there to see, we shall behold with these eyes the sublime spectacle
of an obedient universe, purely loving and purely loved by its glorious
Sovereign. In the meantime, as we bow before that throne which still to us
seems obscure through the very brightness of its purity, we can bless God that
the black cloud of a judgment to endless woe is to be found only among the dark
visions of men, not on the pure brow of the Eternal.
Some Objections Considered.
WE have now had occasion to review most of the
objections commonly urged against the great doctrine that death, in the sense
of destruction, is the wages of sin, and the doom of the unsaved. We need
hardly say how much these derive their force from a mere sentiment or feeling
against the doctrine; and yet how violently the charge of anything like
sentimental objections will be repudiated. It is always so; and therefore may be
expected here. We set up certain sentiments of our own as the' embodiment of
all that is grand in humanity, or the infallible premonition of whatever is
desirable in Revelation; and, floating away in these, we see man or truth
through the brilliant mist. But now for one or two objections of a more
palpable kind.
(1) It is very commonly urged that our doctrine must
seriously impair the action of the great motive of fear which God has implanted
in us. And then we are told, in language that need not be repeated, how much
the fear of an endless hell has done for men, and how little good can be
expected without it. Now there is no doubt that a family of wayward children
might be restrained from some bad things by a misreport of the designs of a
very excellent father—such a misreport as would make his heart shudder at the
very thought that he could ever be guilty of the cruelty and injustice imputed
to him. There might even arise from the correcting of the report an injurious
reaction on the minds of the undutiful children. So it is that a reaction from
excessive tyranny and injustice has always an element of danger in it. Still
the question in all such matters is—What is right? what is true? and that as
much in a divine as in a human case. Enough for us to know that " Thus
saith the Lord," be that what it may—and that His truth, not man's
mistake, was what stirred the world in the early gospel day. Reaction there may
be—we do not doubt it. But who is responsible for that? It is ours to wash our
hands of it all, and to urge upon men that they flee from the wrath to
come—even " wrath to the uttermost"—" abiding on them"— the
terrible consummation of it being " everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power."
On the other hand—whatever the ill effects of that
reaction which this controversy may occasion, we can confidently expect a very
different result as well. For there is another tale to be told besides the
wholesome dread of endless torments. There is the wide-spread fearlessness as
to punishment at all, because of the utter disbelief that God ever will inflict
everlasting suffering on His creatures. And, more than that, there is the
positive abhorrence entertained towards the Bible and its Author, as engendered
or fostered by the belief that they are responsible for the dogma which has
awakened the repugnance. If, by speaking and writing the truth, aught can be
done to mitigate so disastrous an evil, our humble endeavor may not be in vain.
(2) Another objection is this—What good reason can
there be for the raising the bodies of the Christless dead with no other view
than to destroy them? Now suppose we were to ask—What good reason can there be
for doing this with no view but to torment them eternally?—the answer of course
would be — That is not the view with which they are raised; the object is
simply to render to them the due reward for the deeds done in this life. Even
so do we answer. And it will be hard to show, that when the two views of
retribution are compared, there lies against ours an antecedent objection, on
this ground, sufficient to extinguish it.
And now taking the case on its own merits, there may
be the best of reasons why He who judges as THE SON OF MAN—that is to say, in
virtue of His peculiar humanity—should go so far as to reinvest with the lost
part of their humanity the souls which He has to judge. But on the other hand,
that is no reason—and possibly there may be none—why, because He has raised, He
should maintain imperishable, these bodies in all the evil and woe of a godless
state. Thus, for example, it may for various reasons be fit to sustain in life
a criminal after the passing of the fatal sentence; and yet this temporary
suspension of the penalty, and provisional support of the condemned, can furnish
no reason at all for letting him run out the natural course of his life in a
dungeon. And so, if the Son of Man has full authority and power over all flesh
and all human things, why should He not raise the unsaved dead—not as the
harvest consequent upon Himself the first-fruits —but as the Judge who can
allow no part to escape of that which had impenitently arrayed itself against
the government of God? He had allowed them to die, because for sufficient
reasons "it is appointed unto men once to die." But now as the
sentence against the actual human being has not been exhausted, either by the
dying of the body or the suffering of the disembodied soul—there remains
nothing but a reconstruction of the body, in order to the full execution of the
sentence by which both the directing soul and the instrumental body have to be
destroyed in hell. For what if there be no place short of that suitable for the
destruction of either?
The reasons for holding that the Apostle refers in
that chapter to the resurrection of believers only are such as these: (1) The
death of believers only can be designed by the 'sleeping' spoken of in verse 20. (2) The individuals said to be raised are
" they that are Christ's." (3) This cannot apply to any portion of
His enemies—all of whom He is to "put under Ilia feet." (4) The
corruptible putting on incorruption, and the mortal putting on immortality, can
apply to believers only. And yet the Apostle is not by these terms narrowing
the view already expressed.
Thus, though we should admit—which for various weighty
reasons we cannot do—that the statement, " So in Christ shall all be made
alive" (1 Cor. 15. 22), embraces the unsaved as well as the saved — this would
prove nothing as to the eternal duration of the bodies of the lost.
(3) Another objection to our view is derived from the
reversal, as is assumed, of the original sentence passed on Adam. For,
according to that sentence, he must, it is argued, have died on the day of his
transgression; nor is it conceivable that his life was prolonged on any other
ground than that of the mercy and redemption announced to him; hence the
existence of his posterity; hence immortality to them as the result of
immortality restored to him.
Now we deny again, as we have done already, that the
sentence—" In the day that thou eats thereof, thou shalt surely
die"—fairly meant that man's entire life should be actually withdrawn on
that very day.3 But suppose that such is the meaning—suppose that, in consequence
of the new dispensation immediately introduced, Adam did not die on that
day—suppose that he thus obtained a chance of redemption and immortality—and
thus became the father of the human race —what then? What is there in all this
to show the immortality of the race? Could not Adam be made to live for a
thousand years without its following from that that he was to live forever?
Could not all of us receive through him a natural being, and, in conjunction
with that, have an open door to immortality graciously set before us, without
the necessity of concluding that our mere birth made us immortal? Why not say
at once that as the whole race, root and branch, was on the point of extinction
in the person of the sentenced Adam, so the same race has in all its individuals
now obtained an actual redemption and immortality in the spared Adam, or rather
in that Second Adam through whom the supposed reprieve is conceived to have
come? Such a view would be at least intelligible, and would want only one
thing—namely, a foundation to rest on. But where shall we find that?
Do we profess to find it in the promise—" The
Seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent "—as if that
amounted to an engagement so to defeat the devil's plot as to abolish the death
incurred, and restore the immortality forfeited? Be it so, and yet the extent
and specialty of the victory must be learned from other quarters. One thing
however is plain—and that is, that blessing, and not curse, is the thing
engaged for—redemption not punishment—a happy life not a naked existence,
whether temporal or everlasting. And least of all surely does a promise so
gracious contain in its bosom a seed which should find a portion of its
development in the awful fact—of countless multitudes coming to spend their eternity,
as the devil's captives, in the everlasting fire prepared for him. No—in so far
as the serpent's head is bruised, the works of the devil are destroyed—his
captives are delivered; and the conqueror, not the conquered, triumphs.
Or, are we—in proof of a universal immortality as restored
through Christ—pointed to the statement,—" As in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Cor. 15. 22.) Our answer will be found
in what has been said already upon this passage as having no reference except
to the saved. And, even granting its application to others, it is enough to
observe that the raising from the dead would be a very different thing from the
maintaining of any in an endless existence of suffering. For the one, as a
thing fit in the extreme, we have already argued, though not from this text. As
for the other, it is enough that the two things have no connection whatever.
Thus Warburton, Divine Negation, says —"
Revelation teaches that mankind lost the free gift of immortal life by the
transgression of Adam, and from thence became mortal, and their existence
confined to this life. Revelation likewise teaches that the means which divine
wisdom thought fit to employ in restoring man from death to his first state of
immortality, was the sacrifice of Christ on the cross."
Now what this leads to—in the absence of a universal
restoration—is sufficiently plain. The following from a very different writer
will bring out that.* After pointing out that "the mere survival after
death does not of itself seem on any physical or moral grounds to necessitate
the perpetuation of the soul's immortality "—he adds, "It is
perfectly conceivable (though so many seem to have missed so simple a thought)
that the soul of man may be naturally capacitated for immortality, and yet the
work of Christ be absolutely necessary to bring that capacity into effect. . .
. If any venture the wild theory of the soul's necessary immortality, we may
reply that the same scheme of creation which formed souls necessarily immortal
may have required the death and resurrection of Christ as the sole condition of
forming them with this property of inherent and essential eternity—so that
still, though existing by absolute necessity, in Christ alone could they thus
exist. . . ." Again, "He who, as in the text (Sermon on John 8. 61)
is promised security from death forever, is rescued from a fate far more
terrible than annihilation, he is rescued from the miseries of death protracted
into eternity. . . . But, oh, horrible thought! if all this tendency to the
eternal, this longing for everlasting mansions, be to any of us but the
prophetic twilight, the forecast shadow of unending darkness. Oh, agony
insufferable! if the eternal life of Christ be but the guarantee of a death as
everlasting as His everlasting life—if the prolongation of His divine existence
be but the seal of that never-dying death which, by a dread union of opposites,
seems described as protracting dissolution itself into immortality."
Thoughts On Universal Restoration.
LET us point out how, before accepting of such a
belief, it is needful, in regard to various matters, to handle the Scripture.
We must believe, for example, that, when the chaff is
spoken of as "burnt up with unquenchable fire," the meaning is that
the fire will actually come to an end, without any consumption of the
chaff—which, in fact, is not to be burnt up or consumed at all, either as
regards its being, or its ultimate well-being—but only transformed, by means of
the fire, into something agreeing as to nature with, however differing in name
from, the ' wheat!' Thus " the unquenchable fire" comes to an end;
while the chaff that is " burnt up" in it never ends!—unless we adopt
the desperate expedient of maintaining, in spite of all Scripture usage, that
the chaff represents not persons, but practices. [The references to the subject
are as follows:—Job 21. 18; Ps. 1. 4; 35. 5; Isa. 5. 24; 17. 13; 29. 5; 33. 11;
41. 15; Jer. 23. 28; Dan. 2. 35; Hos. 13. 3; Zeph. 2. 2.] And so, in regard to
the tares' which are separated from the wheat, and bound in bundles to be burnt
up, we must believe that, instead of being so burnt, they are, in process of
time, to be plucked from the fire and associated with the wheat again! And the
same method we must follow with the fruitless branches as " cast into the
fire;"—and the worthless fish as " cast away." The casting
away,' in all these cases, must differ, it seems, from everything of the kind
commonly expressed by such language—inasmuch as, instead of a real rejection,
it is only the preparation for a blessed ingathering! Then, as regards 'the
house on the sand' whose fall seems so certainly to be its end, we must believe
that it is after all to be raised from its ruins and to stand for eternity. So,
the enemy of Christ who is 'ground to powder' by the falling upon him of the
great foundation stone, and who is thus represented as irretrievably ruined, is
yet to be healed after all, and brought to build upon that which had crushed
him to dust. Thus Judas, of whom it is said that " it had been good for
him never to have been born," is destined to have an age' of suffering
swallowed up in an eternity of happiness;—while the impassable gulf between the
"place of torment" and " Abraham's bosom" is, every moment,
becoming narrower, with the certainty that, at the end of the age or ages, it
will have disappeared forever. And so, where we read that " their worm dies
not," we must take the meaning to be that the worm will die, and then its
miserable victims will enter on their life of everlasting bliss!
Then, in regard to the vitally important word
'perish,' the demand made on us is peculiarly hard. We can understand how it
means to lose one's being—and let us allow that, by a certain license, it might
mean to lose one's well-being—but to believe neither the one nor the other is
difficult indeed.—" Except ye repent, ye shall all perish." The
sentence seems final; and yet it is not! The words leave nothing behind; but
the meaning does not correspond to the words! —" Fear Him who, after He
hath killed, is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Now, we can
understand and believe that, after the killing of the body, there can come a
destroying of both body and soul; but we can neither understand, nor, without
understanding it, believe that, after the destroying, there can come a
restoring to good, boundless alike in amount and duration. Or, when told in
tones so solemn, and in language so explicit and varied, about the losing of the soul—are we to understand the meaning to be
that the soul is never really lost, but only reserved at the worst for endless
purity and happiness? Is this the difference between him who gains and him who
loses his soul—that, while the gainer never becomes a loser, the loser, after a
time, becomes an everlasting gainer?
But of all things proposed for our belief in this
matter there is none harder than what we are asked to accept as the meaning of
the word everlasting.' For this, we are told, does not properly mean that at
all—but only ' age-lasting.' How far that age extends is, of course, a minor
consideration. Enough that a limit is set to it. Thus, 'everlasting life' comes
to be the life which lasts for the period in question—the proof of its
continuance beyond that being derivable from other sources—such as the
believer's connection with the living God, and the living Redeemer. It is even
held by some, consistently enough no doubt, that the everlasting God' must be
regarded in no other light—the fact of His proper eternity being always of course
assumed, but never expressed even in language like this. The same may be said
of all the cases in which word under any form is supposed to denote eternity.
For there is equal reason, and, it may be added, disposition also, to apply
such expressions in the same way.
Thus we find it stated in a popular work—" It
will, I think, be found that the adjective, whether applied to life,
punishment, redemption, covenant, times, or even God Himself, is always
connected with remedial labor, and with the idea of ' ages or periods in which
God is working to meet and correct some awful fall.. . . The aeonial God, that is (if I err not) the God who works
through these ages. . . . Aeonial or eternal life is
not, as so many think, the living on and on forever and ever. It is rather, as
our Lord defines it, a life the distinctive peculiarity of which is that it has
to do with a Savior, and so is part of a universal plan. . . . The word aeonian cannot mean strictly never-ending. Nor does this
affect the true eternity of bliss of God's elect, or of the redeemed who are
brought back to live in God's life, of whom it is said, Neither can they die
anymore; for this depends on a participation in the divine nature," —Jukes
on The Restitution of all Things, pp. 60-64.
It may be well just to note here some of the
consequences of such a view. It follows, then, that there is in all the Bible
no actual intimation of a true eternity of life and glory through Christ. Such
an eternity is to be taken for granted, indeed; but it is not expressed, not
revealed—the expressions which seem to point to it really referring to a
certain limited period which is to succeed the present temporal state! Thus,
even in a passage where time and eternity seem expressly contrasted, it is not
so—the statement there made being really this, " The things that are seen
are temporal, but the things that are not seen are age-lasting." The age
may be long, indeed; but it too has its term—all beyond that being unrevealed,
unsuggested. Life is to be everlasting; the glory accruing to God from creation
unfallen or redeemed is to be everlasting; but of this no actual statement is
to be found in the Bible. It is simply left to us to assume it, or infer it,
and so believe it!
But now, this 'age,' however protracted, is just
nothing compared to eternity;—it is a mere interlude between the present and
the eternal state; and yet of that eternal state nothing is said in these
descriptions! Thus, when we are told of God giving His Son, that whosoever
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life, the meaning will
be that the believer is to enjoy his ' age-lasting' life—nothing being said of
anything beyond; while the unbeliever, after losing the whole of the ‘age-lasting'
life enjoyed by the other, shall then enter upon a life common to the saved and
the lost—that is, the true everlasting life, as assumed or inferred from one
source or other, but nowhere held forth in the Bible! So when it is said,
" He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on
him"— the contrast will be, not as we should have naturally supposed,
between having life forever, and losing it altogether; but between the having
it and wanting it during a certain age, with an equal certainty of possessing
it at the end of that ' age,' and during the eternity that follows. And thus
the long-continued but temporary difference between the lot of the saved and
the unsaved is the only thing that is ever alluded to in any of these
descriptions—while of the truly everlasting agreement in store for them there
is no hint given! The difference which is temporary is spoken of as if it were
everlasting; the agreement which is everlasting is not spoken of at all! So
when our Lord says, " If a man keep my saying, he shall never. see
death," His meaning will be that the true disciple shall not see it during
the age;'—while, at the end of the age' there will be no more death for any one. In like manner, when he says of the man who
blasphemes against the Holy Ghost that he hath never forgiveness—the meaning
must be either that, at the end of this age, he has forgiveness—or that, in
order to the happiness destined for him, he has no need of it!
Are we to believe, then, that the blessed Jesus can
thus speak of the future of the lost—without letting in upon it one ray of hope
from that eternal sun which He knew should yet burst out from behind the cloud
of their outer darkness? Nay more, that He could
actually announce what His own sentence upon them was to be—" Depart, ye
cursed"—as apparently a sentence of absolute, unconditional separation
from God—while all the time these were the souls that He had not only bought
with His blood, but had engaged actually to restore to happiness and to God?
Without Him they must have been forever wretched. Through Him they are to be forever
blessed—so soon as that terrible aye of vengeance is past! And now He is anticipating
the glorious consummation; and His heart is overleaping the gulf, and yearning
for their deliverance; and His meaning is nothing worse than to consign them to
a place of correction and purification—while yet He absolutely " denies
them before His Father," declaring that He never knew them, and bidding
them depart from Him as workers of iniquity! Is it possible? Can this be that
Jesus who is " the same yesterday, to-day, and forever"—who yet on
one day seems so little to know what He Himself was on some past, or will be on
some future day?
And what may be the ground on which we are asked to
accept such incongruities as these? What is it that is to bridge over the
impassable gulf—and to quench the unquenchable fire—and to kill the worm that
dies not—and to change the consumed tares and chaff into wheat—and to clear the
man to whom is no forgiveness—and to destroy everlasting' destruction, so that
it shall be the end neither of the being, nor of the wellbeing of those that
perish—and, finally, to bring back to His bosom those whom the Savior-Judge has
bid depart from Him as accursed? What is to effect all this?—Let us see.
We are told, for example, that Adam was made in the
image of God, and in the great genealogy appears as " the son of God"
(Luke 3. 38), the same dignity necessarily descending to his posterity,
whatever temporary disturbance may arise as to the enjoyment of the title. Now,
Adam was doubtless brought into being as the son of God. But, putting aside all
theory as to the necessary perpetuity of such a state,—what avails it to us, if
we be " children of disobedience," and " of wrath" —if to
some of us, at least, it be said—"Ye are of your father the devil;"—if,
in short, we "become sons of God" now, only by " receiving
Him" whom the Father has sent to save; and if, like Adam, who had nothing
but his own likeness to convey, we too have lost, till by a new birth it be
restored, the image of our God? (John 1. 12; Eph. 4. 24; Col. 3. 10.)
Again, if the original endowing of Adam with such a
character, and such a dignity, did not stand in the way of his exposure to that
everlasting misery which—apart from redemption—is assumed by many, at least, on
whose belief we are now commenting, to be the inevitable doom of an immortal
sinner, what bar can such a sonship offer to the very awful, but still
mitigated, doom of a real destruction?'
Or, the Son of God, we are told, by taking on Him our
nature, has, as a second Adam, effected an actual, a universal redemption—has
arranged for an actual, a universal restoration of that nature—thus reinstating
all without exception in the sonship lost through the first Adam—putting into
the mouth of all alike the sweet words, Our Father,' and that too as expressive
not only of right disposition, but of actual position. And all this is
announced as a self-evident truth, belonging to the department of Christian
feeling or intuition—so much so that there must be some serious defect, mental
or moral, about those who fail so to recognize it; while some go so far as to
declare that the whole of their theology is summed up in the words, ' Our
Father.'
Now all this may be very pleasant and very plausible.
But is it true? Is it a human thought, or a divine doctrine? Prove that man, as
man, is now through redemption actually a son of God, and then you prove not
only unconditional immortality, but universal restoration too. Show, on the
other hand, that to be ‘lost' is to be destroyed without remedy; and universal
son-ship at once becomes a dream. Meanwhile, it is a question of the last
moment —Is such sonship a fiction or a fact? And what answer is it to quote the
returning prodigal as saying, " I will arise and go to my Father"?—or
our Lord as teaching the two precious words to His disciples, when—in spite of
the duty and joy of possessing the heart of a son—the express doctrine of
Scripture is, "As many as received Him, to them gave He
power to become the sons of God;"—"As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God; "—" Ye are all the children of God
by faith in Christ Jesus." And surely it is not of the mere human mass,
but of the regenerate company that it is said—" Behold what manner of love
the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God;
therefore the world knows us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we
the sons of God." (Rom. 8. 14; Gal. 3. 26; 1 John 3. 1, 2.)
And is it nothing to our purpose that sonship and
heirship are described as inseparable? " If children, then heirs; heirs of
God, and joint-heirs with Christ." (Rom. 8. 17.) Are we able to believe
that the possession of such an inheritance can consist with any possible form
of everlasting destruction'? If then, the announcement of such a destruction be
a fact, must not the idea of universal sonship be a fiction? And, on the other
hand, does not the utter negative put by the Scripture on such sonship
dissipate forever the dream of a corresponding restoration? It is easy, of
course, to ask us to believe; and easy to blame or pity us for not believing;
but there is on the other hand an irresistible disposition to ask for evidence.
And, if evidence could be got, where might we expect it, if not in the sentiments
or statements of the Son of man Himself? But does it appear there? Does it seem
as if He anticipated, after an age of separation, that eternity of communion
with the brotherhood of a universally redeemed humanity, which, by the
supposition, must have been ever in His mind?—a communion which was to afford,
in short, that consummation which would exceed in glory all the previous
displays of mercy, as far as the eternal exceeds the temporary? He yearned over
Jerusalem. He would fain have gathered her children together, as a hen gathers
her brood under her wings; and He freely proclaimed the yearning. How, then,
did He so strangely shut up from human sight and sympathy the ineffable
satisfaction with which He must have contemplated that blessed reunion with His
ransomed and restored brethren which was to succeed all their ignorant or
malicious rejection of Him on earth? Or, if He ever did express such
sentiments, where is the record of it? Need we say how weak it must ever be to
dig in some corner of the Scripture field for some gem of thought which, if
taken alone, might seem to sparkle with the light of a universal restoration;
and all the while make no account of that funeral pall which the Savior's own
hands have thrown over the whole futurity of the lost?
Thus, for example, what purpose can it serve, in the
face of all the direct teaching of the Savior and His apostles, to tell us that
the presenting of the first-fruits, whether in the Old Testament or in the New
(James 1. 18), implies an ingathering of the harvest of universal humanity? The
language is grand, but what substance is there in it? Is it the figure that is
relied on for such a conclusion? But the figure never carried such a meaning as
this with it. The meaning of all such language manifestly is, that a full
harvest-time is coming, when the entire field shall be covered with fruit for
the gladdening of the owner;—but, about the fruit that may have rotted, or been
blasted, or in any way have perished, between seed time and harvest—or about
the tares, that may have sprung up alongside the wheat—such language intimates
nothing. Then, as to " the first-fruits of His creatures " the
present is the time for the making up of such from those who are "
begotten again" now. The full harvest will be when "the earth shall
yield her increase," when "men shall be blessed in Him, and all
nations shall call Him blessed "—when the returning Lord "shall
gather the wheat into His garner, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable
fire."
Or, perhaps we are referred to the gracious
engagement—" I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
me." (John 12. 32.) But surely He meant by this nothing else than that
actual drawing which takes place now—that present coming to Him of which He was
constantly speaking. And when He announced that, as the Crucified One, He would
draw " all men," He could only mean that there would be in His Cross
a perfect adaptation to that end; or that it should soon appear that He could
and would draw men of all kinds and characters without distinction; or that as
King over all the earth He would actually draw all without exception. But, in
whatever respect it was to be accomplished, the ‘drawing' announced could be
nothing else than the bringing of men into that spiritual condition which had
just been described—" He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that
hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve
me, let him follow me; and where I am there shall also my servant be. If any
man serve me, him will my Father honor." The drawing,' in short, in so far
as it brings men into a new spiritual state, can on no sound principle be
regarded as embracing any but those who yield to it now. Nor could any who
heard those solemn warnings which followed the engagement to ‘draw' (verses 35-50)
have for a moment imagined our Lord to mean that, however men might resist Him
here, yet they should be all equally gathered into His bosom hereafter.
Or, are we reminded of the divine purpose " to
gather together (or sum up) all things in Christ—both which are in heaven, and
which are on earth"? (Eph. 1. 10.) But there is nothing here about those
who have passed from earth without passing into heaven—not even a shadow of
opposition to the plain doctrine of the Epistle, that there is only one way for
man of reconciliation and renewal (chapter 2. 4.), with nothing but " the
wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." (5. 6.) And as little are
we told when the grand result is to be effected. Enough that it belongs to the
future. And that future (according to our doctrine) embraces the period when
nothing of humanity shall remain, except what belongs to the body of Christ.
Need anything more be said of the other expression, on
which so much weight is frequently laid, in the writings of the same
Apostle—" That by Him He might reconcile all things unto (or for)
Himself—whether they be things in earth or things in heaven?" (Col. 1.
20.) For here, again, the context supplies the same statement regarding the
final doom of the impenitent. (3. 6.) Surely it is hard from this to write down
Paul as an advocate for ‘universal restoration.'
Nor is it possible to make anything more of such a
statement as this—"Who wills all men to be saved, and to come to the
knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim. 2. 4.) For, is it not plain that the
being ' saved' and the ' coming to the knowledge of the truth' are exactly
co-extensive? And is it less certain, according to the doctrine of Paul, that
the only season for coming to such knowledge is the present? It is only now, he
teaches, that sinners are saved—and that, by " believing on Christ Jesus
to everlasting life." (1. 15, 16.) Does anyone still ask—Why, then, say
that God wills all men to be saved, if they never are? But does not God will
all men to love Him, and that now?—while yet they do not. Does He not will that
all should repent, and repent now?—and yet they do not. Yes, does He not will
that they should come to the knowledge of the truth—even now—and so be saved
now? and yet it does not take place. Thus it is no question of time at all—but
entirely of principle. And the principle must be false which can extract the
result of a universal future restoration from a sentence which would, far more
naturally and distinctly, yield the result of a universal present love, faith,
repentance—that is to say, a universal salvation from sin as accepted and
enjoyed now. What, in short, can we extract from such statements other than
what appears so plainly in the one—" How often would I have gathered thy
children . . . . and ye would not?"
Or, are we reminded that God is " the Savior of
all men, specially of those that believe"? (1 Tim. 4. 10.) Such arguing, I
answer, becomes those only who attend to the sound rather than to the sense of
words.—" We labor and suffer reproach," is the sentiment,
"because we trust in the LIVING GOD, who is the Savior (Preserver) of all
men—specially of those that believe." But what does this mean, except that
He makes His sun to shine and His rain to fall upon the evil and the
good—while, in a very peculiar sense, He delivers His believing ones—attending
specially to the wants of those who seek first the kingdom of God—making all
things work together for good to those that love Him?
Or, are we referred to the fifth chapter of Romans for
a proof of universal restoration? We shall only answer —Can you read that
chapter, and really believe that Paul knows anything of an actual salvation, in
any other way than by faith, for those who have had Christ preached to them?
Actual salvation, we say—for that is our whole question now. As to a
provisional salvation, that is another matter, and not affecting our enquiry.
But if the actual salvation comes only through faith, then certainly no room is
left for it at the end of the supposed period of retribution. For, however such
a restoration may be supposed to be alluded to in some passages, there is not
certainly in any of them a hint as to the existence of faith, or repentance, or
any gracious act, on the part of those who, dying in unbelief, are represented
as perishing.
Or, is it pressed upon us, that GOD IS LOVE? It is of
all truths the most sublime. And yet, with all its certainty, it has not
precluded either the mystery of sin, or the misery which to this day has
attended, or is yet to attend it. Most probably we should have pronounced that
no such state of things could ever have obtained under the rule of such a God.
And we should have been mistaken. But it will be no mistake if we learn caution
now, and abstain from all theorizing as to a necessity for some supposed action
of divine love, because it seems to us that a contrary action would not be
reconcilable with it. It is easy to say that the love of God is a depth deeper
than hell, and—from the principle thus assumed or rather the figure thus
employed—to draw our own conclusions. But it would be safer and more becoming
to adjust our views to God's own revelation of His love and its saving action.
How far, indeed, we can intelligently and cordially enter into this revelation,
while believing in the certainty of everlasting torment for an inconceivable
multitude of the sinners of a day—that is a different matter. But what is
there, on the other hand, to conflict with the love of God in the spectacle of
His redeemed children as gathered around Him, and rejoicing in the immortality
which, forfeited by all, is now restored to them under the glorious aspect of
LIFE ETERNAL?
Again, is it offered to us as an argument for
'restoration,' that " For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that
He might destroy (abolish) the works of the devil"? (1 John 3. 8.) True;
but though He does this, whenever He delivers a soul from the tyranny of Satan,
that does not hinder the present continuance and action of the " children
of the devil." (5. 10.) And what is to be the final destiny of such must
be learnt elsewhere than from passages like this.
Or, does anyone venture to build upon such an
expression as—" The times of restitution of all things "? (Acts 3. 21.)
But that is plainly an event of the present, not of the future world. What else,
in short, as the burden of so many prophecies can it signify, except that
millennial state when the groanings of creation shall have ceased, because the
rightful Sovereign has come to reign—the Prince of Peace, " whom the
heavens must receive until the time" of His full dominion—the time of His
restoring again the kingdom to Israel!
And, if so little can be extracted from such a
sentence as this, can more be made out of the statement—" That at the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth; and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord"
(Phil. 2. 10, 11.) For surely it is possible to understand this without
reference to lost souls; or, at least, without assuming their restoration,' so
long as there can be a bowing and confessing by compulsion as well as by
choice—a homage of devils as well as of angels—of chained captives as well as
of triumphant friend. And how, in fact, can we suppose that a writer, who had
just spoken of the perdition' of unbelievers, and was about to add, "
Their end is destruction," should now actually teach 'restoration' by such
language as this? Did he, in so speaking, leave room for the idea that their
end—or rather their unending state—should after all be, not destruction,' but
redemption'? (1. 28; 3. 19.)
Once more, we are reminded that " the last enemy,
death, shall be destroyed." (1 Cor. 15. 26.) Now this single expression,
we admit, might fairly consist with a universal restoration if otherwise
taught. But it can never establish it, in the face of all that so decisively
contradicts it. To this, however, we shall return in the following chapter.
Meanwhile, in connection with this, we call attention to an argument stranger
perhaps than any of the preceding. For it has been taught that " the
second death" itself actually implies and indicates a second and eternal
life—on the assumed principle that death always means a ceasing to live in
one's present state, and a coming to live in the opposite. And thus, as the
first death is considered to have been a dying to God in order to a living in
sin, so " the second death" must be regarded as a dying to sin, in
order to a living to God /4 A good cause, doubtless, is often supported by bad
arguments. But some perhaps may be inclined to greater caution in regard to '
universal restoration' when they see it thus argued for. And yet, extraordinary
as the argument is, it is hard to conceive how the Scripture statements can,
with less of violence, be forced into consistency with a belief so opposed to
them.
" The 'second death' so far from being, as some
think, the hopeless shutting up of man forever in the curse of disobedience,
will, if I err not, be God's way to free those who in no other way than by such
a death can be delivered out of the dark world, whose life they live in.. . .
The ungodly have not died to sin. At the death of the body, therefore, and
still more when they are raised to judgment, because their spirit yet lives,
they are still within the torments of that dark and fiery world, the life of
which has been and is the life of their spirit. To get out of this world there
is but one way—death; not the first, for that is past, but the second
death."—Jukes, as above, p. 87.
Again, "Death to a spirit is only exchanging one
life for another, and so passing out of one spirit-world into another . . . .
What to the lost must the second death be? What, I ask, is any death but
separation from the life and world which up to that death has been lived in."—Letter
to the Rainbow, July, 1869.
God All In All.
1 Cor. 15. 28.
SUCH is the final adjustment of the mystery of God's
Providence—the consummation of the work of His grace. It is the one end, achieved
at last, for which the all-wise Contriver and all-powerful Controller had been
working from the beginning. To understand the sublime expression employed to
denote this, let us carefully attend to the context.
The Apostle has been treating of the order of the
resurrection. " In Christ shall all be made alive (says he); but every man
in his own order—Christ the first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at
His coming." And such, as regards that matter, is all that he has to say.
Thus is the subject of resurrection absolutely exhausted. There is something
indeed to follow—" Then cometh the end." But of resurrection there is
nothing. And why should we wonder? The field cannot produce more than
first-fruits and harvest. And so—as the Apostle has nothing in view beyond the
resurrection of Head and members—who, after the rising of " them that are
Christ's," is left to follow? We are not forgetting the truth of a "
first resurrection"—nor the more limited aspect in which the ‘coming' is
commonly presented. But if the Apostle chooses to sum up in a single statement
the whole of resurrection—at the same time giving for the epoch of it the
commencement only of the period during which the whole takes place—then we have
no alternative but to accept his view, and take our stand upon it. That such is
his view we maintain for the reasons now given. Elsewhere we may have notices
of a first, and a second or general resurrection; but note here. The
resurrection here is one—except it be that Christ's comes first—and afterwards
that of them who are His.
But though resurrection is thus past, rebellion is not
yet destroyed—all enemies are not yet trampled on. And not until this be done
can Christ surrender the Mediatorial dominion committed to Him. As to how the
subjugation in question is to be effected no hint is given. Over all that there
hangs an impenetrable veil. For earth and its struggles are now over.
Time—speaking after the ordinary standard—time with its pursuits and plots has
run out; and it is the eternal world which furnishes the arena of the triumph
now being achieved. Whether this triumph involves a conflict, or whether it
follows upon the resistless and unresisted action of overwhelming might—we
cannot tell. But that the foe still lives in mad rebellion—the same foe that
planned all the mischief from the beginning—is sufficiently indicated. The name
of that foe is "All rule (or principality), all authority, and power"
—the same undoubtedly as the "principalities and powers" that the
dying Redeemer cast off and "made a show of openly, triumphing over them
in His cross" (Col. 2. 15)—the same as " the principalities and
powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world" which the Christian has
to contend with now. (Eph. 6. 12.) These powers, then, have to be put
down—destroyed, abolished. [The same word is rendered destroyed' (5. 26) in
connection with the last enemy.' So Rom. 6. 6; 2 Thess. 2. 8; Heb. 2. 14. In 2
Tim. 1. 10 we have 'abolish.'] And what can that mean? Yes, what can it mean?
Already they have got their last victim within their grasp—already they have
hurled their last dart at the army of the Conqueror—already is their whole
opportunity for mischief, as we commonly regard it, gone—while they themselves
are consigned to a dungeon which they can quit no more. Still, they are not yet
abolished, or destroyed. For they now rage with a new fury in their old enmity
against the Prince of peace, and revel in the vengeance permitted to them
against their victims of mankind. And how, as long as they exist, can they
cease so to rage and revel? But how on the other hand, after being abolished or
destroyed, can they continue so to do?
Such, surely, is the view suggested by the language
and the scene—when we take ' destroy' or ' abolish' at its real value, and
consider both what must precede such an event, and what must be the import of
the event when occurring at the stage here indicated in the course of
Providence. It will be urged, no doubt, that this cannot be the meaning of the
expression here—since it is synonymous with the 'putting of enemies under the
feet'—and that, it will be said, is a very different thing from such an
abolition of them. Not at all different, we answer. Whatever be the meaning
commonly attached to the language now, the Scriptural idea certainly was that
such a treatment of enemies amounted to nothing less than an utter crushing or
extinguishing of them. Thus, if we go to the cardinal passage (Ps. 90. 1),
" Sit Thou on My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy
footstool"—the only view presented by the psalm of the treatment of such
amounts to no less than actual destruction. (See verses 5, 6.) And the other
references to the same practice bear out this view of the figure. [Thus, when
Joshua called the captains to put their feet upon the necks of the kings, that
was only the prelude to the slaughter of them (Josh. 10 24-26.) And David when
delivered from the hand of all his. enemies says—" Thou hast given me the
necks of mine enemies, that I might destroy them that hate me." (Ps. 18. 40.)]
We should suppose, then, that such was the very design of the Father when He
installed the Son at His right hand as universal King—committing to Him a
sovereignty that never should end till He had made an end of the last of His
enemies. And, excepting such a destruction, what remained to be done to "
the principalities and powers" after the day when they were consigned to
"the everlasting fire prepared for them"? What alternative, then,
have we but to accept the language as really announcing all that it expresses?
Have we not here, in short, the complete fulfilment of the design " that, through
death, He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the
devil"? (Heb. 2. 14.) And how otherwise can the Son of God completely
execute the purpose for which He was manifested (namely, that He might destroy
the works of the devil, 1 John 3. 8), than by destroying a worker who, while he
lives, must work?
We come now to another and a very different view of
the great work represented as still in progress under the regal administration
of the Messiah—" The last enemy, death, shall be destroyed." Now, if
we suppose a resurrection still to be accomplished at the epoch here specified,
then of course the destruction of the last enemy will properly be regarded as
effected in that. To the reasons however already given against such a view we
may now add that death seems to be here spoken of under a new aspect—namely, as
the last enemy—and one which has never yet been abolished at all. Whereas, on
the other hand, if we take the abolition of death as signifying the last act of
resurrection-work, there will be nothing peculiar either in the enemy or its
destruction, but simply the repetition and consummation of that which took
place at the coming.' For such reasons it seems to us that the death,' here
called the last enemy,' can be no other than " THE SECOND DEATH." The
whole scene, in short, as presented by the Apostle seems so to shut us out from
every other view, and so shut us up to this, that we know not where else we can
rest. And surely if the first death was both an enemy's work, and itself an
enemy to those on whom it wrought—much more is the second death an enemy, as
that which inflames lost souls with the last desperate madness of enmity and
rebellion against Him who has righteously consigned them to it. But this is not
all. The second death may fairly be taken to embrace the whole condition of
lost souls, that is to say, not only the righteous judgment which has bound
them over to it; but their own unrighteous opposition to Him who never did them
wrong. And thus will it be an enemy indeed—an enemy whose one breath is the
deadliest malignity to the High and Holy One, and to all that concerns Him. Is
it strange, then, if, in a picture displaying the abolition of that death, it
should be spoken of as the last enemy? But how is this abolition to be effected?
By the setting of its victims beyond the reach of its ravages—thus will the
last enemy be abolished. By what means, then, shall such consummation be
attained?
Of two great acts either would secure it. The
elevation of those victims to a place among the redeemed; or the sinking of
them beneath the reach of hurt from the enemy. In a word the glorifying, or the
extinguishing, of the agonized sufferers, would equally result in the
destroying of this enemy. And to which of these does the Scripture point as the
actual means to be employed? Can we doubt? Has not even the present passage
taught us that the redeemed harvest is gathered in already at the period to
which it refers?—and that there will then remain only enemies to be
subdued—these consisting of certain principalities, authorities, powers, and
the last enemy death. And is such the way in which the final redemption of lost
myriads would be represented? Is it a taper like this, invisible in the
overwhelming gloom, that would be held up before the straining eyes of humanity
to point them to the radiance of a universal restoration? Vain imagination!
Such cannot be the object of the passage. If the evidence be not sufficient to
establish the connection with the second death—let us by all means reject it.
But, as we value truth and divine authority, let us shrink from all such
violence as would force this passage to become the mouthpiece of our own
theories. Meanwhile, believing that the evidence is sufficient to support our
view of the last enemy, we can see in that abolition of the second death which
alone the Scripture sanctions—namely, the perfect destruction of all that stirs
itself against God—the restoration and reign of a perfect submission and peace
throughout the entire bounds of His universe. And this, we take it, is not a
bad fulfilment of a revelation which announces—" Death—the last enemy,
shall be destroyed."
Another scene follows—and the drama of time and redemption
is complete. Already is all subjected to the Son—and in such subjection is
fulfilled the design of that special dominion over all that had been committed
to Him. It only remains that the Son be subjected to Him from whom He received
this dominion—the design of the whole being "that God may be ALL IN
ALL." Yes, all in all—everything everywhere and in everyone. The creature
is the creature still—but God is the all to each one. The Blessed Trinity now
supplies all the wants—satisfies all the longings—fills up all the capacity of
those multitudes, unfallen or redeemed, of whom the intelligent universe is now
composed. Nowhere throughout creation is there another thought, another feeling
about God than that He is the creature's ALL—the all for enjoyment—the all for
pleasing and magnifying—my all, says each—our all shouts the universal
chorus—THE ALL in all. Is this what the Apostle teaches? We believe, we must
beliei7re that it is. And why should we not? Putting aside the dream of
restoration—what consummation can compare with it? We can see it to be all
glorious, all worthy of God —and what more can we desire? Justice has
triumphed, and Love has triumphed. Evil only has been crushed. Universal
harmony has been restored. Does it seem to us as if everlasting discord between
Himself and His creatures—or between creatures themselves—would better befit
the arrangements of One who is a God of order and not of confusion? Is it
possible that we can prefer the thought of countless masses of immortal rebels
being launched on eternity with no harmony but this, that they abhor the very
name of Him who made them—and have agreed to kick with all the energy of their
undying natures against the foot that keeps them down in the everlasting
darkness? And were these too few or too insignificant to be even remembered as
an exception when Messiah's work and government were represented as consummated
in the supremacy of God? No, we may not believe it, as we tremble at the divine
word; but on the contrary we must conclude that there is no exception of any
kind anywhere to this, as the winding up of the great world-drama that God
SHALL BE ALL IN ALL.
The following is a sample of the way in which the
victory over evil and death is regarded by those who contend for the
everlasting continuance of evil and suffering—"An awful balance then
remains, a terrible residue to be placed to the account of the principle and
power of evil; a residue so terrible as to urge us to exclaim, Is Death' indeed
swallowed up in victory,' with such a tribute as this, of miserable spirits,
paid into the gloomy treasury of 'the second death' F And we can only answer
that, the boundless power of Christ being sufficiently manifested in the
salvation of the blessed, His mysterious justice waives the prosecution of His
conquest; while Death and Hades being (in the strong expressions of
inspiration) cast into the lake of fire,' merged in their own horrible
consummation, they are thereby declared to be limited for all eternity to that
dark realm. Thus the eternity of torment, mysterious and terrible as it
doubtless is, in nowise affects the universality of Christ's victory over the
powers of evil. Christ Himself exalted to glory fixes the barriers to the
energies of pain and death; annihilates not the foe, but banishes him; makes
him the accursed minister of His own dread, vengeance; and publicly manifests
to the universe that if misery exist, it exists only as a permitted agent in
the awful administration of God." [!!]—Sermons by W. A. BUTLER, First
Series, p. 150.
Ancient Jewish Opinion As To Future Punishment.
The Apocrypha.
IT is of consequence that we now attend to the subject
here indicated. For it has been too much the habit to assume that the Jews, or
at least the Pharisees, in New Testament times, held as a settled thing the
doctrine of, endless suffering. And from this is drawn an important inference
as to the manner in which they would understand the Savior’s teaching. That
such an assumption is entirely unwarranted we shall endeavor to show. There is
little, indeed, if anything at all, to give color to it, except certain
statements of Josephus, and some phrases in the Talmud. To these we shall
direct attention, after we have given as distinct a view as our space permits
of the evidence on the other side.
Beginning, then, with the New Testament itself, which
contains so many pregnant notices of Jewish belief— what hint do we find that
the Jews of that time held the belief ascribed to them? Not one. On the other
hand, we find a young man of wealth and intelligence coming to our Lord with
the enquiry—What good thing he should do, to inherit eternal life. Now what
reason have we to say that such language in the mouth of this youth had any
other meaning than it has regularly had in the mouth of other people—always, of
course, excepting that New Testament usage now under discussion? What right
have we to imagine that the young ruler by eternal life' meant simply eternal
blessedness'—believing all the time that eternal life,' in the ordinary sense
of the words, was the common property of all, irrespectively of aught done to
secure it? We may believe—and think we have good reason for doing so—that our
Lord uses the same expression in a sense so peculiar. But what reason have we
for thinking that the young ruler so employed it? For it was as a Jew that he
made the enquiry; and it is most certain that a question as to the obtaining of
life, asked in the Old Testament sense, would simply refer to the prolongation
of natural life, with prosperity for its assumed accompaniment. Most
reasonably, then, we conclude that when one trained in such a school passes on from
natural to eternal life, he looks now to the obtaining of an existence that
shall be, not merely long, but endless—with the accompaniment of a
proportion-ably enhanced prosperity. And to show how prominent the element of
endless life, in the sense of endless existence, as a thing peculiar to the
righteous, was to devout Jews of that day, we have simply to recall the ready
answer of the Scribe—" Master, Thou bast well said"—after our Lord
had silenced the Sadducees by His assertion of immortality as peculiar to God's
children—" Neither can they die anymore."
And then as to the belief in everlasting misery—how
should the Jews have taken it up? The Old Testament had not taught it to them.
How sparing that had been in regard to a formal teaching of immortality, even
for the righteous, will be allowed by all. And yet the later Jews had deduced,
and correctly, as will be admitted, that doctrine from their own Scriptures. To
this they very commonly joined the resurrection of the dead. Seeing also clear
intimations of the existence of the wicked in the coming state, they had, more
or less distinctly, associated the perdition announced by their Scriptures with
a punishment involving much of shame and suffering. But, as to endless torment,
where were they to learn it? They had, indeed, read of fire unquenchable; but
the meaning always was, that no human effort could hinder it from doing its
work of consumption.' They had read of certain in regard to whom " the
worm should not die, nor the fire be quenched." But it was the carcasses
of the men that should be the victims of the vengeance threatened. And the
object of horror was to be some spectacle outside the walls of Jerusalem—not a
scene in the eternal world. Where, then, were they to learn the doctrine in
question? The mythology, and to some extent the philosophy, of the Greeks would
have furnished them with the idea in regard to certain very notorious
sinners—incorrigible transgressors as they were counted—parricides and the
like—who were to be delivered over to such suffering. But to the honor of the
Jews be it said that—whatever their own views may have been—they did not accept
on this point those of their more intellectual neighbors. They believed in that
bodily resurrection which was abhorrent to the Greeks, and contented themselves
with a very skillful development of Old Testament representations in regard to
the condition of souls.
What the ordinary belief of the Jews was, not long
before the appearance of our Lord among them, we may learn with sufficient accuracy
from their Apocryphal books.
Of these one is content with the announcement that
" The vengeance of the ungodly is fire and worms." (Ecclus. 7. 17.)
Another says, " Woe to the nations that rise up against my kindred! The
Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment, in putting
fire and worms in their flesh; and they shall feel them and weep forever."
(Judith 16. 17.) This last expression will not be overrated by anyone who has
marked its ordinary application in the Old Testament! Again, we read of "
being raised up to everlasting life;" of " having no resurrection to
life;" of " dying after short pain, under God's covenant of
everlasting life; " while others receive "just punishment for their pride,
not escaping the hand of the Almighty, dead or alive." (2 Macc. 7. 9, 14,
36; 6. 26; 12. 43-45.)
From these scattered notices we come to the express
teaching on the subject contained in two of the Apocryphal books. In one of
these, Esdras 2. written, as we may assume, in the half century B.C., we find
the following:—
(a) Future retribution.—" What profit is it now
to live in heaviness, and after death to look for punishment?" " We
considered not that we should begin to suffer for it after death." (7. 47,
56.)
" They that have cast them away shall
despitefully dwell in torments." " They must know repentance after
death by pain." (9. 9, 12.)
" After death shall the judgment come, when we
shall live again; and then shall the name of the righteous be manifested, and
the works of the ungodly shall be declared." (14. 35.)
(b) Immortality.—" The day of doom shall be the
end of this time, and the beginning of the immortality for to come, wherein
corruption is past." " What profit is it, if there be promised to us
an immortal time, whereas we have done the works that bring death?" . . .
" For this is the life whereof Moses spoke unto the people, saying, Choose
thee life that thou mayest live." (7. 43, 49, 59.)
(a) Destruction.—Now it is to be observed that
throughout the book, where the meaning is quite unambiguous, the words ‘destruction'
and ‘perish' are freely used to denote the ' bringing' or coming to an end
'—just as we have found to be the case in the Old and New Testaments. And with
this the writer joins, in the most natural way possible, the notices with which
we are concerned. Thus, in one sentence, we find the " ungodly perishing;"
while in almost the next we read, " There be many that perish in this
life." (7. 17, 20.) So, whether it be in regard to punishment here or
hereafter, it is counted sufficient to say that the Lord " delivers to
death and destruction." (15. 26, 49.)
We now ask that the following extracts be well considered—whether
as bearing upon Jewish belief or phraseology.
" As the husbandman soweth much seed upon the
ground, and planted many trees, and yet the thing that is sown good in his
season cometh not up, neither doth all that is planted take root; even so is it
of those that are sown in this world; they shall not all be saved.. . Like as
the husbandman's seed perishes if it come not up . . . even so perishes man
also, which is formed by thy hand, and is called thine own image . . . he is
likened to the husbandman's seed. . . . Things present are for the present, and
things to come for such as be to come. . . . Sorrows are past, and in the end
is shown the treasure of immortality. And, therefore, ask thou no more
questions concerning the multitude of them that perish. . . . It was not His
will that man should come to naught."
So we read in the 8th chapter; and how can we but
compare with all this the other expressions in the same chapter so evidently
meaning the same thing:
" The Most High hath made this world for many,
but the world to come for few. . . . There be many created, but few shall be
saved." (verses 1, 3, 41, 43, 44, 46, 54, 55, 59.)
See again how the author insists upon and illustrates
destruction,' representing it as punishment,' and as connected with suffering:
" They shall dwell in torments. . . . . They
shall know repentance by pain" (he had just said); and then—" Be not
thou curious how and when the ungodly shall be punished; but enquire how the
righteous shall be saved, whose the world is, and for whom the world is
created. . . . I have said before, and now do speak, and will speak it also
hereafter, that there be many more of them which perish than of them which
shall be saved. Let the multitude perish, then, which was born in vain; and let
my [chosen] grape be kept, and my plant; for with great labor have I made it
perfect." (9. 13, 15, 22.)
Thus the wicked are represented as perishing, and that
in the course of punishment, and by the endurance of suffering. If it be asked
more particularly in what sense they are supposed to perish, the answer is at
hand—
" Our fathers which received the law kept it not;
and though the fruit of Thy law did not perish, nor could it, for it was Thine;
but they that received it perished, because they kept not the thing that was
sown in them. And lo, it is a custom, when the ground bath received seed, or
the sea a ship, or any vessel meat or drink, that that being perished which
received it, the thing also which was cast into it doth perish; but with us it
bath not been so; for we that have received the law perish by sin, and our
heart also which received it. Notwithstanding the law perishes, not, but remained
in his force." (9. 32-37.)
And, once more, as distinctly showing the connection
designed between destruction, as the thing aimed at, and fire as the instrument
for effecting it, we read thus—
"My Son shall lay before them their evil
thoughts, and the torments wherewith they shall begin to be tormented, which
are like unto a flame; and He shall destroy them without labor by the law which
is like unto fire." (8. 38.)
To these extracts from the second book of Esdras, as
given in the common Apocrypha, we add the following from chap. 6. of the Ethiopic
version as translated by Archbishop Laurence, not found in the Latin version,
but " bearing all the marks of genuineness, and quoted by Ambrose."
" An evil heart seduces us into the way of death
and path of perdition, removing from us henceforward the prospect of life. Nor
is this the case with many, but with all who are born. . . . I shall rejoice in
those few who shall live" (it had just been said that the righteous should
never die), " because they will attain to my glory. Nor do I grieve on account
of those who perish; for those now resemble a fire, are like a flame, and as
smoke burn, rage, and are extinguished."
The Wisdom of Solomon.—This book expresses with the
utmost distinctness the view that immortality' belongs only to the wise and
good; while destruction' under some form or other—destruction as contrasted
with immortality—is the destiny of others; and the value of such testimony is
enhanced rather than diminished by the appearance of Alexandrian traces in the
book. For it is plainly in spite of Greek influence and Alexandrian authorship
that such views are presented, in regard to bodily resurrection and conditional
immortality. Such, it seems, was the Jewish belief; and it was not easily
quenched. We ask that the words here quoted from the original may be compared
with the same expressions as used in the New Testament.
" Seek not death in the error of your life; and
pull not upon yourselves destruction by the work of your own hands. For God
made not death; neither hath He pleasure in the destruction of the living. For
He created all things that they might have their being; and the generations of
the world were healthful; and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor
the kingdom of death upon the earth. For righteousness is immortal. But ungodly
men, with their works and words, called it [destruction] to them." (1. 12-16.)
The ungodly are then introduced expressing their own
principles, as those of Epicurean pleasure in life and extinction at death; and
as seeking to prove the fallacy of the contrary views of the righteous. After
which it is said of them—
" As for the mysteries of God, they know them not;
neither hoped they for the wages of righteousness, nor discerned a reward for
blameless souls. For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an
image of His own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil, came death
into the World; and they that hold of his side do find it. But the souls of the
righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them. In the
sight of the unwise they seemed to die; and their departure is taken for
misery, and their going from us to be utter destruction; but they are in peace.
For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of
immortality. And having been a little chastised, they shall be greatly
rewarded; for God proved them, and found them worthy for Himself. . . . They
shall judge the nations, and their Lord shall reign forever. . . . But the
ungodly shall be punished according to their own imaginations. . . . For whoso despises
wisdom he is miserable, and their hope is vain. . . . For glorious is the fruit
of good labors; and the root of wisdom shall never fall away. . . . Horrible is
the end of the unrighteous generation. (2. iii.) Their memorial shall perish .
. . and the floods shall cruelly drown them; but the righteous live forevermore.
(see 4. v.) For the giving heed to 'wisdom is the assurance of incorruption,
and incorruption makes us near to God. (7. 18, 19.) I myself also am a mortal
man like to all. . . . And I called, and the Spirit of wisdom came to me; . . .
for God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom (7. 1, 7, 28); moreover,
by the means of her, I shall obtain immortality. For to be allied to wisdom is
immortality. (8. 13, 17.) To know thee, O God, is perfect righteousness; yea,
to know thy power is the root of immortality." (15. 3.)
Such is the teaching of this striking book, on which
we venture these two remarks. (1) The immortality spoken of is manifestly
equivalent to that living forevermore which is so closely associated with it;
and each of them is in the most express terms confined to the righteous. (2)
The utter destruction spoken of on the previous page—as the thing which the
unwise ' take for the lot of the departed righteous—just as clearly indicates
an entire end of them. And so, when the writer himself affirms the same of the
unrighteous, it is beyond all question what he means. He uses the expressions
immortality' and destruction,' in short, just as our Bishop Butler does.5 And
such was the usage to which the hearers of our Lord and the readers of the New
Testament had been all their lives accustomed, without one exception that has
ever been pointed out.
If we now add that the word is constantly used
throughout the book, it is hardly needful to say that we find no other
application of it than that which we meet with in ordinary writers.
Ancient Jewish Opinion As In The Book Of Enoch, The
Ascension Of Isaiah, The Talmud, And Josephus.
FROM the common Apocrypha we turn to the lately
discovered Book of Enoch,1 which belongs, probably, like Esdras 2, to the half
century B.C., and contains references in great profusion to the future state.
Now let it be freely granted that if we are willing to
rest with the mere sound of such words as forever and ever,' without weighing
their sense or connection, then nothing can be easier than to satisfy ourselves
that the author of this book intended to teach the doctrine of everlasting
sufferings.' But, if we will only take the proper means of ascertaining what he
really meant by the expressions in question, we may find ourselves brought to a
very different conclusion. The language referred to seems hardly, indeed, ever
out of his mouth. But to say that he meant by it what we should mean is another
thing altogether. Our firm conviction is this—' Enoch' (let us call him)
teaches that a great many generations (70, he says, c. 10) should elapse before
the day of judgment; after which there should be set up on this earth, for a
period of countless ages, the kingdom of God, or the Messiah—during which the
righteous should flourish in the perfection of bliss. Now, let us allow that he
teaches an equal duration of torment for the wicked—although it appears
extremely questionable whether he had one mind, or two, in regard to
that—still, however long the supposed period of suffering, it has; according to
him, a decided term; and, this once reached, the wicked shall be no more. As to
the righteous—while there is no hint of their continuing longer, there is as
little of their coming to an end. Let us allow him therefore the spiritual
instinct to assume that these ages were, in regard to God's people, the
entrance only upon their proper eternity. And how such a writer, with a mind so
imaginative, and a style so exaggerated, could employ language as he does, will
surprise us the less when we consider how differently the Old Testament itself,
with its wonderful soberness, uses certain expressions from the way which we
should venture on. With such usage the ordinary Jewish writers of those days
had been familiar from their childhood; and we need not wonder if, at times,
they allowed a license to their pens which has given rise to a belief that they
intended to express what never entered their minds. And yet, as to the present
case, we cannot but wonder that any thoughtful reader should ever have
construed Enoch's high sounding sentences as meaning anything approaching to
everlasting suffering.
We now give a few specimens of the doctrine—if such it
can be called—of the book, upon the points that concern us.
(a) Destruction.—" Woe to you that extend your
ill-doing to your neighbor; for ye shall be killed in hell." (c. 99.)
" I will cast them like hay into the fire, and
like lead into the water. Thus shall they burn in the presence of the
righteous, and sink in the presence of the holy; nor shall a tenth part of
theme be found." (c. 48.)
" Then shall the roots of iniquity be cut off;
sinners perish by the sword; and blasphemers be annihilated everywhere." (c.
90.)
"Approach not the paths of evil, that ye may not
perish. Ye are destined to the day of darkness and of the great judgment. This
I declare to you, that He who created you will destroy you. He will not show
you mercy, but will rejoice in your destruction. Nor hope that ye shall live,
ye sinners; but ye shall go hence and die, because ye know no ransom-price, for
ye are prepared for the day of the great judgment." (c. 93, 96.)
[What ambiguity could there be in such words to one
brought up on the field of Old Testament language?]
" You who have labored shall wait in these days
till the evildoers are consumed, and the power of the guilty annihilated—shall
wait till sin pass away; for their names shall be blotted out of the holy book;
their seed shall be destroyed, and their spirits slain. They shall cry out and
lament in the horrible waste, and in the bottomless fire shall they burn."
(c. 99.)
The sentences that follow are the last in the book,
and show the limit which the author attached to this misery, on the one hand,
and to the glorious state of the righteous on the other. They show, in fact,
how he intended his ' eternity' to be understood.
(b) 'Eternity' and ' eternal life.'—" The
righteous shall shine during unnumbered periods. . . . Sinners shall cry out,
beholding therein how they exist in splendor, and proceed forwards to the days
and periods prescribed for them.3 . . . The everlasting condemnation shall be
far from you for all the generations of the world." (c. 104.)
" They shall hope for eternal life, and that each
of them may live for 500 years." (c. 10.)
[How this is to be explained I do not profess to
say—nor the following:]
" Righteousness and right shall men plant forever
with delight. Then shall all the saints give thanks, and live till they have
begotten a thousand children; while the whole period of their youth and their
sabbaths shall be completed in peace."—Ib.
[It seems, in fact, as if he were speaking of the ages
of the earth as constituting the utmost extent of that eternity which he
designed to picture. Thus he continues:]
" The earth shall be cleansed from all
corruption, from every crime, from all suffering, from all punishment; neither
will I again send a flood upon it from generation to generation forever. Peace
and equity shall associate with the sons of men all the days of the world, in
every generation of it.” Ib.
[It is the same state of things which he describes in
the following ]
" The saints shall exist in the light of the sun,
and the elect in the light of everlasting life, the days of whose life shall
never terminate, nor shall the days of the saints be numbered. There shall be
light interminable, nor shall they enter upon the enumeration of time." (c.
56.)
" The whole account of the luminaries of heaven
is forever, according to every year of the world—until a new be elected which
shall be forever. This is the great luminary which He names the sun forever."
(c. 71.)
[That is to say, The present luminaries are forever;
and the one which succeeds them is also forever. The following may throw light
upon such language.]
" In the fifth week, the house of glory and
dominion (Solomon's temple) shall be erected forever and ever."
From this we may pass to what our author speaks of as
(c) Punishment forever.—" Into the darkness, and
into the chains, and into the burning flame shall your spirit go at the great
judgment; and the great judgment shall be for all generations, even to
eternity." (c. 103.)
" Then shall they be taken away into the lowest
depths of the fire in torments, and in confinement shall they be shut up forever.
After this shall Azazel, together with them, burn and perish. They shall be
bound until the consummation of many generations." (c. 10.)
The period of punishment is in one place said to be—
"Until the infinite (10,000 worlds) number of the
days of their crimes be completed." (c. 21.)
This number was naturally a favorite one with such
writers. Thus we find in Plato (Phaedrus. § 61)—" Whoever passes his life
justly obtains a better lot, but whoso unjustly, a worse one. For to the same
place whence each soul comes, it does not return till the expiration of 10,000
years. For it does not recover its wings for so long a period, except it is the
soul of a sincere lover of wisdom."
"And, as the inflammation of their bodies shall
be great, so shall their spirits undergo a change forever." (c. 66.)
Now this may seem formidable. And yet what is it,
after all, but the wanderings of a heated spirit amid the figures and fancies
of its own coining? The future state furnished precisely that scope for
imagination which such a disposition craved. There everything was at the best
dimly visible, as shrouded with the cloud of its own immensity. And yet even
such a mind did not dare to make that future really (according to our mode of
thinking) interminable. This, it seems, would have destroyed an essential
element in the drama which the writer had proposed to himself, and which
required that bounds should be set—in a future however remote dimly even to the
good, but distinctly to the misery which he undertook to delineate in the world
to come. It may throw some light perhaps upon the mind and style of the author
to know his exaggerated estimate of his own performance. " It is a
mystery," says he, " those sinners, however else they transgress,
will yet write out all my words correctly in their own languages, neither
changing nor diminishing them." (c. 104.) A mystery indeed!
To conclude. Strong as the language of the preceding
extracts is, we shall wonder less at it perhaps, when we see how much of it
seems to be simply the expansion of some sentences in Scripture, which
certainly do not express the idea of eternity. Thus we can feel at times as if
the writer's anxiety was to make the utmost of " the everlasting
generations " of Noah's covenant. We feel at other times as if he were
playing upon the strings of the passage in which Isaiah uses, with reference to
Edom, almost all the phrases by the use of which Enoch extends to boundless
ages the sufferings of the wicked. " It shall not be quenched day nor
night; the smoke thereof shall go up forever; from generation to generation, it
shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever." (Isa. 24. 10.)
And, once more, we can often hear him, as it were,
proclaiming the bliss of the righteous, in language which almost sounds like a
studied paraphrase of such expressions as these—"They shall fear Thee as
long as the sun and moon endure, through generations of generations.... In His
days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endures.
His name shall endure forever; His name shall be continued as long as the
sun." (Psalm lxxii.) Or again, " His seed shall endure forever, and
His throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon,
and as the faithful witness in heaven." (Psalm 89.) There is still another
Apocryphal book worthy of a passing reference, "
The Ascension of Isaiah the Prophet" —a piece long lost, and at last
translated from an Ethiopic version by Dr. Laurence, in 1819. It belongs most
probably to the first century of our era (the translator says the end of Nero's
reign); and is evidently the work of a Jewish Christian seeking to recommend
the new faith to his own people. The sentences which now concern us have this
peculiar interest, that they may thus be regarded as embodying ideas common at
once to Jews and Christians of that age. And they have also this feature which
we have met with already, and shall find still more frequently in the early
Christian *liters —namely, (a) the use of such terms as ' everlasting
punishment' in connection with (b) the express doctrine of the extinction of
the wicked. The sentences referred to are these.
(c) The king's son is sent to learn "truths
relating to the eternal judgments and the torments of Gehenna—that place of
everlasting punishment." (c. 1. 3.)
(a) " There shall be in those days a resurrection
and a judgment; while the Beloved shall cause to ascend from Him a fire to
consume all the ungodly, who shall be as if they had never been created." (c.
4. 18.)
He speaks of "the angel who is in hell, as not
yet having been hurled to utter perdition; " and then—" Thou shalt
judge and destroy the principalities, angels, and gods of the world, as well as
the world which belongs to them." (0. 10. 8, 12.)
Now such a combination of ideas may not be according
to the modern style. But if it was the style of the first Christian century,
the lesson is important.
It may seem perhaps as if we had paid too much attention
to these very peculiar books. But it will be no loss, if we are thus rendered
more familiar with the Jewish style of that period, and are enabled to enter
with greater accuracy into those expressions of the Talmud which have been so
confidently regarded as tantamount to the doctrine of endless sufferings. For,
though that work is too late directly to show what was the belief of the Jews
in New Testament times, still it will be contended that the indirect light
reflected from it is of much importance. Be it so; and what comes of it at the
most? Only this, as many believe, that the Talmud is in the habit of
contemplating a future entirely in accordance with that which we have just seen
represented—a future, especially of suffering, consisting of ages indefinite,
but not interminable. If, on this subject, we quote a learned writer as saying,
" There is no everlasting damnation according to the Talmud"8—that
may be set down as merely his opinion, and an opinion as unsound as if the same
authority should pronounce the same in regard to the Bible. But we may at least
refer to him as quoting the Talmudic words—" Generations upon generations
shall last the damnation of idolaters, apostates, traitors." And when he
interprets this as involving only " a temporary punishment even for the
worst of sinners," we cannot but believe—from the sense attached to such
language in the Old Testament and the other Jewish writings—that his
interpretation is correct. The author of " The Old Paths" was
certainly well acquainted with the Talmud; and he had every reason for quoting
its strongest assertions on a subject where its language is but little measured;
namely, when it treats of the doom of the enemies of Israel. And yet there is
nothing in his quotations bearing with it the doctrine of endless
suffering—nothing, in short, beyond, if equal to, the denunciations in the Book
of Enoch.
" All Israel has a share in the world to come And
also the pious of the nations have a share in the world to come But these are
they who have no part in the world to come, but who are out of and perish, and
are condemned, on account of the greatness of their wickedness and sin, forever,
even forever and ever,—the heretics, and the Epicureans, and the deniers of the
law." Again, " By the doing of these commandments he will be worthy
of everlasting life. And let him be assured that the world to come is laid up
for none but the righteous, and they are Israel. But now the Holy One brings
upon Israel the abundance of afflictions for no other reason than this, that
they may not be lost. All the nations shall be utterly destroyed, but they
shall abide."
Now what the Talmud meant by the expressions ' utterly
destroyed' and ' punishment of the nations' will sufficiently appear from the
following. We quote from a work,' the very object of which is to show the connection
between ancient Jewish belief and the teaching of the New Testament. We find,
then, that, according to the Talmud, there are three classes of per-
sons to be judged.
"(1) The perfectly good, who at death are sealed
for eternal life. (2) The perfectly bad, who are sealed for hell. (3) The
intermediate class, who fall into hell, and, after passing through the
purifying fire, come out into heaven, according to Zechariah 13. 9. In the same
portions of the Talmud there is some further detail as to the fate of the bad.
The heretics, traitors, Epicureans, it is there said, people like Jeroboam the
son of Nebat and his companions, go to hell and are
punished to all eternity, according to Isaiah 66. 24. Others have another fate.
The Israelites who have sinned with their bodies, and the heathen who have
sinned with their bodies, go to hell and are punished twelve months, after
which their body pines away; their soul is burnt; and the wind scatters them
under the feet of the righteous, as in Malachi 4. 3. But then, to make
compensation for this, it is said in another place that the righteous pray to
God for Israelites of this last class; and God bids them go and heal (or save)
them; and they go and stand upon the ashes of the wicked, and ask mercy for
them; and now the holy God causes that they stand up out of their ashes, which
is under the feet of the righteous, and He brings them to eternal life."
Upon this we remark—
(1) It gives a direct negative to the doctrine of a
universal, unconditional immortality.
(2) It distinctly teaches the doctrine of a real ‘destruction'
for certain sinners—a destruction from which, in the case of the great mass of
men, (namely, " the heathen who have sinned with their bodies,")
there is no redemption. And though there is, in tenderness to Israel, a
conditional deliverance for them from a fate that was counted worse than
everlasting suffering,' yet that does not alter the view that even for them
there was, in the first instance, a real destruction. Thus we find that the ‘perishing'
which was spoken of in some of the previous quotations, and which, as standing
there, might have been taken as a general term for punishment, did literally
mean, and that to the very utmost, what the word naturally suggested.
(3) It is only a small class of men, and mostly
Israelites, Jeroboam's class, who are sentenced to punishment " forever
and ever." But what, after all, does that expression mean? We know what it
would mean in modern usage. Does it mean the same according to the usage either
of the Old Testament, or of the ordinary Jewish writings? We answer without
hesitation, that we believe it does not. We believe that the phrase
"generations upon generations," as given in the article upon the
Talmud already quoted, well expresses it—or, which in such a case would amount
to the same, "ages upon ages," the phrase which we have ventured to
suggest as giving the true sense of the peculiar expression in Rev. 14. 11. Nor
does it tend to weaken this impression when we find that these ancient Jews
actually regarded 'annihilation' as an evil more to be dreaded than the one
which, they designed by the words everlasting punishment.' This of itself would
be, we think, a strong presumption that they understood this last expression in
a different sense from what Christians generally do now, and did not regard it
as equivalent to endless torments.
So far, then, in regard to immortality,"
destruction,' and ' everlasting punishment,' as these appear in then ancient
Jewish writings. On the other hand, there is one witness of unquestionable
importance who is adduced to prove that the Pharisees of the first century did
hold a belief essentially differing from that now presented.
The witness is Josephus, and his words are these:
" The Pharisees believe that souls have an
immortal vigor in them; and that, under the earth, there will be rewards and
punishments, according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life;
and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but the former
shall have power to live and revive again. . . But the doctrine of the
Sadducees is this, that souls die with the bodies. . . The Essenes teach the
immortality of souls. Again, the Essenes believe that bodies are corruptible,
and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that souls are immortal
and continue forever. . . are united to their bodies as in prisons . . . and
when set free from the bonds of the flesh . . . rejoice and mount upward . . .
And the Greeks seem to me to have had the same notion, when to the souls of
their brave men they allot the islands of the blessed; . . . and to the souls
of the wicked the regions of the ungodly in Hades . . . where certain persons
are punished, which is built on the first supposition that souls are immortal.
Again, the Pharisees say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls
of good men are only removed into other bodies, while those of the wicked are
subject to everlasting punishment. The Sadducees take away the belief of the
everlasting duration of the soul, and the punishments and rewards in
Hades."
Thus Josephus —who, in accordance with such
principles, represents himself as arguing with his companions against their
purpose of self-destruction—" that the bodies of all men are indeed
mortal, being created out of corruptible matter; but that the soul is ever
immortal, and a portion of the divinity which inhabits our bodies." And
so, when Eleazar aims at reanimating the courage of his countrymen in the
siege, he makes free use of the great argument of the soul's immortality, and
holds out to them the prospect of eternal liberty.
How then, are we to understand, and what value are we
to attach to these statements? The question admits, we think, of a simple
enough answer. And that may be given in the words of a writer whose judgment is
of the very highest value:—" The representations of Josephus upon this
subject are of little worth," says Jost. And
then, in regard to the Pharisees, he says that "they sought to perfect
themselves by piety for eternal blessedness; " adding the following as the
whole of the information which he thinks it needful to furnish as to the
Rabbinical teaching of New Testament times:
" The angels of destruction are ever at hand. . .
. An appointed angel meets the man at death, with a sword in his hand. The man
is brought to judgment. His deeds are brought forward; and it is settled who is
to fall into Gehenna, and who is to come into the presence of God, in order to
be eternally crowned, and to feed in the presence of the Godhead."
Thus we meet with destruction again; and how to estimate
that the foregoing extracts may have taught us. But further, as regards
Josephus, we see how, in some important respects, he has entirely
misrepresented Jewish belief, and shown a distinct tendency towards a style of
thought at direct variance with it.
(3) He ignores the belief in resurrection which we
know was held by the Pharisees (see Acts 23. 8; 24. 15); and in place of this
he imputes to them the Greek idea of the removal of the souls of the good into
other human bodies. This, of course, is independent of the Jewish notion of the
pre-existence of souls. We speak of the belief which he imputes to the
Pharisees in place of what they really held.
(4) He, speaking as a Jew, expresses, on his own
behalf, the Platonic belief as to the distinctive characters of body and soul;
namely, that the one is in itself corruptible and transient, the other a
portion of the divinity, and as such immortal. He does not, indeed, in saying
this, expressly assert, but he seems plainly to imply, a belief in common with
the Greek philosopher, of the untreated nature of the soul—as distinguished
from the Jewish view, that all souls were brought into being at the creation.8
Thus, while Josephus believed that souls were from eternity, he would
necessarily conclude that they were to eternity. It follows that—while the
Pharisees, believing in the creation, could also believe in the destruction of
souls—Josephus could not. In this way has the historian ascribed to his
countrymen views which we can venture to say they did not hold; he has
represented them in a light which is far more Greek than Jewish; he has done
this under some misguiding impulse, while holding up the Jewish portrait to the
eyes of Greeks and Romans;—the reasonable inference being, that we cannot
accept his testimony to the effect that the Pharisees believed in endless
sufferings. It would be easy, indeed, to dispose of the mere expressions
employed by him with this view, if that were all—easy to class such language
with what we so frequently find in other Jewish writers; but the view given by
him of the nature of the soul seems to forbid us thus to interpret his account
of its punishment; while, at the same time, it is precisely that view which
destroys our confidence in his statements as furnishing an accurate account of
Jewish belief. Suffice it to add, both for satisfaction to ourselves, and in
mitigation of the censure from which Josephus cannot be freed, that as the Jews
were in the habit of using strong language about the duration of punishment, so
he could, with less of untruthfulness, attribute to them a view which the words
themselves might have borne, but which certainly was not their view when they
used the words.
May we suppose, in short, that Josephus, holding for
himself an essentially Platonic view of the soul, was tempted so far to color
the opinions of his countrymen as was needful for bringing them into a partial
correspondence with his own? But if, on the other hand, the real belief of the
Jews as to immortality' and punishment was what we have found it to be, then we
can well see how they would understand our Lord when He announced the
destruction' of the impenitent; and how little apt they would be to
misunderstand Him when He spoke of an undying worm,' everlasting condemnation,'
and the unquenchable fire.'
Early Christian Belief-The Apostolic Fathers.
WE had not intended to go beyond the field of direct
Scripture testimony in regard to the great subject before us; but when we see
with what confidence it is asserted that the voice of Christian antiquity is
unanimous in teaching the doctrine of endless suffering, and when we think how
serious a bar to the reception of the truth is presented by such assertions, we
cannot but endeavor to show that the statements in question are not well
founded. Unfortunately, indeed, the belief in everlasting torment came to be
too soon and too widely entertained. What there is of it in the earliest
Christian remains shall be our enquiry now.
Beginning with the writings of the Apostolic Fathers,'
we ask attention to the following:
(a) Punishment.—In some of these writings (though by
no means the most important) we meet with the expressions—' everlasting
punishment,' everlasting fire,' unquenchable fire,'—but simply in the way of a
bare quotation from the New Testament—with no addition or specification to
define the precise view of the writer. In not one of them do we find a hint of
human immortality, or of everlasting suffering.
(b) It seems that the eternal life' designed by these
writers is nothing else than an equivalent of that ' immortality' or
indestructibility' which they uniformly represent as belonging to man only when
he partakes of Christ's salvation. And not only would it properly follow from
this, but it seems to be distinctly taught, that perdition, as involving an end
of their existence, was believed to be the doom of the unsaved.
In proof of this, we now give, as we believe, every
passage from the writers referred to bearing on the future state, Some of the
quotations may seem of little value. But it is manifestly important that the
whole be presented—and as much as possible in the actual connection—with a view
to a correct judgment.
EPISTLE OF CLEMENT.
In regard to the future of the wicked, we find nothing
in this Epistle that would fairly suffice to show the writer's belief. And yet
we have expressions not a few throwing important light upon the subject, and
leaving, we think, very little reason to question what were the views of this
companion of the chief of the Apostles. It would be important, even if that
were all, to see that Clement knows no other meaning than the ordinary one of
those terms in which Scripture conveys its information on our subject. This, and
something more, will appear from the following references.
(a) He thus employs the word perish,—
" Whoever shall be found outside of Rahab's house
shall perish"—the important parallel being added—" Showing, by the
scarlet line, that there is redemption through the blood of the Lord for all
that believe and hope in God." (c. 12.)—" Pharaoh and his army
perished." (c. 51.)—" Esther, that she might deliver the twelve
tribes about to perish." (c. 55.) "They perish, they die." (Job
4. 20, 21; c. 39.)
(b) Death.—
" Envy by which death also entered into the
world." (c. 3.)—" As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death
of a sinner." (o. 8.)—" Leaving envy which leads to death." (c. 9.)—"
Borah, etc., whose judgment was made manifest; for they descended alive into
Hades; and death swallowed them up." (a. 51.) "The Jews, acting
contrary to His will, receive the death appointed to them. But we, as we have
been favored with greater knowledge, incur so much greater a danger." (a.
41.)
What the 'danger' is, greater than the 'death' alluded
to, he does not say. But he manifestly alludes to the passage in Heb. 10. 28-31,
39, where 'death' is spoken of as the evil to which the Jewish rebel was
exposed, and perdition' as the lot of the unbeliever now.
(c) Save and salvation.—
" Ye had great conflict that the number of His
elect might be saved." (c. 2.)—" Noah preached repentance, and they
who submitted were saved." . . . "The Ninevites repenting obtained
salvation." (c. 7.)—" The Lord saved through Noah the creatures that
entered into the ark."—" Lot was saved out of Sodom—the rebellious
being given over to punishment and distress—his wife being turned into a pillar
of salt—that it might be known how the wavering serve for judgment and a sign
to all generations." (c. 11.)—" On account of faith and hospitality
Rahab was saved. . . . When ye take the city (said she) save me and my father's
house. . . . Gather them under thy roof, and they shall be saved." (c. 12.)
(d) The following, besides his ascriptions of praise
to God, are the only express references to the eternal state which the Epistle
contains.—
" How blessed and wonderful, beloved, are the
gifts of God!—Life in immortality, splendor in righteousness," etc. (c.
35.)
And yet it is not clear how he means this to be taken;
since he speaks of such things as being " subjected to our understanding
now"—in distinction from " the things prepared for those who wait for
them." Again,
" Through Him the Lord willed that we should
taste of the immortal knowledge " (c. 36).
Once more, he says of those who have been faithful
under persecution that
" They inherit honor and glory, and are lifted up
by God so as to have a memorial enduring 'forever and ever " (c. 45).
Besides this he is fond of quoting from the Old Testament
such sentences as—
" If ye rebel, the sword shall devour you." (c.
8.)—" The meek shall inherit the land, but the transgressors shall be destroyed
out of it"—" I beheld the wicked, and lo, he was not." (c. 14.)—"
The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance
of them from the earth." (c. 22.)—" Let Me alone, that I may destroy
them, and I will blot out their name from under heaven . . . . but Moses said,
Blot me out of the book of the living." (c. 53.)
Such is all that Clement teaches in regard to
immortality or punishment. And all that we can do is to infer from such
principles, and from such use of language, what he meant when he said—
" Take heed, beloved, lest His many favors turn
out for judgment to us all" (c. 21).—" Let us fear Him, that by His
mercy we may be hidden from the coming judgments." (c. 28.)
SECOND EPISTLE OF CLEMENT.
In this very ancient writing—whoever may have been the
author—we find frequent reference to the state of man as perishing, with every
appearance of the expression being designed in its ordinary sense, and without
one intimation of natural immortality, or endless
suffering.
After insisting upon a right estimate of salvation,' he
says,—
" The Father saved us when perishing " (c.
1.) " Thus he says that He must save the (ram) perishing. For this is a
thing great and wonderful, to confirm—not the standing, but the falling. And
thus Christ chose to save the perishing; and, coming, He saved many; calling ns
when already perishing."
Now let it be fairly considered whether these words
can have any sense but one. The expression, it will be observed, is not '
lost'—marked, as that may be considered, with more of latitude and
flexibility—but ‘perishing;' and who will venture to say that that, as used by
the writer, actually means, not coming to a miserable end, but entering on an
endless state of misery? For, besides the unquestionable meaning of the term,
how can we overlook the especial emphasis put upon it as denoting a present
condition, in progress towards completion? We were " already perishing;"
we were like " things that were falling."
If such then is plainly the writer's view, let us
combine with it what he says in the same passage—
" Our whole life was nothing else than death. . .
He took pity on us, and in compassion saved us—beholding in us much wandering
and destruction, and that we had no hope of salvation except from Him. For He
called us when we were not, and willed that, from not being, we should
be." (c. 1.)
The writer seems here to have had in his mind the
words—" Who calleth the things that be not as though they were."
(Rom. 4. 17.) Only he is not like the Apostle speaking of creation, but of
redemption. What remains, then, but to conclude that the ' not being' is the
state into which sin has brought us—the state to which, in its full
consummation, we are tending — which, except for grace, is our proper and
inevitable state—but from which by grace we are saved? And how can we regard
all this but as the equivalent of the destruction spoken of, in the natural and
ordinary sense —destruction as bringing with it a real end of being? This, we
must believe (even if not the only possible meaning) is the proper meaning of
the language here—so naturally does it spring from the words used, and so
entirely does it harmonize with the previous words, Our whole life was nothing
else than death "—the death being thus characterized as a ' not being.'
And this, be it observed, is all the length to which we are taken in a passage
where the object is to magnify salvation and the necessity for it to the
utmost.
Let us now see how this writer refers to some
Scripture passages.
" Fear not them that kill you, and can do nothing
more to you. But fear Him who, after your dying, bath power over soul and body
to cast into the hell of fire." (c. 5.)
Now it is surely of importance to find such words
quoted after the sentiments already expressed. It
really seems as if the author in such a case, by referring to a passage which
appears at least to indicate a literal perishing, actually meant to take it in
that very sense. And if he takes such words in such a sense, then we cannot
doubt in what sense he says—
"Great and wonderful is the promise of Christ,
and the rest of the coming kingdom, and of eternal life."
So it can hardly be doubtful what such a writer means
when he quotes the words—"What profit is it if one gain the whole world,
and lose the soul?" (c. 6.)
Again, he pleads that here only we have the opportunity
of repenting, being saved, and obtaining eternal life;—giving as an
illustration the case of the potter re-fashioning a piece of injured
clay—whereas if once he throws it into the furnace it is beyond further help. (c.
8.) This at least presents the picture of entire destruction, and prepares for
understanding the exhortation which follows—
" Keep the flesh pure, and the seal spotless,
that we may obtain the eternal life."
And, once more, as if in accordance with all this, to show
that he never meant to imply that *eternity of torment which he certainly does
not express, he says—
" They who prefer enjoyment here to the coming
promise —they know not how much of torment the enjoyment here brings." (c.
10.)
Perfectly accordant this with the losing
of the soul—the destroying of body and soul in hell—and the casting of the
worthless clay into the furnace. But if the writer had really meant that the
torment was to be endless, one would have expected that, with such a
disposition to alarm, he would here or somewhere have said as much, instead of
so significantly saying, "They know not how much of."
There are two cases, however, in which it may be
argued that the writer goes beyond this. One of these is where he says (c. 7)—
" Of those who keep not the seal, saith he, their
worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be for
a spectacle to all flesh."
Now, in answer to any such argument, we refer to what
we have already said on the passage. It is a mere quotation that we have to do
with—and a quotation which does nothing to show that the writer takes the words
differently to what we hold to be their true sense namely, that their worm has
no existence independently of their own, this last being a matter requiring
separate information. Besides which, the quotation is not even from the New
Testament, where the view is presented under a very intensified form, but from
the prophecy of Isaiah, where the reference is entirely to a temporary scene in
the valley of Hinnom. Is it needful after this to add that the sentence from
Clement occurs in a passage where, as is so usual in these writers, the good
alone is represented as the imperishable?
The other expression is—
" Doing the will of Christ, we shall find rest.
But if not, nothing shall deliver us from the everlasting punishment." (c.
6.)
Still nothing about everlasting suffering. And in the
absence of all trace of universal immortality—coupled with the free and varied
reference to destruction which we have met with—what can the writer mean but a
punishment which consists in "everlasting destruction, from the presence
of the Lord"?
"Clement of Rome, A.D. 30-100. All souls are
immortal even of the ungodly, to whom it would have been better not to be
incorruptible"
Now we are certainly indebted to Dr. Angus for this
specimen of the style in which an ancient Greek writer expressed himself, when
he wished to teach human immortality; plainly showing that he regarded the ‘incorruptible'
and immortal' as identical, or, at least, inseparable. Is it too much if we ask
that the same words, in the same connection, may be interpreted in the same
way, when, instead of being affirmed of the wicked by such a writer as the one
just quoted, they are plainly affirmed of the righteous only by men like
Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Clement of Alexandria? At the same time
it must be distinctly told that the writer quoted is not Clement of Rome.' In
ages of darkness this might be thought. But no one thinks so now. Who he really
was nobody knows, nor yet his date. The passage occurs (as pointed out by the
Rev. H. Constable, in the Rainbow, July, 1870) in the Clementine Homilies, 11. 11.
We give it entire, as a specimen of the style of a writer in .1 later age
really teaching a suffering immortality—a style to which we can find no
parallel in the first two centuries. " And even if, by dissolution of the
body, you should escape punishment, how should you manage by that to flee from
your soul? For the soul is immortal, even of the ungodly, to whom it would be
better not to have been incorruptible. For being punished by the unquenchable
fire, in an unlimited punishment, and not dying, it can receive no end to its
evil."
To this we add the following from the same or some
other writer under the assumed name—" But if any shall persist in
wickedness to the end of their life, the soul which is immortal, then
departing, shall suffer punishment, according to the continuance of its
impiety. For the souls even of the wicked are immortal, though perhaps they
might wish them to come to an end equally with their bodies. But it is not so;
for they must endure the punishment of eternal fire without end; their nature
being incapable of death, so as to issue in their destruction." —Clem. Recog. 5. 28.
IGNATIUS.
We now come to the very important testimony of this
writer, martyred at Antioch early in the second century, and undoubtedly an
acquaintance of apostles.
There can be
little doubt that his Epistles have been grossly tampered with by the
interpolation of passages exhibiting an arrogance of ecclesiastical (not
sacerdotal) pretensions altogether foreign to the spirit of that age. But this
will detract nothing from the extreme value of the passages with which we are
now concerned, so long as we are certain that the tendency of subsequent ages
was rather to the opposite view than to the one that appears in Ignatius.
In using such language we mean the sense of which
these writings furnish various examples. (See p. 285 above.) So "nothing
shall be lost"—i.e. of labor or reward. (Ign. to Smyrna c. 10.) Trajan
tells Ignatius, that the Christians "transgressing his commands must
miserably perish" (Martyrdom of Ign. c. 2),—the word being used in the
same sense c. 6. There are other passages where the connection furnishes no
help, but none in which any sense is required except that which we call the
natural one. Thus, " I measure myself that I may not perish by boasting."
(Ign. Trail. 4.) "If he boast, he perishes." (Id. Polycarp 5.)
(a) His only reference to future suffering is in
Ephes. c. 16:
" Such a one being defiled shall go into the fire
that is unquenchable."
We need hardly repeat that the unquenchableness
of the fire does not necessitate the endless existence of all that is cast into
it.
(b) Life Eternal—Immortality—Destruction.
" Christ died for us, that, believing in His
death, ye might escape dying (Trail c. 2).
" Why do we foolishly perish—ignorant of the gift
which the Lord has sent?" (Ephes. c. 17.)
Now we might reasonably infer from this that the '
gift ' referred to would be just the opposite of ' perishing ' in the natural
sense. And what else can we infer, when we find in the very same paragraph '
immortality ' spoken of as manifestly the ' gift ' which the writer had in
view; and the life set before us' as equally the opposite of perishing'? The
words are these—
"For this purpose did the Lord take ointment upon
His head, that He might breathe upon the Church immortality. Let not the prince
of this world carry you away captive from the life set before you."
Again, in the very next sentence (c. 18), we read of
" the cross as an offence to unbelievers; but to us salvation and eternal
life." Thus it would seem that, in the mind of Ignatius, ‘immortality' and
eternal life' were closely allied with one another, and both of them with
the life set before us,' as the opposite of ‘perishing.'
Nor do we find this conclusion to lose in strength as
we go on. For in the same Epistle (c. 19) we read of
" God shewing Himself in our humanity, in order
to the newness of an everlasting lift."
Now what can these last two words mean but simply
—life without end? And what less can the other words imply than that this was a
new thing introduced into our world by the incarnation? Or what else can the
same writer mean when he speaks immediately after (c. 20) of Christians as
" Breaking one bread, which is the medicine of
immortality, an antidote against our dying, (a pledge) of our living in Christ forever?"
His entire meaning, in thus writing, may not be quite
apparent. But it seems sufficiently plain that he means, at the very least, to
give his own view of the words in which our Lord speaks of Himself as "
the Bread that giveth life to the world "—a view implying this, that
immortality in the strictest sense is included in that gift.
Again, Ignatius writes to Polycarp (c. 2)—
" Watch as an athlete of God. The prize is
immortality and eternal life."
Now, whatever may be the distinction between these two
expressions, it is certain that the former is regularly
employed by the ancient Christian writers to denote
simply immortality.
These extracts may help us to understand better what
follows, though differently perhaps from what we should otherwise have done.
" Since, then, things have an end, and the two
are set up together, life and death, each one shall go to his own place. For as
there are two coins, the one of God, and the other of the world, each of them
has its own stamp impressed on it—the unbelieving the stamp of this world, and
the believing the stamp of Crud the Father, in love through Christ; into whose
passion, except we die voluntarily, His life is not in us." (Magnes. c. 5.)
Now such language may sound peculiar, and the style
would certainly be unusual among us. But does not the writer at least
understand himself as affirming that there will be an end after a time of all
things, except those that partake of what he calls ' life '—the coin and stamp
of God ' — the dying into Christ's passion' with a view to His life'?
Whether such was the meaning of Ignatius, another
extract from the same epistle may help us to decide.
" Through Him and His death, whom some deny, has
our life sprung up. . . . How shall we be able to live without Him? . . . Let
us not be insensible of His goodness. For if He reward us according to our
Works, WE ARE NO MORE."
It is easy to see what answer will be attempted to
this. The expression, it will be said, is nothing more than an echo of the
Psalmist's words in Psalm 37. 10, 36, when yet there is no annihilation in the
case, since a future state is still awaiting those who are said to "be no
more." True, but the Psalmist was describing a palpable event as happening
before the eyes of men now; while Ignatius was asserting the principle of the
divine government to be, that if we receive according to our deserts, " we
are no more;" implying, of course, that whosoever does so receive, there
is on end of him. I infer, as regards the correspondence between the psalm and
Ignatius, that as in the one there is described a real ending' in the visible
world there spoken of, so in the other there is as real an ' ending' in the
world still invisible, but looked for now.
And, finally, what meaning but one would ever be
imputed to such a writer when he quoted the words—" What is a man
profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
POLYCARP.
A single testimony may be added from this venerable
man.
" If we please Him in this world, we shall obtain
the coming one also, as He has promised to raise us from the dead."
(Philip. c. 5.)
Such is the evidence from these earliest Christian
writings for immortality as the peculiar portion of believers in Christ. The
doctrine seems, in short, to run through them—sometimes by a thread or two,
sometimes by many. Ignatius especially seems never to have had it out of his
mind—teaching the truth now in one form, then in another, till he reaches the
climax, that, without grace, " WE ARE NO MORE." What he meant by his
single reference to " the unquenchable fire" should not, after this,
be doubtful. What could he mean but that this fire should burn up the chaff
till it was no more?
And so, in what other light than that of a doctrine
thus fully taught can we fairly regard two other passages of which so much has
been made in favor of endless suffering? They are the only passages not yet
adduced, and occur in the Epistle from Smyrna on the martyrdom of Polycarp.
"They despised earthly torments; by one short
hour effecting redemption from the everlasting punishment.' For they had in
view to escape 'the everlasting' and ' never quenched fire.'" (c. 2.)
Here again we have that style of which we shall find
as we proceed so many examples; namely, the bare quotation of certain Scripture
language, but with no trace that any meaning is designed beyond what we have
found the original to require. If the expressions as used in Scripture must
mean endless torment, then they ought to mean the same when thus quoted. But we
find nothing here to show that they have such a meaning there. And thus all
argument from the quotations goes for nothing. The avoidance, in fact, on each
occasion, of every approach to the suggestion of suffering without end is, we
do not say surprising, but certainly observable. And in the present case we
have an example of this in the circumstance, that while we do read of earthly
torments,' there is not a word about torments' that are everlasting.'
" Thou threatens me with the fire that burns for
an hour, and after a little is quenched. But thou knows not the fire of the
coming judgment, and everlasting punishment reserved for the ungodly." (c.
11.)
Still nothing beyond the mere adaptation of language
regarding which we can confidently plead that, in its own place, it simply
means everlasting destruction '—nothing to counterbalance the solemn words in
which the writers of this collection have been found declaring that without
Christ we all perish'—that immortality,' or not dying,' but living forever,'
constitutes a new thing ' which comes to us only through the one living Bread;
in short, that, if " He reward us according to our works, WE ARE NO
MORE."
If still pressed with the question—What did those
writers mean when in four places they applied the word ‘everlasting' to ‘fire'
or punishment '? I can only answer, that they may have meant what has been
already given as the meaning of that language when used by
our Lord. Or they may have taken the word everlasting'
with something more of latitude than the New Testament allows to it—regarding
it, perhaps, as expressing the whole term of an existence altogether undefined
in its duration. But that they taught the endless existence of the lost, ever
thing that they have otherwise said positively forbids us to suppose; and that
they have never spoken of the endless suffering of the lost is as important as
it is certain.
To these testimonies it will not be superfluous to add
what we find in the writings ascribed to Barnabas and Hennas—formerly classed
among the Apostolic Fathers. For, however we may estimate these compositions,
they are doubtless of great antiquity, and were highly esteemed in the first
ages; being frequently read in churches, and regarded by some as canonical. The
value once attached to them has received a striking illustration in the
circumstance of their both having been found by Tischendorf appended to the New
Testament in the Codex Sinaiticus. They may be dated as belonging to the first
half of the second century.
THE EPISTLE OF BARNABAS.
Now it is important to see that of endless sufferings
this writer knows absolutely nothing. ' Life ' and ‘Death'—these are his
subjects in connection with the future. Thus—
He speaks of the hope "of the life which is to
come." (c. 1.) "They that put their trust in Him shall live forever."
(c. 8.) " Who is there that would live forever?—Let him hear the voice of
my Son." (c. 9.) And again, Satan is spoken of as depriving men of their
" spiritual life" (c. 2)—but with the marked absence of any hint that
an existence of another kind remained to them. On the other hand, the great
evil to be avoided is simply spoken of as 'death.' As the serpent-bitten in the
wilderness died, so sinners are " delivered unto the pain of death." (c.
12.) " Thou shalt glorify Him who hath redeemed thee from death." (c.
18.)
There is one sentence, indeed, which might be quoted
as showing that the writer meant death to be understood in a sense different
from that given in these pages. Let us consider it—
"The way of darkness is crooked and full of
cursing. In it is the way of eternal death, with punishment, in which way are
the things that destroy the soul (c. 20).
Thus death is spoken of as a punishment'—as
'eternal'—and as equivalent to the 'destruction' of the soul. Now, with all
this, of course, we fully agree. At the same time, it should be unnecessary to
add that 'eternal death' is not equivalent to 'endless suffering.' In such a
case only could the expression be alleged as proving that the writer, by using
the word 'destroy,' meant to express the idea of making eternally miserable.'
Against this it would be fair to argue that, by the word 'destroy,' he meant
'bring to an end;' and hence that 'eternal death,' with him, meant 'everlasting
destruction.' But we are not left thus to argue. The immediate context supplies
this very conclusion—
" He that chooses the evil," it is said,
"shall be destroyed, together with his works." (c. 21.)
Now the works are certainly to be destroyed in the sense
of 'coming to an end.' How otherwise, then, is the worker to be destroyed? What
can be more like the sentiment, "The strong shall be as tow, and his work
as a spark; and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench
them"? (Isa. 1. 31.) Again, says our author—
"The day is at hand in which all things shall be
destroyed, together with the wicked one."
Does not such a statement plainly signify that he
regards the existence of evil, and of the prince of evil, as only for a time?
And does not this show what he means by contrasting "the Lord who is from
everlasting to everlasting" with "the prince of the time of
unrighteousness"? (c. 18.) Can we doubt, then, what such a writer meant
when he quoted the words—
" The way of the ungodly shall perish" (c. 10);
when he said that the man should "justly perish" who refused to walk
in the right way (c. 5); and pointed out how, on the contrary, we are to be
"saved in the day of judgment"? (c. 21.)
THE SHEPHERD OF HERMAS.
There are in this book, with all its faults, many
solemn, arousing views of the sins and dangers of professing Christians; many
things that would come home to the consciences of its original readers, and
which no doubt contributed much to its ancient popularity; but the idea of
endless suffering is not one of them. As in the Epistle of Barnabas, so here,
the two constant themes are Life' and Death.'
" To live unto God" is the richest of
blessings and the highest of rewards. " Those who possess these virtues
shall . . . abide unto eternal life." "The righteous in this world
are like trees which, seemingly dead in winter, yet bud forth in spring;"
thus are they manifested at the last as "those who shall live in the world
to come." (1. 2, 3; 3. 3 and 4.)
On the other hand, we find ‘death,' as the correlative
of life, spoken of with equal frequency. This, as the inevitable consequence of
sin, meets us at every turn throughout the work.
" Life is distant from them," the wicked are
told; " death is prepared; " " sin brings to death;" "
all who will not repent have lost their life " (3. 8. 6, 7); " they
are ordained to death; " " they condemn themselves to death; "
"they shall utterly (Gr. by death) die."
Such, from beginning to end, is the style. Those who
yield to certain enticements, represented under the figure of women, shall
dwell with their tempters, who will exercise their wickedness upon them;
And then " they shall die at their hands; "
" such shall be delivered to the women, and they shall kill them, taking
away their life."
The same thing is signified by other expressions.
Thus,
The wicked are " like the withered trees in the
vision, that show no life in Spring, and like them shall be burnt up—shall be
consumed—and all the heathen shall be burnt up, because they have not known Him
that created them" (3. 4)—a view which certainly denotes suffering, but
not endless. Again, the wicked, " becoming withered and desert-like,
destroy their own souls" (3. 9. 26); " men are turned from the truth,
and shall perish" (3. 6. 2); " the evil way leads to destruction;
" while they that practice righteousness shall never be destroyed (1. 2,
3.)
There is one noticeable circumstance in this book, and
that is—how very little express mention of actual torment we meet with as the
punishment of sin; but whenever we do, it is, strangely enough, always in
connection with the present life;—
" Through sinful pleasures men are tormented and
suffer punishment; and, if they repent not, they bring death on themselves."
6, 5.) " Whosoever walks in the right ways shall live, and be happy in his
life; but he that neglects them shall not live, and shall be unhappy in his
life." (3. 10, 4.) He speaks even of "the great torment and weeping
which souls are brought into, being tormented as if in chains; " and of the
great sin of not delivering such—our negligence making us guilty of their
blood. But the calamities intended are still those of the sinner's " daily
life "—"calamities which some, not being able to bear, have even
chosen to destroy themselves." (Ib.)
No doubt there are allusions, as we have seen, to
future suffering; but they are few and faint.
Certain stones rejected from the spiritual building
are represented as " falling into the fire and burning; " they are
such as have finally departed from the living God, and never repent. (1. 3, 7.)
Who, then, can doubt what such a writer means when he tells us that "
those who are mastered by evil desire shall finally die; because such desires
are fatal (2. 12, 2)?" for, in the case of hopeless transgressors,
"death hath everlasting ruin" (3. 6, 2)—which is said in contrast
with the ' corruption' which still leaves hope of repentance here.
Some sentences about the restoring of rejected stones,
though into an inferior place in the spiritual building, have led some to think
that Hermas teaches universal restoration for
penitents, by means of a coming purgatory. This is certainly a mistake, as the
suffering and repentance spoken of are available only for those who have not
been cast into the fire as finally impenitent; and therefore belong only to
this life, according to the strange notion that an hour of sinning entails a
month of suffering. (3. 6, 4.) On the other hand, he distinctly states—"
If the building be finished, there will no more be room for any one, but he
shall be rejected." (1. 3, 5.)
"The hour of torment is equivalent to 30 days. If
a man indulge in luxury for one day and be deceived, and tortured for one day,
the day of his torture is equivalent to a whole year. For all the days of
luxury, therefore, there are as many years of torture to be undergone. You see
then that the time of luxury is very short, but that of punishment and torture
long." This again is spiritualized. But it sufficiently shows—in the
absence of all allusion to endless suffering—what the writer's idea was of long
punishment for short indulgence. (See 1. 3; 3. 6, 4.)
It would be impossible, indeed, to conclude, or even
conjecture, from this writer, the doctrine of endless suffering; and there is
absolutely nothing to suggest even a protracted term of it. The former idea he
has nowhere controverted, simply because he has absolutely ignored it. Nothing,
as far as we have been able to understand him, was more foreign to his mind;
and he has said enough, we believe, to show that he had no room for it in his
calculations. For these calculations are strangely definite as to the season of
retribution being in proportion to the days of any one's transgression.' Such a
mind, we are persuaded, as is implied throughout the whole piece, and comes out
so explicitly in the statements now referred to, had not the remotest thought
of intimating anything beyond the natural sense of the words, when he spoke in
two or three places of " dying forever; "—an expression equivalent
certainly to his other expression, dying finally '—that is to say, incurring a
death after which there should be no life. With the utmost simplicity, and
without a suspicion of the sense afterwards to be attached to them, he could
freely use such expressions. But had he, on the other hand, meant more than
this, the peculiarly alarming style adopted by him would certainly not have
permitted him to throw a veil over his meaning. Can we, then, with any
propriety, question in what sense Hernias wished his reader to accept the
warning—" As to the threats of the devil, fear them not; fear Him who has
all power to save and to destroy" Or can we doubt in what sense the early
Christians accepted such words from a writing which they thought worthy of
being read in their assemblies?
Christian Belief In The Second Century.
Justin Martyr.
WE now ask attention to the testimony of this
important writer, by whom, as we shall find, there are two views very
distinctly put forward. His writings may be set clown at about A.D. 140. His
martyrdom, 164.
(a) The first is a repeated reference to the doom of
the wicked under such expressions as everlasting condemnation', ‘everlasting
punishment', everlasting fire.' The following embraces all the references of
this sort possessing any importance, if we except the cases in which we find
certain texts quoted in a merely literal way, which throws no light upon the
meaning attached to them.
" According to Plato, Rhadamanthus and Minos will
punish the wicked who come to them." " And the same, we say, will be
done by Christ—but this with everlasting punishment, and not only for a
thousand years." (Apol. 1. c. 8.)
He tells the Emperor that " the Christians are
his best allies, because they announce to the wicked everlasting punishment, or
salvation, according to their works." Again, " How great a motive is
the thought of going to everlasting condemnation, through (or, in) fire . . . of
suffering punishment in everlasting fire." (c. 12, 17.)
" To go into a state of insensibility would be a
profitable thing for the wicked. But sensibility remains to all of them that
have existed, and everlasting punishment." (c. 18.)
" We believe that the wicked who do not repent
are punished in everlasting fire." (c. 21.)
" Christ has forewarned us that the devil shall
be sent into the fire, with his army and the men that follow him, to be
punished for the unlimited age, (c. 28.)
This last expression is far from denoting a real
infinity or eternity; being regularly applied to objects of which the limits
are simply not apparent—as " the boundless ocean, plain," etc. It
thus defines the ' age' of punishment as one to which we cannot set the term.
But as the ocean and plain, however boundless, have their limit, so may the '
boundless age' be assumed as having its end also. And this again, it seems,
will throw important light on the manner in which Justin uses kindred words to
characterize punishment.
" This does no harm to us, but to the wicked
worketh punishment through (or, in) everlasting fire." (c. 45.)
" A Christian woman is spoken of as warning a
wicked husband of the danger of the punishment in everlasting fire." (Apol. 2. c. 1.)
He speaks of the devils as " receiving their due
punishment and vengeance, being shut up in everlasting fire," and of
"those who serve them as given up to the coming punishment in everlasting
fire." (c. 8.)
"If any one says that our doctrine is vain (viz.,
of the wicked being punished in everlasting fire), I answer, that, if this be
not so, either there is not a God; or, if there be, that Ile does not care for
man." (c. 9.)
This is a strong sentiment, and its very strength may
help—in connection with the views yet to be noted—to show in what sense Justin
intended his strong language to be understood throughout. For, surely, it was
nothing more than a sufficient retribution in the coming world—apart from all
idea of positive suffering through eternity—that he regarded as having so
intimate a connection with the divine existence and providence.
Now all this is as explicit as it is terrible; and,
considering the unbroken silence of the writer as to any prospect of
restoration, it certainly does cut off, in his estimation, the last hope from
those who are lost. But such is not the whole doctrine of the writer on the
future of the wicked. For he also teaches—if words can teach it—the mortality
of man as man—of the soul as truly as of the body—yes, death in the sense of
actually ceasing to be—a death from which those only are delivered who live a
godly life in the present state. How these two different views are to be
reconciled we may consider when we have seen how explicitly the second of them
is put forward.
Before, however, exhibiting the view of Justin in
regard to immortality, we must refer to the manner in which he opens up the
subject in the principal passage to be now quoted. It is at the commencement of
the dialogue with Trypho, where he represents himself as one day meeting with a
venerable Christian, while he was still engaged as a philosopher; when the
Christian, after discussing the subject of immortality, in connection with
Greek philosophy, directed him for guidance to Christ and the Bible. This was
the voice of God for the calling of the man. Henceforth he was a Christian. Can
we expect for a moment, then, to neutralize the force of the passage in
question, by alleging, as has been done, that the sentiment is not Justin's,
but his preceptor's? True, it was not Justin's; but as plainly it is now. For
why bring it before Trypho at all, except as what he takes to be Christ's truth?
Instead of being less his own belief because stated by his preceptor, it is on
that very account all the more so, inasmuch as this was the very
instrumentality to which he owed his soul. The preceptor, in short, appears as
an intelligent Christian arguing against Plato for Christian truth. He appears
too, not simply as an individual, but as a representative Christian; thus
manifestly expressing, in Justin's view, the ordinary Christian sentiment of
the age—as one too already old at the time of the martyr's conversion, and thus
embodying in himself something not far short of the belief of apostolic times.
With this understanding of the case we may now attend to it.
It is this. The Christian preceptor first discusses
and rejects the Platonic theory of souls as untreated and immortal. And then to
show how far, on the other hand, he was from the Epicurean extreme, he adds—
" But yet neither do I affirm that all souls die—which
would be a profitable thing, truly, for the wicked. What do I say, then? That
those of the pious remain in some better place; but the unrighteous and evil in
a worse, awaiting the season of judgment. Thus the one, appearing to be worthy
of God, do not die at all; but the others are punished so long as God pleases
both that they should be, and should be punished.""
Thus in a note to the passage in the translation
edited by Dr. Pusey, we find it said—" S. Justin is not to be supposed
from these words to doubt or deny the eternity of punishment, as is proved by
his words in the 45th sect.—but to show that souls do not exist of themselves,
but of the will of God, who could reduce them again to the nothing of which He
at first created them." And this is said in spite of all the passages here
quoted to the contrary, which the translator gives as they are given here,
except that he ventures to render
the first words of the present extract—"But at
the same time I affirm that souls never perish!"
Now, surely, it is vain to argue here, as is sometimes
done, that Justin means to teach merely that souls, though not inherently
immortal, yet all become so—independently of character—by a divine grant of
endless existence. It is vain to insist that, in consequence of his doctrine
regarding everlasting punishment, such must be his meaning here. For the
question simply is: What do the words really signify? And, even if they were
not sufficiently plain in themselves, the sequel to them would at once remove
all ambiguity, as actually taking up and rejecting the modern explanation. For
the young philosopher, on hearing this new sentiment, at once asks the
venerable stranger whether, in so speaking, he means to express the view which
Plato had signified regarding the world in general; namely, " that though
perishable in so far as it was made, yet, on account of the divine will, it
will never be dissolved, or fall under the power of death." No, he
replies, he does not mean to agree with Plato, or Pythagoras, or any who hold such
opinions —adding among other things—
"The soul partakes of life, since God wishes it
to live. So, then, it will not partake of it at such time as God does not
choose that it shall live. For, as the body does not keep company forever with
the soul, but, when it becomes needful that the harmony should be dissolved,
the soul leaves the body, and the man is not—so also, when it is needful that
the soul should no longer be, the vital spirit departs from it, and the soul
exists no longer, but it also returns to the place whence it was taken."
In what case this end of the soul's existence happens
had been stated in the foregoing portion of the conversation, and is repeated
in the 'Apology' by Justin himself, who there, at least, without question,
speaks his own fixed belief. His words are these— "The men who show
themselves worthy of it become incorruptible,7 and free from suffering. For as
He made them at first, when they were not, so we believe that they who choose
the things agreeable to Him shall be adjudged worthy of incorruptibility and
fellowship with Him." (Apol. 1. c. 10.)
Again, c. 21. " We have been taught that those
only attain to immortality (ara0avaTiterBat) who live holily and virtuously
near to God."
It is not possible to doubt that he uses the word
'corruptible' throughout as equivalent to 'perishable,' or 'liable to come to
an end.'
Nothing can well be more distinct than these words are
in sound. Can anyone venture to say that they are less distinct in sense, as
words addressed to an emperor and a philosopher? Nor should we overlook the
allusion to the Christian belief of still earlier times as contained in the
words, "We have been taught." What, in short, is it but the teaching
in Rom. 2. 7-9? To the same purpose, we find him in various passages expressing
his belief regarding that incorruptibility or indestructibility which can only
mean immortality—referring it, as he so plainly does, not to the body only, but
to the man—and as distinctly to the soul as to the body.
Thus, Apol. 1. c. 13, he
speaks of giving thanks to God for their being, and for their " again
coming to be in incorruptibility "—of which Jesus Christ is " the
teacher, having been born for the very purpose."
He says it would be a ridiculous thing if soldiers
should engage and endure so much on behalf of those who are not able to give
them anything incorruptible, but that we, anxious for immortality, should not
be ready to endure all that may be desired of us. (c. 39.)
" Our Jesus Christ, having been crucified and
dead, arose, and having gone to heaven now reigns—the joy of those who wait for
the immortality announced by Him." (c. 42.)
Does not Justin teach that evil is not to be without
end, when he says that vice loves to put on the appearance of things
incorruptible;' since itself never has, nor can do anything (really) '
incorruptible '? For, if the last of these words be taken in what seems its
unquestionable sense, is it not plainly taught that there is a limit to the
existence of evil doers? (Apol. 2. c. 11.) So in
Dial. with Trypho (c. 46) we find him saying,
" We endure the extreme punishments and rejoice
in death, believing that God will raise us up through Christ Himself, and will
make us both incorruptible and non suffering, and
immortal."
" God made angels and men with free will,
designing, if they should choose the things agreeable to Him, to keep them both
incorruptible and unpunished; but, if they should do evil, to punish each as
might seem good to Him." (c. 88.)
" He will raise up all; establishing some in an
everlasting and indissoluble kingdom, incorruptible, and immortal, and painless;
but the others He will dismiss to punishment—everlasting fire." (c. 117.)
And, once more, in an important passage, c. 124, he
says—
" My object is to show you that, whereas men were
made equally with God unsuffering and immortal, and
counted worthy to be called His children, if they should obey his
commandments—yet, having become like unto Adam and Eve, they now work death to
themselves."
Thus Justin plainly teaches something which, in the
words of Scripture, he calls, everlasting punishment,' and everlasting fire;',
and he as plainly teaches and expounds the belief that there is no actual
immortality for man now, except in connection with present holiness. What,
then, is our conclusion from all this? Shall we be content to say that he
contradicts himself? Then, of course, his testimony is of no value on either
side. But, before coming to such a conclusion, it becomes us carefully to
consider whether we should be warranted in taking so strong a step. The whole
seems uttered with perfect deliberation; and in one passage, at least, the two
views are so combined as to show that the writer did really design to express
them both as his own. It is the passage from Apol. 1.
21, where he says—
" We have been taught that those only attain to
immortality who live holily; and we believe that those who live wickedly and do
not repent are punished in everlasting fire."
The doctrine of the everlasting fire with everlasting
' sensibility,' as the lot of the wicked, is taught in Apol.
1. c. 62; and yet even there the real immortality is only for those who are
worthy of i. So in Apol. 2.
c. 7, he teaches that, God having given free will to angels and men, those who
transgress shall justly receive punishment in everlasting fire. But, in
connection with this, he had just said that, only on account of the Christian
seed, does God refrain from bringing that confusion and dissolution upon the
world, which would terminate the existence of bad angels and men. Could one who
believed in the unconditional immortality of all have spoken thus of the
extinction of some?
Take with this the express assertions already quoted
about the non-immortality of the wicked, as implying the entire cessation of
their being, and what can we conclude but that Justin Martyr did not regard the
' everlasting condemnation,' punishment," fire,' of which he spoke so
freely, as involving endless suffering?
What, then, did he mean? Positively to tell this is not
our part. But we can see plainly enough that he might have held one of the
following views. He might have interpreted these Scripture expressions in the
way that has been urged above, as the only interpretation practically
admissible. That is to say, he might have believed, and why not?—that
everlasting punishment meant everlasting destruction—in the sense, namely, in
which a Greek would understand the word destruction' —the only sense in which
our author ever uses the word (or allied verb) in any single case outside the
present subject. And so he might have considered that the ‘condemnation' and
the ‘fire' were called everlasting,' because, in the very strictest sense,
their results were to be so. Or, he may have taken the word as expressive of
the whole continuance of the sinner's existence—that existence which he himself
had so expressly represented as terminable, however indefinite its period; and
as thus furnishing a marked contrast to everything like the thousand years'
sentences to which he had referred. In this sense the punishment of the wicked
would be, as he represents it, truly unceasing. Thus he cuts off all hope for
the impenitent. They are punished with everlasting destruction from the
presence of the Lord; and the instrument of the punishment is fire.
But explain as we may the expressions in question —we
are still met by the undeniable fact that, while Justin Martyr, on the one
hand, regards the wicked as victims of everlasting punishment,' he constantly
speaks, on the other, of Greek as the lot of the righteous only. And nothing
can be plainer than that by such terms he means to express, in the very fullest
sense, an endless and indestructible existence. As a Greek philosopher, he had
been accustomed to this usage of the words, and this alone. He had been taught
by certain of his masters to affirm, such terms of the soul, and deny them of
the body. He now as a Christian affirms them of body and soul alike, in the
case of the saved; and denies them totally as regards the unsaved. He begins, in
fact, his chief work by showing how, as a philosopher, he had understood and
applied the language. He proceeds in the same work, as a Christian, retaining
of course his former understanding of the terms, but making an entirely new
application of them. Thus, whatever ambiguity there might lurk under the
grandeur of the expression (eternal life), there seems absolutely no room for
doubt as to what- he means when he speaks of immortality and incorruptibility.
And even if we allowed that such language might be ambiguous in an Epistle to
Christians, what question could there be as to its meaning in an Apology to the
Emperor?
It is impossible, in short, that our author can, in
his use of the word have meant to point to an endless existence in suffering.
Than the proof of this nothing can be more complete. For he has absolutely cut
away all ground from under any one who might have
imputed to him such a thought. By his altogether denying to the impenitent an
endless existence, he has plainly made it impossible that he should assert
their endless sufferings.
We have met with no attempt to harmonize Justin Martyr
with himself, except what proceeds upon the fallacy noted above in referring to
Dr. Pusey's edition. Thus Moeller (Patrologie, p.
242), quotes Dial. c. 6, pleading that the author simply means—that the soul
would not live if God did not choose to make it—adding, "But that the soul
has life, being, and immortality only from God, who can deny? That it would
sink again into its own nothing, if God so pleased, who can but admit? Thus is
Justin's doctrine neither unorthodox, nor has he contradicted himself."
This is easily said. But the writer forgets that Justin has expressly
repudiated this very view; and overlooks the difference between the two
ideas—'would not live if God did not choose,' and 'will not live when God does
not choose.'
The following gives a very different, and surely a
more impartial view—" The theologians of the primitive age did not so
completely agree concerning the immortality of the soul. They were far from
denying the doctrine itself, or entertaining any doubts respecting the
possibility of the thing. But some of them, e.g. Justin, Tatian, and
Theophilus, from various reasons supposed the existence of a soul which, though
mortal in itself, or at least indifferent in relation to mortality or
immortality, either acquires immortality as a promised reward by its union with
the spirit and the right use of its liberty, or, in the opposite case, perishes
together with the body."—See Hagenbach's History
of Doctrines (Clarke's Translation), vol. 1. p. 151.
EPISTLE TO DIOGNETUS.
Let us here add a sentence from this brilliant gem of
Christian antiquity) appended to the writings of Justin Martyr—as showing how,
in those days, they could speak of the 'everlasting fire.'
The difference between their way and ours was the
difference between the words ‘until' and 'without.' The passage runs thus—
"Then wilt thou despise that which is counted death here, and fear that
which is death indeed—reserved as it is for those who shall be condemned to
that everlasting fire which shall punish until the end those who are delivered
over to it." (c. 10.)
Did not this ardent Christian, then, believe—and he
had more of the real doctrine of the New Testament than we always meet with in
these writers—did he not believe alike in two things which now are often warmly
pronounced to be incompatible—the very attempt to
combine them being regarded with pity or
impatience—these two things being no other than the " everlasting
fire," and a " punishment which has an end"?
Compare with Dan. 7. 27; and mark at the same time the
use of the word 'destroy,' as indicating both a process and a termination. Septuagint.
Theophilus; Athenagoras; Tatian.
THEOPHILUS, [Died A.D. 181.] Bishop of Antioch —"
well known," says Eusebius, " as the sixth in succession from the
Apostles." In this writer we find the same mention of (a) everlasting
punishment,' in connection with (b) the doctrine of non-immortality,' as we have
found so frequently in Justin Martyr. This connection must not be overlooked.
For, if it be important to know what language a man uses, it must be more
important still to know what sense he attaches to it. Theophilus, then, writing
a treatise in three books to Autolychus, a heathen
philosopher, thus presents these two points:
(a) " If thou believes not now, thou shalt be
punished then, when troubled in everlasting punishments." "The
writings of the prophets will conduct thee so as to escape the everlasting
punishments, and obtain the everlasting benefits of God." (1. 14.) He then
quotes from Romans, chapter 2. with slight variation, but with one addition of
much significance— " To those who, by patient continuance in well-doing,
seek for immortality, He will grant eternal life. To the unbelieving there
shall be indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish; and (here is the
addition)—at last everlasting fire shall seize such."
The Apostle, it will be observed, had, in his dark
picture of future woe, stopped short of any such element as this. Theophilus,
on the other hand, appends it to that picture; he speaks of it as something
which is to follow the other; while the sentence added by him to the apostolic
view suggests a serious question as to the light in which he regarded that
view. For if the punishment was to be endless, and to consist in an exposure to
an endless fire, why add to a description already so minute the peculiar
sentiment in question—" at last everlasting fire shall seize such"?
Does it not seem, in short, as if the writer meant thus to intimate his belief
that the fire would make an. end of the wicked, when once their retribution was
complete?
(b) This question, which the passage itself seems so
clearly to suggest, receives from the following a very definite answer—
" Death was sent as a benefit to Adam, that he
might not continue forever existent in sin.' Like a vessel marred and recast,
so it happens to man through death. For he is broken that he may be found sound
at the resurrection,—spotless, just, and immortal." (b. 2. 26.)
“But, some one will say, Was
man made mortal by nature? By no means. Immortal? Nor do we say that. If
immortal, Ile would have made him a god. If mortal, God would have seemed to be
the author of sin. Therefore He made him neither mortal nor immortal, but
capable of both, so that, if he was carried to the things which lead to
immortality, he might receive immortality as a reward and become godlike; but,
on the other hand, if he should turn to the works of death, might become the
author of death to himself. Now God repairs the evil. For, as man brought death
upon himself by disobedience, so, by obeying the will of God, he that chooses
may obtain for himself the eternal life. For God has given us a law and holy precepts
which every one that does may be saved, and obtaining the resurrection may
inherit immortality."
How is it possible here to resist the conclusion that
Theophilus regarded immortality in its ordinary sense—as altogether
unattainable by man apart from eternal life in its highest sense?
ATHENAGORAS of Athens—Philosopher and Christian.
Here is a writer of another class altogether, who has
something to say upon the immortality of man. His apology to the Emperors
Aurelius and Commodus in A.D. 177, and his treatise on the Resurrection of the
Body, are conspicuous among the writings of that period for elegance and power.
The subject of the resurrection is treated purely in the way of argument, there
being no appeal to the authority of Scripture, nor even to the resurrection of
Christ in support of ours. And, in pleading for the unlimited perpetuity of
human
existence—which he does as a matter of ethical
principle—he builds his whole argument upon these two things—the object of God
in bestowing such existence, and the right employment of the rational nature by
those who have received it. From all this it should follow that actual
immortality is for those only who have employed their nature in accordance with
the divine design in bestowing it. And such is, demonstrably, we believe, the
conclusion to which the writer himself comes. Without any of that formality of
statement which we find in Irenaeus, Theophilus, Tatian, regarding the posse
and esse of immortality, the argument of Athenagoras,
with all its able and elegant pleading, really amounts to the same thing. He
does not choose, indeed, to say much about the term of future existence as in
store for the wicked; while about their ' destruction' he does not say a
word—that not entering into his plan. But certainly his argument leaves no room
for any eternity, whether of ' suffering' or of ' restoration' to them. This we
venture to present as a fair statement of a very plain case; and we have little
fear of any one concluding differently who will carefully consider the
following extracts—embodying, as we believe, the whole of the argument—not
omitting the strongest of the expressions that might seem to militate against
our position. These last occur in the Apology (c. 31)
" After the present life we shall live another .
. . a better . . . a heavenly . . . near to God . . . free from all change and
suffering in the soul . . . or, falling with the rest, a worse one, and in
fire. For God has not made us sheep or beasts of burden, a mere by-work, that
we should perish and be annihilated."
According to this, then, the ' better life' is ' free
from change; ' the ‘worse one' is ‘in fire '—being distinctly opposed to a mere
annihilation," after the present life.
It by no means follows that the ' worse life,' because
not annihilated at the close of the ‘present life,' is actually endless. Nor
will the author's reasoning in his treatise on The Resurrection permit us to
think so. For thus he teaches—
" To those who bear upon them the image of the
Creator, and are blessed with a rational judgment, the Creator has assigned
perpetual duration, in order that, recognizing their Maker, and His power and
skill, and obeying law and justice, they may pass their whole lives free from
suffering in the possession of those qualities with which they have bravely
borne their preceding life." (c. 12.) And then he proceeds,—" That
which was created for the sake of something else will cease to be when that
ceases. But that which was created for the very purpose of existing, and living
a life naturally suited to it—since the cause (of its existence) is bound up
with its nature . . . can never admit of any cause which shall utterly
annihilate its existence." After which he argues for " preservation forever,
doing and experiencing what is suitable to one's nature;" and this, as the
only ground of perpetuity. As to the resurrection, " It is a species of
change, and a change for the better of what still remains in existence at the
time."
Again, " If the Creator made man for an
intelligent life, and that, having become a spectator of the grandeur and of
the wisdom manifested in all things, he might continue always in the
contemplation of them—then, according to the purpose of his Author, and the
nature which he has received, the cause of his creation is a pledge of his
continuance forever."
Now every one must allow
that the right use by man of his intelligent nature in the present life is the
only pledge here suggested for his continuing always' in a similar condition.
But it is equally plain that such a use of his nature is represented as "
the reason of his creation," and the only pledge' which the writer hints
at of his continuance forever' in any state whatever. The statement, in short,
of immortality goes no further than the argument for it; and the argument goes
no further than the right employment of existence now.
The conclusion in favor of the immortality of the
righteous is thus strictly logical; almost mathematical.
Then, as to the unrighteous, what do we find? Are we
told that they must necessarily continue miserable forever in virtue of their
immortal existence?—or because of a demerit which calls for endless punishment?
No, the view of Athenagoras is something very different from this; and such as
forms no insignificant test of his real sentiments regarding immortality.
They too must rise from the dead, " because the
mortal nature is not capable of bearing a punishment commensurate with the more
numerous or serious faults." (c. 19.) "The body must be
punished," he argues, " for all its sins; and the soul equally for
its. But, as a single death is no adequate punishment for those who deserve to
die many times—therefore they must be raised for the endurance of a penalty '
commensurate' with their offences."
This is not the language of one who believed in an
unconditional, complete, immortality for all. But it is the language of one who
regarded the proper employment of human existence, according to its divine
design, as the one ground of our immortality; and who, thus arguing for the
general principle as strongly as he could, had some difficulty in dealing with
the specialty of existence abused. That difficulty appears partly from his
evading, as much as possible, the question; partly from his referring, in the
very vaguest terms, to the future state of the wicked; while yet the one reason
which he gives for their resurrection applies to those only whose crimes,
whether for number or character, demand a further retribution. This, surely, is
not a writer to be quoted as an advocate of an unconditional immortality?
It is interesting to mark the difference between Plato
and Butler on the one hand, and Athenagoras on the other. They, pleading for a
natural and unconditional immortality, deal largely in physical and
metaphysical considerations. He makes no account of any arguments except those
of a moral, practical, and circumstantial kind. And why —but because he did not
regard immortality as depending upon any other grounds?
NOTE.
Tatian, the Assyrian—a pupil of Justin Martyr. This is
a writer who can do little credit to either side; and to which of the two he
really belongs it is not easy to determine. Thus Dr. Angus—who says on p. 6,
"The annihilation of the soul of the wicked was taught by Tatian; "
while on p. 7 he says, " Tatian holds that both (body and soul of the
wicked) will live again in immortality, and will die continually, while they
live on forever." Now it is to be observed that this is spoken not of men,
but of demons—" The demons who abuse the present life for transgression,
dying continually even while they live (i.e. now), will have hereafter the same
immortality like that which they had, during the time that they lived."
Then follows a similar statement regarding wicked men. But it is not easy to
see what the writer means by comparing an immortality in the future with the
same as had now. For my part I must confess that the more I try to understand
what Tatian means in his Oratio adv. Graecos, cc. 13-15, the less do I succeed. The following is
another sample of hie style:—" The soul is not immortal, O Greeks, in
itself, but mortal. Yet the same can also not die. For, indeed, it dies and is
dissolved with the body, if it knows not the truth; but at last it rises again
at the end of the world, receiving death by punishment in immortality. And
again, it dies not, though it be dissolved for a season, if furnished with the
knowledge of God."
Clement Of Alexandria.
OUR view of Christian opinion in the second century
would be incomplete without a reference to this distinguished writer, who
taught from A.D. 189 to 202, when the persecution forced him away. He died
about 220.
Now, if the use, in a single case, of the mere
expression everlasting punishment' could prove the adherence of a writer to the
doctrine in dispute, then Clement, like Ignatius, might be proved to have held
it. But this, we trust, will not be maintained after what we have already met
with. That one expression—we are not aware of any other—occurs in the small
treatise — Quis dives Salvetur?
The words are these (c. 33.), " You may neglect to honor the friends of
God, of which (neglect) the reward is punishment, fiery, eternal". That
the punishment here spoken of is an actual destruction' in the sense already
contended for—and that the whole expression means such a destruction forever,
by the agency of fire—that this is the writer's real meaning we know not how to
doubt, after seeing in what light he presents, throughout his writings, the
whole subject of future retribution. It is true, he enters upon no formal
statement of his belief, like Justin Martyr; or exposition of principles, like
Irenaeus and Theophilus; or strict argument, like Athenagoras. But take him by
himself all through; or read him in connection with those others—and how to
resist the conclusion that he teaches immortality in the sense of an ENDLESS
EXISTENCE, for the saved alone, we cannot imagine.
It may be well, then, to give here the various
sentences bearing upon our subject—commencing with those in the treatise from
which the above quotation is made.'
" He that contends rightly, let him hope to
obtain the crown of immortality"
" The Life (speaking of the young ruler's
application to Jesus) is asked concerning life—the Savior concerning
salvation—the Truth concerning the true immortality—the Perfect concerning the
perfect rest—the Incorruptible concerning the firm incorruption. He is asked—
in order that he may display the ground-work of the gospel, that it is the gift
of eternal life." (c. vi.)
Is it not plain from this that Clement regarded
immortality,' not just as a common property of humanity, and needing, in order
to actual happiness, the special addition of something distinct from itself,
under the aspect of eternal life—but as itself something never found in
disjunction from that life? And does not that come out still more in his
speaking of it as 'the genuine' immortality? Does he not plainly hint by this
that there was nothing ‘genuine' about the ‘immortality' which the philosophers
taught—nothing firm' about their incorruption '?
" The first thing is to know God the Eternal, and
the Giver of things eternal—God who truly is, and who bestows the things that
really are, that is, the eternal—from whom other objects have both their being
and their continuance. For ignorance here is death, and acquaintance and
familiarity with Him, and love and assimilation to Him, the only life." (c.
vii.)
We should infer from this that, as there is nothing eternal
to be had except what God specially gives—so there is no getting of what is
truly eternal'—no real continuance of being '—but death' only to those who are
ignorant of God. And it is hardly possible to overlook the contrariety of such
a sentiment to the speculations of Plato—in spite of all the admiration which
we know that the writer had for the philosophy of the Greeks. The same thought
may be of service as we proceed.
He exhorts to the knowledge of God, as their first
concern, all who desire to live the real life. "But if the law of Moses
was sufficient to provide eternal life, then the Savior came in vain. And in
vain did one who had fulfilled the law from his youth come begging on his knees
immortality from another" (c. viii.)
Does not Clement seem from this to have taken the same
view of the young man's question as that given above? The next three sentences
should be considered together, in connection with the important word ' perish '
which occurs in them all.
" The wealth of such when possessed is deadly;
but, if it perishes is salutary." (c. xvi.)
"For neither on account of outward beauty shall
any one live, nor for the want of it shall perish" (c. 18.)
" If thy hand offend thee, cut it off; for if it
perish here, it shall be made alive there" (cf. Luke 17.33. c. xxiv.)
" I am your Nourisher, giving Myself as the
bread, which he who tastes shall be in no danger of death—daily bestowing the
drink of immortality" (c. 18.)
"Does anyone buy immortality with money?" (c.
xxxii.)
To the Gentiles.'—" He bestows freedom; you flee
into bondage. He bestows salvation; you sink down into destruction. He confers
everlasting life; and you wait for punishment, and the fire which He hath
prepared for the devil, etc. . . . Look to the threatening! Look to the
exhortation! Look to the punishment! Why, then, should you any longer change
grace into wrath. . . . For great is the grace of His promise. To-day, if ye
will hear His voice.' . . . And then the true 'to-day,' the never-ending day of
God extends over eternity. . . . But the rest make light of immortality."
What less, then, can we infer from this than that
those who make light of immortality' never in Clément’s view, enter upon an
eternity,' or a 'never-ending day'? (c. ix.)
" Having wrenched man from destruction He raised
him to the skies. . . . Sin is eternal death. What, then, is the exhortation I
give you? I urge you to be saved. This Christ desires. In one word, He freely
bestows life on you. And who is He? Briefly learn. The Word of Truth; the Word
of incorruption that regenerates man by bringing him back to the truth. . . .
He who expels destruction and drives away death." . . . And then he
proceeds, showing that the alternative is ' salvation' or 'judgment." (c. xi.)
"Let us receive, to conduct us to immortality the
good charioteer of men. . . . To you still remains this conclusion—to choose
which will profit you most, judgment or grace. For I do not think there is room
for doubt which of these is the better; nor is it allowable to compare life
with destruction. . . . If only thou wiliest it, thou hast overcome
destruction." (c. xii.)
The Pedagogue. — " Let us regard His commands and
counsels, as the short and straight path to immortality" (1. 3).
Now, what else can such an expression mean but an
unending existence? implying, of course, happiness; without which such
existence would not be desirable.
"Being baptized, we are illuminated; illuminated,
we become sons; being made sons, we are made perfect; being made perfect, we
are made immortal. We have put aside the old man, and have put on the
immortality of Christ. . . We are brought into union with Christ, through His
blood, by which we are redeemed; and into immortality through His guidance. The
spiritual communion of faith, . . . drawing off the lusts of the flesh commits
man to eternity along with those who are divine, immortalizing him." (1. 6.)
Now, we can suppose a writer who happened to protest,
at the present day, against the popular view of natural immortality, as using
certain expressions and definitions not here employed. But, for one who wished
simply to teach how immortality was to be got, it is difficult to imagine
anything more decisive than the language — "commits man to eternity,
immortalizing him!"—and this after the various expressions that have just
preceded.
" It is time to wound the soul, not mortally,
securing exemption from everlasting death by a little pain." (1. 8.)
If the expression not mortally' means, as surely it
does—' not putting an end to its life;' then what but such an end can be
intended by 'everlasting death'?
The following may help to show us Clément’s style of
thought—
" Dead, we need life; sheep, we need a shepherd;
we who are children need a tutor; while universal humanity stands in need of
Jesus; so that we may not continue un-tractable and sinners to the end, and
then fall into condemnation; but may be separated from the chaff, and stored up
in the paternal garner. For the fan is in the Lord's hands, by which the chaff
due to the fire is separated from the wheat. . . . He wishes to save my flesh,
by enveloping it in the robe of immortality. We are passing over to
immortality, and shall not fall into corruption. . . .He assailed them roughly,
to drag them from their impetuous rush towards death.'" (1. 9.)
Remarking upon Ezek. 18. 4-9, " He shall surely
live, saith the Lord," he says—
" These words contain a description of the
conduct of Christians, a notable exhortation to the blessed life, which is the
reward of a life of goodness, everlasting life." (1. 10.) " For the
soul to cease from inward activity were destruction. But, from the practice of
watchfulness, it grasps the eternity of life" (2. 9).
In regard to the destruction' intended, it surely
indicates an end of the soul. And this might illustrate, by way of contrast,
the other expression, if such an expression required any illustration.
Stromata.—" Those who choose to live temperately
and justly the law makes immortal" (1. 27).
" Such is the discipline of wisdom, causing pain
in order to produce understanding, and restoring to peace and immortality"
(2. 2).
" He that loses his life shall find it, if we
only join that which is mortal of us with the immortality of God. . . It is the
will of God [that we should attain] that knowledge of Him which is the
communication of immortality." (4. 6.)
Thus, according to Clement, we have naturally no life
except what is mortal. But losing that, and through the knowledge of God, we
come to partake of His immortality.
We now ask a candid attention to these extracts. Just
observe how naturally and freely the earnest writer handles the topic of
immortality—as one who had no thought of any other than the natural sense of
the words—the sense in which Greeks regularly used them—the same in which Plato
had made them so familiar. Observe how, in so distinctly confining immortality'
and ‘incorruptibility' to the saved, he not only uses the two ordinary words,
but joins with them, as entirely synonymous, the special words for ‘eternity'
and the eternal '—speaking also of the saved as being immortalized—and that
evidently in no rhetorical but a purely didactic sense. Observe how, with the
very same view, he speaks of the things that really are,' and that have
continuance.' See, too, how he speaks of ‘perishing'—with the illustrations of
the ‘hand' and wealth,' which so clearly fix the meaning attached by him to the
term; using, apparently with no other idea, the two ordinary terms for
destruction.' See how he refers to such a subject as the burning of the
chaff'—and to the views of perdition presented in Ezek. 18. and Ps. 1,
precisely as we should do. And all this, with nothing (we will venture to say)
on the other side. Will you regard it, then, as at all extravagant, if we now
give it as our deliberate conviction that no intelligent jury, undertaking to
ascertain the question of fact, could come to any other conclusion than that
Clement acknowledged no endless existence for man as man (that is to say in
virtue, merely, of his humanity) but only through grace and the knowledge of
God?
NOTE.
IT may serve to illustrate the very different style
which began to prevail in the third century—as compared with what we have just
found in Clement and the other writers of the second century—if we add here a
sentence or two froth Hippolytus, whose Refutation of Heresies must have been
written after A.D. 222.
Writing of immortality, he says (see Ante-Nicene
Christian Library as above, vol. 2. p. 48, 49): " For if ye believe that
the soul is originated, and is made immortal by God, according to the opinion
of Plato [the very thing which Justin Martyr repudiates], we ought not to
refuse that God is able to raise the body, which is composed of the same
elements, and make it immortal. [This naturally led to the following.] To those
who have done well shall be assigned righteously eternal bliss, and to the
lovers of iniquity shall be given eternal punishment. And this fire, which is
unquenchable and without end, awaits those latter, and a certain fiery worm
which dies not, and which does not waste the body,
but continues bursting forth from the body with unending pain. No sleep will
give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from
punishment; no voice of interceding friends will profit them."
In Appendix to the same author, containing dubious
pieces, we read: "The righteous and wicked shall be raised
incorruptible—the righteous to be honored eternally and to taste immortal joys.
Then the son of perdition and his servants are given over to the fire that is
never quenched, and to the worm that never sleeps, and to the outer
darkness." (p. 122.)
The testimony of Irenaeus
THE following from his Treatise Against Heretics, book
2. chap. 24. is the passage commonly quoted as containing the testimony of Irenaeus
against the unconditional immortality of man. After showing that souls continue
to exist as such in the next world, and answering some objections to the same,
he adds (section 3)—" Regarding the saving of men it is said, He asked
life of thee, and thou gayest it him, even length of days forever and ever (Ps.
21)—as if the Father of all conferred endurance forever and ever; on those who
are saved. For not of ourselves, nor of our own nature, is life; but it is
given according to the grace of God. And therefore he who shall have preserved
the grant of life, and rendered thanks to the bestower of it, shall receive
length of days forever and ever. But he who shall cast away that life, and turn
out ungrateful to his Maker, he deprives himself of endurance forever and ever;
and therefore the Lord said to such, ' If ye have not been faithful in a
little, what great thing will anyone give to you'—signifying, that, since they
were ungrateful in the small matter of temporal life, justly they should not
obtain from Him length of days forever and ever."
This he intends as an answer to the difficulty which
some, as he thinks, might feel in regard to the very lengthened continuance of
souls which had only lately come into being. It is perfectly consistent with
the other idea of Irenaeus that the soul does not die;—death being regarded by
him as a process of dissolution only for a material substance like the
body—while the soul, instead of dying, can only come to an end.
Clear, however, as this declaration of belief seems to
be—unless otherwise neutralized—yet the application which we make of it has
been strongly controverted. " The testimony of Irenaeus," says Dr.
Angus,' " is less clear [i.e. in favor of unconditional immortality], but
it is on the whole to the same effect. In confuting Platonism, he uses some
expressions that are liable to mistake, and speaks of bad men as ' deprived of
length of days forever.' Elsewhere he speaks, again and again, of meu as sent
away into everlasting punishment. Both Massuet, the
Benedictine writer, and Dr. Roberts, the translator, agree in saying that he
teaches repeatedly that ' the wicked will exist in misery forever.' "
These statements we propose to examine, although not insensible of the
difficulty arising from the multiplicity of evidence to the contrary which the
writings of Irenaeus furnish.
Let us first see whether there is any want of
clearness, or ‘liability to mistake,' in the passage just given, and which
contains the words—" Deprived of length of days forever and ever." It
must be understood, then, that Irenaeus is arguing against the Gnostics, who
derived, he says, some of their chief principles from Plato. Against the
Christian doctrine of immortality they brought the objection that souls could
be immortal only by being untreated; for that, if they had a beginning, they
must die with the body. His answer is that, in respect to such immortality, God
stands alone; while, as to all other being, both its commencement and
continuance depend entirely on His pleasure. " In one word " (as Massuet puts it) " the scope of Irenaeus is to set up
that most true principle, that the will of God must originate and dominate in
all things; for that all besides Himself must yield to Him, as being reduced
into entire subjection." Nothing can be more certain. But it is altogether
another thing when the learned editor urges4 that Irenaeus is only protesting
against the (Platonic and Gnostic) theory of a natural and necessary
immortality, independently of the divine will,—while yet accepting it as God's
purpose to maintain all souls in endless being. This of course is the only
possible ground for Massuet, Dr. Angus, and all who,
agreeing with them, claim the support of Irenaeus. How far such a view is
tenable will better appear if we take notice of what precedes that portion of
the Irenaean statement quoted at p. 336.
"For as the heaven, with sun, moon, stars, and
all their adorning’s, were made from nothing, and continue for a long time,
according to the will of God—so also in regard to souls and spirits, and all
things which have been made; they have indeed a beginning, but still they
continue as long as God pleases that they should both be and continue. To which
belief the prophetic spirit also testifies in saying, He spoke, and they were
made; He commanded, and they were created; He hath established them forever,
even forever and ever. ' " (Ps. 148. 5, 6. Vulg.) After which he refers to
Ps. 21. 4, stating, as quoted above, that God bestows continuance forever on
those who are saved—seeing that life is His gift, and is bestowed by Him as an
everlasting possession on those only who have well used their temporal
endowments.
Now it is in vain to plead that Irenaeus here speaks
of life merely as a blessed existence bestowed upon certain persons who,
whether getting that or not, are no the less endowed with an endless existence.
For the whole question which he takes up is just in regard to an endless
continuance of existence, or possibility of immortality for created spirits;
and the assertion is that such existence is bestowed only on those who have
used well their present life. The existence of the soul and spirit is even, it
will be observed, put on a level with the existence of material things—in
regard equally to continuance and commencement. Instead of being represented as
a thing irrevocably stamped on the constitution of man, it is made to depend
entirely upon his character. And how is it to be conceived that Irenaeus, with
that Gnostic enemy in front of him, could have compared the soul's continuance
in being to that of sun and moon, and could have made its endless duration
dependent on its present behavior—if yet he had believed in its immortality,
like his editors and translators now? Has anyone attempted to answer that
question? It is very easy to say with Massuet, as Dr.
Roberts does, that the statement is to be understood in harmony with the
repeated assertion of Irenaeus that the wicked will exist in misery forever;
and that it refers, not to annihilation, but to deprivation of happiness. Yes,
but if I can see that Irenaeus, or anyone else, makes as plain a statement as
it is possible to make—I cannot deny or question his having made it, because he
may have made—if so it seems to me—some incompatible statement elsewhere. My
judgment, not to say conscience, cannot thus adapt itself to any foregone
conclusion, or theological demand. I must just in such a case say that, as far
as I can see, the man has contradicted himself. This is always possible. But
that the words of Irenaeus can have the meaning which is attempted to be put
upon them is, I will venture to say, not possible. The statements that are
gratuitously supposed to necessitate that meaning will come before us
afterwards. Meanwhile, it may be well to 1 notice some additional proof that
our author did really hold all that he so distinctly asserts in the passage now
reviewed. And I will not
shrink from asking any candid man, whether he can
resist the conclusion that, with Irenaeus, everlasting duration of
existence," immortality,' and eternal life' are convertible terms;—the
understanding always being that each of these expressions involves the idea of
endless blessedness.
(a) Let us notice, then, the Gnostic opinions as
described by Irenaeus, against which he is arguing throughout.
Thus he speaks (1. 2, 5) of eternal duration as
assigned in the Gnostic system to the aeons.
Again, the Gnostics say "that all that is
material must of necessity perish as not being capable of the afflatus of
incorruption; while they themselves, being spiritual, cannot lose their
spiritual substance." (1. 6. 1.)
There are three sorts of men, they say, namely, the
spiritual, material, and animal—answering to Cain, Abel, and Seth;—of which the
material kind goes, for certain, into corruption and the animal likewise,
unless it chooses the good part. (1. 7. 5.)
The Gnostics say, with Plato and others, that God
formed the world out of previously existing matter, and that even He cannot
give immortality to what is mortal, or incorruption to what is corruptible. (2.
14. 4.)
" How can they say that the flesh which is
nourished with the body of the Lord and His blood goes to corruption, and does
not partake of life? . . . Our bodies when they receive the eucharist are no
longer corruptible, having the hope of the resurrection to eternity" (4.
18. 5).
These figures will refer throughout to Irenaeus
against Rosales, book, chapter, and section.
In another place (4. 37. 6), he argues that the
Gnostic opponents of free will reason as if God were either unable to
accomplish His will; or ignorant that certain persons being, as they say, by
nature material, are incapable of receiving this immortality.
He speaks (5. 2. 2.) of those who say that the flesh
is not capable of incorruption; and then asks —" How can they affirm that
the flesh is incapable of receiving the gift of God which is life eternal?"
Again, in arguing against the Gnostics (5. 3. 3.), he
says that "the flesh, having lost life, can regain incorruption, which is
a blissful and unending life granted by God."
Now they made, as we have seen, the same objection to
the immortality of certain souls, and are answered by him in the same way
throughout.
Once more (5. 19. 2.) he indicates another of the
Gnostic ideas—still making the same application of the same important
words—" Some affirm that neither their soul nor their body can receive
eternal life, but only their inner man."
Thus we see that the Gnostics affirmed the necessary
immortality of certain human beings, as such; while, in regard to some, they
allowed, and, in regard to others, denied even the possibility of it. What they
meant by immortality' is unquestionable. On the other hand, we have seen, and
shall still see, how Irenaeus, denying—and of course in the same sense—a necessary
immortality to any, affirms—and in the same sense—the possibility of it for
all; but always on the basis of the gospel provision.
(b) Let us now look at some passages in which Irenaeus
speaks plainly, as in the one quoted at p. 336. above, of unbroken existence as
the portion of some only.
"The unbelievers and blinded of this world shall
not inherit the world of life which is to come" (venturum
vitae saeculum, 3. 7. 2).
After quoting Psalm 102. 26-28: " They shall
perish, but Thou art the same; the children of Thy servants shall
continue," he adds, " Thus pointing out plainly what things they are
that are to pass away, and who it is that cloth endure forever, God together
with His servants, as in Isaiah 51.6." (4. 3.)
Upon Matt. 22. 29, he remarks—" For if He be not
the God of the dead but of the living, and yet was called the God of the
Fathers who were sleeping, then they do indubitably live to God, and have not
passed out of existence," [and why?] " since they are the children of
the resurrection. But our Lord Himself is the resurrection." (4. 5, 2.)
With God (he says, 4. 38. 3) are power, wisdom, and
goodness; —power creating; wisdom arranging: while, through goodness, certain
things receive growth and continue for a long time; and by their continuing for
long ages they shall receive a faculty of the untreated; God gratuitously
bestowing upon them continuance forever. And thus in all things God has the
preeminence . . . being the primary cause of existence. [And then to show how
this applies to us—if, indeed, misapprehension were possible.] "But
subjection to God is immortality. For God is yet to be seen; and the seeing of
God is productive of immortality; and incorruption causes to be near to
God."
He speaks in 5. 2. 2 (just after the quotation made
above from the same passage) of " the resurrection, in which God bestows
upon the mortal immortality, and upon the corruptible incorruption; that we may
not be puffed up, as if we had life in ourselves; but may learn by experience
that we have the everlasting duration from His excellency, not from our nature,
and thus may never wander from the truth." It is not thus that one would
speak who believed that man was made immortal in the first Adam, or proved to
be so in the cross of the second.
(c) Illustrations of the manner in which Irenaeus
speaks of Immortality.
It has always been, he maintains (1. 10. 1.), an
article of the faith of the universal Church, that " God bestows life, and
will confer immortality on the righteous, and surround them with everlasting
glory."
" Christ restored liberty to man, and bestowed on
them the inheritance of incorruption." 5. 3.)
" It is fit that the Church should have four
pillars (viz. the gospels) breathing out immortality on every side." 2.
8.)
" Those who assert that Jesus was simply a man
are in a state of death. Being ignorant of Him they are deprived of His gift,
which is eternal life. For by no other means could we have attained to
incorruptibility and immortality, unless first incorruptibility and immortality
had become that which we also are—so that the corruptible might be swallowed up
by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the
adoption of sons." 19. 1.)
"This was the object of God's longsuffering, that
man, thus redeemed, and rising from the dead, may always live in gratitude to
the Lord, having received from Him the gift of incorruptibility—knowing in
himself how corruptible and weak he is, but God immortal to such a degree as to
confer immortality upon that which is weak, and eternity upon that which is
temporal."
Is this the language of those who believe that man
never was without a never-dying soul?
" God hath concluded all in unbelief, says Paul,
in reference to man who had been disobedient to God, and who, being coat off
from immortality, then obtained mercy." (3. 20. 2.)
Referring to Matthew 8. 11; Luke 13. 28, he says,
" Those, then, who deny His salvation, and frame the idea of another God,
are outside the kingdom, and are disinherited from incorruption, setting at naught
God who introduces Abraham to the kingdom of God, and his seed, i.e. the
Church, upon which also is conferred the adoption and inheritance promised to
Abraham." . . . " He Himself suffered death that exiled man might go
forth from condemnation, and return without fear to his own inheritance." (4.
8. 1, 2.)
" He grants to those who follow and serve Him
life, and incorruptibility, and eternal glory." (4. 14. 1.)
" God has given freedom to man, that those who do
not obey might be righteously judged . . . and those who have obeyed and
believed on Him should be honored with immortality." (4. 15. 2.)
In iv, 20. 3, 5, 6, we have these thoughts—Christ was
exalted, that thus man might attain to immortality . . . The Son leads to the
Father, whilst the Father confers incorruptibility unto eternal life, which
comes to everyone from the fact of his serving God . . . He has rendered
Himself visible that He might vivify those who receive and behold Him by faith.
For as His greatness is past finding out, so also is His goodness beyond
expression; by which having been seen, He bestows life on those who see Him. It
is not possible to live apart from Him, and the means of life is found in
fellowship with God. Men therefore shall see God that they may live, being made
immortal by that sight, and attaining even unto God.
Again (4. 24. 2), "the Apostolic doctrine is that
they who believe in Him shall be immortal, and free from suffering."
Quoting Matt. 20. 1, he says, "They all received
a penny each man, having upon it the royal image and superscription —the
knowledge of the Son of God, which is immortality." (4. 36. 7.)
" He came as a man that we may be able to contain
in ' ourselves the bread of immortality (10avacias), which is the Spirit of the
Father." (4. 38. 1.) Did the writer of this regard carnal men also as
immortal?
"It was needful that the nature of man should
first be displayed (as to its weakness); then that the mortal should be
conquered, and swallowed up by immortality, and the corruptible by
incorruptibility; and that man should be made after the likeness of God, having
received the knowledge of good and evil." (4. 38. 4.)
In 4. 39 we find the following ideas—" To believe
and obey God, this is the life of man; not to obey is his death. Man learning
that it is an evil thing which deprives him of life, i.e. disobedience, should
never attempt it. Whereas, knowing what preserves his life, namely, obedience,
he is bound to observe that with all earnestness. He who neglects this divests
himself unawares of what is human, and kills the very man himself. How, then,
shall he be a god who has not yet become a man? How can he be immortal who in
his mortal nature did not obey his Maker?"
He argues (4. 41) that, though we are in one sense
sons of God by nature, yet those who disobey have ceased to be His sons, and
are incapable of receiving the inheritance. Isaiah calls them Sodomites,
saying, " Wash you, make you clean " —intimating that, when they
should be converted and repent, they should have power to become the sons of
God, and to receive the inheritance of immortality which is bestowed by Him.
"We (speaking of believers, 5. 1) who were but
lately created by the only good and best Being, who also has the gift of
immortality, have received according to the ministration of the Word . . .
attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and securely and truly bestowing
on us, at His coming, immortality, by means of communion with God."
Can anyone doubt, after all this, what Irenaeus means
by ‘immortality,' and how he considers it is to become the possession of man?
(d) Passages in which Irenaeus speaks of losing and
perishing.
"Unless man had been joined to God he could never
have been able to partake of incorruption. Through Adam the many were made
sinners, and lost their life. God chose to recapitulate in Himself the ancient
formation of man, that He might kill sin, empty out death, and vivify
man." (3. 18. 7.)
He says (3. 20. 1) that, as God suffered Jonah to be
swallowed up by the whale—not that he should perish altogether, but might be
the more subject to God, and might bring the Ninevites to say, "Who knows
if God will turn away His anger that we perish not?"—so also did God
permit man to be swallowed up by the whale, or author of his transgression, not
that he should altogether perish when so engulfed. This was done that man,
receiving from God an unhoped-for salvation, might rise from the dead and
glorify God, never supposing that the incorruptibility which belongs to him is
his naturally.
Here surely to perish and to have immortality are
represented as exact contraries.
Irenaeus pleads against Tatian that Adam must needs
have been saved, on the ground that a proper title for the inheritance of
children must collie down from the father. In support of this view he urges
that "if man, who had been created by God that he might live, after losing
life through the serpent, should not any more return to life, but be utterly
abandoned to death, then God would have been conquered." Instead of this
God has, by the second Adam, "abolished death, vivifying that man who had
been in a state of death." "Thus God did not choose that they should
perish altogether when cursed by Him." . . . "They therefore speak
falsely who deny Adam's salvation, thus shutting themselves out forever from
life, in that they believe not that the sheep which had been lost was found.
For if it was not found the whole race of man is still held in perdition."
(3. 23.)
"He said to His disciples, Go to the sheep of the
house of Israel which were lost (perierunt). Man can
be saved in no other way from the old wound of the serpent than by believing on
Him who, in the likeness of sinful flesh, is lifted up from the earth, and
draws all things to Himself, and vivifies the dead." (4. 2, 7.)
"If thou, being hardened, dost reject the
operation of His skill thou had lost both His workmanship and life too."
" If, then, thou deliver up to Him what is thine thou shalt receive His
handiwork, and be a perfect work of God." (4. 39.)
Once more (5. 12. 2), "As he who was made a
living soul lost life when he turned aside to what was evil, so again when
coming back to the better, and receiving the quickening Spirit, he shall find
life."
To the same purpose, speaking of our death through
Adam, and life through Christ, he makes the very important
distinction—"that as in the one we all were dead, so in the other we all
may be made alive." (5. 1. 3.)
It may be of consequence to observe here, that from the
light manner in which the Gnostics treated all future punishment or suffering,
it was the more incumbent on Irenaeus to treat it with great seriousness.
Thus he tells us (1. 3. 5.) that " they explain
the fan, in Matt. 3. 12, as being the cross which consumes all material objects
as fire does chaff, but purifies all that are saved as a fan does wheat. And
they maintain that the Apostle spoke with the same view in 1 Cor. 1. 18."
It thus appears that, however Irenaeus might dissent
from their doctrine, he had nothing to say against their understanding of the
words she and wheat, consume and perish.
Again (1. 7. 1), " They say that the fire within
the earth shall burst forth and destroy all matter, and be itself extinguished
with it, and have no further existence."
Thus lightly did the Gnostics treat the subject. And now
for Irenaeus. The following extracts omit, I believe, nothing of consequence.
(e) He declares it to be (1. 10. 1) an article
"in the faith of the universal Church, that Jesus will send the apostate
angels, with ungodly men, into the everlasting fire."
" When the number is complete which He hath
predetermined with Himself, all who are inscribed for life shall rise again,
having their own bodies and spirits in which they pleased God. But those who
are worthy of punishment shall go away into the same, they also having their
own souls, and their own bodies, in which they stood apart from the grace of
God." (2. 33. 5.)
" The Savior of those who are saved, and the
Judge of those who are judged, sending into (thee) eternal fire those who alter
the truth," etc. (3. 4. 2.)
"As also the Lord says to them on the left hand,
' Depart from me, ye cursed, into (the) everlasting fire which my Father hath
prepared for the devil and his angels'—indicating that eternal fire was not
originally prepared for man, but for the chief and members of the
apostacy—which (fire) indeed they shall justly feel who like him persevere in
wickedness." (3. 23.)
"Jerusalem was rejected, as the twigs are lopped
off and thrown away after having served for the ripening of the grapes; and so
the fashion of the whole world must pass away, when the time for its
disappearance has come, that the fruit may be gathered into the garner, but the
chaff which is left behind consumed with fire—as in Mal. 4. 1;
Matt. 12 . . . Now the wheat and chaff are by nature
irrational. But man, endowed with reason, and in this respect like God, having
been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause
that sometimes he becomes wheat and sometimes chaff." (4. 4. 3.)
A strange style of illustration surely for a writer
supposed to teach an endless state of suffering!
"For this purpose did the Father reveal the Son,
that through Him He might be manifested to all, and might receive into incorruption
those righteous ones who believe in Him; but He shall righteously shut into the
outer darkness, which they have chosen for themselves, those who do not
believe." (4. 6. 5.)
I infer from this that the writer holds immortality
and outer darkness to be incompatible ideas.
" To those who reject (salvation) He has assigned
everlasting perdition by cutting them off from life." (4. 11. 4.)
" As then the unrighteous and idolators lost
their life, so also is it now; for both the Lord declares that such persons are
sent into (the) eternal fire, and the apostle says in 1 Cor. 6. 9, 10, that
they shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And just as then those who led
vicious lives were condemned and cast out, so also even now the offending eye
is plucked out, and the foot and the hand; lest the rest of the body perish in
like manner." (4. 27. 4.) He then quotes 2 These. 1. 9—where we find in
the Latin, and only copy, the very simple and distinct word interitus
used to express "destruction."
We now come (4. 28. 1-3) to the passages referred to
by Dr. Angus as containing the expressions which he counts sufficient to
establish his view of Irenaeus.
"In both Testaments there is the same
righteousness of God displayed when God takes vengeance—in the one case
typically, temporally, and more moderately; but in the other really, enduringly
(semper), and more rigidly; for the fire is eternal; and the wrath of God which
shall be revealed from heaven entails a heavier punishment on those who incur
it. And therefore they are devoid of sense who speak only of God's compassion,
and keep silence regarding the judgment as expressed in Matthew 25. 24; 10. 15."
The obligation to holiness, he urges, is increased by
the New Testament, and " so also is the punishment of those who do not
believe the word of God—being not merely temporal, but rendered also eternal.
For to whomsoever the Lord shall say, Depart, these shall be damned forever;
and to whom He shall say, Come, these do receive the kingdom forever."
"The Lord judges for eternity those whom He cloth
judge; and lets go free for eternity those whom He doth let go free."
He quotes 2 Cor. 2. 15, 16—adding, " To whom is
there the savor of death unto death, but to those who believe not? . . . And
who are they that did even then give themselves over to death? . . . And who
are they that are saved now, and receive life eternal'?"
Now we have seen what Irenaeus means by the dying then;
and we need have no doubt after the above evidence how he understood life
eternal. From all which it very plainly appears how he understood 'death unto
death.'
"He will come in the clouds, ushering in the day
which burns as a furnace, and smiting the earth with the word of His mouth, and
slaying the impious with the breath of His lips, and having a fan in His hand,
and cleansing His floor, and gathering the wheat into His barn, but burning up
the chaff," etc. (4. 33. 1.)
He again quotes (4. 33. 11) Matt. 3. 12, in connection
with eh. 25. 41, and 2 Thess. 1. 9, with the same Latin rendering, interitus, for destruction.
He argues that, as in works, so in faith, man has
entire free will, and for this reason "he that believeth on Him has
eternal life; but he who believeth not the Son hath not eternal life, but the
wrath of God abideth on him." (4. 37. 6.)
Now if we are to be always satisfied with our own idea
that eternal life' can only mean the happy form of an everlasting existence
common to all, then of course a state of ' wrath' will be the unhappy form of
the same existence; and everlasting fire' the place, or the instrument of its
infliction. But if we can only consent to let Irenaeus explain that, by eternal
life,' he means immortality' or continuance forever '—this being with him a
state invariably happy—then all the expressions, which are so confidently
appealed to as fastening upon him the opposite view, will fall into their right
place.
" Since all good things are from God, they who
fly from God deprive themselves of all good things . . and fall under the just
judgment of God. . . For those who avoid the light shall justly dwell in
darkness. . . Those who fly from the light of God, which contains in itself all
good things, are themselves the cause of their inhabiting eternal
darkness.'" (4. 39.)
Now among " all good things " Irenaeus
certainly classes that immortality which he constantly represents as the chief
good. If, in short, the good things' come from the ‘goodness' of God, then, as
may be seen above, the very first operation of that attribute, as described by
our author, is no other than just this—the bestowing upon man of continuance forever.
(See p. 336.)
And to the same effect (c. 40)—" It is the same
God who has prepared good things with Himself for those who desire His
fellowship, and remain in subjection to Him [which he says elsewhere is
immortality'], who has prepared the eternal fire for the chief of the apostacy
and his fellows—into which the Lord has declared that those shall be sent who
have separated themselves to the left . . . even eternal fire and outer
darkness, which things are evil to those who shall fall into them." (4. 40.)
That is to say, it will be no such gentle end as the Gnostics dreamt of.
" He has prepared eternal fire for every kind of
apostacy." (5. 26. 2.)
We now come to (5. 27) another of the portions singled
out by Dr. Angus. Let us see what it teaches.
In § 1 Irenaeus simply quotes Luke 17. 24; Matt. 13. 30;
25. 33, etc.; Luke 10. 12.
In § 2 we read—" Communion with God is life and
light; separation from Him is death and darkness, and consists in the loss of
all the benefits which He has in store [of which, as we have seen throughout,
immortality is the chief]. " Those, therefore, who by apostacy cast away
these things, as being deprived of all the good things, do experience all
punishment" (that is to say, every kind for which there is room in the
loss of the chief good, 'immortality'). " Not that God punishes them of
purpose; but that punishment follows because of their being deprived of all
good. But eternal and endless are the good things from (or, with) God; and
therefore also the loss of them is eternal and endless. For as those who have
brought blindness upon themselves are forever deprived of the enjoyment of
light—so he that believeth not is condemned, i.e. he has separated himself from
God of his own accord."
Again (5. 28. 1), " Those who are in the light
partake of its good things; but those who are in the darkness of calamities;
and these He will send into the eternal fire, because they have deprived
themselves of all the good things."
Towards the close of the book (5. 35) he quotes from
Rev. 20. 12-15, remarking, " This is what the Lord called (the) eternal
fire." And then any one reading to the end might almost think that the
author considered this fire to cease, and the scene in Rev. 21. to succeed to
it—so little inclined is he to put forward anything like an everlasting
continuance in suffering.
What, then, shall we now say to the testimony of
Irenaeus? Dr. Angus says " it is less clear, but, on the whole, to the
same effect." Less clear I can conceive of nothing more clear. It is (with
the exception of a few peculiar ideas) precisely what we believe and assert.
The substance of it is the same, the spirit is the same, the language is the
same. " In confuting Platonism," (qy.
Gnosticism?) Irenaeus teaches, with great fulness, frequency, and variety of
expression — what? The essential immortality of man—that is to say,.
immortality according to some irrevocable, divine purpose? No, but just the
contrary of this in every shape. Surely, then, it would be startling, even
beyond a parallel, if after all—not in different treatises, perhaps thirty
years apart, but in the same great and careful work—this good and able man
should be found writing with the same pen, that those were doomed to
everlasting suffering from whom he had already cut off all chance of
everlasting existence. No—we may keep ourselves easy about that, if at any time
asked to read or to hear some expressions from Irenaeus regarding the future of
the lost. Dr. Roberts may " agree with Massuet
in saying that he teaches repeatedly that ‘the wicked will exist in misery forever."
And many will gladly avail themselves of so short a road to a conclusion which
they count so desirable. But I will take the liberty of saying that it was not
in so summary a way that Dr. Roberts either came himself, or brought others, in
spite of the formidable obstacles of learning and numbers, to some of those
noble conclusions for which we are so deeply indebted to him. And so, instead
of yielding to the passages which our friends allege against us, we simply
claim them as our own. In these also Irenaeus speaks as we speak. He freely
quotes those passages which we too quote freely. And he quotes them in the
connection in which the Scripture presents them—as part, that is, of a
revelation which had also taught that the lover of the world should lose his
soul; that God would destroy both body and soul in hell; the unquenchable fire
burning up the chaff. He teaches, in a word, that they should go into the
everlasting fire, and undergo everlasting punishment, whom he had by almost
every form of speech declared to be utterly bereft of immortality and
continuance.' Irenaeus believes, in short, as we do—and his belief is far too
evident to require any special modesty on our part in the stating of it—that
everlasting punishment means everlasting destruction, and that fire is the
instrument of that destruction. In opposition to Gnostics, and enemies of every
name, he declares that for those who live and die without God there is no
brighter prospect throughout eternity than this.
Such is the testimony of Irenaeus—so strong and calm,
so clear and full. Nor is it merely the testimony of an individual, even though
second to none of his contemporaries for character and influence—but of one
professing to speak for the entire church from apostolic times. We cannot but
thank God for the testimony—furnishing, as it does, another and so valuable a proof
of how the men of that age could speak of the everlasting punishment of those
whom they never forgot to represent as not immortal.