Bible Threatenings Explained by J. W. Hanson, D.D. entered into electronic format April, 1997 by Audrey Cole
Bible Threatenings Explained;
or, Passages of Scripture Sometimes Quoted to Prove Endless
Punishment
Shown to Teach Consequences of Limited Duration.
(Showing that Christian universalism, or ultimate reconciliation is the true Biblical doctrine)
by J. W. Hanson, D.D.
INDEX OF TOPICS
BIBLE
THREATENINGS EXPLAINED
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT OF HEATHEN
ORIGIN
ADAM'S PUNISHMENT
TESTIMONY OF CRITICS
OLD TESTAMENT PUNISHMENTS
THE STRAIT GATE
THE BAD CAST AWAY
YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH
IMPOSSIBLE TO RENEW THEM
THE SIN UNTO DEATH
THE HYPOCRITE'S HOPE
AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY
THE WICKED DRIVEN AWAY
THE LIVING GOD FEARFUL
GOD LAUGHS AT MAN'S CALAMITY
YE SHALL NOT FIND ME
NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD
THE BARREN FIG TREE
GOD ANGRY EVERY DAY
THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY GHOST
THE WRATH OF GOD
THE WRATH TO COME
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON
"I PRAY NOT FOR THE WORLD"
THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY SAVED
WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES TO DESTRUCTION
NO MURDERER HATH ETERNAL LIFE
LET HIM BE ACCURSED
THE SECOND DEATH
THE FIRST RESURRECTION
LET HIM BE UNJUST STILL
ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION
SHALL NOT SEE LIFE
"AS THE TREE FALLS SO IT
LIES"
THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE
FIRST
THE HARVEST PAST AND WE NOT SAVED
FIRE
"OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING
FIRE"
HE IS A "REFINER'S FIRE"
GOD'S JUDGMENTS LIKE FIRE
UNQUENCHABLE FIRE
FURNACE OF FIRE
ETERNAL FIRE
"WHEAT AND CHAFF,"
"AXE," ETC.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE
JUDGMENT
IT IS A JOYFUL OCCASION
IT IS IN THIS WORLD
IS IS NOT HEREAFTER
IT IS NOW
IT IS FOR EVERY ACT AND THOUGHT
JUDGMENT TO COME
THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT
CHRIST, THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD
AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT
GNASHING OF TEETH
DAMNATION, ETC.
EATING AND DRINKING DAMNATION
THE UNBELIEVER DAMNED
THAT THEY ALL MIGHT BE DAMNED
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION
THE CASE OF JUDAS
THE SON OF PERDITION, ETC.
THE GOSPEL HID
THE LOST SOUL
"ONE OF YOU IS A DEVIL"
BETTER NEVER BEEN BORN
HIS OWN PLACE
WAS JUDAS A SUICIDE?
ETERNAL, ETC.
LEXICOGRAPHY
CLASSIC USAGE
THE OLD TESTAMENT
THE END OF AIONIAN THINGS
EVERLASTING CONTEMPT
EVERLASTING BURNINGS
JEWISH GREEK USAGE
THE NEW TESTAMENT
THE NOUN
THE ADJECTIVE
THE GREAT PROOF TEXT
THE LAST DAYS
AN OBJECTION ANSWERED
WORDS DENOTING ENDLESSNESS
ALL NATIONS NOT GATHERED THEN
ETERNAL JUDGMENT
EVERLASTING CHAIN
EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION
PRESENCE OF THE LORD
BANISHED FROM GOD'S PRESENCE
SMOKE OF TORMENT FOR EVER AND
EVER
THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS
THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN
UNAVOIDABLE CONCLUSION
HELL
SHEOL AND HADEES
ONLY FIVE OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS
ARE CLAIMED
SHEOL--HADEES RENDERED HELL
THE LOWEST HELL IS ON EARTH
IMPORTANT FACTS
THE OLD TESTAMENT REPUDIATES
THE HEATHEN DOCTRINE
"ORTHODOX" AND HEATHEN
VIEWS IDENTICAL
CONVINCING TESTIMONIES
JEWISH AND PAGAN OPINIONS
HELL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT--HADEES
MEANING OF HADEES
OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS
HEATHEN CORRUPTIONS
THRUST DOWN TO HADEES
THE GATES OF HADEES
HADEES IS ON EARTH
HADEES DESTROYED
THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS
TARTARUS
THE BOOK OF ENOCH
WHAT DID PETER MEAN?
GEHENNA
OPINIONS OF SCHOLARSV
JEWISH VIEWS OF GEHENNA
IMPORTANT FACTS
DANGER OF HELL-FIRE
CAST INTO HELL-FIRE
DESTROY SOUL AND BODY IN HELL
THE DAMNATION OF HELL
SET ON FIRE OF HELL
CONCLUSION
Preface
When one who has been reared in the Evangelical Church is favorably impressed with the doctrine of Universal Salvation, it frequently happens that the many texts he has heard quoted against it, operate as stumbling blocks in his way. The author of this book believes that no text of Scripture, properly understood, in any manner traverses the grand central truth of the Gospel: God's triumph over all his foes, converting them to himself; and he has arranged these expositions in a brief and popular style for the purpose of showing that the Threatenings of the Bible are perfectly harmonious with the Promises of Scripture; in fact, that the threatenings are given in order that the promises of Universal Reconciliation may be fulfilled.
He agrees with the Canon Farrar of the Episcopal Church, who says: "If the decision be made to turn solely on the literal meaning of the scriptures, I have no hesitation whatever in declaring my strong conviction that the Universalist and Annihilist theories have far more evidence of this sort for them than the popular view. It seems to me that if many passages of Scripture be taken quite literally, universal restoration is unequivocally taught, * * * * * * * * but that endless torments are nowhere clearly taught--the passages which appear to teach that doctrine being either obviously figurative or historically misunderstood."
If these pages shall assist any mind to remove obstacles that prevent it from beholding God as the Savior of the world, its purpose will be fulfilled.
Bible Threatenings Explained.
When considering the threatenings of the Bible, it must never be forgotten that they are always to be interpreted and understood in harmony with the great principles declared in the Scriptures, and more especially with the revealed character of God, and his promises to man. They must be so explained as to harmonize with the rest of the book that contains them. For instance, we read that "God is a spirit," and yet the same book speaks of the eye, hand, arm and ear of God. As an infinite spirit can have no such organs, we must not say either (1) that God is not a spirit, or (2) that one part of the book contradicts another part. Such passages must be interpreted so as to agree with the great central fact that God is a spirit.
Now we read that "God is Love"--is a "Father." And at the same time we are told that he will cast the wicked into hell--into everlasting fire--will punish them forever, etc. On the same principle we must not (1) deny that God is Love and a merciful Father, nor (2) believe that the Bible contradicts itself; but we must believe that the threatenings harmonize with the promises, and that no penalty can be accepted as taught in the Bible, that would prove God not a father, or destitute of love towards each and all of his children. In other words, we must shed the light of infinite, boundless, unending love on all threatened penalties, and interpret them in perfect accord with the Divine character. Believing that God is love, we must not only be prejudiced against believing that endless or any other cruel punishment is threatened in the Bible, but we must, with all the resistance of which our moral natures are capable, refuse to credit any statement that represents God as permitting any penalty to befall the sinner which will not result in his final welfare. The love of God, the Divine Paternity, is an efficient guaranty against the possibility that unending agony can be experienced by any human creature. So that, if the letter of Scripture seemed to teach endless punishment--which it does not, when properly understood--the light of the great central fact of revelation-God's Love--would dispel all darkness from the declaration as soon as the light of that truth should fall upon it. In this frame of mind we should consider the threatenings of the Bible.
ENDLESS PUNISHMENT OF HEATHEN ORIGIN (Greek mythology)
We should also bear another fact in mind. When the doctrine of endless punishment began to be taught in the Christian Church, it was not derived from the Scriptures, but from the heathen converts to Christianity, who accepted Christ, but who brought with them into their new church that doctrine which had for centuries been taught in heathen lands, but which neither Moses nor Christ accepted. And having received the idea from heathen tradition, it was natural that the early Christians should transfer it to the Bible, and seek to find it there.
That heathen invented this doctrine is undeniable. Much of the Christian understanding of Hell has more to do with Greek mythology than anything from the Bible.
Says Cicero" "It was on this account that the ancients invented those infernal punishments of the dead, to keep the wicked under some awe in this life, who without them, would have no dread of death itself."
Says Polbius, the Greek historian: "The multitude is ever fickle and capricious, full of lawless passions and irrational and violent resentments. There is no way left to keep them in order but by the terrors of future punishment, and all the pompous circumstances that attend such fiction! On which account the ancients acted, in my opinion, with great judgment and penetration, when they contrived to bring those notions of the gods and a future state into the popular belief."
Strabo, the Greek geographer and philosopher, says: "it is impossible to govern women and the gross body of the people, and to keep them pious, holy and virtuous, by the precepts of philosophy. This can only be done by the fear of the gods, which is raised and supported by ancient fictions and modern prodigies." And again he says: "The apparatus of the ancient mythologies was an engine which the legislators employed as bugbears to strike a terror into the childish imagination of the multitude."
This horrible heathen dogma sought entrance into the Christian church in vain for the first three centuries after Christ, and though here and there a heathenized Christian announced it, it did not become an accredited Christian doctrine till after more than five centuries. Dr. Edward Beecher candidly confesses that as late as three hundred years after Christ it had hardly obtained a foothold.
He says: "What, then, was the state of facts as to the leading theological schools of the Christian world in the age of Origen and some centuries after? It was, in brief, this: There were at least six theological schools in the church at large. Of these six schools, one, and ony one, was decidedly and earnestly in favor of the doctrine of future eternal punishment. One was in favor of the annihiliation of the wicked. Two were in favor of the doctrine of universal restoration on the principles of Origen, and two in favor of universal restoration on the principles of Theodore of Mopsuestia."
That is to say, here were four times as many Universalist theological schools, where clergymen were educated, as there were schools in which endless punishment was taught, even as late as A. D. 300. But from that time onward, as darkness increased, the heathen idea was more and more transferred to the sacred page, till it entirely overlaid and obscured the truth. and it was not until the light of the Reformation began to dawn that the profane inscriptions of heathen tradition were erased from the palimpsest of the Scriptures, so that the meaning of the inspired authors could be apprehended.
We propose in this volume to show that the texts quoted in behalf of the heathen error do not contain it; that none of the threatenings of the Bible teach endless punishment.
ADAM'S PUNISHMENT.
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."--Gen. ii : 16,17.
The penalty that God intended to threaten to Adam would certainly be found at the very promulgation of the consequences of his sin. But it is nowhere intimated in the account of the first human transgression that he had incurred endless torment.
Adam was told: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," or, as a literal translation would read, "Dying thou shalt die." Whatever death Adam died, it was in the day he sinned. What death did he die, in that day?
This threatened death is not (1) of the body, for physical dissolution was the natural result of physical organization, and the death threatened was to be "in the day he sinned." His body did not die in that day. (2) It was not eternal death for the same reason. He certainly went to no endless hell "in the day" of his transgression. It was (3) a moral, spiritual death, from which recovery is feasible. Paul describe it:
"Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."--Eph. iv:18. "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."--Eph.ii:I
Jesus describes it in the parable of the Prodigal son: "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this, thy brother, was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."--Luke xv:32
So does Moses: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."--Deut.xxx:15-19
Adam died this kind of death, and no other, "in the day" he sinned. This is apparent from the description of his fate subsequent to his transgression."
"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."--Gen.iii:17-19
If the reader will carefully consult the accounts of the sin and punishment of Cain, the Antediluvians, the Diluvians, Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the transgressors whose sins are recorded for four thousand years, he will find not a whisper, not a hint, that any but a limited and temporal penalty was received. This is agreed by all scholars.
TESTIMONY OF CRITICS.
Warburton: In the Jewish Republic, both the rewards and punishments promised by heaven were temporal only: such as health, long life, peace, plenty, and dominion, etc.; diseases, premature death, war, famine, want, subjections, and captivity, etc. And in no one place of the Mosaic Institutes is there the least mention, or intelligible hint, of the rewards and punishments of another life.--Div Leg. vol.iii.Jahn: We have not authority, therefore, decidedly to say that any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue the good and avoid the evil, than those which were derived from the rewards and punishments of this life.--Archaeology, p.398. Milman: The lawgiver (Moses) maintains a profound silence on that fundamental article, if not of political, at least of religious legislation rewards and punishments in another life. He substituted temporal chastisements and temporal blessings. On the violation of the constitution followed inevitably blighted harvests, famine, pestilence, defeat, captivity; on its maintenance, abundance, health, fruitfulness, victory, independence. How wonderfully the event verified the prediction of the inspired legislator! How invariable apostasy led to adversity--repentance and reformation to prosperity!--Hist. Jews, vol.i. Dr. Campbell: It is plain that in the Old Testament the most profound silence is observed in regard to the state of the deceased, their joys and sorrows, happiness or misery.
The punishments, then threatened and received, are thus described:
OLD TESTAMENT PUNISHMENTS
"It shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of the body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do. The Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with a fever, with blasting and mildew; etc. In the morning thou shalt say: Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say: Would God it were morning!"--Deut.xxviii:15-29, 67.
Abimilech's is a case in point: "Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren."--Judges ix:56.
So with Ahithophel, the suicide: "And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed,he put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sephulchre of his father."--II.Sam.xvii:23.
Is it asked how this suicide was punished? Paul answers:
"Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment.,"--I.Tim.v:24.
Hence Paul tells us that under the Law: "Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward."--Heb.ii:2
Now for four thousand years every wicked act was fully punished in this life. "Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward."
Would God have an endless hell and keep it a secret from the world for four thousand years? Would he keep sinners for four thousand years from a hell he had made, and then use it as a prison for other sinners no worse? No; the silence of God for forty centuries is a demonstration that he had no such place reserved for any of his children; and if not thence under the severe dispensation of Moses, it is impossible that it should be found in the milder message of the Gospel of the grace of God.
Before proceeding to consider the chief supports of the doctrine of endless torment, we will give brief expositions of several passages that are usually quoted in its defense.
THE STRAIT GATE
"The Strait Gate" and the "Few saved" are thought by many to indicate the final salvation of only a portion of the human family.
The question was asked by some one (Luke xiii:23 and Matt. vii:13,14): "Lord, are there few that be saved? and he answered: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out."
No intelligent reader suposes this language literal--that there is a gate at which men knock, after death, for admission into heaven. The Kingdom of God is Christ's reign on earth, and its gate signifies entrance into it. "The Kingdom of God," "Kingdom of Heaven," etc., is always in this world.
And every careful reader will see that the language is entirely confined to the present.
"Lord, are there few that be 'saved'?" The literal rendering is: "Are those being saved few?" The question relates entirely to the number then accepting Christianity. But inasmuch as all partialist Christians believe that the great mass--all but a small minority of mankind--will be finally saved, it is very inconsistent for any one thus believing to apply this language to man's final condition. "Are there few that are now being saved?" is the literal rendering of the question From what? Not from endless torment, but from certain evil consequences in this world.
And the answer to Jesus shows that the application was confined to those to whom he was speaking.
"Lord" (they say) "we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets."
The words apply entirely to those who had heard him speak in their streets, namely the Jews, whose advantages were about to be taken away, and given to the Gentiles, who were to enter the kingdom by faith, with faithful Abraham, while they were thrust out. The weeping and gnashing of teeth represents their chagrin and rage at their lot, despising the Gentiles as they did.
This same subject is thus treated in Matt. vii:13,14.
"Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."
As we just said, it is entirely inconsistent for any advocate of endless punishment to quote this language in support of that doctrine, inasmuch as all such believers now teach that the great majority of souls will be finally saved, while only the small minority will be forever lost. The Savior referred, by the Strait Gate, to the exacting nature of his religion. The road was narrow, and difficult to follow, and but few then followed it, while the many avoided it, and pursued the broad road of error and sin. The words have the same application today, well expressed by good Dr. Watts:
Broad is the road that leads to death,
And thousands walk together there,
But wisdom shows a narrow path,
With here and there a traveller.
The language teaches that only the few then walked in the narrow way marked out by Christ while the many chose the broader way of wrong.
If we refer the passage to the future world, we cannot excape the conclusion that heaven will only contain a few souls, while the great majority will be damned. It has no reference to the future world whatever, but denotes the few who in our Savior's day went right, while the great multitude went wrong. Dr. A. Clarke says: "Enter in through this strait gate--i.e., of doing to every one as you would he should do unto you; for this alone seems to be the strait gate."
The language in Luke has a more special application to the Jews than that in Matthew, which may be applied to every age since Christ, and to the present. It is as true now as at the time Jesus spoke, that the path of Christian goodness is a difficult one, followed by a comparative few, while the way of wickedness is broad and much travelled. But it will not always be so.
Whoever refers the language to the final condition of the human race must admit that only a few will ever be holy and happy, while the great multitude will be lost. It has no such application, but teaches that at the time Jesus spoke the many went wrong, while only the few chose the way of life.
THE BAD CAST AWAY
"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.--Matt.xiii:47-50.
The "furnace of fire" and "gnashing of teeth" will be fully explained, as also the "end of the world," or age (aion) in subsequent parts of this book. The material universe, this world (kosmos) is never spoken of as ending, but it is always the aion, or age, the end of which is announced. "The field is the world," kosmos, v.38, but "the end of the world," when the harvest comes, v. 39, is aion. The age ends, but not the world.
The kingdom of heaven is Christ's rule among men, his church. It is a net which catches good and bad, and at the end of that age, so often referred to, when severe judgments were to come, the angels, or messengers to execute God's judgments, would separate Christians from others, and the bad were to suffer in the furnace of fire, the burning city, and perish in Gehenna.
Dr. Clark says: "It is very remarkable that not a single Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, though there were many there when Cestius Gallus invaded the city; and had he persevered in the siege, he would have rendered himself master of it; but when he, unexpectedly and unaccountably, raised the siege, the Christians took that opportunity to escape."
This language has sole reference to the remarkable trials through which the early Christians were about to pass, when Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Christian religion was fairly established on the ruins of the Jewish church. The "furnace of fire," the "wailing and gnashing of teeth," were when the awful calamities of those fearful days, so fully described in Matt. xxiv, were visited upon the people of Judea. These expressions will be more fully explained hereafter.
YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.
"I tell you, nay; except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."--Luke xii : 3.
Many readers of the Bible suppose that the word perish always relates to the immortal soul, and that it means to suffer torment without end. And this passage has been quoted blindly, ignorantly, thousands of times to denote the final loss of the soul. But it is only necessary to consult the immediate context to perceive that Jesus was referring to nothing of the sort. He asks:
"Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."
That is, perish in a manner similar to their death. "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish as they died." How was that? There were "some who told him of the Galilieans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices," and of a certain eighteen "upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them."
"Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay; but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish."
That is, be slain as they were. No better explanation fo these words can be given than in the language of "orthodox" commentators.
Says Dr. Clarke: "ye shall all likewise perish. In a like way, in the same manner. This prediction of our lord was literally fulfilled. When the city was taken by the Romans, multitudes of the priests, etc., who were going on with their sacrifices, were slain, and their blood mingled with the blood of their victims; and multitudes were buried under the ruins of the walls, houses and temple."
Dr. Barnes (Presbyterian) observes: "You shall all be destroyed in a similar manner. * * This was remarkably fulfilled. Many of the jews were slain in the temple; many while offering sacrifice; thousands perished in a way very similar to the Galileans."
Whitby says: "I tell you, nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish, for the same cause, and many of you after the same manner."
IMPOSSIBLE TO RENEW THEM
"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."--Heb vi:4-6.
Any reader of the New Testament ought to see that this language is not to be understood as literal, when he remembers that Peter himself "fell away," and was "renewed again unto repentance." What Paul says is that it is difficult, not impossible, to renew those who have once tasted the heavenly gift.
The word here has the same force as in Matt. xix:26, where it is said to be impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In reply to the apostles' question, "who, then, can be saved?" Jesus said: "With men it is impossible, but with God everything is possible;" or, more exactly, "With men it is hard, but everything is easy with God."
Calmet says: "St. Paul by no means intended to exclude the baptism of tears and repentance, for the expiation of those sins which we commit after regeneration."
Rosenmuller, a celebrated German theologian, says: "Adunaton, in this place, does not mean absolutly impossible, but rather a thing so difficult that it may be nearly impossible; thus we are accustomed to say of very many things in common conversation."
Dr. Macknight observes: "The apostle does not mean that it is impossible for God to renew a second time, by repentance, an apsostate; but that it is impossible for the ministers of Christ to convert a second time, to the faith of the Gospel, one who, after being made acquainted with all the proofs by which God has thought fit to establish Christ's mission, shall allow himself to think him an impostor, and renounce the gospel. The apostle, knowing this, was anxious to give the Hebrews just views of the ancient oracles, in the hope that it would prevent them from apostatizing.
THE SIN UNTO DEATH
"If a man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin unto death.--I John v:16,17.
"The sin unto death" has often been supposed to be the "unpardonable sin," so called, as though any sin could be unpardonable by a God whose mercy is without limit and without end. The apostle was merely alluding to the various offences under the Jewish law, some of which were unto death, or capital offences, while others were less heinous. The latter were to be interceded for, but the former were to be regarded as beyond intercession. On this passage Bishop Horne correctly says:
"The Talmudical writers have distinguished the capital punishments of the Jews into lesser deaths and such as were more grievous; but there is no warrant in the Scriptures for these distinctions, neither are these writers agreed among themselves what particular punishments are to be referred to these two heads. A capital crime generally was termed a sin of death (deut. xvi:6); or a sin worthy of death (Deut. xxi:22), which mode of expression is adopted, or rather imitated, by the apostle John, who distinguishes between a sin unto death, and a sin not unto death (I John v:16). Criminals, or those who were deemed worthy of capital punishment, were called sons or men of death (I Sam. xv:32; xxxi:16; II Sam. xix:28, marginal reading), just as he who had incurred the punishment of scourging was designated a son of stripes (Deut.xxv:16; I Kings xiv:6). A similar phraseology was adopted by Jesus Christ, when he said to the Jews: "Ye shall die in your sins" (John viii:21-24). Eleven different sorts of capital punishment are mentioned in the sacred writings."
THE HYPOCRITE'S HOPE.
"And the hypocrite's hope shall perish."--Job viii:13
Why this passage was ever quoted in support of endless punishment, we have no conjecture. There is mothing in it to indicate that it has the remotest reference to anything beyond this life. Its meaning is that the wicked shall be disappointed; that the will not realize what they desire. It is exactly equivqalent to Prov. x:28: "The expectation of the wicked shall perish."
AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY
"Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say unto you, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."--Matt. v:25,26.
The adversary here is a legal one, the language refers to those who were opposed to the disciples in some way, as is evident from the references to a "judge", an "officer" and a "prison." If God were the adversary, as is sometimes claimed, and the prison is after death, then limited punishment is certainly taught, for when "the uttermost farthing" is paid, then deliverance from the prison follows. But it has no such reference. The language has a local reference to the times of the disciples, and relates entirely to legal opponents.
THE WICKED DRIVEN AWAY.
"The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death."--Prov. xiv:32.
Solomon had not the most remote reference to post mortem suffering in this language. What he meant to say was that when the wicked is driven away to death in his wickedness, the righteous has hope. He expresses the same idea when he says: "I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive."--Ecc. iv:2. When the wicked die in their wickedness, the righteous have hope even in their death, is what Solomon says in this language.
THE LIVING GOD FEARFUL.
"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."--Heb.x:31
To fall into the hands of God, the living God, is as when (I Sam. v:6) "the hand of the Lord was heavy," and "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines."
It denotes the judgments of God falling on the sinful. It is fearful to merit and receive those penalties. God has a merciful purpose in them, but they are often fearful to experience. We are always in God's hands, but we are said to "fall into" his hands when we suffer the consequences of sinfulness. It is a fearful thng to merit and receive the results of wickedness, even though a beneficent purpose moulds them, just as an amputation is a fearful process to undergo, though it may save life and restore health.
GOD LAUGHS AT MAN'S CALAMITY.
"I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproofs. I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh."--Prov. i:24-26.
This language is sometimes wrongfully applied to God, who is represented as laughing at man's calamity, and mocking him when in future and final torment, whereas it is Wisdom that is personified as saying:
"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she uttereth her words, saying: How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof! Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind: when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil."
The idea of wresting this language from its application to Wisdom, and applying it to the merciful God and Father of all, is one of the many illustrations of the manner in which the advocates of endless torment have misapplied the language of the Bible to make it seem to sustain the horrible doctrine. Think of God mocking the sinner's groans, and laughing as he listens to his cries of torment! And why should he not, if he has, in infinite wisdom and love, created an endless hell for his abode?
YE SHALL NOT FIND ME
"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am thither ye can not come."--John vii:34. "Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and die in your sins; whither I go ye cannot come."---John viii:21.
These verses are usually misquoted thus: "If ye die in your sins, where God and Christ are ye never can come." But Jesus said just the same thng to his disciples in John xiii:33.
"Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said unto the Jews, whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you."
True, he said to his disciple Peter: "Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward," and so he told the wicked Jews: "Ye shall not see me till ye shall say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt. xxiii:39). In both instances he meant that he should not be followed at that time, but in neither case did he mean that they should be excluded from his presence forever.
NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."--Gal.v:19-21. "For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."--Eph. v:5. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drundards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."--I Cor. vi:9,10.
The popular rendering of these passages is, that those who commit these sins in this life will never find heaven, unless they repent before they die; but that idea is not expressed nor implied. The kingdom of God, of heaven, is a condition of purity, and whoever is guilty of these sins shuts himself out from the enjoyment of the kingdom. No Christian sect teaches this doctrine more earnestly than do Universalists. All Christians teach that this language is not to be interpreted literally. All those thus guilty; may, by repentance, enter the kingdom.
THE BARREN FIG TREE
"Cut it down why cumbereth it the ground?"--Luke xiii:7. this language is parallel to that in Matt. iii:10: "and now also the axe is laid unto the root of the tree; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."
Man is compared to a fruitless tree, that is destroyed because barren. No point of the description is literal--neither the tree, the axe, the fruit, nor the fire. The nation, or the individual, that does not serve God, perishes; that is, passes through a process of decay, destruction, as the penalty of sinfulness. Not annihilation, nor ceaseless torment, but that moral condition for which the Scriptures have no better name than death.
GOD ANGRY EVERY DAY.
"God is angry with the wicked every day."--Psalm vii:11.
Anger, as the word is ordinarily used, is not a noble emotion; it is altogether unworthy of God, and he is incapable of it. The wise man says (Ecc. vii:9): "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools." Then God cannot be "angry every day," all the time. What is the meaning of these words?
Dr. Adam Clarke, the well known scholar and commentator, has examined the text with equal learning and candor, and he gives us the result of his investigation in the statement that a mistranslation of the language puts a false meaning on the words. He gives these as authorities:
The Vulgate:--"God is a judge, righteous, strong and patient. Will he be angry every day?" The Septuagint:--"God is a righteous judge, strong and long-suffering; not bringing forth his anger every day." The Arabic is the same. The Genevan version, printed in 1615:--"God judgeth the righteous, and him that contenmeth God, every day;" marginal note: "he doth continually call the wicked to repentance by some signs of his judgments."
Dr. Clarke says: "I have judged it of consequence to trace this verse through all the ancient version. in order to be able to ascertain what is the true reading, where the evidence on one side amounts to a positive affirmation, 'God is angry every day,.' and, on the other side, to as positive a negation, 'He is not angry every day.' The mass of evidence supports the latter reading. The Chaldee first corrupted the text by making the addition, 'with the wicked,' which our translators have followed, though they have put the words into italics, as not being in the Hebrew text. Several of the versions have rendered it in this way: 'God judgeth the righteous, and isnot angry every day." The true sense may be restored thus; el with the vowel tsere signifies God; el, the same letters with the point pathach, signifies not. Several of the versions have read in this way: 'God judgeth the righteous, and is not angry every day.' He is not always chiding, nor is he daily punishing, notwithstanding the daily wickedness of man; hence the ideas of patience and long-suffering which several of the versions introduce."
It will be seen that David expressly says that God is not angry every day, though those who quote the text as found in our version to prove God petulant, wrathful and passionate, do not seem to reflect that it is no proof of endless punishment, for the same author and others declare (Micah vii:18; Psa. ciii:8,9; xxx:5) that "He retaineth not his anger forever." So that, if he were--as he is not--angry every day, the time would come when his anger would no longer exist.
It will enable the reader to understand the meaning of anger, as ascribed to God in the Scriptures, if he will consider how the word is used in the Bible. There are two kinds of anger. One is right, and is exhibited by God, good angels and good men, and the other is wrong and is an animal characteristic, of which God is incapable. Abstract anger is a disposition to combat, destroy, and its legitimate use is to remove obstacles. Employed by the good it never harms, but used by the evil, its work is mischief and woe.
The first sort is referred to in the passage we are considering, and is exercised by God, who is said to "hate all the workers of iniquity." And how does he exhibit his anger? Not against the sinner, but against the sin. Men, smarting under the penalties of sin, seeing only the stroke, and not realizing the love that impels it, say with Saul that God hates them, but it is Infinite Love that wields the rod, and that inflicts every stroke because it loves the sinner, and will destroy that in him that alienates him from his best friend, and ruins his best interests.
David says; "Thou shalt make the wicked as a fiery oven in the time of thy anger, the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them."--Psa. xxi:9. The prophet declares: "The Lord reserveth wrath for his enemies."--Nahum i:2,3. Paul affirms; "The wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." "The power and wrath of God is upon all them that forsake him."--Eph. v:6; Col. iii:6. Jesus says: "The wrath of God abideth on him that believeth not the Son."--John iii:36. He also says: "God is kind to the unthankful and evil."--Luke vi:35. "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust."--Matt. v:48.
Now these are not contradictory statements. They are consistent with each other. What God is determined to destroy in the sinner is that which makes him a sinner, and he prodeeds towards him as a good parent must, to eradicate it by punishment. An angry mother--a true mother--punishes her wayward boy, just as God punishes the wicked, because she loves him. The boy may call it anger, but it is that kind which will not harm a hair of his head. It is indeed the highest love; it is determined on the child's welfare, and so will not shrink from inflicting pain. But it is temporary. This is evident when we remember that men are told to be like God, and yet they must not let the sun go down upon their wrath. We must love our enemies that we may be children of the highest. If God were angry every day, and we were like him, we should be cross, petulant, wrathful, vindictive and hateful all the time. But we can only be like God as we "put off anger" (Col. iii:8) and "put away all wrath, anger and malice," (Eph. iv:31) inasmuch as "a fool's wrath is presently known," (Prov. xii:16) while "he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding." (Prov. xivv:28)
"God is not angry with the wicked every day," is the correct reading of this passage, and it must be true of him who is Love, and who is unchangeable, that he never was, never is, and never will be--for he never can be--angry with any human being in any other sense than that his righteous indignation burns towards those traits that cause his children to sin, and that it will continue to burn until it destroys those traits, and transforms his enemies into friends. "The man who destroyed his enemies" transformed them to friends. God's anger will destroy the enmity of his enemies. He will always be kind to the unthankful and evil. He "is not angry with the wicked every day."
THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY GHOST
The passages that relate to this subject are in Matt. xii:31,32:"Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor the world to come." Mark iii:28-30: "all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they said, he hath an unclean spirit." Luke xii:10: "And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven."
What is this sin? It consisted in ascribing the power by which Jesus wrought his wonderful works to Satan. He was accused of being aided by Beelzebub, of having an unclean spirit, and of working his miracles by the power of an evil spirit. From this it follows that but very few persons are exposed to the doom here threatened, inasmuch as very few have ever committed this sin.
But if we take this language literally, we must hold that all other sinners, of every character and kind, will be saved, because just as positively as the Scripture declares that these blasphemeies shall never be forgiven, it declares that all others literally and absolutely shall be forgiven. "Verily I say unto you all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme." The sin against the Holy Ghost is the only sin that shall not be pardoned. All other sinners. thieves, liars, murderers, all except that very small number that accused Jesus of receiveing diabolical help, shall be forgiven. Does not this show that the terms of the passage are not to be taken literally? Does it not appear that men must either believe that all kinds of sinners, and all of them, except this small number, must be pardoned, or else that the rest of the language is not to be taken literally? It is asserted just as positively that all others shall be, as that these few shall not be forgiven.
If the "shall" and "shall not" are to be understood literally, then the number of the damned is entirely limited to the very few who actually saw Christ's miracles, and ascribed them to Beelzebub. No one since, and no one hereafter can be damned, for all other sin but that shall be forgiven. This saves all mankind except those few persons who said, "he [Christ] hath an unclean spirit." This reduces hell to a mere mote in the universe, and excludes all now living, or who hereafter shall live, from any exposure to it.
What does that language mean? Campbell says this is "a noted Hebraism;" that is, a term of speech common among the Jews, to teach that one event is more likely to occur than another, and not that either shall or shall not occur.
Dr. Newcome says: "It is a common figure of speech in the oriental languages, to say of two things that the one shall be and the other shall not be, when the meaning is that the one shall happen sooner, or more easily, than the other."
Grotius and Bishop Newton are to the same purport. For illustration, when Jesus says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," he does not mean that heaven and earth shall actually pass away, but they will sooner fail than his words. It is a strong method of asserting that his words shall be fulfilled. This is common in the Bible.
Prov. viii:10: "Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold." Matt. vi::19,20: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Luke xiv:12,13:"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind." John vi:27: "Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; for him hath God the father sealed."
The plain meaning is, all other sins are more easily forgiven than this. The words "never," "neither in this world nor the world to come," do not change the sense, but only strengthen and intensify the Savior's meaning that this is of all sins the worst.
The popular impression that 'the world to come" here means the life after death is an error.
Dr. Clarke well observes: "Though I follow the common translation, yet I am fully satisfied the meaning of the words is, neither in this dispensation, viz., the Jewish, nor in that which is to come. Olam ha-bo, the world to come, is a constant phrase for the times of the Messiah, in the Jewish writers."
Wakefield, Rosenmuller and Hammond also give the same opinion. And it should be added that the word "never" is no part of the original Greek. That is, not under either dispensation, or age (aion--mistranslated "world"), will this inexcusable sin be less than the greatest of transgressions.
Bishop Pearce declares: "This is a strong way of expressing how difficult a thing it was for such a sinner to obtain pardon. The Greek word aion seems to signifyage here, as it often does in the New Testament (see Matt. xiii:40; xxiv 3; Col. i:26; Eph. iii:5,21) and according to its most proper signification. If this be so, then 'this age' means the Jewish one, and 'the age to come' (see Hebrews vi:5 and Eph. ii:7) means that under the Christian dispensation. The end of the world took place during the time of the apostles. 'Now once in the end of the world hath he [Christ] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.'--Heb. ix:26. 'Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.' I Cor. x:11."
Gilpin observes, "Nobody can suppose, considering the whole tenor of Christianity, that there can be any sin which, on repentance, may not be forgiven. This, therefore, seems only a strong way of expressing the difficuolty of such repentance, and the impossibility of forgiveness without it. Such an expression occurs Matt. xix:24: 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven;' that is, it is very difficult. That the Pharisees were not beyond the reach of forgiveness, on their repentance, seems to be plain from verse 41, where the repentance of Nineveh is held out to them for an example."
Clarke says: "Any penitent may find mercy through Christ Jesus; for through him any kind of sin may be forgiven to man, except the sin against the Holy Ghost, which I have proved no man can now commit."--Clarke on I. John v:16. And again: "No man who believes the divine mission of Jesus Christ, ever can commit this sin."
These are all "Orthodox" commentators, whose opinions were certainly not formed by prejudice in favor of our views of the passages in question. They agree with what seems the meaning of the Savior, that this sin is of all others most inexcusable. But that any sin is literally unpardonable, by a God and Father of infinite love and mercy, is nowhere expressed or implied in the Bible.
Mark's language "hath never forgiveness" should read "has not forgiveness to the age," but is liable to aionian judgment; that is, to an indefinite penalty. See the word aionios, explained in subsequent pages of this book.
THE WRATH OF GOD
Paul speaks (Col. iii:6) of "the wrath of God on the children of disobedience." We have shown that wrath is a reprehensible passion, unworthy of men and impossible to God. The word can only be applied to God in a figurative sense, to denote his disapproval of sin.
Macknight (Presbyterian) gives a lucid exposition of the subject: "Thus, many words of the primitive language of mankind must have a twofold significance. According to the one signification, they denote ideas of sense, and according to the other they denote ideas of intellect. So that although these words were the same in respect of their sound, they were really different in respect of their signification; and to mark that difference, after the nature of language came to be accurately investigated, the words which denoted the ideas of sense, when used to express the ideas of intellect, were called by the critics metaphors, from a Greek word which signifies to transfer; because these words, so used, were carried away from their original meaning to a different one, which, however, had some resemblance to it.
"Having in the Scriptures these and many other examples of bold metaphors, the natural effect of the poverty of the ancient language of the Hebrews, why should we be either surprised or offended with the bold figurative language in which the Hebrews expressed their conceptions of the Divine nature and government? Theirs was not a philosophical language, but the primitive speech of an uncultivated race of men, who, by words and phrases taken from objects of sense, endeavored to express their notions of matters which cannot be distinctly conceived by the human mind, and far less expressed in human language. Wherefore they injure the Hebrews who affirm that they believed the Deity to have a body, consisting of members of the human body, because in their sacred writings, the eyes, the ears, the hands and the feet of God are spoken of; and because he is represented as acting with these members after the manner of men.
"'The voice of the Lord walking in the garden.'--Gen. iii:8. 'The Lord is a man of war' 'Thy right hand O Lord, hath dashed,' etc.; 'The blast of thy nostrils.'--Exod. xv:3-6-8. 'Smoke out of his nostrils;' 'Fire out of his mouth;' 'Darkness under his feet;' 'He rode' and 'Did fly.'--Psa. xviii:8,9,10.
"In like manner they injure the Hebrews who affirm they thought God was moved by anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge, grief, and other human passions, because in their Scriptures it is said: 'It repented the Lord' 'It grieved him.'--Gen. vi:6. 'A jealous God.'--Ex.xx:5. 'The wrath of the Lord.'--Num. xi:33. 'I hate."--Prov. viii:13. 'The indignation of the Lord' 'His fury'--Isa. xxxiv:2. 'God is jealous' 'Revengeth and is furious' 'Will take vengeance' and 'He reserveth wrath.'--Nahum i:2.
"They also injure the Hebrews who affirm that they believe the Deity subject to human infirmity, because it is said: 'God rested.'--Gen. ii:2. 'The Lord smelled.'--Gen. viii:21. 'I will go down and see,' and 'if not, I will know.'--Gen. xviii:21. 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh' 'Shall have them in derision.'--Psa. ii:4. 'The Lord awaked,' etc.--Psa. lxxviii:65.
"These and the like expressions are highly metaphorical, and imply nothing more but that in the divine mind and conduct (to human perceptions) there is somewhat analogous to, and resembling the sensible objects and the human affections, on which these metaphorical expressions are founded. If from the passages of Scripture in which the members of the human body are ascribed to the Deity, it is inferred that the ancient Hebrews believed the Deity hath a body of the same form with the human body, we must conclude they believed the Deity to be a tree, with spreading branches and leaves which afforded an agreeable shade; and a great fowl, with feathers and wings; and even a rock. because he is so called.--Deut. xxxii:15; Psa. xvii:8; xviii:2-31; xci:4."--Macknight on the Epistles, Essay viii: Sec.I.
The consequences of human misconduct, the judgments of God on wickedness, are ascribed to wrath, anger, hatred, to God, but always in a figurative sense; for he who is the same always, and whose nature is love, cannot literally be angry or wrathful.
"And said to the mountains and rock, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb."--Rev. vi:16. At the opening of the sixth seal, "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, and the heavens departed as a scroll," etc.--Rev. vi:12,13.
The fearful evils of the times here prophesied are figuratively attributed to God's wrath. But all these scenes transpired on earth.
Dr. Clarke says: "All these things may literally apply to the final destruction of Jerusalem, and to the revolution which took place in the Roman Empire, under Constantine the Great. Some apply them to the day of judgment, but they do not seem to have that awful event in view."
Whatever the phrase means, it applies wholly to this life, and has no reference to the world beyond the grave. The phrase "Wrath of God" is an adaptation of human language to human apprehension; to ascribe human passions to him, is a metaphorical employment of terms. Man, smarting under God's chastisements, or beholding the results of his judgments, characterizes as wrath, hatred, what is dictated by love. God has not wrath as men are angry. There can be no such thing as hatred in him who is perfect love.
Prof. Stuart, in his comments on Romans, observes: "It is impossible to unite, with the idea of complete perfection, the idea of anger in the sense in which we cherish that passion; for with us it is a source of misery, as well as sin. To neither of these effects of anger can we properly suppose the Divine Being to be exposed. His anger, then, can be only that feeling or affection in him which moves him to look on sin with disapprobation and to punish it when connected with impenitence. We must not, even in imagination, connect this in the remotest manner withrevenge; which is only and always a malignant passion. But vengeance, even among men, is seldom sought for against those whom we know to be perfectly impotent, in respect to thwarting any of our designs and purposes. Now, as all men and all creation can never endanger any one interest (if I may so speak) of the Divine Being, or defeat a single purpose; so we cannot even imagine a motive for revenge on ordinary grounds. Still less can we suppose the case to be of this nature, when we reflect that God is infinite in wisdom, power and goodness. This constrains us to understand the anger and indignation of God as anthropapathic, i.e., speaking of God after the manner of men. It would be quite as well (nay, much better ) to say that when the Bible attributes hands, eyes, arm, etc., to God, the words which it employs should be literally understood, as to say that when it attributes anger andvengeance to him it is to be literally understood. But if we so construe the Scriptures in this latter case, we represent God as a malignant being, and class him among the demons; whereas by attributing to him hands, eyes, etc., we only represent him to be like men."
Dr. Clarke thinks that the word "wrath" in the new Testament ought to be "punishment."
"Taken in this sense, we may consider the phrase as a Hebraism; punishment of God, i.e., the most heavy and awful of punishments; such as sin deserves, and such as it becomes divine justice to inflict. And this abideth on him (the unbeliever), endures as long as his unbelief and disobedience remain."
These comments express our views, and they certainly afford no support to the idea of endless torment.
THE WRATH TO COME
"O, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"--Matt.iii:7
John Baptist addresses this language to the Scribes and Pharisees. By "wrath to come" he meant the approaching desolation of the Hebrew nation.
Bishop Pearce says, "the punishment to come in the destruction of the Jewish state" Kenrick, "the impending punishment in the destruction of the Jewish state;" Dr. Clarke, "the desolation which was about to fall on the Jewish nation."
But the same words may be applied to the consequences of any sinful career, whether of an individual or of a nation. The wrath to come is awaiting, not in endless hell, but here, in this world.
THE SPIRITS IN PRISON
"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water."--I Peter iii:19,20.
Why this passage is ever quoted against the Universalist faith cannot be seen. If Jesus went to hell to preach to the damned who were disobedient in the time of Noah, as many understand the text to teach, it was for the purpose of converting them, and therefore probation extends into the future state of existence We should be very glad to believe this to be the meaning of the text, but the facts compel a different view. What is the meaning?
The spirits in prison are the minds of men imprisoned in sin. By his spirit Jesus preached and preaches to such.
Dr. Clarke says: "I have before me one of the first, if not the very first edition of the Latin Bible, and in it the verse stands thus: 'By which he came spiritually, and preached to them that were in prison.'"
Wakefield says Christ here makes comparison between the Antediluvians and the Gentiles:
"By which he went and preached to the minds of men in prison, who were disobedient, as those upon whom the long suffering of God waited, as in the days of Noah."
That is, the Gentiles to whom Christ came to preach by his spirit were as disobedient as the Antediluvians. The language has no reference whatever to a future state of being.
There is no objection--based on our views--to the exegesis of the passage that represents Jesus as having gone to Hadees to preach to spirits there yet unredeemed, but the doctrine finds no warrant in this passage.
"I PRAY NOT FOR THE WORLD."
"I pray for them; I pray not for the world but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine."--John xvii:9.
Jesus was offering a special prayer for his disciples. He frequently employs this form of expression; that is, he uses the negative in order to give the greater emphasis to the affirmative, as when he says, in reference to forgiveness: "Not seven times, but seventy times seven;" or, "Lay not up treasures upon earth, but lay up treasures in heaven." He does not forbid us to forgive seven times, nor to lay up treasures on earth, but he precedes his command to forgive seventy times seven, and to lay up heavenly treasures, by a negative, in order to give the greater force to what follows. He offers a special prayer for his disciples, but in verse 21 he extends it to others, and on his cross he prayed for his murderers (Luke xxiii:34); and he also prayed for all men when (John x) he prayed for all the sheep for whom he had laid down his life.
"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring; and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
Barnes (Presbyterian) says: "This passage settles nothing about the question whether Christ prayed for sinners." Whitby says: "He made this prayer out of affection to the world, and with this design, that the preaching of the apostles to them might be more effectual for their conversion and salvation."
The language is simply a special prayer for the disciples.
THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY SAVED.
"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?"--I Peter iv:18.
In preference to any comments of our own on this passage, we present the views of "orthodox" commentators, who express our opinion of the passage exactly.
Dr. Macknight says: "Indeed the time is come, that the punishment to be inflicted on the Jews as a nation, for their crimes from the first to last, must begin at you Jewish Christians, now become the house of God. And if it begin first at us, who are so dear to God, what will the end be of those Jews who obey not the gospel of God? And when God thus punishes the nation, if the righteous Jews, who believe in Christ, with difficulty can be saved, where will the ungodly and sinful part of the nation show themselves saved from the divine vengeance? That the apostle is not speaking here of the difficulty of the salvation of the righteous, at the day of judgment, will be evident to anyone who considers II Peter i:11. What he speaks of, is the difficulty of the preservation of the Christians, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem; yet they were preserved, for so Christ promised (Matt. xxiv:13). But the ungodly and wicked Jews were saved neither in Judea, nor anywhere else."
Dr. Adam Clarke: "Judgment must begin at the house of God. Our Lord had predicted that, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem, his followers would have to endure various calamities. (See Matt. xxiv:9,21,22; Mark xiii:12,13; John xvvi:2, etc.) Here his true disciples are called the house or family of God. And if it first begin at us, Jews who have repented and believe on the Son of God, what shall be the end of them, the Jews who continue impenitent, and obey not the gospel of God? Here is the plainest reference to the above Jewish maxim; and this, it appears, was founded upon the text which St. Peter immediately quotes.
"Verse 18--And if the righteous scarcely be saved. If it shall be with extreme difficulty that the Christians shall escape from Jerusalem, when the Roman armies shall come against it, with the full commission to destroy it, where shall the ungodly and sinner apear? Where shall the proud Pharisaic boaster in his own outside holiness, and the profligate transgressor of the law of God, show themselves, as having escaped the divine vengeance? The Christians, though with difficulty, did escape, every man; but not one of the Jews escaped, whether found in Jerusalem or elsewhere. I have, on several occasions, shown that when Cestius Gallus came against Jerusalem, many Christians were shut up in it; when he strangely raised the seige, the Christians immediately departed to Pella, in Coelosyria, into the dominions of King Agrippa, who was an ally of the Romans; and there they were in safety; and it appears from the ecclesiastical historians that they had but barely time to leave the city before the Romans returned under the command of Titus, and never left the place till they had destroyed the temple, razed the city to the ground slain upwards of a million of those wretched people, and put an end to their civill polity and ecclesiastical state."
This salvation relates exclusively to deliverance from the approaching terrors of those times, and not to any sufferings after death by those to whom Jesus spoke, or to any others.
But by "accomodation" we may apply the language to all men, and say that if now, in this world, even the righteous but just escape the temptations and evils that surround them--"scarcely be [not shall be] saved"--the ungodly and sinner experience no such deliverance. "They are like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt continually." But in no event can the words be applied to any other state of existence than the present, without perverting the meaning of the Savior.
WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES TO DESTRUCTION.
"As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also other scriptures, unto their own destruction."--II Peter iii:16.
When these words were written the land of Judea was full of confusion, and many portents indicated its approaching desolation, which was usually spoken of as identical with the "coming of the Lord."
Jesus had said: "And when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh."--Luke xxi:20.
Now Peter wrote this epistle to keep the church in remembrance of the prophecies of the coming event. He refers to those who asked, "Where is the promise of his coming?" (v.4) and added (v.42) "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."
He gives, in similar imagery to that employed by Jesus, the signs of the coming: "The heavens passing away with a great noise, and the elements melting with fervent heat."
Jesus had said: "The stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken."--Matt.xxiv:29. See also II Peter iii:10.
He exhorts (v.11) "seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness." Thus they misunderstood, perverted, the words of Jesus and Peter, and so were destroyed in the coming calamities, "before that generation passed;" when, had they understood and obeyed the Scriptures, they would have escaped. Those who misunderstood and misapplied those Scriptures were involved in the general overthrow.
NO MURDERER HATH ETERNAL LIFE.
"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."--I.John iii:15.
This language shows that there are millions of murderers who never destroyed life, for every one who hates his brother has already committed murder. If no murderer can ever reach heaven, then millions must be lost forever, for, observe, it does not say that a murderer who does not repent before he dies, but "no murderer hath eterrnal life abiding in him;" that is, no one who hates his brother.
Partialists of every name do not act on the theory that the murderer must be lost, for every felon's cell and gibbet is surrounded by zealous Christians seeking to secure the repentance of the murderer: and it is notorious that nearly every executed murderer anticipates heaven, notwithstanding his crime, and there have been thousands of murderers who have, if the popular view be correct, by a repentance on the gallows escaped all punishment.
Now we accept no such easy, immoral theory as this. We are confident that no murderer swings from the gibbet to glory in a moment of time. The Scriptures include all transgressors when they say:
God 'will by no means clear the guilty."--Ex.xxxiv:7. "He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong that he hath done; and there is no respect of persons."--Col. iii:25. "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished."--Prov. xi:21. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."--Isa. lvii:21.
The murderer who dies unpunished will receive what he deserves before he can be happy. But here or hereafter it will always be true that no murderer, whether he hate his brother or destroy his brother's life, hath eternal life abiding in him.
There is no more difficulty in applying infinite grace to convert and save the murderer than any other sinner. Indeed, as if to guard Christians against refusing to apply God's converting power to such, Paul says:
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drundards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God."--I Cor. vi:9-11.
Some of Paul's associates had been guilty of the grossest sins, and had cast them off. As long as they were thus sinful, they had not eternal life, but when they were reformed, regenerated, they possessed that life.
This will always be true of all souls. No murderer, or other gross sinner, no one whose heart is controlled by evil, possesses eternal life; but when the bad spirit is exorcised, the divine life will enter.
LET HIM BE ACCURSED
The word anathema, improperly rendered "accursed" in Gal. i:8, has no such meaning. It's real significance is: "Let him go," "Ignore (or disregard) him." It really means "to separate." The apostle uses it here as he applies it to himself (Rom. ix:3): "I could wish myself separated from Christ." This is the view of all good critics.
Hammond: "And if any attempt to do that, though it were I myself, or even an angel from heaven, I proclaim unto you mine opinion and apostolic sentence, that you are to disclaim and renounce all communion with him, to look on him as an excommunicated person, under the second degree of excommunication, that none is to have any commerce with in sacred matters. And that he may take more heed to what I say, I repeat it again: Whosoever teaches you any new doctrine, contrary to what I at first preached unto you, let him be cast out of the church by you."
Wakefield: "But, if even we, or an angel from heaven, should preach the gospel differently from what we did preach it unto you, let him be rejected. As we told you before, so now I tell you again, if any one preach a different gospel to you from what ye received from us, let him be rejected."--Trans. in loc.
Clarke: "Perhaps this is not designed as an imprecation, but as a simple direction; for the word here may be understood as implying that such a person should have no countenance in his bad work, but let him, as Theodoret expresses it,be separated from the communion of the church. This, however, would also imply that, unless the person repented, the divine judgments would soon follow."--Com. in loc.
Nothing like what is implied in the common use of the English word "anathema" is meant by the Christian use of the Greek word. The Catholic church has employed it to mean accursed, or damned, in the Evangelical meaning of those words, which is as foreign to the spirit of Christ and Christianity as it is to curse and damn in common profanity.
THE SECOND DEATH.
"But the fearful, ant unbelieving, and the; abominable, and murderer, and whoremonger, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."--Rev. xxi:8
"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand befgore God'; and the; books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in those books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."--Rev. xx:12-14.
Poopularly "hell" and the "lake of fire and brimstone" are the same thing; but it is seen, as we read the description in Revelation, that they are entirely different. In chap. xx, verses 13 and 14, it is said that "death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."
There are four opinions as to what the second death is. 1. Some suppose it refers to those who, having once been dead in trespasses and sins, have become quickened into newness of life, and then have returned to their wicked ways. 2. Others apply it to the apostasy of the Christian church. 3. Others to the second destruction or death of the Jewish people, which soon occurred. 4. Others refer it to the endless torment of the soul after death.
This last view is evidently incorrect, for a man's death in trespasses and sins is the first death, the dissolution of the body is the second death, and the endless torment of the soul would be the third death, if the term death were allowable. But it bears no resemblance to death, and if such a fate were in store for any it could not be called death.
The first, second, or third opinion may be adopted. Jude describes those who were "twice dead, plucked up by the roots." Such are all who have once been good, and who have fallen into evil ways.
We favor the first or third view indicated above; but whichever view we take, the popular one has no warrant in the language employed.
The careful reader of the book of Revelation will see that this second death is a temporal destruction to befall the Jewish nation soon after the book was written. The Apocalypse was written just before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. It had once before been laid waste. The Jewish nation had lost its national life, and now it was to pass through a similar experience, undergo a second death, which it did when Titus (A.D.70) overwhelmed the people, and inflicted national death on the Jews. The first death lasted seventy years, the captivity in Babylon; the second has lasted now eighteen centuries, and justifies the term everlasting.
The first death is described by the prophet Ezekiel, chap. xxxvii:12-14: "Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves. And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land; then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord."
The second death was when the Jews were again extinguished as a nation. The revelator declares it was to be very soon.
"And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly."--Rev. xxii"12,20.
Jesus thus announces the same event: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."--Matt. xxiv:30.
John says: "Behold, he cometh with clouds;" Jesus says: "The Son of man cometh in the clouds of heaven;" John: "And all the kindred of the earth shall wail because of him;" Jesus: "And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn."
In Rev. xxi:8, the same idea is taught. "The fearful, unbelieving," etc., are to be burned in "the lake of fire, and this is the second death." The lake of fire denotes the fearful judgments of those days during which the Jews experienced their second death. Or, it may be used as a figure, and denote the idea marked "1" above.
THE FIRST RESURRECTION.
"But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.--Rev. xx:5,6.
The first resurrection was when the morally dead of our Savior's time heard and obeyed his call:
"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead."--Eph. v:14.
They lived and reigned with Christ. This spiritual living was the first resurrection. It was here in this world. Those who experienced it were not exposed to the second death; it had no power over them. Eusebius, the historian, says not a Christian was slain during those fearful times. They lived and reigned with Christ. The first resurrection and the second death were entirely confined to this world.
If any one objects to the exclusive application of these terms to the times and circumstances to which they were applied by John, it may be said that they also are applicable to us. We are dead in trespasses and sins. If we awake to righteousness, we rise out of this moral death, and this is our first resurrection. But if we continue indifferent and sinful, we are experiencing the second death, a condition that will continue until he who led captivity captive shall destroy our destroyers, and "the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed," and the final resurrection shall come, beyond which there shall be "no more death, neither shall there be any more pain."
LET HIM BE UNJUST STILL.
"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still."--Rev. xxii:11.
This language is often understood to teach that those who are unjust, or filthy, or righteous, or holy, at the death of the body, will remain unalterably fixed in that condition forever. If this were true, then millions of infants would be miserable to all eternity, for those who understand the text to relate to the future state of existence also teach that infants are born and die with depraved and corrupt natures.
But a careful reading of the context shows that the revelator has no such reference. He declares that the time of its application was "at hand;" saying, "Behold, I come quickly." The whole book was written, according to its author, to "show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass." The approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and overthrow of the Jewish state are the topics prophetically described throughout the book. The second overthrow of the Jewish nation was at hand. This event was to signalize the establishment of the Christian religion, and therefore it assumed immense importance. When the great event took place, those who had not previously become converted were fixed in their wicked ways, were filthy still; while those who had embraced Christianity were righteous still. The death of those spoken of is not referred to; the condition described is in this life. Tomson's Beza gives the correct view:
"This is not as were other prophecies, which were commanded to be hid till the time appointed, as in Daniel xii:4, because that these things should be quickly accomplished, and did even now begin."
ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION.
"If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."--Phil. iii:11.
All men are to attain unto the literal resurrection. It does not depend upon human effort. What resurrection can man accomplish by his efforts" The context shows. Paul is exalting the Gospel when he says:
"And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death: if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."
Evidently he refers here to a rising into that moral condition that Jesus occupied. He frequently employs this idea.
"Knowing this, that the old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."--Rom. vi:6.
The resurrection to be attained follows the crucifixion of "the old man." Seeing he had not yet reached that condition, Paul says: "Not as though I had already attained, neither were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."
He inculcates the same idea when he says: "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Again he says that we should "walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together, in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."
The resurrection which Paul strove to attain unto, and for which we should all strive continually, is from sin to holiness, from the death in trespasses and sin to the life in Christ. The Greek word ana-stasis signifies "resurrection." The element stasis may be traced back to the old Sanscrit root sta, "to stand," or, "to stand up." The element ana is intensive, and in this case has the sense of "again." The wordana-stasis, then, signifies literally a standing up again, or the "resurrection." It is standing up a second time, after having fallen down in death. The resurrection to be attained by human effort is the rising out of sin into Christian manhood or womanhood.
SHALL NOT SEE LIFE.
"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."--John iii:36
This is a simple statement of the effects of belief and unbelief, regardless of the duration of the consequences. As long as one believes, life abides with him, the aionian life of the Gospel, while the unbeliever is deprived of this life. "He that believeth hath everlasting life," though by unbelief he may forfeit it, and regain it again by believing again. Such passages as these illustrate the New Testament use of the term:
"You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."--Eph.ii:1. The believer hath "passed from death unto life."--John v:24. "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren."--I. John iii:14. "To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."--Rom. viii:6.
The question of the duration of the life or the "wrath is not raised in this passage. It remains, in either case, as long as the condition reamins that causes the life or the wrath.
"AS THE TREE FALLS SO IT LIES."
"And as death leaves us, so judgment finds us," is the home-brewed method of mis-quoting the language of Solomon. There is no such text or idea in the Bible, nor anything like it. The language referred to reads thus:
"If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be."--Eccl. xi:3.
It has no reference whatever to death, or the end of probation, though so often quoted both in and out of the pulpit. The book of Ecclesiastes is the wail of a misanthrope, who looks back at the end of a wasted life, spent in the gratification of ambition and sensuous appetite, and from its wreck draws a lesson for those who are setting out upon the voyage which he has ended. In the eleventh chapter, he counsels men to prepare for misfortunes before they come, and in this counsel is embodied the advice of the text, which may thus be paraphrased: "It never rains but it pours; and when the wind has blown over the trees you have planted with such care, that is the end of them; there is no putting them up again."
THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST.
"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."--I. Thess. iv:15-176.
We regard this as obscure and highly figurative language.
Christ's second coming was not a literal, visible, but a spiritual coming. All the other language is to be interpreted in harmony with his coming. There was no shout, no literal trump, nor did the literal dead literally rise at his coming, which occurred diring the generation which was on earth when he lived. "The dead in Christ were first;" that is, those who had died Christians rose to the first position in the estimate of mankind.
The imagery all points to that second coming which occurred while some of those lived to whom the words of the epistle were addressed.
THE HARVEST PAST AND WE NOT SAVED.
"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."--Jer. viii:20.
This is the text of many a revival sermon, the word "saved" being wrested from its true menaing, and forced to relate to deliverance from an endless hell. The prophet applies it to deliverance from those national calamities to which the Jewish nation were at the time subjected by Nebuchadnezzar. They were besieged, without preparation, on the verge of winter after harvest, and were not saved from their enemies.
Dr. Clarke says: "The harvest is past. The seige of Jerusalem lasted two years: for Nebuchadnezzar came against it in the ninth year of Zedekiah, and the city was taken in the eleventh. (See II KIngs xxv:1-3.) This seems to have been a proverb: 'We expected deliverance the first year--none came; we hoped for it the second year--we were disappointed; we are not saved--no deliverance is come.'"
FIRE
The word "Fire" is employed in the Bible; sometimes it is to be understood literally, and at other times it is emblematic of God's judgments.
It is made synonymous with punishment in Matt. xxv. The wicked nations are sent into a fire that is called "everlasting punishment." This "everlasting punishment" we shall hereafter show to be reformatory. The fire prepared for "the devil and his angels" is equivalent to the punishment to which they were sent.
"OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE."
This language (Heb. xii:29) is usually misread thus: "God out of Christ is a consuming fire." but it must not be supposed that the unchangeable God, he who is "the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever, " "without variableness or the shadow of turning," is modified for better or for worse, in any mode of his manifestation to man. What God is in Christ he is, and ever must be, out of Christ. He "is a consuming fire" always and everywhere. But this fact does not render God forbidding, repulsive, when we understand it. There is no relation sustained by our heavenly Father, no figure by which he may properly be represented, that can be understood, without inspiring impulses of gratitude and joy in the mind that comprehends the truth presented.
"God is Love," therefore is the consuming, unquenchable fire of infinite and divine love. He cannot, therefore, be anything else than love to his children, and what the fire of human love is in the heart of a human parent, the fire of God's love is in him, only multiplied by infinity.
Trace this sacred element from its lowest manifestatin in the heart of reptile or brute, up through its holy of holies in the breast of the human mother, and onward up to God himself, and it has but one purpose, and that is to cherish its object, and to destroy all that would harm that object. God is a consuming fire towards his children--but it is the fire of love and not of hate.
George MacDonald well says: "Nothing is inexorable but love. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. 'Our God is a consuming fire.' It is the nature of love, so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship God, but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus; yea, that will go on within us, after all that is foreign to us has yielded to its force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God."
It is not because God hates us, but because he loves us, that he will burn towards us by all the disciplinary processes needful, until he has burned away that sin in us which is contrary to his nature and hurtful to us.
HE IS A "REFINER'S FIRE"
He burns to purify. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Could the melting metal feel, how might it misunderstand the process through which it is passing. The unrelenting fire burns beneath the crucible, and the dirty, unsightly ore becomes like liquid light, and circulates as useful coin, and sparkles on the fingers of happy brides, and shines on the sceptres of kings, and in the coronets of queens. And all because the severe and purifying fire of the refiner has tried it.
Inasmch as the consuming fire of God is refining, we learn that it only destroys the dross of sin, and leaves the spiritual gold, the immortal soul, unscathed and pure when its blessed work is finished.
GOD'S JUDGMENTS LIKE FIRE.
Many phenomena are feared because not understood. The savage thinks thunder the voice of an angry deity, when it is the rolling of God's chariots as they carry health and life throught the air. Because fire is sometimes the author of apparent calamity, its beneficent character is lost sight of. It is the right hand of civilization. Its chief office is not destruction, but service. In fact, it destroys nothing. It decomposes substances, releasing constituents from existing relations, but all the elements remain intact, undiminished. Every particle in a substance burned exists still, and is ready to be taken up again in new forms.
If we burn a stick of wood, and carefully preserve the smoke and the ashes, we shall find that they weigh a little more than the wood weighed--just as much more as the oxygen weighed that combined with the flame in the process of combustion. The ultimate particles are all preserved, not one disturbed or changed from its original form and size, and they are released by fire that they may go out into the great laboratory of nature, to be again employed in new forms of utility and beauty. Science declares that the ultimate particles of which all substances are composed are like microscopical bricks; they never lose form or identity, but, let loose from any combination by fire, or otherwise, they are ready to be again taken up in other forms. Destruction is a mere incident in the biographuy of fire--a preliminary process; fire is the great emblem of purity.
When, therefore, we read in the Scripture that God's processes of dealing with his children resemble fire, or that he is a fire, we must remember these characteristics, and interpret the allusion in the light of scientific facts. If fire never destroys an atom of the material universe; if fire is only a process by which God is reconstructing his universe, why should men imagine that God's moral fires are other than healthful and beneficial in the moral world?
It need not be claimed that the authors of the Scriptures were familiar with these facts, but we shall find that they so far perceived the office of fire as to use it accurately. Thus:
"For thou, oh God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us as silver is tried; we went through fire and through water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place."--Ps. lxvi:10-12.
Silver is tried that its impurities may be purged away. The hotter the furnace, the more certain is the precious ore to be purified. Again:
"Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."--Mal. iii:2,3.
God's consuming fire refines, purifies, and purges aways the dross of sin. Hence says the apostle:
"Every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire."--I Cor. iii:13-15.
The exacting love of God, demanding purity, can do no less than destroy all that is opposed to the purity and happiness of its object.
Thus "everlasting fire," the "furnace of fire," "consuming fire," "unquenchable fire," and all the forms in which fire figures in the Bible as an emblem of God's dealings with men, denote the severe but kindly and disciplinary character of God's judgments. There is always a beneficent purpose in all God's dealings with men. Divine love is seeking and securing by severe processes, sometimes as though by fire, the welfare of those towards whom the flame burns.
"The holy flame forever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth."
When Universalists say, "God is Love," and others reply, "Yes, but he is also a consuming fire," our reply should be, "No, he is Love and a consuming fire," The two terms are not contradictory but synonymous. Nothing precious will perish or permanently suffer from the consuming fire of God. Sin, error, evil, will perish; but the soul will come forth from the conflagration purified as silver is purified, perfectly reflecting its Maker's image as it never can until the impurities of time are consumed, and it returns to that purity it had when it came from the hand of that being in whose image every human soul is created.
UNQUENCHABLE FIRE.
"He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."--Matt. iii"12 "And 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 fire that never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."--Mark ix:43,44.
Many suppose that the words "unquenchable fire" mean a fire of endless duration, whereas, it is a fire that cannot be quenched until its puepose is accomplished.
Says Dr. Paige: "When a house is destroyed by fire, the fire, strictly speaking, is unquenchable, because no effort that is made could extinguish it; but no one would allege that it would never expire of itself."
Dr. Hammond, a very judicious commentator, says: "They put fire to the chaff at the windward side, that creeps on and never gives over, till it hath consumed all the chaff, and so is a kind of asbeston pur, here, a fire never quenchable, till it have done its work."--Com. on Matt. iii:12.
The Old Testament shows the application of the figure of fire burning chaff: Job says, the wicked are "as chaff that the storm carrieth away," xxxv:5, xxi:18. See also Psalms. Isaiah v:24. xvii:13. xxix:5. xxxiii:14. xli:15. The Jewish nation, which was about to be destroyed, was represented by chaff, reserved for destruction, as it was in Matt. iii:10, by the tree which was to be hewn down and cast into the fire. The fire by which the Jews were destroyed was the fire of divine judgment: and as it did its work effectually, so it was unquenchable. It is for this reason that the punishment and destruction of the Jews are described in the Old Testament as being effected by unquenchable fire.
See Isaiah lxvi:23-24. "And it shall come to pass from one new moon to another, and fromone Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." The unquenchable fire here spoken of is in this world, as is evident from the phrase "new moon" and "Sabbath." Again, Jer. xvii:27. "But if you will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on theSabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched." Fire kindled in the gates of Jerusalem, which devoured the palaces of Jerusalem, is said to be unquenchable. Ezek. xx:45 "Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field; and say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord:--Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree, the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therin. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it; it shall not be quenched."
Here the forests are devoured in an unquenchable fire. The meaning is, not that the fire was endless, but that it was not quenched,--it continued to burn--until all the material was destroyed. So the judgments of God on the Jews were effectually done--the nation was completely devastated and destroyed. They were like chaff of the Summer threshing floor in the consuming fire of God's judgment.
The phrase unquenchable fire, is found in six places in the New Testament. Matt. iii:12. Luke iii:17. Mark ix:43,44,45 and 46. In all of these passages the phrase should be quenchless fire. The Greek word asbestos, unquenchable, inextinguishable, is the original term in all the passages, verses 44 and 46 in Mark having the verb form, sbennutai. What does it mean? That the fire was never to expire, literally, or that nothing could extinguish it till it accomplished its purpose? The usage of the word will determine. How did Greek authors at the time of Christ employ it?
Josephus says, [Jewish War, B. ii, ch. xvii:6.] speaking of a fire that used to burn in the temple--though at the time he wrote [A.D.80] it had gone out, and the temple was destroyed--"Every one was accustomed to bring wood for the altar, that fuel might never be needed for the fire, for it continued always unquenchable."
Strabo, [A.D. 70} described the "unquenchable lamp" that used to burn in the Parthenon, though it has long since ceased to burn. [Lib. ix: p. 606.]
Plutarch, {A.D. 110} in Numa, [p. 262] speaks of places in Delphi and Athens, "where there is a fire unquenchable," (asbeston) though in the same breath he describes it as having ceased to burn.
Eusebius, [A.D]325, Eccl. Hist. Lib. vi, chap. 41] in his account of the martyrdom of Cronon and Julian, at Alexandria, says they were "consumed in unquenchable fire, asbesto puri," though it burned only long enough to destroy their bodies.
In the Scriptures an unquenchable fire is one that cannot be extinguished until it has fulfilled its purpose.
Lev. vi: 12-13, "And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings. The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out."
Now this fire was long ago extinguished, and yet it was "never to go out." So we read in Isa. xxxiv:9-10, "And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof 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; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever."
This language is all figurative; the unquenchable fire has long since expired.
These passages and extracts suffice to exhibit the Biblical and common usage of this term. In all cases it denotes fire of temporal duration. Of course our Savior used the words in the same sense in which they had always been employed.
God's judgments are denoted by fire in frequent passages: "For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a flame from the city of Sihon; it hath consumed Ar of Moab, and the lords of the high places of Arnon." Num. xxi:28. David represents the judgments of God upon the wicked in this life: "A fire goeth before him and burneth up his enemies round about." Psalms xcvii:3.
God is spoken of as a "consuming fire." because he brought judgments upon the disobedient and sinful. In the prophecy of Isaiah, the destruction of Babylon is spoken of under the same figure: "Behold they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them: they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame." Isaiah xlvii:14. "He is a God that judgeth in the earth." Psalms lvii:11. Paul uses nearly the same language that Moses employed when addressing the children of Israel, Deut. iv:24. "For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God."
Stuart says: "In the valley of Hinnom (gehenna,) perpetual fire was kept up, in order to consume the offal which was deposited there; and, as the same offal would breed worms, hence came the expression--where their worm dieth not and their fire is not quenched."
Dr. Parkhurst adds" Our Lord seems to allude to the worms which continually preyed on the dead carcasses that were cast out into the valley of Hinnom, (gehenna), and to the perpetual fire, kept up to consume them."
The idea of endless duration was not in the minds of the authors of these terms. They used the language to denote either literal fire that should burn until its object was accomplished, or as an emblem of divine judgments, thorough but limited.
Canon Farrar, in "Eternal Hope," "Consequences of Sin," says: "The exression 'quenchless fire,'--for the phrase 'that never shall be quenched,' is a simplemistranslation--is taken from Is. lxvi:24, and is purely a figure of speech, as it is there, or as it is in Homer's Iliad, xvi:123." In his Appendix to the volume he observes: "it was in answer to the bitter taunt of Celsus, that the God of the Christians kindled a fire in which all but the Christians should be burned, that Origen first argued that the fire should possess a purifying quality (katharsion) for all those who had in themselves any materials for it to consume. All, even Peter and Paul, must pass through this fire (Isa. xliii:2) and ordinary sinners must remain in it till purged. It is in fact, a baptism of fire, at the resurrection, for those who had not received effectually the baptism of the spirit (Peri Arkon i:6, Cels. vi:26; Hom. in Psalm iii:1; in Jer. ii:3; in Ezek. i:13). It was not a material fire, but self-kindled, like an eternal fever. It was in fact remorse for remembered sin, a 'figurative representation of the moral process by which restoration shall be effected.'"
FURNACE OF FIRE.
The phrase "furnace of fire," occurs in these passages in the old Testament:
Deut. iv:20: "But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace,even out of Egypt." I Kings viii:51: "For they be thy people, and thine inheritance which thou broughtest forth out of Egypt, from the midst of the furnace of iron." Jer. xi:4: "Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace." Isa. xxxi:9: "Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem." Isa. xiviii:10. "Behold I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Ezek. xxii:18-21: "Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it, so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you."
The Savior had this usage in his mind, and conveyed the same thought, namely, the approaching woes on his country and race in the only places where we find the same language in the New Testament.
Matt.xiii:41,42: "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 a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." Verse 50: "And shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
It is nowhere said that God has a furnace in eternity, in which to burn souls. His furnace was in Jerusalem, Isa.xxxi:9. At the end of that age, (aion) Jesus said: "The Son of Man shall send forth his angels (messengers), and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
This was all fulfilled when Jerusalem was destroyed.
ETERNAL FIRE
"Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, in like manner giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Jude 7. 2Pet. ii:6.
For an exposition of the phrase "eternal fire," see hereafter in this volume. The cities referred to by Jude are a perpetual example. Their fire has long since expired, but their example still remains, it is one perpetually before the world. The fire is eternal, though it was long since extinguished.
By the phrase eternal fire, according to Rosenmuller we may understand a destructive fire, such as laid waste and annihiliated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, or we may understand by it a fire perpetually smoking. Philo, the Jew, who wrote in the time of our Savior, says, de vita Mosis, Lib. II. p. 662 A, that even then there were memorials to be seen in Syria of the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah; ruins, ashes, brimstone, smoke and lurid flames which were still emitted, indicative of abiding fire. With this agrees the Book of Wisdom, x:7, which says: "Of whose wickedness even in this day the waste land that smoketh is a testimony."
Dr. Shaw (see Clarke's Com. on Genesis xix: 24), says that "the appearance of smoke and fire of which he speaks, and to which Philo and the author of Wisdom allude, is undoubtedly to be explained by the well known existence of bituminous matter in the bed of the lake Asphaltites, which now occupies the site of those cities. These considerations are sufficient to justify the language of Jude, without resorting to the idea that he had reference to the future world."
Similar language is found in Matt. xviii:8. "Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire."
Similar to the foregoing is the use of the phrases:
"WHEAT AND CHAFF," "AXE," ETC.
"And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire....Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."--Matthew iii:10-12.
"Every tree that brigheth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."--Matthew vii:19.
"And also 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....Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into the garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable."--Luke iii:9-17.
John here announces a calamity about to come on the Jewish people. The trees were the Jewish people, the axe the cause of their overthrow. Such is the use of these terms in the Old Testament. See Isa. xl:24; Jer. x:2-3: xxi:6-8. We need only quote the latter passage to illustrate the Old Testament usage.
"For thus saith the Lord unto the king's house of Judah: Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, everyone with his weapons; and they shall cut down thy choice cedars, and cast them into the fire. And many nations shall pass by the city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor. Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city?"
Ortrhodox commentators of all chuirches apply this language to this world.
"We risk little in referring this to the Roman power and armies, which, as an axe, most vehemently cut away the very existence of the Jewish polity and state."--Calmet.
"By the axe being now laid to the root of the tree, may fitly be understood, first, the certainty of their desolation; and second, the nearness, in that the instrument of their destruction was already prepared, and brought close to them; the Romans that should ruin their city and nation, being already masters and rulers over them."--Lightfoot.
"It was customary with the prophets to represent the kingdoms, nations and individuals whose ruin they predicted, under the notion of forests and trees, doomed to be cut down. See Jer. xlvi:22, 23: Ezek. xxxi:3-11, 12. The Baptist employs the same metaphor. The Jewish nation is the tree, and the Romans the axe, which, by the just judgment of God, was speedily to cut it down."--Dr. A. Clarke.
"In this whole verse (the 12th,) the destruction of the Jewish state is expressed in the terms of husbandmen; and by the wheat being gathered into the garner, seems meant, that the believers in Jesus should not be involved in that calamity."--Bishop Pearce.
"The Romans are here termed God's fan, as in verse 10, they are called his axe, and in chapter xxii. 7, they are termed his troops or armies. His floor--does not this mean the land of Judea, which had been long, as it were, the threshing floor of the lord? God says, he will now, by the winnowing fan, (viz: the Romans,) thoroughly cleanse his floor--the wheat--those who believe in the Lord Jesus, he will gather into his garner--either take to heaven from the evil to come, or put in a place of safety, as he did the Christians, by sending them to Pella, in Coelosyria, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem. But He will burn up the chaff--the disobedient and rebellious Jews, who would not come unto Christ that they might have life.'--Dr. Adam Clarke.
FIRE AND BRIMSTONE.
Fire and Brimstone, only mentioned in Revelation in the New Testament, though it is frequently found in the Old, is always used as an emblem of earthly calamities. Job xviii:15: "Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation." Ps. xi:6: "upon the wicked he shall reign snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: and this shall be the portion of their cup." Isa. xxxiv:9-10: "and the streams thereof (Idumea) shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof 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: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever."
The revelator says the beast and false prophet were cast alive into the lake, (Rev. xix:20), and that they were tormented day and night, showing that the calamities referred to are in this world. The "Lake" belongs with the "pale horse," "the beast" and other imagery in this remarkable composition; undoubtedly it has reference to the destruction soon to befall the Jewish nation, of which Revelation seems to be a prophecy.
The distinguished author Chas. Kingsley, writes: ("Letters") "Fire and Worms, whether physical or spiritual, must in all logical fairness be supposed to do what fire and worms do, viz: destroy decayed and dead matter, and set free its elements to enter into new organisms; that as they are beneficent and purifying agents in this life, they must be supposed such in the future life, and that the conception of fire as an engine of torture, is an unnatural use of that agent and not to be attributed to God without blasphemy, unless you suppose that the suffering (like all which he inflicts) is intended to teach man something which he cannot learn elsewhere. * * *
"Finally, you may call upon them to rejoice that there is a fire of God the Father whose name is love, burning forever unquenchable to destroy out of every man's heart, and out of the hearts of all nations, and off the physical and moral world, all which offends and makes a lie. That into that fire the Lord will surely cast all shams, lies, hypocrisies, tyrannies, pedantries, false doctrines, yea and the men who love them too well to give them up, that the smoke of their basanismos (i.e.) the torture which makes men confess the truth, for that is the real meaning of it; (basanismos meaning the touchstone by which gold was tested) may ascend perpetually for a warning and a beacon to all nations, as the smoke of the torment of French aristocracies, and Bourbon dynasties, is ascending up to Heaven, and has been since 1793."
It may be added that, if endless fire were taught, something more durable than "chaff" would be named as fuel.
JUDGMENT
The popular idea of God's judgment, is, that some time in the far future, in the spiritual world, there will be a post-mortem assize, a literal throne, and judge, and all the paraphernalia of a legal tribunal, where human beings will be sent either to endless happiness or final woe; not for the characters they bore on earth, not for all they did, of good and evil, but that their fate will be determned by the condition they were in during the last few moments of life. So that one whose life was good in the main, but who fell into evil ways during the last few moments in life, will receive nothing for the chief art of his career, but will be endlessly tormented for a day or an hour of sin, while another, who was wicked for seventy years, but good only a day, will escape all punishment for a vile life, and will receive heaven for only a day of obedience. And still further, that the happy one will look from Abraham's bosom into the lake of fire, and see there the companions of his iniquity on earth, while the bad one will gaze from endless fire into heaven, and see there the man with whom on earth he took sweet counsel in godly companionship. Such a judgment rewards and punishes, not for this life, but for only a small part of it. What is the true doctrine of the divine judgment?
IT IS A JOYFUL OCCASION.
"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth; make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King. Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; the; world, and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the lord; for he cometh to judge the earth; with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity."--Psalm xcviii:4-9. It is not a scene to cause horror but delight.
IT IS IN THIS WORLD.
"Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth."--Psalm lviii.11. "He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth."--Isa. xlii"4.
IS IS NOT HEREAFTER.
"For judgment I am come into this world."--John ix:39. "for the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son."--John v:22. "Verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth." "Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; much more the widcked and the sinner."--Prov. xi:31.
IT IS NOW.
"Now is the judgment of this world."--John xii:31. "Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judment is come."--Rev. xiv:7. I Pet. iv:17: "For the time has come that judgment must begin at the house of God." Says Dr. clarke on this passage:
"Judgment must begin at the hosue of God.--Our Lord had predicted that, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem, his followers would have to endure various calamities; see Matt. xxiv:9-12,22. Mark xiii:12-13. John xvi:2, &c. Here his true disciples are called the house or family of God. That the converted Jews suffered much from their brethren, the zealots or factions into which the Jews were at that time divided, needs little proof; and some interpreters think that this was in conformity to the purpose of God; Matt.xxiii:35. That on you may come all the righteous blood shed from the foundation of the world."
Macknights's testimony is the same: "That the Jewish Christians were to be involved in the same punishment; and that it was proper to begin at them as a part of the devoted Jewish nation, notwithstanding they were become the house of God; because the justice of God would, thereby, be more illustriously displayed. But, probably, the word, krima, which we here translate judgment, may mean no more than affliction and distress; for it was a Jewish maxim that, when God was about to pour down some common and general judgment, He began with afflicting his own people, in order to correct and amend them; that they might be prepared for the overflowing scourge."
IT IS FOR EVERY ACT AND THOUGHT.
"But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account therof in the day of judgment."--Matt. xii:36. "For all these things, God will bring thee into judgment."--Ecc. xi:19. "God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."--Ecc. xii:14.
Now if every act, and word, and thought whether good or evil, is judged, and so punished or rewarded, it is plain enough that judgment must follow hand in hand with conduct, and cannot be deferred. And it is plain enough that the endless future cannot be determined by the last hours of life. The Biblical language of a throne and a day of judgment are figurative descriptions of the unfailing decisions of the great judge who "every morning doth bring his judgment to light,"--Zeph. iii:5; and who never fails to bring upon each one for his good, just what he deserves; so that God's judgments "are more to be desired than fine gold, and are sweeter to the taste than honey and the honey-comb," of all who perceive their beneficent purpose. With these expositions of the nature and character of the Divine judgments, we are prepared to consider the texts that are usually quoted to teach a fearful day of judgment after death, to be followed by unending doom.
JUDGMENT TO COME.
"And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."--Acts xxiv:25.
Felix was a Roman pagan--a believer in a future judgment whose punishments were post mortem, and his wickedness, and the iniquity of the pagans around Paul illustrate the evil influence of a belief in a far-off and uncertain, and a disbelief in a near, immediate and certain retribution. Paul preached to Felix, not a remote, but an impending judgment. The Greek kai tou krimatos, tou mellontes esethai, rendered "judgment to come," ought to be translaated by "the judgment about to be." The passage reads literally, "And as he was discoursing concerning justice, self-government, and that judgment about to come, Felix, being terrified, answered," etc.
Parkhurst says, "mello signifies, with an infinitive following, to be about to do a thing, futurussum. (Matt. ii:13; xvi:27). Both the verb and participle are in the New Testament joined with the infinitive future, as esethai. So likewise in the purest Greek writers."
Dr. Campbell says: "Mellon often means not future, but near. There is just such a difference bertween estai, and mellei esesthai, in Greek, as there is betweenit will be, and it is about to be in English. This holds particularly in threats and warnings."
Now Felix was a corrupt man; he was living in open adultery with Drusilla, and was a sample of the wickedness of his times, and as Paul announced the sure results of his wickedness, and of that of his contemporaries, the fearful picture aroused the conscience of the wicked ruler, and he was alarmed. Within ten years, Nero, the Emperor, was killed, and Felix, his favorite, went under in the general downfall, and the awful times that followed vindicated the prophecy of the apostle, and justified the fears of the guilty and conscience-smitten king. The apostle proclaimed to the procurator of Judea the legitimate judgment about to come, and that did come within a decade on him and those who like him were sinners against God and man and their own souls.
THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST.
"For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ."--Rom. xiv:10. "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."--2 Cor. v:10.
A vicious translation destroys the apostle's meaning in the second passage quoted above. "Done" and "his" are not in the original, but are words supplied by the translators. The passage reads, "That every one may receive the thingsin body." The literal reading is, "We must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive the things through the body," etc. That is, Jesus came into this world for the purpose of judgment; his tribunal is now set up, and we are all before it, and while in the body we are receiving the consequences of our conduct.
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.
"Verily I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city."--Matt. x:15. "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say uto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee."--Matt. xi:23-24. "and whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart hence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city."--Mark vi:11. "But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you."--Luke x:10-14.
Of course these cities were not to go into the eternal world, to be judged. Their day of judgment had passed, and as cities they were conspicuous examples of the consequences of wickedness. Dr. Clarke Observes:--
"The day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah was the time in which the Lord destroyed them by fire and brimstone, out of heaven."
Hammond:--"I assure you, the punishment or destruction that will light upon that city will be such, that the destruction of Sodom shall appear to have been more tolerable than that."
Wakefield:--"In the day of vengeance, punishment or trial. This is undoubtedly the genuine sense of the phrase, which has not the least reference to the day of general judgment. All that our Savior intends to say is, that when the temporal calamities of that place come upon it, they will be even worse than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. See this phrase employed in precisely the same meaning by the LXX., in Prov. vi:34."
CHRIST, THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD.
"Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.":--Acts xvii:31.
The idea of a literal day of judgment seems to be taught in this language. But it should not be overlooked that it is not a literal day hereafter, but a period, now, that constitutes the era of Christ's judgment.
"For judgment I am come into this world."--John ix:39. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son."--John v:22. "And hath given him authority to execute judgment also."--verse 27. "Now is the judgment of this world."--John xii:31.
Christ's time of judging this world was prophesied as a day.
"In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness."--Zech. xiii:1. "In that day there shall be one Lord, and his name one."--Zech. xiv:9. Again: "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper, and shall execute juddgment and justice in the earth."--Jer. xxiii:5.
The apostle refers to that period as a day: "The day is at hand."--Rom. xiii:12. "Now is the day of salvation."--2 Cor. vi:2.
And Jesus himself speaks of his reign, or government, or time of judgment, as a day.
"Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and was glad."--John viii:56.
Macknight says: "In the Hebrew language, to judge, signifies to rule, or govern."
Jesus came to rule or govern the world, and he shall continue his work till he has called all unto himself, and God is all in all. (I Cor. xv:24.) Then the Gospel day ends, and Jesus surrenders his office as judge to his Father. Christ's day of judgment began when he was on earth, and will continue till his object is accomplished, in the reformation of all.
AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die; but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation."--Hebrews ix:27-28.
This text is usually misstated in this shape. "it is apointed unto all men once to die, and after death the judgment." But the reader of the context will perceive that Paul was not speaking of the physical death of mankind, but of the sacrificial death of the high priest, and was contrasting with the death of Christ, the ceremonial death of the Aaronic priesthood. The language of the original shows this more clearly than does the language of our version. In the Greek, the definite article tois, (the or those) precedes the word translated men, (anthropois), and thus it reads, "it is appointed unto the (or those) men once to die." What men? The context shows:
"For Christ did not enter holy places made with hands, the antitypes of the true ones; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God in our behalf; not that he should offer himself often, even as the High Priset entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others: for then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once for all in a completion of the ages hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Andas it is appointed unto those men (that is the high priests) once to die, but after this, judgment: so Christ once offered to bear the sins of the many; and unto them that look for him shall appear the second time without a sin-offering unto salvation.--Heb. ix:24-28.
This is a literal translation. The plain statement is: As the high priests, the antitypes, died a figurative death, annually, (se Ex. xxviii:29--30), so Christ was offered once for all in the sinner's behalf. The ordinary reference to the dying of all men leaves the "as" and "so" without meaning or application. But when we see that the apostle was showing the superiority of the mission of Christ over the annual sacrifices of the Jewish high priest. the meaning becomes plain. He employed "the men" as types of the superior sacrifice of Christ.
The reader cannot fail to see that it is not mankind, but certain men, "the men" who all the way through this chapter and the next are compared to Christ, who are said once to die. These men are the priests, or the successors of the high priests under the law. They died, figuratively, once a year, on the great day of atonement in the offering of sacrifices. Ex. xxx:1-10--"And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon; and thou shalt put it before the vail that is by the ark of the testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the testimony, where I will meet with thee. And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning; when he dresseth the lamps he shall burn incense upon it. And when Aaron lighteth the lamps at even, he shall burn incense upon it, a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall offer no strange incense thereon, nor burnt sacrifice, nor meat offering; neither shall ye pour drink offering thereon. And Aaron shall make an atonement upon the horns of it once in a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonements; once in the year shall he make atonement upon it throughout your generations; it is most holy unto the Lord."
Having performed this rite, having died by proxy, the high priest entered the holy of holies, and pronounced the sentence of absolution from the mercy seat. Ex. xxv:22: Numb vii:89. "And there will I meet with thee, and will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. And when Moses was gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with him then he heard the voice of one speaking unto him from off the mercy seat that was upon the ark of testimony, from between the two cherubims; and he spake unto him."
The priests represent Christ, and their death illustrates and prefigures the death of Christ; but man's death, and an after death judgment bears no relation to the death of Christ. The common use of this text is but little less than an outrage on the sense of the apostle. No one can carefully read this and the following chapter, and fail to see that the language is exclusively applicable to the Jewish high priests and the death of Christ, and has no reference to an after-death judgment.
Judgment begins with each soul on its arrival at the period of accountability, and continues, a severe, but disciplinary process until it converts and saves.
GNASHING OF TEETH.
There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.--Luke xiii:28.
The "Kingdom of God" is the reign of Christ, a spiritual realm of truth and goodness and consequent happiness. It was "at hand" when Christianity was first announced.--Matt. iii:2. It is "not of this world,"--John xviii:36. It came to the people when Jesus spoke--Matt. xii: 28, and men pressed into it, --Luke xvi:16. It was taken from the Jews and given to the Gentiles,--Matt. xxi:43, and Jesus declared:
"And many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but the "children of the kingdom, the Jews, shall be cast out into darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."--Matt. viii:11.
This was when the Saviour's prophecy was fullfilled.--Luke xiii:34-35.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not? Behold your house is left unto you desolate."
But this was not to be final, for he adds: "verily I say unto you, ye shall not see me until the time shall come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
Dr. Whitby gives the correct view when he says; "To lie down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, doth not signify to enjoy everlasting happiness in heaven with them, but only to become the sons of Abraham through faith,(Gal. iii;7,) and so to be blessed with faithful Abraham coming on them, that they may receive the promise of the spirit, (verse 14) through faith in Christ to be the seed of Abraham and heirs, according to the promise, (verse29) viz. the promise made to Abraham (Gen. xii:3) renewed to Isaac (Gen. xxvi:4) and confirmed to Jacob (Gen xxviii:14) and to be, according to Isaac, the children of promise." (Gal. iv:28)
The gnashing of teeth denotes the vexation and wrath of the spiritually proud Jews, when they should find themselves outside the kingdom, while the Gentiles they had so despised, were within. The Rich Man and Lazarus pictures the two classes, and exhibits the wide contrast, in that parable.
DAMNATION, ETC.
Damnation, damned, etc., in the New Testament, are precisely equivalent to condemnation, condemned, etc. The former words, with their generally accepted meaning, would never occur if the Greek words thus rendered were correctly translated. What is the meaning of the word damnation? It is not a condition of suffering in an endless hell. The bible defines it as meaning condemn, judge, punish, etc. When Paul says, Rom v:18, "Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation;" when Christ says, "And this is condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil;" John iii:18, "He that believeth not is condemned already; because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God;" John ix:39, "Forjudgment I am come into this world," and in John xii:31, "Nowis the judgment of this world:" and when the Revelator says: Rev. xixv:6-7, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come;" the meaning is precisely the same. Dr. Campbell says that damned "is not a just version of the Greek word. The term damned, with us, relates solely to the doom which shall be pronounced upon the wicked at the last day. This cannot be affirmed, in truth, of the Greek katakrino,which corresponds exactly to the English word condemn." Such is its meaning in the passage which speaks of
EATING AND DRINKING DAMNATION.
"For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."--I Cor. xi:29.
The word translated "damnation" is very improperly rendered. Krima denotes punishment, resulting in improvement, according to verse 32: "But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." The best rendering of krima is judgment, by which word it is usually represented in English. Matt. vii:2, "For with what judgment ye judge," etc. Luke xxiii:40, it is rendered condemnation: "Thou art in the same condemnation." Luke xxiv:20, it is rendered condemned: "Deliver him to be condemned to death." Jesus applied the word to himself, in John ix:39, "For judgment I am come into this world."
If we substitute damnation for these words, we shall see how improperly it is said, he "eateth damnation, etc." Verse 30 explains krima: "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." Those who had made the Lord's Supper an occasion of gluttony, had eaten and drunken condemnation.
Whitby:--"Damnation: the word imports temporal judgments; as when St. Peter saith, the time is come, arxasthai to krima, that judgment must begin at the house of God. (I Peter iv:17)
THE UNBELIEVER DAMNED.
"He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned." Mark xvi:16.
If we admit that "damned" means final torment, we shut out of salvation all infants, idiots, insane, and heathen, for they do not believe. We also consign all the rest of mankind to endless torment, for according to the test given, there is not a believer on earth today. We are told in the next verse that all believers may be known by their being able to heal the sick, and take poison without injury: "and these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name they shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Now all are damned who cannot perform these wonderful deeds, because no others are believers in the sense meant. In other words, all souls must be endlessly tormented if the word damned denotes endless torment. It has no such signification. The Greek word rendered damned denotes condemned, says George Campbell, the Presbyterian. Bishop Horne thus translates it: "He that believeth not shall be condemned, or accountable for his sins."
The same word occurs and has the same meaning in several places. In Matt. xx:18, it is applied to Christ; "They shall condemn him to death. Again in Matt. xxvii:3, "Then Judas, who had betrayed him, (Jesus) when he saw that he was condemned. repented himself," etc. John viii:10, Jesus said to the guilty woman, "Hath no man condemned thee:--neither do I condemn thee." "They all condemned him (Christ) to be guilty of death." Mark xiv:64.
The word has no referencer to what the word damnation is popularly supposed to mean.
The text had a primary application to the apostolic age, though by accommodation it may be employed today to state the great fact that believers are saved from the penalties of unbelief, while unbelievers are condemned. John iii:18-19, "He that believeth not, is condemned (or damned) already, and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." The language has not the remotest reference to the idea of endless torment.
All men have been unbelievers, and therefore--as there is no saving clause for such--if damnation means endless woe, then all men must experience endless torment. But if we give the word its true meaning, and render it condemn, then it will appear that, having experienced the full amount of condemnation earned, faith can follow, and the salvation resulting from Christian faith will ensue.
Cannon Farrar says, (preface to "Eternal Hope"): The verb "to damn and its cognates does not once occur in the Old Testament. No word conveying any such meaning occurs in the Greek of the New Testament. The words so rendered mean "to judge," "judgment" and "condemnation;" and if the word "damnation" has come to mean more than these words do--as to all but the most educated readers is notoriousy the case--then the word is a grievous mistranslation, all the more serious because it entirely and terribly perverts and obscures the real meaning of our Lord's utterances; and all the more inexcusable, at any rate for us with our present knowledge, because if the word "damnation" were used as the rendering of the very same words in multitudes of other passages (where our translators have rightly translated them) it would make those passages both impossible and grotesque."
In his sermon, "Hell--what it is not," he says: "The verb 'to damn' in the Greek Testament is neither more nor less than the verb 'to condemn,' and the words translated 'damnation' are simply the words which, in the vast majority of instances the same translators have translated, and rightly translated by 'judgment' and 'condemnation.'" And in Excursus II, in 'Eternal Hope,' he says: "In the New Testament the words krino, krisis and krima occur some one hundred and ninety times, the words katakrino, katakrisis, katakrimatwenty-four times, and yet there are only fifteen places out of more than two hundred in which our translation has deviated from the proper renderings of 'judge' and 'condemn' into 'damn' and its cognates. It is singular that they should have used 'damnation' only for the milder wordskirisis and krima. This single fact ought to be decisive to every candid mind."
He makes these corrections: "Damnable heresies," in II Peter ii:1, should be "destructive heresies." II Thess. ii:12, "might be damned" should be "may be judged." "Greater damnation in Matt. xxiii:14, Mark xii:40, Luke xx:47, should be "severer judgment." Matt xxiii:33, "damnation of hell" should be "judgment of Gehenna." Mark iii:29, "Eternal damnation" should be "aeonian sin."Mark xvi:16, "He that believeth not shall be damned," ought to be "disbelieving shall be condemned." John v:29, "Resurrection of damnation" should be "resurrection of judgment," etc.
Chas. Kingsley says, ("Letters"): "The English damnation, like the Creek katakrisis, is, perhaps,krisis simple, simple meaning condemnation, and is (thank God) retained in that sense in various of our formularies, where I always read it, e.g., 'eateth to himself damnation, with sincere pleasure, as protests of the true and rational meaning of the word, against the modern and narrower meaning."
The unbeliever experiences the condemnation which unbelief imparts--this is the plain and total meaning of the passage.
THAT THEY ALL MIGHT BE DAMNED
"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."--I Thess. ii:11-12.
The word "damned" here should be "judged". In I Tim. v:12--"Having damnation because they have cast off their first faith," and in Rom. iii:8, of slanderers, "whose damnation is just" the present tense is used, showing that the damnation is already experienced.
THE RESURRECTION OF DAMNATION
"Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming when all who 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 to resurrection of damnation."--John v:28-29.
This resurrection is a moral awakening, and not the final, literal resurrection, as is evident from its phraseology. All men do not participate in it. Only "those that have done good," and "those that have done evil." come forth to "life" or to "damnation." Such a resurrection would not include more than half of the human race; infants, dying without ever having done good or evil would not rise. Such a resurrection would leave countless millions in their graves. This demonstrates that the final resurrection is not here referred to.
What sort of a resurrection did Jesus here teach? The context shows. He had just cured the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, and declared that he had derived his power from God. "For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the son quickeneth whom he will," and he then continues to talk of a moral quickening or spiritual resurrection, then about occurring: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life." That is, the resurrection he was referring to had taken place with some who were then living on earth. And he then adds: verses 25-27--"Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of Man."
The "Damnation" in v: 29, is the same Greek word that is translated "condemnation" in the 24th, and "judgment" in the 27th. Jesus was repeating the substance of Daniel, xii:2, "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting contempt;" words that are fulfilled in Eph. ii:1, "and you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and in sin."
It was a moral awakening that occurred in consequence of the annunciation of Christianity, which this language announces. Those who were quickened into a perception of the truth, and disregarded the heavenly message, experienced a resurrection from their death in trespasses and sins, but it was to condemnation, and thus to the "second death".
Says Dr. George Campbell, a learned "orthodox" divine, in his "Notes" on the Four Gospels, vol. ii. p. 113:
"The word anastasin, or rather the phrase anastasis tou nekron, is indeed the common term by which the resurrection, properly so called, is denominated in the New Testament. Yet, this is neither the only nor the primitive import of the word anastasis; it denotes simply being raised from inactivity to action, or from obscurity to eminence, or a return to such a state after an interruption. The verb anastemi, has the like latitude of signification; and both words are used in this extent by the writers of the New Testament, as well as by the LXX. Agreeably, therefore, to the original import, rising from a seat, is properly termed anastasis; so is waking out of sleep, or promotion from an inferior condition."
This is the sense in which the prophet speaks:
"Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of our graves; and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord."--Ezek. xxxvii:12-14.
And the poet enforces the same idea:
"But when the Gospel comes,
It sheds diviner light,
It calls dead sinners from their tombs,
And gives the blind their sight."
But beyond the final resurrection there is no condemnation. All are then "made alive in Christ," (I Cor. xv.) and are "equal to the angels, and are the children of "God," (Luke xx:36, Mark xii:25) The language in John v:27-29 had its fulfillment in this world, in our Savior's day, in the moral awakening he caused.
The absurdity of the popular view will be seen when we observe that it makes all men saved, and at the same time all men damned forever. Apply it to all who have reached accountability, and it will be seen that as all have "done good" all will be forever happy, and as all have "done evil"--for "no man liveth and sinneth not," all must be forever unhappy. Observe, it says nothing of those who, having done evil, repent, but the damnation is for all who have done evil. But if we give the word its proper meaning, we find no difficulty, for each evil act can receive its proper condemnation, and then be followed by salvation.
Lightfoot observes: "These words might also be applied to a spiritual resurrection, as were the former, (and so, coming out of graves meaneth, Ezek, xxxvii:12) the words of the verse following being only translated and glossed thus: and they shall come forth, they that do good, after they hear his voice in the gospel, to the resurrection of life; and they that do evil, after they hear the gospel, unto the resurrection of damnation. But they are more generally understood of the general resurrection," etc.--Harm. Evang Part III. John v:28
The resurrection to damnation was a moral awakening, and not the final resurrection, and the word damnation wherever used, has precisely the same meaning as condemnation, with no reference whatever to the duration of the condition thus designated.
THE CASE OF JUDAS
These passages relate to the sin of Judas, and its consequences.
Acts i:16-18. "Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and hath obtained part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and, falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." Matt. xxvi:24. "Woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed; it had been good for that man if he had not been born." Mark xiv:21. "Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed; good were it for that man if he had never been born." John xvii:12. "Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled." Acts i:25. "That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place." John vi:70. "Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" Matt. xxvii:3-5. "Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that; and he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself."
Surely if any person's final punishment should be taught in the Bible, that of Judas should be explicitly stated. Is it?
None of the terms employed of him teach any such doctirne. As we come to understand their meaning, we see that while they characterize his wickedness, and describe his punishment, they confine it to this world. Besides, the Bible declares, "the Scripture must needs be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake concerning Judas," that it was "by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God" that Jesus was delivered up, and "by wicked hands crucified and slain." Acts ii:23.
To believe that Judas was consigned to endless torment for doing what must be done in consequence of God's determinate counsel and foreknowledge, is to accuse the Almighty of an act that would blast his name with infamy. Now do the terms used of Judas allow us to regard him as outside the pale of mercy, or beyond God's power to restore and save? For instance, he is said to be lost, and to be...
THE SON OF PERDITION, ETC.
"Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition."--John xvii:12.
"Kept" and "lost" are here employed antithetically. The eleven were "kept," by remaining true, and Judas was "lost" out of the apostleship. He was lost as all men were, for Christ came to "save that which was lost." The language has no reference to his final condition, but to his then present state.
Judas is called "the son of perdition," John xvii:12; the apostle speaks of those "who draw back unto perdition," Heb. x:39; and of "the perdition of ungodly men," II Pet. iii:7; and the Revelator, xvii:8-11 declares that certain ones are destined to perdition. What is the meaning of this word, (apoleia)?It is the same word found in the following passages: Matt. vii:13, "broad is the way that leadeth to 'destruction';" Acts viii:20, "Thy money perish with thee;" II Pet. ii:1, "shall bring in damnable heresies; 2, "follow their pernicious ways;" 3, "theirdamnation slumbereth not;" Matt. xxvi:8, "to what purpose this waste of the ointment? Acts xxv:16, "it is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die." It is found twenty times in the New Testament, and is translated destruction, waste, perdition, die, damnable and pernicious. Its meaning is never endless torment; but it denotes loss, waste, etc.
In Heb. x:39: "But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul;" the meaning is that the disciples would not experience the destruction about to overtake the wicked people of those times. This is the view given by orthodox commentators. Wakefield:
"But we are not they who withdraw unto destruction, but who faithfullly persevere, to the deliverance of our lives." Clarke.--"We are not cowards who slink away, and notwithstanding, meet destruction; but we are faithful, and have our souls saved alive. The words peripoiesis psuche signify the preservation of life. See the note Ephesians i:11. He intimates that, notwithstanding the persecution was hot, yet they managed to excape with their lives." Lightfoot.--"As Christ's pouring down his vengeance. in the destruction of that city and people, is called his 'coming in his glory,' and his 'coming in judgment;' and as the destruction of that city and nation is characterized, in Scripture, as the destruction of the whole world, so there are several passages that speak of the nearness of that destruction, that are suited according to such characters. Such as that in I Cor. x:11, 'Upon whom the ends of the world are come;' I Pet. iv:7, 'The end of all thigs is at hand'; Heb. x:37, 'Yet a little while, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry.--Sermon on James, v:9.
As "son of thunder" in the New Testament meant an eloquent man, and "son of peace," a peaceable man, so "son of perdition" denotes one abandoned to wickedness. Judas was lost, was a son of perdition, because of his great wickedness. He was lost out of the apostleship, but nothing indicates that his loss was final. The best critics of other churches give this view. Whitby:--
"And none of them is lost; i.e., either by temporal death (chapter xviii:9) or by falling off from me, but the son of perdition, i.e., Judas, worthy of perdition. So a son of death is worthy of it, (IISam. xli:5) and ethnos apoleias is a nation fit to be destroyed. (Eccl. xvi:9; Matt. xxiii:15, and the note on Eph. ii:2) Rosenmuller--"No one is ignorant that Judas is here the intended betrayer of Christ, and who had fallen off from him. Apoleia, (perdition) therefore, as the preceding words teach, in this place, seems to indicate a defection from Jesus, the teacher; as in II Thess. ii:3, where the phraseho uhios amartias, (the son of transgression) and is used concerning a noted impostor, who persuaded many to a defection from the Christian religion."
There is nothing in the use of the word perdition to intimate that it means more than loss. In fact, the more utterly he was lost the more certain he is to experience the saving power of Christ, who came to "seek and save that which was lost,: Matt. xviii:11, "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," x:6. The prodigal son, the piece of silver, and the hundredth sheep were lost, but all these were found. their being lost was the sole reason why they were sought and saved from their perilous condition. We have "all gone astray like lost sheep," but the lost shall be found, and "there shall be one fold and one shepherd."
The word apollumi is the word usually rendered lost and lose, and it is also translateddestroy, perish, and marred." Lord, save us, we 'perish'," Matt. viii:25; "Go, rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," Matt. x:6; "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it," Mark viii:35; "I have found my sheep, which was lost," Luke xv:6; "There shall not a hair of your head perish," Luke xxi:18, are instances of the use of the word. As applied to the soul it means a condition of sinfulness. Matt. x:6, "The lost sheep of the house of Israel;" xviii:11, "The Son of Man is come to save that which was lost." But nothing is more distinctly taught than that Jesus, who came to seek and save the lost, will continue his work until he finds them. There is no final loss in the New Testament.
THE GOSPEL HID.
"But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost."--II Cor. iv:3.
The present tense is here employed. Thoe who are lost in trespasses and sin, are blind to the excellences of the Gospel; it is hid from their sight, is all that can be made out of this language. It seeks those who "are lost," not shall be finally and eternally lost. These suggestions shed light upon the following passage:
THE LOST SOUL
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"--Matt. xvi:26.
The word soul here should be life. It is psuche, which never denotes soul, and is the word rendered life twice in the preceding verses. Dr. Clarke says: "'Lose his own soul, or lose his life.' On what authority many have translated the word psuche, in the twenty-fifth verse, life, and in theis verse, soul, I know not; but am certain it means life in both places. If a man should gain the whole world, its riches, honors and pleasures, and lose his life, what would all these profit him, seeing they can only be enjoyed during life?"
But it is not the mere animal life that is referred to; it is the faculty of enjoying life. The selfish man, who chiefly seeks to save his life, loses it, and he who unselfishly is willing to sacrifice it, gains thereby. It profits one not at all to gain even the world, if he lose his life, or degrade the quality of his life by the process.
It is true, also, that one may lose his soul in the process of seeking gain, but the text does not refer to the soul, true though it is that the soul is often lost--not beyond recovery, but still lost, like the silver, the sheep, and the prodigal, to be at length found by the great Seeker, who will not cease from his divine labors "until he finds" all the lost.
The other terms referring to Judas, are susceptible of a meaning in harmony with the foregoing.
"ONE OF YOU IS A DEVIL"
Peter was thus addressed, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" Judas was a devil, as Peter was Satan, because of his conduct; but his final condition and character were not intimated by this language, any more than was Peter's.
BETTER NEVER BEEN BORN.
"The son of man goeth as it is written of him; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born." Matt. xxvi:24. Mark xiv:21. Luke xxii:22.
It is said that this language cannot be true of Judas, if he is ever to be redeemed, no matter how much he may have suffered previously. The answer to this is, that this was a proverbial expression among the Jews, and was not employed literally. Job says: "Let the day perish wherein I was born." Job iii:3. Solomon said: "If a man live many years, and his soul be not filled with good; and also that he hath no burial; I say that an untimely birth is better than he."--Eccles. vi:3.
The commentator, Kenrick, says: "'It had been good for him, if he had never been born,' is a proverbial phrase, and not to be understood literally; for it is not consistent with our ideas of the divine goodness to make the existence of any being a curse to him, or to cause him to suffer more, upon the whole, than he enjoys happiness. Rather than do this, God would not have created him at all. But as it is usual to say of men who are to endure some grievous punishment or dreadful calamity, that it would have been better for them never to have been born, Christ, foreseeing what Judas would bring upon himself, by delivering up his Master into the hands of his enemies, applies this language to him."
Dr. Clarke quotes the common use of the saying. In Shemoth Rabba, sect. 40 fol. 135, 1,2, it is said, "Whosoever knows the law, and does not do it, it had been better for him had he never come into the world. In Vayikra Rabba, sec. 26, fol. 179, 4, and Midrash Coheleth, fol. 91, 4, it is thus expressed: 'It were better for him had he never been created; and it would have been better for him had he been strangled in the womb, and never have seen the light of this world.'
HIS OWN PLACE.
"That he might go to his own place." Acts i:25. "His own place" does not mean hell, for, first,it is not Judas, but Matthias who is referred to, and the "place" is the apostleship "from which Judas by transgression fell."
Dr. Clarke says of Judas: "The utmost that can be said of the case of Judas is this: he committed a heinous act of sin and ingratitude; but he repented, and did what he could to undo his wicked act; he had committed the sin unto death, i.e., a sin that involves the death of the body; but who can say, (if mercy was offered to Christ's murderers, and the gospel was first to be preached at Jerusalem, that these very murderers might have the first offer of salvation through him whom they had pierced), that the same mercy could not be extended to the wretched Judas? I contend, that the chief priest, etc., who instigated Judas to deliver up his Master, and who crucified him--and who crucified him, too, as a malefactor, having at the same time, the most indubitable evidence of his innocence--were worse men than Judas Iscariot himself; and that if mercy was extended to those, the wretched, penitent traitor did not die out of the reach of the yearning of its bowels. And I contend further, that there is no positive evidence of the final damnation of Judas in the sacred text."--Clarke in loco
WAS JUDAS A SUICIDE?
The common view of the death of Judas, is, that he committed suicide after his great crime, and so went to endless woe. But it is doubtful if he did commit suicide. In one place we read that he "departed and went and hanged himself," and in another, "falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out."--Acts i:18. The phrase "hanged himself" can properly be read "was suffocated." His suicide is by no means certain.
But if he took his own life, he did not commit a deed deserving endless torment, for as "no man ever hated his own flesh," so no one ever took his own life in a sound mind.
The case of the suicide is not hopeless, for when Ammon had taken his own life, and Absalom, equally wicked, was living, the father of the boys was at rest concerning the suicide. "David longed to go forth to Absalom but he was comforted oncerning Ammon, seeing he was dead."--IISam. xiii:39.
It is a remarkable fact--militating very much against the idea of the final damnation of Judas--That Jesus placed him on a throne with the other apostles, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, after his betrayal.
Jesus said to Peter: "Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," Matt. xix:28.
The Universalist "Book of Reference" thus sums up his case: 1st. Judas was actually one of the twelve apostles, and chosen as such, by Christ himself. 2d. That for a long time, at least, he was as true to his trust, and acted his part in as good faith, as did any other apostle. 3d. That the part he took in the betyrayal of Christ was the part for which God had raised him up, and that which was predetermined by the counsel of Heaven. 4th. That notwithstanding he was a sinner, yet that no man ever left the world manifesting greater sorrowfor sin, more compunction of heart, deeper contrition, ormore regret for offenses, than did Judas. 5th. That there is no shade of evidence that Judas will be eternally miserable. 6th. That, in common with all transgressors, he suffered in this world the just demerit of all his crimes. 7th. That the last account of him is, he had gone the way of all the earth--he was dead: and if any one can give a further or better account of him, we will kindly receive it.
ETERNAL, ETC.
In order to learn just what this important word signifies when connected with the penalties of sin, it will be instructive to inquire into its history. We shall ascertain that the original word whence it is derived, denotes indefinite, and not endless, duration, and that it never has the force of endless, except when it is applied to a subject that is intrinsically endless, and that it then acquires an added force from its subject. The Hebrew word olam and the Greek aion, and their reduplications and derivatives are the original Scripture terms that are rendered everlasting in the English Bible. We can best ascertain the meaning of the translated words by consulting the history of the original Greek term.
LEXICOGRAPHY.
Indefinite duration is the real meaning of the word. The oldest lexicographer is Hesychius, (A. D. 400) and he defines it thus:"The life of man, the time of life." Theodoret, at the same time gives this definition; "Aion is not an existing thing, but an interval denoting time, sometimes infinite when spoken of God, sometimes proportioned to the duration of the creation, and sometimes to the life of man." John of Damascus (S. D. 750) says, "1, The life of every man is called aion....3, The whole duration or life of this world is called aion. 4. The life after the resurrection is called 'the aion to come.'" Phavorinus (sixteenth century) shows that theologians had corrupted the word. He says: "Aion, time, also life, also habit, or way of life. Aion is also the eternal and endless as it seems to the Theologian." Theologians had succeeded in using the word in the sense of endless, and Phavorinus was forced to recognize their usage of it and his phraseology shows conclusively enough that he attributed to theologians the authorship of that use of the word. Schleusner: "Any space of time whether longer or shorter, past, present or future, to be determined by the persons or things spoken of, and the scope of the subjects; the life or age of man. Aionios, a definite and a long period of time, that is, a long enduring, but still definite period of time." Grove: Aion "Eternity; an age, life, duration, continuance of time; a revolution of ages; a dispensation of Providence, this world or life, the world or life to come; aionios, eternity, immortal, perpetual, forever, past, ancient." Macknight: (Scotch Presbyterian) "These words being ambiguous, are always to be understood according to the nature and circumstances to which they are applied. They who understand these words in a limited sense, when applied to punishment, put no forced interpretation upon them." Alex. Campbell: "Its radical idea is indefinite duration." T. Southwood Smith: "Sometimes it signifies the term of human life; at other times an age, or dispensation of Providence. Its most common signification is that of age or dispensation." Scarlett: "That aionion does not mean endless or eternal, may appear from considering that no adjective can have a greater force than the noun from which it is derived. If aion means age (which none either will or can deny) then aionion must mean age-lasting, or duration through the age or ages to which the thing spoken of relates." Donnegan: "Time, space of time, life-time and life, the ordinary period of man's life; the age of man; man's estate; a long period; eternity; the spinal marrow. Aionios, of long duration, lasting, eternal, permanent." Dr. Taylor, who wrote the Hebrew Bible three times with his own hand, said of Olam, (Greek Aion) it signifies a duration which is concealed, as being of an unknown or great length. "It signifies eternity, not from the proper force of the word, but when the sense of the place or the nature of the subject requires it, as God and his attributes."
The definitions of other lexicographers and critics are to the same purport. We name: Schrevelius, Schweighauser, Valpey, Haley, Lutz, Wright, Benson, Gilpin, Clarke, Wakefield, Boothroyd, Simpson, Lindsey, Mardon, Acton, Locke, Hammond, Rost, Pickering, Hincks, Ewing, Pearce, Whitby, Le Clerc, Beausobre, Doddridge, Paulus, Kenrick, Lenfant, Olshausen, etc.
Dr. Edward Beecher remarks, "It commonly means merely continuity of action...all attempts to set forth eternity as the original and primary sense of aion are at war with the facts of the Greek language for five centuries, in which it denoted life and its derivative senses, and the sense eternity was unknown." "Pertaining to the world to come," is the sense given to "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," by Prof Tayler Lewis, who adds: "The preacher in contending with the Universalist and the Restorationist, would commit an error, and it may be suffer a failure in his argument, should he lay the whole stress of it on the etymological or historical significance of the words aion, aionios and attempt to prove that of themselves they necessarlly carry the meaning of endless duration. 'These shall go away into the restraint, imprisonment of the world to come,' is all we can etymologically or exegetically make of the word in this passage."--His. Fut. ret.
Undoubtedly the definition given by Schleusner is the accurate one: "Duration determined by the subject to which it is applied.' Thus it only expresses the idea of endlessness when connected with what is endless, i.e. God. The word great is an illustrative word. Great applied to a tree, or mountain, or man, denotes different degrees, all finite, but when referring to God, it has the sense of infinite. Infinity does not reside in the word great, but it has that meaning when applied to God. It does not impart it to God, it derives it from him. So of aionion; applied to Jonah's residence in the fish, it means seventy hours; to the punishments of a merciful God, as long as is necessary to vindicate his law and reform his children; to God hinmself, eternity. What great is to size, aionios is to duration. Human beings live from a few hours to a century; nations from a century to thousands of years; and worlds, for aught that we know, from a few to many millions of years, and God is eternal. So that when we see the word applied to a human life, it denotes somewhere from a few days to a hundred years; when it is applied to a nation, it denotes anywhere from a century to ten thousand years, more or less, and when to God it means endless. In other words it denotes indefinite duration.
Dr. Beecher well observes: "The word olam, as affirmed by Taylor and Fuerst in their Hebrew Concordance means an indefinite period, age past or future and not an absolute eternity. When applied to God, the idea of eternity is derived from him, and not from the word."
This is the deduction as we study the lexicography of the word. It expresses the indefinite duration according to the subject with which it is connected.*
*See "Aion-Aionios," by J. W. Hanson, D.D., for an exhaustive treatise on the lixicography, etymology, classic usage and of the usage of the Old and New Testaments, and of the Christian Fathers.
CLASSIC USAGE
Before the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek (200-300 B. C., according to Prideaux, or during the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 384-347 B. C., say other authorities) this word was in commoon use by the Greeks. Homer, Hesiod, AEschylus, Pindar, Sophocles, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Empedocles, Euripedes, Philoctetes, and Plato, all use the word, but never once does one of them give it the sense of eternity. Homer says"
(Priam to Hector) "Thyself shall be deprived of pleasant aionios," (life). Andromache over dead Hector, "Husband, thou hast perished from aionos," (life or time). Hesiod: "To him (the married man) during aionos (life) evil is constantly striving, etc." Aeschylus: "This life, (aion) seems long, etc." "Jupiter, king of the never-ceasing world" (aionos apaustau). Pindar: "A long life produces the four virtues." (Ela de kai tessares aretas ho makros aion.) Sophocles: "Endeavor to remain the same in mind as long as you live." Aristotle: "The entire heaven is one and eternal (aidios) having neither beginning nor end of an entire aion." The adjective is never found until Plato. He uses aion eight times, aionios five, diaionios once, and makraion twice. Of course if he regarded aion as meaning eternity, he would not prefix the word meaning long to add duration to it.
Plato uses the adjective to denote indefinite duration. Referring to certain souls in Hades, he describes them as in aionion intoxication. But that he does not use the word in the sense of endless is evident form the Phaedon, where he says, it is a very ancient opinion that souls quitting this world, repair to the infernal relgions, and return after that, to live in this world. After the aionion intoxication is over, they return to earth, which demonstrates that the word was not used by him as meaning endless. Again, he speaks of that which is indestructible, (anolethron) and not aionion. He places the two words in contrast, whereas, had he intended to use aionion as meaning endless, he would have said indestructible and aionion.
Aristotle uses the word in the same sense. He says of the earth, "All these things seem to be done for her good, in order to maintain safety during her aionos," duration, or life. And still more to the purpose is this quotation concerning God's existence: "Life and 'an aion continuous and eternal, zoe kai aion sunekes kai aidios.'" Here the word aidios, (eternal) is employed to qualify aion and impart to it what it had not of itself, the sense of eternal. Aristotle could be guilty of no such language as "an eternal eternity." Had the word aion contained the idea of eternity in his time, or in his mind, he would not have added aidios.
Ezra S. Goodwin, in the Christian Examiner, sums up an exhaustive examnation of the word in the Greek classics, thus: "Those lexicographers who assign eternity as one of the meanings of aion, uniformly appeal for proofs to either theological, Hebrew or Rabbinical Greek, or some species of Geek subsequent to the age of the Seventy, if not subsequent to the age of the apostles, so far as I can ascertain. I do not know of an instance in which any lexicographer has produced the usage of ancient classical Greek, in evidence that aion means eternity. Ancient classical Greek rejects it altogether.
So when the seventy translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and rendered the Hebrew olam, (or gnolam) into aion and its reduplications, they must have understood that aion meant indefinite duration, for that was its uniform usage in the Greek at that time. When Jesus quoted from the Old Testament he quoted from the Septuagint, and when he used the word aionion, he used it with the exact meaning it had in Greek literature, to denote indefinite duration. This will appear as we examine:
THE OLD TESTAMENT
The noun is found 394 times, and the adjective 110 times in the Old Testament. We will give instances of its use, that the reader may see that limited duration is the sense it carries, and we print the words translated from aion aionion in italics.
Gen. vi:4, "Mighty men which were of old, men of renown." Gen. ix:12; God's covenant with Noah was "for perpetual generations." Gen. ix:16; The rainbow is the token of "the everlasting covenant" between God and "all flesh that is upon earth." Gen. xiii:15; God gave the land to Abram and his seed 'forever'. Dr. T. Clowes says of this passage that it signifies the duration of human life, and he adds, "let no one be surprised that we use the word Olam (Aion) in this limited sense. This is one of the most usual significations of the Hebrew olam and the Greek aion." In Isa. lviii:12, it is rendered "old" and "foundations." "And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations." In Jer. xviii:15-16, ancient and perpetual. "They have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up; to make their land desolate, and a perpetual hissing." Such instances may be cited to an indefinite extent. Ex. xv:18. "for ever and ever, and further." Ex. xii:17, "Ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance forever." Numb. x:8, "For an ordinance forever, throughout your generations." "Your generations" is here idiomatically given as the precise equivalent of "forever." Canaan was given as an "everlasting possession;" (Gen. xvii:8, slviii:4; Lev. xxiv:8-9) the hills are everlasting (Hab.iii:6) the priesthood of Aaron (Ex. xl: 15; Numb. xxv:13; Lev. xvi:34) was to exist forever, and continue through everlasting duration. Solomon's temple was to last forever, (I Chron. xvii:12) though it has long since ceased to be; slaves were to remain in bondage forever (Lev. xxv:46) though every fiftieth year all Hebrew servants were to be set at liberty. (Lev. xxv:10) Jonah suffered an imprisonment behind the everlasting bars of earth, (Jon. ii:6) the smoke of Idumea was to ascend forever, (Isa xxxiv:10) though it no longer rises; to the Jews God says (Jer. xxxii:40) "and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten;" and yet, after the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, Israel will be retored. Rom. xi:25-26.
Not only in all these and multitudes of other cases does the word mean limited duration, but it is also used in the plural, thus debarring it from the sense of endless, as there can be but one eternity. In Dan. xii:3, the literal reading, if we allow the word to mean eternity, is, "to eternities and farther." Micah iv:5, "We will walk in the name of the Lord our God to eternity, and beyond," Ps. cxix:44, "So shall I keep thy law continually, forever and ever." This is the strongest combination of the aionian phraseology: eis ton aiona kai eis ton aiona tou aionos, and yet it is David's promise of fidelity as long as he lives among them that "reproach" him, in "the house of his pilgrimage." Ps. cxlviii:6, "The sun and moon, the stars of light, and even the water above the heavens are established forever," and yet the firmament is one day to become as a folded garment, and the orbs of heaven are to be no more. Endless duration is out of the question in these and many similar instances. This is the general usage: Eccl. i:10, "Is there anything whereof it may be said, see, this is new! it hath been already of old time, which was before us." Ps. xxv:6, "Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy loving kindnesses; for they have been even of old." Ps. xcic:52, "I remembered thy judgments of old, O Lord; and have comforted myself." Isa. xlvi:9, "Remember the former things of old." Isa. lxiv:4, "since the beginning of the world." Jer. xxviii:8, "The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence." Jer. ii:20, "For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands." Prov. viii:23, "I (wisdom) was set up from everlasting from the beginning, or ever the earth was." Here aionos and "before the world was," are in opposition. Ps. lxxiii:12, "Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world." Deut. xxxii:7, "Remember the days of old." Isa i:9, "Generations of old." Micah vii:14, "Days of old."--Same in Malachi ii:4. Ps. xlviii:14, "For this God is our God, for ever and ever: he will be our guide even unto death." This plural form denotes "even unto death." Christ's kingdom is prophesied as destined to endure "forever," "without end," etc. Dan. ii:44; Isa. lix:21; Ps. cx:4; Isa. ix:7; Ps. lxxxix:29. Now if anything is taught in the Bible, it is that Christ's kingdom shall end. In I Corin. xv, it is expressly and explicitly declared that Jesus shall surrender the kingdom to God the Father, that his reign shall entirely cease. Hence, when we read in such passages as Dan. ii:44, that Christ's kingdom shall stand forever, we must understand that the forever denotes the reign of Messiah, bounded by "the end," when God shall be "all in all."
Servants were declared to be bound forever, when all servants were emancipated every fifty years. Thus in Deut. xv:16-17, we read, "And it shall be, if he say unto thee, I will not go away from thee; because he loveth thee and thine house, because he is well with thee, then thou shalt take an awl, and thrust it through his ear unto the door, and he shall be thy servant forever."
No one can read the Old Testament carefully and fail to see that the word has a great range of meaning, bearing some such relation to duration as the word great does to size. We say God is infinite when we call him the great God--not because great means infinite, but because God is infinite. The aionion God is of eternal duration, but the aionion smoke of Idumea has expired, and the aionion hills will one day crumble, and all merely aionion things will cease to be.
Prof. Tayler Lewis says, "'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever.' This certainly indicates, not an endless eternity in the strictest sense of the word, but only a future of unlimited length. Ex. xxxi:16, 'Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant.'" Where the context demands it, as "I live forever," spoken of God, he says it means endless duration, for "it is the subject to which it is applied that forces to this, and not any etymological necessity in the world itself."
THE END OF AIONIAN THINGS.
The Jews have lost their excellency; Aaron and his sons have ceased from their priesthood; the mosaic system is superseded by Christianity; the Jews no longer possess Canaan; David and his house have lost the throne of Israel; the Jewish temple is destroyed, and Jerusalem no longer the holy city; the servants who were to be bondmen forever, are all free from their masters; Gehazi is cured of his leprosy; the stones are removed from Jordan, and the smoke of Idumea no longer rises; the righteous do not possess the land promised them forever; some of the hills and mountains have fallen, and the tooth of Time will one day gnaw the last of them into dust; the fire has expired from the Jewish altar; Jonah has escaped his imprisonment; all these and numerous other eternal, everlasting things--things that were to last forever, and to which the various aionion words are applied--have now ended, and if these hundreds of instances must denote limited duration why should the few times in which punishments are spoken of have any other meaning? Even if endless duration were the intrinsic meaning of the word, all intelligent readers of the Bible would perceive that the word must be employed to denote limited duration in the passages above cited. And surely in the very few times in which it is connected with punishment it must have a similar meaning. For who administers this punishment? Not a monster, not an infinite devil, but a God of love and mercy; and the same common sense that would forbid us to give the word the meaning of endless duration, were that its literal meaning, when we see it applied to what we know has ended, would forbid us to give it that meaning when applied to the dealings of an Infinite Father with an erring and beloved child.
EVERLASTING CONTEMPT.
The principal passage in the Old Testament containing the word everlasting, connected with suffering, is Dan. xii:2, "and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." When was this to take place? "At that time." What time? Verse 31, chap. xi, speaks of the coming of "the abomination that maketh desolate." Jesus says, Matt. xxiv:15-16, Luke xxi:20-21, "When ye therefore (the disciples) shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet stand in the holy place, then let them which be in Judea flee to the mountains. And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto." Daniel says this was to be (xii:7) "when he shall have accomplished to scatter the power of the holy people." And he says, "At that time there shall be a time of trouble, such as there never was since there was a nation even to that same time." Jesus says, "for then shall be great tribulations, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time; no, nor ever shall be." And when that was Jesus tells us, "this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled." The events announced in Daniel are the same as those in Matt. xxiv, and occurred in the generation that crucified Jesus. The phrase "sleep in the dust of the earth" is employed figuratively, to indicate sloth, spiritual lethargy, as in Ps.xliv:25;Isa. xxv:12, xxvi:5; ITim. v:6; Rev. iii:1; "For our soul is bowed down to the dust;" "And the high fort of thy walls shall he bring down, lay low, and bring to the ground, even to the dust;" "For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust;" "But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth;" "I know thy works; that thou hast a name, that thou livest and art dead." Cruden says that "dust" signifies "a most low and miserable condition." "God raised up the poor out of the dust." (I Sam. ii:8) "Thy nobles shall dwell inthe dust." (Nahum iii:18) They shall be reduced to a mean condition."
It was a prophecy of the moral awakening that came at the time of the advent of Jesus, and was then fulfilled. When we come to Matt. xxiv and xxv we shall see the exact nature of this judgment. Walter Balfour describes it, "They," (those who obeyed the call of Jesus) "heard the voice of theSon of God and lived." See John v:21-25-28-29. Eph. v:14. The rest kept on till the wrath of God came on them to the uttermost. They all, at last, awoke; but it was to shame and everlasting contempt, in being dispersed among all nations, and they have become a by-word and an hissing even unto this day. Jeremiah in chapter xxiii:39-40 predicted this very punishment, and calls it an "everlasting reproach and a perpetual shame."
Isaiah uses similar language: "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion: put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come unto thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem." etc. Isa lii:1-2. This call was obeyed, and the language of Daniel was fulfilled when "among the chief rulers, also many believed on him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." John xii:42-43. Those who accepted him enjoyed the eternal life of the gospel, but those who rejected him had shame and contempt. This language is exactly parallel to Matt. xxiv, xxv.
EVERLASTING BURNINGS
In Isa. xxxiii:14, we read, "Who among you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?"
This language refers entirely to this life. The prophet had said (Isa. xxxi:9) that the Lord's "fire is in Zion and his furnace in Jerusalem," and he adds: "And the Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall show the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones."
When he asks who shall dwell amid these "everlasting burnings" he refers to those fires which he had spoken of as about to consume the land. Ezekiel describes them, xx:47.
"Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree; the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein."
Jeremiah agrees with the other prophets, xvii:27.
"But if ye will not hearken unto me, to hallow the Sabbath day and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched."
The "everlasting burnings" denote the temporal judgments about to come upon the Jewish people.
Out of more than five hundred occurrences of the word in the Old Testament more than four hundred denote limited duration, so that the great preponderance of the Old Testament usage fully agrees with the Greek classics.
Now if endless punishment awaits millions of the human race, and if it is denoted by this word, is it possible that only David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Malachi use the word to define punishment, in all less than a dozen times, while Job, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Solomon, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Hahum, Habbakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai and Zachariah never employed it thus? Such silence is criminal, on the popular hypothesis. These holy men should and would have made every sentence bristle with the word, and thus have borne the awful message to the soul with an emphasis that could neither be resisted or disputed. The fact that the word is so seldom, and by so few applied to punishment, and never in the Old Testament to punishment beyond death, demonstrates that it cannot mean endless.
The best critics of all creeds agree that endless punishment is not taught in the Old Testament, and if so, of course the world everlaslting cannot mean endless in the Old Testament, when aplied to punishment.
Says Milman" "The lawgiver (Moses) maintains a profound silence on that fundamental article, if not of political, at least of religious legislation--rewards and punishments in another life." Warburton: "In no one place of the Mosaic institutes is there the least mention of the rewards and punishments of another life." Paley, Jahn, Whately are to the same purport, and H. W. Beecher says, "if we only had the Old Testament we could not tell if there were any future punishment."
Three questions here press the mind with irresistible force, and they can only receive one answer. 1st, Had God intended endless punishment, would the Old Testament have failed to reveal it? 2d, If God does not announce it in the Old Testament, is it supposable that he has revealed it elsewhere? 3d, Would he for thousands of years conceal so awful a destiny from millions whom he had created an exposed to it? No child of God ought to be willing to impeach his Heavenly Father by withholding an indignant negative to these questions.
JEWISH GREEK USAGE
Josephus and Philo, Jewish Greeks, who wrote between the Old and New Testaments, use the word with the meaning of temporal duration, always.
Josephus applies the word to the imprisonment to which John the tyrant was condemned by the Romans; to the reputation of Herod; to the everlasting memorial erected in re-building the temple, already destroyed, when he wrote; to the everlasting worship in the temple, which in the same sentence he says was destroyed; and he styles the time between the promulgation of the law and his writing a long aion. To accuse him of attaching any other menaing than that of indefinite duration to the word, is to accuse him of stultifying himself. But when he writes to describe endless duration he employs other, and less equivocal terms. Alluding to the Pharisees, he says:
"They believe that the wicked are detained in an everlasting prison (eirgmon aidion) subject to eternal punishment" (aidios timoria) and the Essenes (another, Jewish sect) "Allotted to bad souls a dark, tempestuous place, full of never-ceasing punishment (timoria adialeipton) where they suffer a deathless punishment, (athanaton timorian).
Philo, who was contemporary with Christ, generally used aidion to denote endless, and always usedaionion to describe temporary duration. Dr. Mangey, in his edition of Philo says he never used aionion for interminable duration. He uses the exact phraseology of Matthew, xxv:46, precisely as Christ used it. "It is better not to promise than not to give prompt assistance, for no blame follows in the former case, but in the latter there is dissatisfaction from the weaker class, and a deep hatred and everlasting punishment (kolasis aionios) from such as are more powerful." Here we have the exact terms employed by our Lord, to show that aionion did not mean endless but did mean limited duration in the time of Christ.
Thus the Jews of our Savior's time avoided using the word aionion to denote endless duration, for applied all through the Bible to temporary affairs, it would not teach it.
THE NEW TESTAMENT
The different forms of the word occur in the New Testament one hundred and ninety-nine times, the noun one hundred and twenty-eight, and the adjective seventy-one times.
In our common translation the noun is rendered seventy-two times ever, twice eternal, thirty-nine times world, seven times never, three times evermore, twice worlds, twice ages, once course, once world without end, and twice it is passed over without any word affixed as a translation of it. The adjective is rendered once ever, forty-two times eternal, three times world, twenty-five times everlasting, and once former ages.
Of course the word must mean in the New Testament what it does in all Greek books and among Greek-speaking people. Temporal, indefinite duration, we have shown to be its meaning in the Classics, the Old Testament, and the Jewish Greek. The New Testament meaning is the same. The fact its usage shows.
THE NOUN
1 It is applied to the kingdom of Christ. Luke i:33, "And he shall reign over the house of Jacobforever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." See also i:55; Heb. vi:20; vii:17-21; I Pet. iv:11; II Pet. i:11, iii:18; Rev. i:6; xi:15. But the kingdom ofChrist is to end, and he is to surrender all dominion to the Father, therefore endless duration is not tautght in these passages. See I Cor. 15.
2 It is applied to the Jewish age more than thirty times: I Cor. x:11, "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." Consult also Matt., xii:32; xiii:22, 39,-40, 49; xxiv:3; xxvii:20; Mark iv:19; Luke i:70; xvi:8; xx:34; John ix:32; Acts iii:32; xv:18; Rom. xii:2; Icor. ii:6,7,8; iii:18; II Cor. iv:4; Gal. i:4; Eph. i:21; ii:2; iii:9; I Tim. vi:17; II Tim. iv:10; Titus ii:12; Heb. ix:26. But the Jewish age ended with the setting up of the kingdom of Christ. Then the word does not denote endless duration here.
3 It is used in the plural in Eph. iii:21; "the age of the ages," tou aionas ton aionon. Heb. i:2; xi:3, "By whom he made the worlds." "The worlds were framed by the word of God." There can be but one eternity. To say "By whom he made the eternities" would be to talk nonsense. Endless duration is not inculcated in these texts.
4 The word clearly teaches finite duration in such passages as Rom. xvi:35; II Cor. iv:17; II Tim. i:9; Philemon 15; "Titus i:2. Read Rom. xvi:25: "Since the world began."--II Cor. iv:17: "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Here "and" is a word supplied by the translators, and the literal is "an excessively exceeding aionian weight." But endless cannot be exceeded. Therefore aionion does not here mean eternal.
Let us give more definitely several passages in which all will agree that the word cannot have the sense of endless. We print the word denotiong duration in italics; Matt. xii:22: "The care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, the cares of that age or "time." Verses, 39, 40, 49, "The harvest is the end of the world" i.e. age, Jewish age, the "end" taught in Matt. xxiv, which some who heard Jesus speak were to live to see, and did see. Luke i:33, "And he (Jesus) shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." The meaning is, he shall reign for ages. That long, indefinite duration is meant here, but limited, is evident from I Cor. xv:28, "And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." His reign is forever, i.e. to the ages, but it is to cease. Luke i:55, "as he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever, (to an age, aionos). Luke i:70. "As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, or "from an age." "Of old," would be the correct construction. Luke xvi:8, "For the children of thisworld are in their generation wiser than the children of light." That is, the people of that time were more prudent in the management of their affairs than were the Christians of that day in their plans. John ix:32, "Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind." From the age, that is from the beginning of our knowledge and history. Rom. xvi:25, "Since the world began," clearly shows a duration less than eternity, inasmuch as the mystery that had been secret since the world began, was then revealed. The mystery was aionian but did not last eternally. It was "now made manifest" "to all nations." Phil. iv:20. "Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever,: for the ages of the ages. "For the eternities of the eternities," is an absurd expression, but ages of ages is a proper sentence. Eternity may be meant here, but if the word aion expressed the idea, such a reduplication would be weak and improper. I Tim. vi:16, "Charge them that are rich in this world," (age or time). I Tim. i:17, "Now to the King eternal (of the ages) be glory for the ages of the ages." What is this but an ascription of the ages to the God of the ages? Eternity can only be meant here as ages piled on ages imply long, and possibly endless duration. "All the ages are God's; him let the ages glorify," is the full import of the words. Translate the words eternity, and what nonsense. "Now to the God of the eternities be glory for the eternities of the eternities." Heb. i:8. "The age of the age" Eph. ii:7, "That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace." Here at least two aions are in the future. Certainly one of them must end before the other begins. Eph. iii:21, "The generations of the ages of the ages." II Tim. iv:1 8, "The ages of the ages." The same form of expression is in Heb. xiii:21; I Pet. iv:11; Rev. i:6, iv:9, v:13, vii:12, xiv:11, xv:7, xx:10. When we read that the smoke of their torment ascends for ages of ages, we get the idea of long, indefinite, but limited duration, for as one age is limited, any number, however great, must be limited. The moment we say the smoke of their torment goes up for eternities of eternities, we transform sacred rhetoric into jargon. There is but one eternity therefore as we read of more than one aion, it follows that aion cannot mean eternity. Again, I Cor. x:11, "Our admonition, on whom the ends of the aions have come." That is, the close of the Mosaic and the beginning of the Gospel age. How absurd to say "ends of the eternities!" Here the apostle had passed more than one, and entered consequently, upon at least a third aion. Heb. ix:26, "Now at an end of the ages." Matt. xiii:39, 40, xxiv:3. "The conclusion of the age." Eternity has no end. And to say ends of eternity is to talk nonsense. II Tim. i:9, "Before the world began, i.e. before the aionian times began. There was no beginning to eternity, therefore the adjective aionion here has no such meaning as eternal. The fact that aion is said to end and begin, is a demonstration that it does not mean eternity.
Translate the word eternity, and how absurd the Scriptural phraseology becomes! We represent the Bible as saying, "To whom be the glory during the eternities even to the eternities." Gal. i:5, "Now all these things happened unto them, for ensamples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the endsof the eternities are come." I Cor. x:11. "That in the eternities coming he might show the exceeding riches of his grace." Eph. ii:7. "The mystery which hath been hid from the eternities and from the generations." Col. i:26. "But now once in the end of the eternities, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Heb. ix:26. "The harvest is the end of eternity." Matt. xiii:39. "So shall it be in the end of eternity." Matt. xiii:40, "Tell us when shall these things be, and what the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the eternity." Matt. xxiv:3. But substitute "age" or "ages" and the sense of the Record is preserved.
THE ADJECTIVE
occurs seventy-two times in the New Testament. Of these fifty-seven are used in relation to the happiness of the righteous; three in relation to God or his glory; four are of a miscellaneous nature; and seven only relate to the subject of punishment. The word in all its forms describes punishment only fourteen times in thirteen passages in the entire New Testament, and these were uttered on ten occasions only. The Noun. Matt. xii:32, Mark iii:29, II Pet. ii:17, Jude 13, Rev. xiv:11, xix:23, xxI10. The Adjective, Matt. xvii:8, xxv:41, 46, Mark iii:29, II Thess. i:9, Heb. vi:2, Jude 7.
Now if God's punishments are limited, we can understand how this word should be used only fourteen times to define them. But if they are endless how can we explain the employment of this equivocal word so few times in the entire New Testament? A doctrine, that if true, ought to crowd every sentence, frown in every line, only stated fourteen times, and that too, by a word whose uniform meaning everywhere else is limited duration! The idea is preposterous. If the word denotes limited duration, the punishments threatened in the New Testament are like those that experience teaches follow transgression. But if it mean endless, how can we account for the fact that neither Luke nor John records one instance of its use by the Savior, and Matthew but four, and Mark but two, and that Paul employs it but twice in his ministry, while John and James in their epistles never allude to it?
Let us consider all the passages in the New Testament in which the word is connected with punishment.
THE GREAT PROOF TEXT.
Matt. xxv:46 is the great proof text of the doctrine of endless punishment: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life eternal."
1 That the popular view of this language is incorrect is evident, because those punished are those who have not been good to the poor. Only such are to suffer everlasting punishment. Endless life is the reward, and endless punishment the penalty of works, if this passage teaches the doctrine of endless punishment. Those receive that punishment who have not been kind to the poor.
2 God's punishments are remedial. All God's punishments are those of a Father, and must therefore be adapted to the improvement of his children. Heb. xii:5-11, "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons: for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not: Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Prov. iii:11-12, "My son despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son of whom he delighteth." Lam. iii:31-33. "For the Lord will not cast off forever: But though he cause grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. For he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." See also Job v:17; Lev, xxvi; Psalms cxix:67,71,75; Jer. ii:19.
3 The word translated punishment means discipline, improvement. The word is kolasin. It is thus defined: Greenfield, "Chastisement, punishment." Hedericus, "The trimming of the luxuriant branches of a tree or vine to improve it and make it fruitful." Donnegan, "The act of clipping or pruning--restriction, restraint, reproof, check, chastisement." See Grotius, Liddell, and others. Says Max Muller, "Do we want to know what was uppermost in the minds of those who formed the word punishment, the Latin poena or punio, to punish, the root pu in Sanscrit, which means to cleanse, to purify, tells us that the Latin derivation was originally formed, not to express mere striking or torture, but cleansing, correcting, delivering form the stain of sin." That it had this meaniang in Greek usage we cite Plato: "For the natural or accidental evils of others, no one gets angry, or admonishes, or teaches or punishes (kolazei) them, but we pity those afflicted wiht such misfortunes. * * For if, O Socarates, you will consider what is the design of punishing (kolazein) the wicked, this of itself will show you that men think virtue something that may be acquired; for no one punishes (kolazlei) the wicked, looking to the past only, simply for the wrong he has done,--that is, no one does this thing who does not actlike a wild beast, desiring revenge, only without thought--hence he who seeks to punish (kolazein) with reason, does not punish for the sake of the past wrong deed, * * but for the sake of the future, that neither the man himself who is punished may do wrong again, nor any other who has seen him chastised. And he who entertains this thought, must believe that virtue may be taught, and he punishes (kolazei) from the purpose of deterring from wickedness."
4 These events have occurred. The events here described took place in this world within thirty years of the time when Jesus spoke. They are now past. In Matt. xxiv:3, the disciples asked our Lord when the then existing age would end. The word (aion) is unfortunately translated world. Had he meant world he would have employedkosmos, the Greek word for world. After describing the particulars, he announced that they would all be fulfilled, and the aion end in that generation, before some of his auditors should die. If he was correct, the end came then. And this is demonstrated by a careful study of the entire discourse, running through Matt. xxiv and xxv. The disciples asked Jesus how they should know his coming and the end of the age. They did not inquire concerning the end of the actual world, as it is incorrectly translated, but age. This question Jesus answered by describing the signs so that they, his questioners, the disciples themselves, might perceive the approach of the end of the Jewish dispensation, (aion). He speaks fifteen times in the discourse of his speedy coming, (Matt. xxiv:3, 27, 30, 37, 39, 42, 46, 48, 50, and xxv:6, 10, 13, 19, 27, 31). He addresses those who shall be alive at his coming. Matt. xxiv:6. "Ye shall hear of wars, etc." 20, "Pray that your flight be not in the winter," 33, 34. "So likewise ye when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled."
This whole account is a parable describing the end of the Jewish aion, age, or economy, signalized by the destruction of Jerusalem, and the establishment of the new aion world, or age to come, that is the Christian dispensation. Now on the authority of Jesus himself, the aion then existing ended within a generation, namely, about A. D. 70. Hence those who were sent away into aionian punishment, or the punishment of that aion, were sent into a conditin corresponding in duration to the meaning of the word aion, i. e. agelasting. A punishment cannot be endless, when defined by an adjective derived form a noun describing an event, the end of which is distinctly stated to have come.
Therefore, (1) the fulfillment of the language in this life, (2) the meaning of aionion, (3) the meaning of kolasis, and (4) the nature of the divine punishments, demonstrate that the penalty threatened in Matt. xxv:46 is a limited one. Prof. Tayler Lewis, (orthodox) thus translates Matt. xxv:46: "These shall go away into the punishment (the restraint, imprisonment) of the world to come, and those into the life of the world to come." And he says "that is all that we can etymologically or exgetically make of the word in this passage."
But did Christ come the second time as he had said he would before the death of some of his hearers? He did not personally, but spiritually, by the power of his grace and truth. On this subjct here is what the most prominent orthodox comentators say:
Archbishop Newcome: "The coming of Christ to destroy the Jews, was a virtual and not a real one, and was to be understood figuratively and not literally. The destruction of Jerusalem by Titus is emphatically the coming of Christ. The spirit of the prophecy speaks particularly of this, because the city and temple were then destroyed, and the civil and ecclesiastical state of the Jews subverted. The Jews also suffered very great calamities under Adrian; but not so great as those under Vespasian; and the desolation under Adrian is not so particularly foretold. But I think that any signal interposition in behalf of his church, or in the destruction of his enemies, may be metaphorically called a coming of Christ." Dr. Campbell remarks on the expression, "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: We have no reason to think that a particular phenomenon in the sky is here suggested. The striking evidences which would be given of the divine presence, and avenging justice, are a justification of the terms." Kenrick observes: "The great power and glory of Christ were as conspicuously displayed at the destruction of Jerusalem, and other circumstances which accompanied that event, as if they had seen him coming upon the clouds of heaven, to punish his enemies. When the prophet Isaiah represents God as about to punish the Egyptians, he speaks of him as riding upon a swift cloud for that purpose. (Isa. xix:i) In that case there was no visible appearance of Jehovah upon a cloud; but it was language which the prophet adopted, in order to express the evident hand of God in the calamities of Egypt. The same thing may be said of the language of Christ upon the present occasion." Dr. Hammond interprets Christ's coming, to be a "coming in the exercise of his kingly office to work vengeance on his enemies, and discriminate the faithful believers from them." Again he says: "The only objection against this interpretation is, that this destruction being wrought by the Roman army, and those as much enemies of Christianity as any, and the very same people that had joined with the Jews to put Christ to death, it doth thereupon appear strange that either of those armies which are called abominable, should be called God's armies,or that Christ should be said to come, when in truth it was Vespasian and Titus that thus came against the people. To this I answer, that it is ordinary with God, in the Old Testament, to call those Babylonish, Assyrian heathen armies his, which did his work in punishing the Jews, when they rebelled against Him. Christ is fitly said to come, when his ministers do come, that is, when either heathen men, or Satan himself, who are executioners of God's will, when they think not of it, are permitted by Him to work destruction on his emenies." Dr. Whitby says: "These words, this age or genertion shall not pass away, afford a full demonstration that all which Christ had mentioned hitherto, was to be accomplished, not at the time of the conversion of the Jews, or at the final day of judgment, but in that very age, or whilst some of that generation of men lived; for the phrase never bears any other sense in the New Testament, than the men of this age."
Matt. xiii:40-50: "The harvest at the end of the world," should be "end of this age." Dr. Wakefield thus comments: "The harvest is the conclusion of this age, and the reapers are the messengers; as therefore the weeds are picked out and burned up with a fire, so shall it also be in the conclusion of this age." Dr. A. Clarke renders end of the world (vs. 19, 43) "end of the age--Jewish polity." So also Dr. Macknight. Dr. Campbell translates it the "conclusion of the state." Bishop Pearce says, on verse 40: "End of this world; rather end of this age, viz: that of the Jewish dispensation.": And Dr. Hammond translates it, "conclusion of this age."
The end of the material world is never taught in the Bible. We have no Scriptural evidence that the earth will ever be destroyed. The word rendered world in all passages that speak of the end, is aion, which means age, and not kosmos, which denotes world. The phrase only occurs seven times in the whole Bible, and that in three books, all in the New Testament.
In Matt. xiii:36-42, "the field is the world (kosmos) but "the harvest is the end of the age," (aion, improperly rendered world) that is, the end of the Jewish dispensation. But one passage need be consulted to learn when that event was to occur. Jesus told his disciples when they asked (Matt. xxiv:3) "What shall be the sign of the end of the world," (Matt. xxiv:34) "This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." It had almost arrived, a little later when Paul said (Heb. 9:26) "But now once in the end of the world hath he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." The end of the world in all cases means the end of the age, or epoch then transpiring, that is the Jewish dispensation.
THE LAST DAYS
The terms "last days," "end of the world," etc. found in connection with judgment, are made very clear to the careful reader of the Bible. The words "last day," "last days," etc., refer to the closing of the Mosaic dispensation, and not, as is often supposed, to the final closing up of mundane affairs. Peter demonstrates this, by applying the words of Joel to what was then transpiring, Acts ii:16-- 20, "But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: and on my servants, and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come." Paul testifies to the same idea, Heb. i:1-2, "God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds," I Peter i:20. "Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you." See, also, I John ii:18, "Little children, it is the last time." Peter says, I Peter iv:7, "But the end of all things is at hand."
The "last days" always refer to the end of Judaism, and the establishment of Christianity, and not to the closing of human affairs on earth.
AN OBJECTION ANSWERED.
Objectors sometimes say, "Then eternal life is not endless, for the same Greek adjective qualifies life and punishment." This does not follow, for the word is used in Greek in different senses in the same sentence; as in Hab. iii:6. "And theeverlasting mountains were scattered, his ways are everlasting." Suppose we apply the popular argument here. The mountains and God must be of equal duration, for the same word is applied to both. Both are temporal or both are endless. But the mountains are expressly stated to be temporal--they "were scattered," --therefore God is not eternal. Or God is eternal and therefore the mountains must be. But they cannot be, for they were scattered. The argument does not hold water. The aionion mountains are all to be destroyed. Hence the word everlasting may denote both limited and unlimited duration in the same passage, the different meanings to be determined by the subject treated.
The phrase "everlasting" or "eternal life" does not usually denote endless existence, but the life of the gospel, spiritual life, the Christian life, regardless of its duration. In more than fifty of the seventy-two times that the adjective occurs in the New Testament, it describes life. What is eternal life? Let the Scriptures answer. John iii:36, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life." John v:24, "He that believeth on Him that sent me hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation. but is passed from death unto life." John vi:47, "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life." So verse 54. John xvii:3, "This is life eternal to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.": Eternal life is the life of the gospel. Its duration depends on the possessor's fidelity. It is no less the aionion life, if one abandon it in a month after acquiring it. It consists in knowing, loving and serving God, regardless of the duration of the service. How often the good fall from grace. Believing, they have the aionion life, but they lose it by apostasy. Notoriously it is not, in thousands of cases, endless. The life is of an indefinite length, so that the usage of the adjective in the New Testament is altogether in favor of giving the word the sense of limited duration. Hence Jesus does not say "he that believeth, in this life, shall enjoy endless happiness in the next, but hath everlasting life,: and "is passed from death unto life."
Clemence in his work on "Future Punishment" observes, correctly, that aion and aionion are "words that shine with reflected light," i.e., says Canon Farrar, "that their meaning depends entirely on the words with which they are joined, so that it is quite false to say that aionios joined with zoe must mean the same as aionios joined with kolasis. The word means endless in neither clause." Clemence continues: "If good should come to an end, that would come to an end which Christ died to bring in; but if evil comes to an end, that comes to an end which he died to destroy. So that the two stand by no means on the same footing."
WORDS DENOTING ENDLESSNESS
Besides, the endless life is described by words that are never applied to anything of limited duration. This appears from the following passages:
Heb. vii:15-16, "And it is yet far more evident: for that after the similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest, who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless (akatalutos, imperishable) life." I Pet. i:3-4, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, (aphtharton) and undefiled, and thatfadeth not(amaranton) away." I Pet. v:4, "and when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not(amarantinos) away." I Tim. i:17, "Now unto the King eternal, immortal (aphtharto), invisible, the only wise God be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen." Rom. i:23, 'And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man." I Cor. ix:25, "Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." I Cor. xv:51-54, "Behold I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, (aphthartoi) and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, (aphtharsian) and this mortal must put on immortality (athanasian) So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, (aphtharsian) and this mortal shall have put on immortality, (athanasian) then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." Rom. ii:7, "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality (aptharsain) eternal life." I Cor. xv:423, "So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption (aphtharsian)." See also verse 50. II Tim. i:10, "Hath brought life and immortality(aphtharisan) to light, through the gospel." I Tim. vi:16, "Who only hath immortality (athanasian).
Now these words are applied to God and the soul's happiness. They are words that in the Bible are never applied to punishment or anything perishable. They would have been affixed to punishment had the Bible intended to teach endless punishment. And certainly they show the error of those who declare that the indefinite word aionion is all the word, or the strongest one in the Bible, declarative of the endlessness of life beyond the grave.
ALL NATIONS NOT GATHERED THEN
If it be said "all nations were not gathered, we reply that the terms of this parable are not to be understood as literal, but as they are used in the New Testament. Matt. xxiv:9, Christ says the disciples are to be hated by all nations. The Gospel was to be preached to all nations before the destruction of Jerusalem. (v;14) Paige says, "The terms nation and kingdom were sometimes applied by the Jews to any state, province, or even a separate municiple district."
Is it objected that the fire was prepared for the devil and his angels. We answer wicked men are called devils in II Tim. iii:3, (diabolos) translated false accusers. Rev. ii:10, "Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison." Judas was called a devil, John vi:70. Titus ii:8, Aged women are exhorted not to be devils (diabolos, rendered false accusers). The devil and his angels were wicked people.
The events in Matt. xxv have all taken place; the life and the punishment were both limited, and neither the reward promised nor the punishment threatened was to be in the future life. There is no reference to a "General Judgment" in any part of the language.
ETERNAL JUDGMENT
"Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.."--Hebrews vi:1-2.
The word eternal is here used in the sense of ancient, and alludes to the calamities that had come upon wrong-doers. The comments of Bishop Pearce are clear and accurate: "I think, therefore, that the words are to be understood in a very different manner, and krima here seems to me to be put for temporal judgments. Thus the word used I Pet. iv:17 'the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God,' where the context will not suffer us to take it in any other sense; compare verses 16, 18, 19. So again, I Cor. xi:29, 'He that eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.' What this judgment was, appears by the next verse: 'For this cause many are weakly and sick among you, and many sleep.' The word aionios, which we have renderedeternal, I take to respect not the time to come, but the time past, and to signify ancient, or past long ago." Thus the destruction, fire, punishment and judgments of God that are called eternal or everlasting, are limited. They are ordained by a Father for the correction and discipline and welfare of his children, the issue of which is restoration to righteousness.
EVERLASTING CHAIN
"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."--Jude 6
The word here rendered everlasting is not aionios, indefinite duration, but aidios, whose intrinsic meaning is endless. It is found in one other place in the New Testament, Rom. i:20, "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead."
Now it must be admitted that this word among the Greeks had the sense of eternal, and should be understood as having that meaning wherever found, unless by express limitation it is shorn of its proper meaning. It is further admitted that had aidios occurred where aionios does, there would be no excape from the conclusion that the New Testament teaches Endless Punishment. It is further admitted that the word is here used in the exact sense of aionios, as is seen in the succeeding verse: "Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of aionian fire." That is to say, the "aidios chains" in verse 6 are "even as" durable as the "aionionfire" in verse 7. Which word modifies the other?
1 The construction of the language shows that the latter word limits the former. The aidios chains are even as the aionion fire. As if one should say "I have been infinitely troubled, I have been vexed for an hour," or "He is an endless talker, he can talk five yours on a stretch." Now while "infinitely" and "endless" usually convey the sense of unlimited, they are here limited by what follows, as aidios, eternal, is limited by aionios, indefinitely long.
2 That this is the correct exegisis is evident from still another limitation of the word. "The angels...he hath reserved in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day." Had Jude said that the angels are held in aidios chains, and stopped there, not limiting the word, it might be claimed that he taught their eternal imprisonment. But when he limits the duration by aionios and them expressly states that it is only unto a certain date, it follows that the imprisonment will teminate, even though we find applied to it a word that intrinsically signifies eternal duration, and that was used by the Greeks to convey the idea of eternity, and was attached to punishment by the Greek Jews of our Savior's times, to describe endless punishment, in which they were believers.
But observe, while this word aidios was in universal use among the Greek Jews of our Savior's day, to convey the idea of eternal duration, and was used by them to teach endless punishment, Jesus never allowed himself to use it in connection with punishment, nor did any of his disciples but one, and he but once, and then carefully and expressly limited its meaning. Can demonstration go further than this to show that Jesus carefully avoided the phraseology by which his contemporaries described the doctrine of endless punishment? He never adopted the language of his day on this subject. Their language wasaidios timoria, endless torment. His language was aionion kolasin, age-lasting correction. They described unending ruin, he, discipline, resulting in reformation.
Who these angels were, that fell from their first estate, it does not belong to our purpose to inquire at length. Their chains were to be dissolved when the judgment should come. They were only to last "unto judgment." See remarks under Tartarus in this volume.
EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION
"Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power."--II Thessalonians i:6-9
Who were troubling the Christians of the Thessalonican Church? We are told in Acts xvii:5-8, that their persecutors were the Jews.
"But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. And they troubled the people, and the rulers of the city, when they heard these things."
Also, I Thess. ii:14-15: "For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen....Who have killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us."
When were they persecuted? In a few years from that time:
"For the son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."--Matt. xvi:27-28.
PRESENCE OF THE LORD
How were they banished from the "presence of the Lord?" "The presence of the Lord" is a form of expression denoting God's approbation. Such is its usage in the Bible. "Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden." Gen. iv:16. "Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa." Jonah i:3 "My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest." Exodus xxxiii:14.
In the former years when the Jews were captive in Babylon, they were cast out of the presence of the Lord. II KIngs xxiv:20.
So when, during that generation, the Jews were overwhelmed, they went into everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. Long before these very terms had been applied to them as a people, and to their sorrows in this world.
"Therefore, behold I, even I will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you, and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence; and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall not be forgotten."--Jer. xxiii:39-40
A similar doom was visited upon them when they were again overwhelmed, before the death of some who were then living. (Matt. xvi:2-28. Matt. xxiv) Was this everlasting destruction without end, and final? Paul expressly says not. "For if the casting away of them (the Jews) be the reconciling of the world, (the Gentiles) what shall the receieving of them be but life from the dead." Rom. xi:15. "Blindness in part has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in; and so all Israel shall be saved." Rom. xi:25-26. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." Rom. xi:32
The Commentator, Gill, says: "'And to you who are troubled rest with us;' this is another branch of the justice of God, in rendering to them who are afflicted and persecuted for righteousness sake, rest; a relaxation or rest from persecutions, for a while, at least; as the churches of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had, from that persecution, raised at the death of Stephen, (Acts ix:31) and as the Christians had, at the destruction of Jerusalem; which, though it was a day of vengeance to the unbelieving Jews, were times of refreshing to the saints, who were now delivered from their persecutors."
Thus the word everlasting connected with destruction denoted limited duration, for it is followed by restoration. The word destruction denotes sometimes annihilation, Matt. v:17, "I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill;" I John iii:8, "Might destroy the works of the devil;" Hos. xiii:14, "O grave, I will be thy destruction;" I Cor. v:5, "Deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus," that is, the mortification or subjection of the fleshly propensities, etc. Sometimes it indicates tribulation as Ps. xc:3. "Thou turnest man to destruction;" Hos. iv:6, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;" and xiii:9, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help.'
BANISHED FROM GOD'S PRESENCE
The following extract from Balfour's Second Inquiry presents this subject correctly:
"By the presence of God, or presence of the Lord, in scripture, is sometimes meant his being everywhere present. Thus, David says, Ps. cxxxix:8, 'If I ascend up into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell (sheol), behold, thou art there,' etc. Admitting for argument's sake, that hell is a place of endless punishment, how could the wicked even there be out of God's presence? Yet, in II Thess. i:9, the Jews are said to be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. Again; I find the phrase presence of the Lord, refers to heaven, or the dwelling-place of the Most High. Christ is said to have gone 'into heaven now to appear in the presence of God for us.' Heb. ix:24. And it is said, Luke i:19, 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God.' But how could the wicked be punished with everlasting destruction from God's presence in this sense? For surely no one will say that they were in heaven, and like Gabriel stood in the presence of God.
"But there are still some passages which deserve our particular notice, because they clearly decide what is the meaning of the phrase, presence of the Lord. The first is, II Kings xiii:24, 'And the Lord was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast them from his presence as yet.' This was spoken of the Jews; and just notice, that God speaks of destroying them, and casting them from his presence. What he here says. thatas yet, he would not do to this people, in the following passage we find that he did do. II Kings xxiv:20, 'For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.' God's presence was enjoyed by the Jews in Judea, and in their temple service. To be cast out of God's presence, is to be banished form Judea into captivity, and from all the privileges which the Jews enjoyed in their land, and temple worship. This was the same as destroying them. They were thus destroyed or cast out of God's presence for seventy years in their captivity at Babylon. But they were brought back from this captivity, and again enjoyed God's presence in their own land. At the time Paul wrote the words in Thessalonians, the time was drawing near when they were to be again cast out of God's presence, and dispersed among all nations. Paul adopts the very language of the above passages, used in speaking of their former captivity, to describe the judgments of God which awaited them in their being cast out of their land, their city and temple destroyed, and they destroyed with an everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord. The Jews now are just as certainly destroyed from the presence of the Lord, as they were during the seventy years' captivity in Babylon. How, them, can any man affirm that Paul meant, by this phrase, either annihilation or endless misery? If the Scriptures are allowed to interpret themselves, Paul only describes the temporal destruction and banishment of the Jews, and in the very language by which the prophets had described their former punishments. It is added by the apostle, 'and from the glory of his power;' or, as some render it, 'his glorious power.' Should this be understood of Jehovah, the God of Israel, it is certain his glorious power was displayed among the Jews. Should it be understood of Christ, it agrees with what is said of him; for at the destruction of Jerusalem he is said to have come in the glory of his Father; and he was then seen coming with power and great glory. Matt. xvi:27, and xxiv:30."
Of course it is impossible to go out of the presence of God. Even in hell, God is there. Ps. cxxxix:7-13. The term is used figuratively. To act in accordance with God's commands, and enjoy communion with him, is to be in his presence. To be out of his presence is to act contrary to God's laws.
Those who persecuted the early Christians, their countrymen, (Acts xvii:1-7) were driven away from the place they loved best of all, where God's honor and glory dwelt, and were manifested. But they will be restored, for "when the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in, all Israel shall be saved," so that his "everlasting destruction" is not without end.
SMOKE OF TORMENT FOR EVER AND EVER
"And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."--Rev. xiv:11.
The two chapters preceding this, and also this, treat of the church in this world, and its enemies. The pagan power is the "red dragon," and the Roman Empire is "the beast." The Lamb is Christ. The 144,000 denotes the Jewish converts, etc. The wrath of God on the worshippers of the beast and his image indicates the judgment of God on those who rejected Christ. "Fire and brimstone" and smoking torment is the imagery that the Revelator uses to describe such calamities as befell the wicked people of those times. All the scenery is on earth, as the careful reader will see.
This torment was to continue "forever and ever," not literally without end, but as the smoke of Idumea, Isa. xxxiv:10, went up "forever and ever," though it has long ceased; so that of the worshippers of the beast would be forever and ever. This language is applied to length of days. Ps. xxi:4, to the duration of a book, Isa. xxx:8, to the sojourn of the Jews in Canaan, Jer. vii:7; xxv:5, etc. All these have ceased.
The language refers to scenes and events occurring in this world. The smoke and fire and torment are all of temporary duration.
THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS
That the words "Eternal," etc., did not denote endless duration at the time of Christ is demonstrated by the usage of the Christian fathers. Justin Martyr and Ireneus believed in punishment to end in annihilation, and Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and others were Universalists, and yet they all employed the Greek words aion-aionios, to denote their ideas of the duration of future punishment. This proves that from A.D. 115 to A.D. 400, these words meant limited duration when applied to punishment. (See Beecher's His. Fut. Ret.)
The fact that Origen and others taught an aionion punishment after death, and salvation beyond it demonstrates that at that time the word had not the meaning of endless, but did mean at that date, indefinite or limited duration.
THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN
And still later the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 540) in calling the celebrated local council which assembled in 544, addressed his edict to Mennos, Patriarch of Constantinople, and elaborately argued against the doctrines he had determined should be condemned. He does not say, in defining the Catholic doctrine at that time "We believe inaionian punishment,: for that was just what the Universalist Origen himself taught. Nor does he say, "The word aionion has been misunderstood, it denotes endless duration," as he would have said had there been such a disagreement. But, writing in Greek, with all the words of that copious speech from which to choose, he says, "The holy church of Christ teaches an endless aionios (ateleutetos aionios) life to the righteous, and endless (ateleutetos) punishment to the wicked." Aionios was not enough in his judgment to denote endless duration. and he employedateleutetos to describe endless duration. This demonstrates that even as late as A.D. 540 aionios meant limited duration, and required an added word to impart to it the force of endless duration.
These and other testimonies (See Hanson's "Aion-Aionios,") prove that these words did not mean endless duration among the early Christians for about six centuries after Christ. To say that any one who contradicts these men is correct, and that they did not know the meaning of the word, is like saying that an Australian, twelve hundred years hence, will be able to give a more accurate definition of English words in common use today than we ourselves. These ancients could not be mistaken, and the fact that they required qualifying words to giveaionion the sense of endless duration--that they used it to describe punishment when they believed in the annihilation of the wicked, or in their restoration subsequent to aionion punishment, irrefragably demonstrates that the word had not the meaning of endless to them, and if not to them, then it must have been utterly destitute of it.
The uniform usage of these words by the early Church demonstrates that they signify temporal duration in the New Testament.
UNAVOIDABLE CONCLUSION
From these and other considerations it is evident that there is nothing in the use of the words Everlasting, Eternal, Forever, etc., to teach endless punishment. All forms of the word mean substantially the same, limited duration, such being the meaning of the noun aion, and of course its reduplications and derivatives can mean no more.
HELL
The one word that stands in thousands of minds as the synonym of endless torment, is the word Hell. The popular belief is that in the Bible a place or condition of endless woe is denoted by this word. Does the Bible teach the ideas commonly held among Christians concerning Hell? Does the Hell of the Bible denote a place of torment, or a condition of suffering without end, to begin at death? What is the hell of the Bible?
Manifestly the only way to arrive at the correct answer is to trace the words translated Hell from the beginning to the end of the Bible, and by their connections ascertain exactly what the divine Word teaches on this important subject. It seems incredible that a wise and benevolent God should have created or permitted any kind of an endless hell in his universe. Has he done so? Do the Scripture teachings concerning Hell stain the character of God and clothe human destiny with an impenetrable pall of darkness, by revealing a state or place of endless torment? Or do they explain its existence, and relieve God's character, and dispel all the darkness of misbelief, by teaching that it exists as a means to a good end? It is our belief that the Bible hell is not the heathen, nor the "orthodox" hell, but is one that is doomed to pass away when its purpose shall have been accomplished, in the reformation of those for whose welfare a good God ordained it.
The English word Hell grew into its present meaning. Horne Tooke says that hell, heel, hill, hole, whole, hall, hull, hole, halt and hold are all from the same root. "Hell, any place, or some place covered over." The word was first applied to the grave by our German and English ancestors, and as superstition came to regard the grave as an entrace to a world of torment, Hell at length became the word used to denote an imaginary realm of fiery woe.
In the Bible four words are translated Hell: the Hebrew word Sheol, in the original Old Testament; its equivalent, the Greek word Hadees, in the Septuagint; and in the New Testament, Hadees, Gehenna and Tartarus.
SHEOL AND HADEES
The Hebrew Old Testament, some three hundred years before the Christian era, was translated into Greek, and of the sixty-four instances where Sheol occurs in the Hebrew, it is rendered Hadees in the Greek sixty times, so that either word is the equivalent of the other. But neither of these words is ever used in the Bible to signify punishment after death, nor should the word Hell ever be used as the rendering of Sheol or Hadees, for neither word denotes post-mortem torment. According to the Old Testament the words Sheol-Hadees primarily signify only the place, or state of the dead. In every instance in the Old Testament, the word grave might be substituted for the term hell, either in a literal or figurative sense. The word, being a proper name, should always have been left untranslated. Had it been carried into the Greek Septuagint, and thence into the English untranslated Sheol, a world of misconception would have been avoided, for when it is rendered Hadees, all the materialism of the heathen mythology is suggested to the mind, and when rendered Hell, the medieval monstrosities of a Christianity corrupted by heathen adulterations is suggested. Sheol primarily, literally, the grave or death; secondarily and figuratively the political, social, moral or spiritual consequences of wickedness in the present world, is the precise force of the term, wherever found.
Sheol occurs exactly sixty-four times, and is translated hell thirty-two times, pit three times, and grave twenty-nine times. Dr. George Campbell, a celebrated critic, says that Sheol signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery."
ONLY FIVE OLD TESTAMENT TEXTS ARE CLAIMED
Professor Stuart (orthodox Congregational) only dares claim five out of the sixty-four passages as affording any proof that the word means a place of punishment after death. "These," he says, "may designate the future world of woe," though he adds: "I concede, to interpret all the texts which exhibit Sheol as having reference merely to the grave is possible; and therefore it is possible to interpret " them "as designating a death violent and premature, inflicted by the hand of Heaven."
An examination shows that these five passages agree with the rest in meaning consequences of temporal duration.
Ps. ix:17 "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." The wicked here are "the heathen,:" "mine enemies," i.e., they are not individuals but "the nations that forget God." They will be turned into Sheol, death, die as nations, for their wickedness. Individual sinners are not meant.
Dr. Allen, of Bowdoin College, says of this text: "The punishment expressed in this passage is cutting off from life, destroying from the earth by special judgment, and removing to the invisible state of the dead. The Hebrew term translated hell in the text does not seem to mean, with any certainty, anything more than the state of the dead in their deep abode." Professor Stuart: "It means a violent and premature death inflicted by the hand of heaven."
Job xxi:13: "They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave." It would seem that no one could claim this text as a threat of after-death punishment. It is a mere declaration of sudden death. This is evident when we remember that it was uttered to a people who, according to all authorities, believed in no punishment after death.
Prov. v:5: "Her feet go down to the grave; her steps take hold on hell." This language, making death and Sheol parallel, announces that the strange woman walks in paths of swift and inevitable sorrow and death. And so does Prov. ix:18: "But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell." Sheol is here used as a figure or emblem of the horrible condition and fate of those who follow the ways of sin. They are dead while they live. They are already in Sheol or moral death.
Prov. xxiii:13-14: "Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." Sheol is here used either as the grave to denote the death that rebellious children experience early, or, it may mean that moral condition of the soul which Sheol, the realm of death signifies. But in neither case is it supposable that it means a place or condition of after-death punishment, in which, as all scholars agree, Solomon was not a believer.
That the Hebrew Sheol never designates a place of punishment in a future state of existence, we have the testimony of the most learned of scholars, even among the so-called orthodox. We quote the declarations of a few:
Rev. Dr. Whitby: "Sheol throughout the Old testament, signifies not a place of punishment for the souls of bad men only, but the grave, or place of death.": Dr. Chapman: "Sheol, in itself considered has no connection with future punishment." Dr. Allen: "The term Sheol itself, does not seem to mean anything more than the state of the dead in their dark abode." Edward Leigh, who, says Horne's "Introduction," was one of the most learned men of his time, and his work a valuable help to the understanding of the original language of the Scriptures," observes that "all learned Hebrew scholars know the Hebrews have no proper word for hell." Prof. Stuart: "There can be no reasonable doubt that Sheol does most generally mean theunderworld, the grave or sepulchre, the world of the dead. It is very clear that there are many passages where no other meaning can reasonably be assigned to it. Accordingly, our English translators have rendered the word Sheol grave, in thirty instances out of the whole sixty-four instances in which it occurs." Dr. Thayer in his "Theology of Universalism" quotes as follows: "Dr. Whitby says that Hell 'throughout the Old Testament signifies the grave, or the place of death.'" Archbishop Whately: "As for a future state of retribution in another world, Moses said nothing to the Israelites about that." Paley declares that the Mosaic despensation "dealt in temporal rewards and punishments. The blessings consisted altogether of worldly benefits, and the curses of worldly punishments." Prof. Mayer says, that "the rewards promised the righteous, and the punishments threatened the wicked, are such only as are awarded in the present state of being." To the same important fact testify Prof. Wines, Bush, Arnauld, and other distinguished theologians. All Hebrew scholars agree that the Hebrews had no word proper for hell as a place of punishment.
If we consult the passages in which the word is rendered grave, and substitute the original word Sheol, it will be seen that the meaning is far better preserved:
Gen. xxxvii:34-35: "and Jacob rent his clothes, and put sack-cloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him: but he refused to be comforted: and he said, For I will go down into the grave (Sheol--Hadees) unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him."
It was not into the literal grave, but into the realm of the dead, where Jacob supposed his son to have gone into which he wished to go.
Gen. xlii:38 and xliv:31, are to the same purport: "And he said, my son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: and if mischief befall him by the way in which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave." "It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die; and thy servants shall bring down the gray hears of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave."
The literal grave may be meant here, but had Sheol remained untranslated, any reader would have understood the sense intended. The remaining passages where the word is rendered grave are I Sam. ii:6-13; I Kings ii:6-9; Job vii:9, xiv:13; Numb.xvi:33; Job xvii: 13-14; xxi:13; xxxiii:21-22; Ps. vi:5; xxx:3; lxxxviii:3; Prov i:12; Ps. xx:3, cxl:7; Cant. viii:6; Ecc. ix:10; Isa xxxviii:19; Ps. xxxi:17, lxxxix:48; Prov. xxx:16; Isa. xiv:11, xxxviii:18. Of the latter passage, "For thegrave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth," Prof. Stuart says, "I regard the simple meaning of this controverted place (and of others like it, e.g. Ps. vi:5; xxx:9; lxxxviii:11; cxv:7; Comp. cxviii:17) as being this namely, 'The dead can no more give thanks to God nor celebrate his praise among the living on earth, etc.'" And he properly observes: "It is to be regretted that our English translation has given occasion to the remark that those who made it have intended to impose on their readers, in any case a sense different from that of the original Hebrew. The inconstancy with which they have rendered the word Sheol, even in cases of the same nature, must obviously afford some apparent ground for this objection against their version of it.
Why the word should have been rendered grave and pit in the foregoing passages, and hell in the rest, cannot be explained. Why it is not the grave, or hell or better still, Sheol or Hadees in all cases, no one can explain, for there is no valid reason.
SHEOL--HADEES RENDERED HELL
The first time the word is found translated Hell in the Bible is in Deut. xxxii:22-26:
"For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell (Sheol-Hadees) and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction; I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men." Thus,
THE LOWEST HELL IS ON EARTH,
And its torments consist in such pains as are only possible in this life: "hunger," "the teeth of beasts," "the poison of serpents," "the sword," etc.; and not only are real offenders to suffer them, but even "sucklings" are to be involved in the calamity. If endless torment is denoted by the word, infant damnation follows, for into this hell "the suckling and the man of gray hairs" go, side by side. The scattering and destruction of the Israelites, in this world, is the meaning of "fire in the lowest hell," in this text, as any reader can see by carefully consulting the chapter containing this first instance of the use of the word. Similar to this are the teachings wherever the word occurs in the Old Testament: "For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption." Ps. xvi:10. Here "corruption" is placed parallel with Sheol, or death.
"Though they dig into Hell, thence shall my hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down." Amos ix:2. "If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in Hell, behold, thou art there. Ps. cxxxix:8. "It is high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Hell; what canst thou know." Job xi:8.
IMPORTANT FACTS
The following are only a few of the reasons why Sheol-Hadees in the Old Testament denotes a condition of temporal punishment:
1 Hell is in this world. The Lowest Hell is on earth. Deut. xxxii:22,24,25. "For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell (Sheol--Hadees) and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains." See Jonah ii:2; Rev. vi:8.
2 Hence David, after having been in Hell, was delivered from it. Ps. xxx:3; II Sam. xx:5,6. "O Lord, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. When the waves of death compassed me, the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me," so that there is escape from Hell. Ps. xviii:5,6; cxvi:3; lxxxvi:12,13; Rev. xx:13; Ps. xvii:5, xxx:3.
3 Jonah was in the fish only seventy hours, and declared he was in hell forever. He escaped from Hell. Jon. ii:2, 6: "Out of the belly of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) cried I, and thou heardest my voice, earth with her bars was about me forever." Even an eternal Hell lasted but three days.
4 It is a place where God is, and, therefore, must be an instrumentality of mercy. Ps. cxxxix:8: "If I make my bed in Hell (Sheol--Hadees) behold thou art there."
5 Men having gone into it are redeemed from it. I Sam. ii:6: "The Lord killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to the grave (Sheol--Hadees) and bringeth up."
6 Sheol is precisely the same word as Saul. If it meant Hell would any Hebrew parent have called his child Sheol? Think of calling a boy Hell!
7 Nowhere in the Old Testament does the word Sheol, or its Greek equivalent, Hadees, ever denote a place or condition of suffering after death; it either means literal death or temporal calamity. This is clear as we consult the usage.
8 Jacob wished to go there. Gen.xxxviii:35: "I will go down into the grave (Sheol--Hadees) unto my son mourning."
9 If the word means a place of endless punishment, then David was a monster. Ps. lv:15: "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into Sheol--Hadees."
10 Job desired to go there; xiv:13: "Oh that thou wouldst hide me in Sheol--Hadees."
11 Hezekiah expected to go there. Isa. xxxviii:10: "I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of Sheol--Hadees."
12 Korah, Dathan and Abiram (Numbers xvi:30-33) not only went there, "but their houses, and goods, and all that they owned," "and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods. They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into Sheol--Hadees, and the earth closed upon them; and they perished from among the congregation."
13 It is in the dust. Job xvii:19: "They shall go down to the bars of Sheol--Hadees, when our rest together is in the dust."
14 It has a mouth, is in fact the grave. See Ps. cxli:7: "Our bones are scattered at Sheol's--Hadees' mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth."
15 The overthrow of the King of Babylon is called Hell. Isa. xiv:9-15, 22-23: "Hell (Sheol--Hadees) from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from the thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave and the noise of thy viols; the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. For I will rise up against them saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts." All this imagery demonstrates temporal calamity, a national overthrow as the signification of the word Hell.
16 The captivity of the Jews is called Hell. Isa. v:13-14: "Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore Sheol--Hadees hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it."
17 Temporal overthrow is called Hell. Ps. xlix:14: "Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in Sheol--Hadees, from their dwelling." Ezek.xxxii:26-27: And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to Sheol--Hadees, with their weapons of war, and they have laid their swords under their heads." Men are in hell with their swords under their heads. This cannot mean a state of conscious suffering.
18 All men are to go there. No one can escape the Bible Hell, (Sheol--Hadees) Ps. lxxxix:48.
19 There is no kind of work there. Eccl. ix:10.
20 Christ's soul was in Hell (Sheol--Hadees) Acts ii:27-28.
21 No one in the Bible ever speaks of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) as a place of punishment after death.
22 It is a way of escape from punishment. Amos vii:2.
23 The inhabitants of Hell (Sheol--Hadees) are eaten of worms, vanish and are consumed away. Job. vii:9-24. Ps. xlix:14.
24 Hell (Sheol--Hadees) is a place of rest. Job xvii:6.
25 It is a realm of unconsciousness. Ps. vi:5. Is xxxviii:18. Eccl. ix:10.
26 All men will be delivered from this Hell (Sheol Hadees). Hos. xiii:17.
27 This Hell (Sheol--Hadees) is to be destroyed. Hos xiii:14: "Oh grave I will be thy destruction." I Cor.xv:55: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Rev. xx:13-14: "And death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them, and death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire."
THE OLD TESTAMENT REPUDIATES THE HEATHEN DOCTRINE
At the time these declarations were made, and universally accepted by the Hebrews, the surrounding nations all held entirely different doctrines. Egypt, Greece, Rome, taught that after death there is a fate in store for the wicked that exactly resembles that taught by so-called orthodox Christians. But the entire Old Testament is utterly silent on the subject, teaching nothing of the sort, as the sixty-four passages we have quoted, the only texts containing the word Hell, show, and as the critics of all churches admit. And yet "Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians": (Acts vii:22) who believed in a world of torment after death. If Moses knew all about this Egyptian doctrine, and did not teach it to his followers, what is the unavoidable inference?
Dr. Strong says, that not only Moses, but "every Israelite who came out of Egypt, must have been fully acquainted with the universally recognized doctrine of future rewards and punishments." And yet Moses is utterly silent on the subject.
Dr. Thayer remarks: "Is it possible to imagine a more conclusive proof against the divine origin of the doctrine? If he had believed it to be of God, if he had believed in endless torments as the doom of the wicked after death, and had received this as a revelation from heaven, could he have passed it over in silence? He knew whence the monstrous dogma came, and he had seen enough of Egypt already, and would have no more of her cruel superstitions; and so he casts this out, with her abominable idolatries, as false and unclean things."
In addition to the passages already quoted, the word Sheol--Hadees is rendered Hell in the following texts: Job. xi:7-8; Ps. cxxxix:8; xviii:5; lxxxvi:13; cxvi:3; Prov. xv:11; xxiii:14; xxvii:20; Isa. xxviii:15-18; lvii:9; Ezek. xxxi:16-17; Jon ii:2; Amos ix:2; Hab. ii:5.
We believe we have recorded every passage in which the word occurs. Suppose the original word stood, and we read Sheol or Hadees in all the passages, instead of Hell, wouldany unbiased reader regard it as conveying the idea of a place or state of endless torment after death, such as the English word Hell is also generally supposed to denote? Such a doctrine was never held by the ancient Jews, until after the Babylonish captivity, during which they acquired it of the heathen. All scholars agree that Moses never taught it, and that it is not contained in the Old Testament.
Thus not one of the sixty-four passages containing the only word rendered Hell in the entire Old Testament, teaches any such thought as is commonly supposed to be contained in that
"ORTHODOX" AND HEATHEN VIEWS IDENTICAL
Now do popular Christian descriptions resemble anything in the Old Testament? Do they not exactly copy the heathen description? Whence came these ideas? They are not found in the Old Testament. And yet the world was full of them when Christ came.
Jeremy Taylor, of the English Church, says: "The bodies of the damned shall be crowded together in hell, like grapes in a wine-press, which press one another till they burst; every distinct sense and organ shall be assailed with its own appropriate and most exquisite sufferings."
Calvin describes it: "Forever harrassed with a dreadful tempest, they shall feel themselves torn asunder by an angry God, and transfixed and penetrated by mortal stings, terrified by the thunderbolts of God, and broken by the weight of his hand, so that to sink into any gulf would be more tolerable than to stand for a moment in these terrors."
Johnathan Edwards said: "The world will probably be converted into a great lake or liquid globe of fire, in which the wicked shall be overwhelmed, which will always be in tempest, in which they shall be tossed to and fro, having no rest day or night, vast waves and billows of fire continually rolling over their heads, of which they shall forever be full of a quick sense within and without; their heads, their eyes, their tongues, their hands, their feet, their loins, and their vitals, shall forever be full of a glowing, melting fire, fierce enough to melt the very rocks and elements; and, also, they shall eternally be full of the most quick and lively sense to feel the torments; not for one minute, not for one day, not for one age, not for two ages, not for a hundred ages, nor for ten thousand millions of ages, one after another, but forever and ever, without any end at all, and never to be delivered.'
And Spurgeon uses this language even in our own days: "When thou diest, thy soul will be tormented alone: that will be a hell for it; but at the day of judgment thy body will join thy soul, and then thou will have twin hells, thy soul sweating drops of blood, and thy body suffused with agony. In fire exactly like that which we have on earth thy body will lie, asbestos-like, forever unconsumed, all thy veins roads for the feet of pain to travel on, every nerve a string on which the devil shall forever play his diabolical tune of Hell's unutterable Lament."
These horrible ideas were not obtained from the Old Testament, and yet they were fully believed by Jew and Pagan when Christ came. Whence came these views? If the New Testament teaches them, then Christ must have borrowed them from uninspired heathen. What does the New Testament teach concerning Hell?
The Jews of the time of Christ had abandoned the Old Testament teachings concerning retribution. They had made void the word of God by their traditions. How did they come to change their views?
CONVINCING TESTIMONIES
Whitby on Acts ii:27, says: "That Sheol throughout the Old Testament, and Hadees in the Septuagint, answering to it, signify not the place of punishment, or of the souls of bad men only, but the grave only, or the place of death, appears, 1st. From the root of it, Sheol, which signifies to ask, to crave and require. 2d. Because it is the place to which the good as well as the bad go, etc."
We repeat that during all the time that generations following generations of Jews were entertaining the ideas taught in the sixty-four passages, the surrounding heathen believed in a future, endless torment. Their literature is full of it. Says Good in his "Book of Nature":
"It was believed in most countries, that this Hell Hadees, or invisible world, is divided into two very distinct and opposite regions, by a broad and impassable gulf; that the one is a seat of happiness, a paradise, or Elysium, and the other a seat of misery, a Gehenna, or Tartarus; and that there is a supreme magistrate and an impartial tribunal belonging to the infernal shades, before which the ghosts must appear, and by which they are sentenced to the one or the other, according to the deeds done in the body. Egypt is said to have been the inventress of this important and valuable part of the tradition; and undoubtedly it is to be found in the earliest records of Egyptian history." (It should be observed that Gehenna was not used before Christ, or until 150 A.D. to denote a place of future punishment.)
Dr. Anthon says, "As regards the analogy between the term Hadees and our English word Hell, it may be remarked that the latter, in its primitive signification, perfectly corresponded to the former. For, at first, it denoted only what was secret or concealed; and it is found moreover, with little variation of form, and precisely with the same meaning, in all the Teutonic dialects."
The heathen sages admit that they invented this doctrine.
Strabo says: "The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds. . . . . For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue--but this must be done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (of the furies) the dragons, etc., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology." Geo. B. i.
Seneca says: "Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment-seat, etc., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors."
Dr. Thayer in his "Origin and History," says" "The process is easily understood. About three hundred and thirty years before Christ, Alexander the Great had subjected to his rule the whole of Western Asia, including Judea, and also the Kingdom of Egypt. Soon after he founded Alexandria, which speedily became a great commercial metropolis, and drew into itself a large multitude of Jews, who were always eager to improve the opportunities of traffic and trade. A few years later, Ptolemy Soter took Jerusalem, and carried off one hundred thousand of them into Egypt. Here, of course, they were in daily contact with the Egyptians and Greeks, and gradually began to adopt their philosophical and religious opinions, or to modify their own in harmony with them."
We must either reject these imported ideas, as heathen inventions, or we must admit that the heathen, centuries before Christ, discovered that of which Moses had no idea. In other words either uninspired men announced the future fate of sinners centuries before inspired men knew anything of it, or the heathen and "evangelical" descriptions of Hell are wholly false.
JEWISH AND PAGAN OPINIONS
At the time of Christ's advent Jew and Pagan held Hades to be a place of torment after death, to endure forever.
"The prevalent and distinguishing opinion was, that the soul survived the body, that vicious souls would suffer everlasting imprisonment in Hades, and that the souls of the virtuous would both be happy there, and, in process of time, obtain the privilege of transmigrating into other bodies." (Campbell's Four Gospels, Diss. 6, Pt. 2§19.) Of the Pharisees, Josephus says: "They also believe that souls have an immortal vigor in them, and that, under the earth, there will be rewards and punishments, according as they lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again." (Antiquities, B. 18, Ch. 1, §3. Whiston's Tr.)
HELL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT--HADEES
The word Hades occurs but eleven times in the New Testament, and is translated Hell ten times, and grave once. The word is from a not, and eido, to see, and means concealed, invisible. It has exactly the same meaning as Sheol, literally the grave, or death, and figuratively destruction, downfall, calamity, or punishment in this world, with no intimation whatever of torment or punishment beyond the grave. Such is the meaning in every passage of the Old Testament containing the word Sheol or Hades, whether translated Hell, grave or pit. Such is the invariable meaning of Hadees in the New Testament.
Says the "Emphatic Diaglot"; "To translate Hades by the word Hell as it is done ten times out of eleven in the New Testament, is very improper, unless it has the Saxon meaning of helan, to cover, attached to it. The primitive signification of Hell, only denoting what was secret or concealed, perfectly corresponds with the Greek term Hades and its equivalent Sheol, but the theological definition given to it at the present day by no means expresses it."
MEANING OF HADES
The greek Septuagint, which our Lord used when he read or quoted from the Old Testament, gives Hades as the exact equivalent of the Hebrew Sheol, and when the Savior, or his apostles, used the word, they must have meant the same as is meant in the Old Testament. When Hades is used in the New Testament we must understand it just as we do (Sheol or Hades) in the Old Testament.
OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS
Dr. Campbell well says: * * "In my judgment, it ought never in Scripture to be rendered Hell, at least, in the sense wherein that word is now universally understood by Christians. In the Old Testament, the corresponding word is Sheol, which signifies the state of the dead in general without regard to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery. In translating that word, the seventy have almost invariably used Hades. * * It is very plain, that neither in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, nor in the New, does the word Hades convey the meaning which the present English word Hell, in the Christian usage, alwlays conveys to our minds.---Diss. vi., pp. 180-1.
HEATHEN CORRUPTIONS
It must not be forgotten that contact with the heathen had corrupted the opinions of the Jews, at the time of our Savior, from the simplicity of Moses, and that by receiving the traditions and fables of paganism, they had made void the word of God. They had accepted Hadees as the best Greek word to convey the idea of Sheol, but without investing it at first with the heathen notions of the classic Hadees, as they afterwards did. What these ideas were, the classic authors inform us.
Gibbon says, (Milman's Gibbon, Ch. xxi): "The Jews had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and their theological opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse. We find in Ecclesiasticus, and the Wisdom of Solomon, and the later prophets, notions unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus God, represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of darkness; the history of good and bad angels; paradise and Hell, etc., are doctines of which the origin, or at least the positive determination can only be referred to the Oriental philosophy."
Let us consult all the texts in which the heathen word Hades is employed.
THRUST DOWN TO HADES
Matt. xi:23, and Luke x:15: "And thou, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to Hell." And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven shall be thrust down to Hell." Of course a city never went to a place of torment after death. The word is used here just as in Isa. xiv, where Babylon is said to be brought down to Sheol or Hadees, to denote debasement, overthrow, a prediction fulfilled to the letter. Dr. Clarke's interpretation is correct: "The word here means a state of the utmost woe, and ruin, and desolation, to which these impenitent cities should be reduced: for, in the wars between the Romans and the Jews, these cities were totally destroyed; so that no traces are now found of Bethsaida, Chorazin or Capernaum."
That Hades is the kingdom of death, and not a place of torment, after death, is evident from the language of Acts ii:27: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thy holy one to see corruption.: Verse 31: "His soul was not left in Hell, neither his flesh did see corruption," that is his spirit did not remain in the state of the dead, until his body decayed. No one supposes that Jesus went to a realm of torment when he died. Jacob wished to go down to Hades to his son mourning, so Jesus went to Hades, the underworld, the grave. The Apostle's creed conveys the same idea, when it speaks of Jesus as descending into Hell. He died, but his soul was not left in the realms of death, is the meaning.
THE GATES OF HADES
Matt. xvi:18: "And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." The word is here used as an emblem of destruction. "The gates of Hades" means the powers of destruction. It is the Savior's manner of saying that his church cannot be destroyed.
HADES IS ON EARTH
Rev. vi:8: "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." All the details of this description demonstrate that this Hell is on this earth, and not in the future world.
The word also occurs in Rev. i:18 "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of Hell and of death." To understand this passage literally, with the popular view of Hell added, would be to represent Jesus as the devil's gate-keeper. If Hell is a realm of torment, and the devil is its king, and Jesus keeps the keys, what is he but the devil's janitor, or turnkey? The idea is that Jesus defies death and the grave, evil, destruction, and all that is denoted either literally or figuratively by Hades, the under-world. Its gates open to him.
Canon farrar in Excursus II, "Eternal Hope," observes: "Hell has entirely changed its old harmless sense of the dim under-world; and that meaning, as it now does, to myriads of readers, a place of torment by material fire, into which all impenitent souls pass forever after death,--it conveys meanings which are not to be found in any word of the New or Old testament for which it is presented as an equivalent. In our Lord's language Capernaum was to be thrust down, not 'to Hell' but to the silence and desolation of the grave (Hadees); the promise that 'the gates of Hades' should not prevail against the church is perhaps a distinct implication of her triumph even beyond death in the souls of men for whom he died; Dives uplifts his eyes not 'in Hell', but in the intermediate Hades where he rests till the resurrection to a judgment, in which signs are not wanting that his soul may have been meanwhile ennobled and purified."
HADES DESTROYED
I Cor. xv:55: "O death, where is thy sing? O grave, where is thy victory?" This is parallel to Hos. xiv:14, where the destruction of Hades is prophesied. Whatever Haees means, it is not to endure forever. It is destined to be destroyed. It cannot be endless torment. That its inhabitants are to be delivered from its dominion, is seen from Rev. xx:13, "And Death and Hell delivered up the dead that were in them." This harmonizes with the declaration of David, that he had been delivered from it already. (Ps. xxx:3. II Sam. xxii:5,6) It does not retain its victims always, and therefore whatever it may mean, it does not denote endless imprisonment. Hence the next verse reads, "And death and Hell were cast into the lake of fire." Can a more striking description of utter destruction be given than this? Of course the language is all figurative, and not literal. Hell here denotes evil and its consequences. It is in this world, it opposes truth and human happiness, but it is to meet with a destruction so complete that only a sea of fire can indicate the character of its destruction.
THE RICH MAN AND LAZARUS
The only remaining occurrence of the word Hades is in the parable of Dives and Lazarus:
"And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried; and in Hell (Hades) he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." Luke xvi:22,23.
If this is a literal history, as is sometimes claimed, of the after-death experiences of two persons, then the good are carried about in Abraham's bosom; and the wicked are actually roasted in fire, and cry for water to cool their parched tongues. If these are figurative, then Abraham, Lazarus, Dives and the gulf, and every part of the account, are features of a picture, an allegory, as much as the fire and Abraham's bosom. If it be history, then the good are obliged to hear the appeals of the damned for that help which they cannot bestow! They are so near together as to be able to converse across the gulf, not wide but deep. It was this opinion that caused Jonathan Edwards to teach that the sight of the agonies of the damned enhances the joys of the blest!
1 The story is not fact, but a parable. This is denied by some Christians, who ask, does not our Savior say: "There was a certain rich man?" etc. True, but all his parables begin in the same way, "A certain rich man had two sons," and the like. In Judges ix, we read: "The trees went forth, on a time, to anoint a king over them, and they said to the olive tree, reign thou over us." This language is positive, and yet it describes something that never could have occurred. All fables, parables, and other fictitious accounts which are related to illustrate important truths have this positive form, to give force, point, life-likeness to the lessons they inculcate.
Dr. Whitby says: "That this is only a parable and not a real history of what was actually done, is evident from the circumstances of it, namely, the rich man lifting up his eyes in Hell, and seeing Lazarus in Abraham's bosom, his discourse with Abraham, his complaint of being tormented in flames, and his desire that Lazarus might be sent to cool his tongue, and if all this be confessedly parable, why should the rest be accounted history?" Lightfoot and Hammond make the same general comments, and Wakefield remarks, "To them who regard the narrative a reality it must stand as an unanswerable argument for the purgatory of the papists."
We give an indubitable proof that this is a parable. The Jews have a book, written during the Babylonish Captivity, entitled Gemara Babylonicum, containing doctrines entertained by Pagans concerning the future state, not recognized by the followers of Moses. This story is founded on heathen views. They were not obtained from the Bible, for the Old Testament contains nothing resembling them. They were among those traditions which our Savior condemned when he told the Scribes and Pharisees, "Ye make the word of God of none effect through your traditions," and when he said to his disciples, "Beware of the leaven, or doctine, of the Pharisees."
Our Savior seized the imagery of this story, not to indorse its truth, but just as we now relate any other fable. He related it as found in the Gemara, not for the story's sake, but to convey a moral to his hearers; and the Scribes and Pharisees to whom he addressed this and the five preceding stories, felt--as we shall see--the force of its application to them.
Says Dr. Geo. Campbell: "The Jews did not, indeed, adopt the pagan fables on this subject, nor did they express themselves entirely, in the same manner; but the general grain of thinking, in both, came pretty much to coincide. The Greek Hades they found well adapted to express the Hebrew Sheol. This they came to conceive as including different sorts of habitations, for ghosts of different characters."
Now as nothing resembling these ideas is found in the Old Testament, where did the Jews obtain it, if not from Greek mythology?
The commentator, Macknight (Scotch Presbyterian) says truly: "It must be acknowledged that our Lord's descriptions are not drawn from the writings of the Old Testament, but have a remarkable affinity to the descriptions which the Grecian poets have given. They represent the abodes of the blest as lying contiguous to the region of the damned, and separated only by a great impassable gulf in such sort that the ghosts could talk to one another from the opposite banks. If from these resemblances it is thought the parable is formed on the Grecian mythology, it will not at all follow that our Lord approved of what the common people thought or spoke concerning these matters, agreeably to the notions of Greeks. In parables, provided the doctrines inculcated are strictly true, the terms in which they are inculcated may be such as are most familiar to the people, and the images made use of are such as they are best acquainted with."
But if it were a literal history, nothing could be gained for the terrible doctrine of endless torment. It would oblige us to believe in literal fire after death, but there is not a word to show that such fire would never go out. We have heard it claimed that the punishment of the rich man must be endless, because there was a gulffixed so that those who desired to, could not cross it. But were this a literal account, it would not follow that the gulf would last alway. For are we not assured that the time is coming when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low?" Isa. xl:4. When every valley is exalted, what becomes of the great gulf? And then there is not a word said of the duration of the sufferings of the rich man. If the account be a history is must not militate against the promise of "The restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began." There is not a word intimating that the rich man's torment was never to cease. So the doctrine of endless misery is, after all, not in the least taught here. The most that can be claimed is that the consequences of sin extend into the future life, and this is a doctrine that we believe just as strongly as can any one, though we do not believe they will be endless, nor do we believe that the doctrine is taught in this parable, nor in the Bible use of the word Hell.
Charles Kingsley, the celebrated English author, says in his "Letters":
"You may quote the parable of Dives and Lazarus (which was the emancipation from the Tartarus theory) as the one instance in which our Lord professedly opens the secrets of the next world, that he there represents Dives as still Abraham's child, under no despair, not cut off from Abraham's sympathy, and under a direct moral training of which you see the fruit. He is gradually weaned from the selfish desire of indulgence for himself, to love and care for his brethren, a divine step forward in his life, which of itself proves him not to be lost. The impossibility of Lazarus getting to him, or vice versa, expresses plainly the great truth that each being is where he ought to be at that time, interchange of place, (i.e., of spiritual state) is impossible. But it says nothing against Dives rising out of his torment, when he has learnt the lesson of it, and going where he ought to go." So that on the theory that this is a literal account, it affords no evidence of endless torment.
But allowing for a moment that this is intended to represent a scene in the spirit world, what a representation we have! Dives is dwelling in a world of fire in the company of lost spirits, hardened by the depravity that must possess the residents of that world, and yet, yearning with compassion for those on earth. Not totally depraved, not harboring evil thoughts, but benevolent, humane. Instead of being loyal to the wicked world in which he dwells, as any one bad enough to go there should be, he actually tries to prevent migration thither from earth, while Lazarus is entirely indifferent to everybody but himself. Dives seems to have more mercy and compassion than does Lazarus.
But what does the parable teach? That the Jewish nation, and especially the Scribes and Pharisees were about to die as a power, as a church, as a controlling influence in the world; while the common people among them, and the Gentiles outside of them, were to be exalted in the new order of things. The details of the parable show this: "There was a certain rich man clothed in purple and fine linen." In these first words, by describing their very costume, the Savior fixed the attention of his hearers on the Jewish priesthood. They were, emphatically, the rich men of that nation. His description of the beggar was equally graphic. He lay at the gate of the rich, only asking to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the table. Thus dependent were the common people, and the Gentiles, on the scribes and Pharisees. We remember how Christ once rebuked them for shutting up the kingdom of heaven against these. They lay at the gates of the Jewish heirarchy, for the Gentiles were literally restricted to the outer court of the temple. Hence in Rev. xi:12, we read; "But the court, which is without the temple, leave out, and measure it not, for it is given unto the Gentiles." They could only walk the outer court, or lie at the gate. The brief, graphic descriptions given by our Savior, at once showed his hearers that he was describing those two classes, the Jewish priesthood and nation, on the one hand, and the common people, Jews and Gentiles, on the other.
The rich man died and was buried. This class died officially, nationally, and its power departed. The kingdom of God was taken from them, and conferred on others. The beggar died. The Gentiles, publicans and sinners, were translated into the kingdom of God's dear son, where is neither Jew nor Greek, but where all are one in Christ Jesus. This is the meaning of "Abraham's bosom." They accepted the true faith and so became one with faithful Abraham. Abraham is called the father of the faithful, and the beggar is represented to have gone to Abraham's bosom, to denote the fact, which is now history, that the common people and Gentiles accepted Christianity and have since continued Christian nations, enjoying the blessings of the Christian faith.
What is meant by the torment of the rich man? The misery of those proud men, when, soon after, their land was captured, and their city and temple possessed by barbarians, and they scattered like chaff before the wind--a condition in which they have continued from that day to this. All efforts to bless them with Christianity have proved unavailing. At this very moment there is a great gulf fixed so that there is no passing to and fro. And observe, the Jews do not desire the gospel. Nor did the rich man ask to enter Abraham's bosom with Lazarus. He only wished Lazarus to alleviate his sufferings by dipping his finger in water and cooling his tongue. It is so with the Jews today. They do not desire the gospel; they only ask those among whom they sojourn to tolerate them and soften the hardships that accompany their wanderings. The Jewich church and nation are now dead. Once they were exalted to heaven, but now they are thrust down to Hadees, the kingdom of death, and the gulf that yawns between them and the Gentiles shall not be abolished till the fullness of the Genitles shall come in, and "then Israel shall be saved."
Lightfoot says: "The main scope and design of it seems this: to hint the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, who, though they had Moses and the prophets, did not believe them, nay would not believe though one (even Jesus) arose from the dead."
Our quotations are not from Universalists, but from those who accepted the doctrine of eternal punishment, but who were forced to confess that this parable has no reference to that subject. The rich man, or the Jews, were and are in the same Hell in which David was when he said: "The pains of Hell (Hadees) got hold on me, I found trouble and sorrow," and "thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Hell." Not in endless woe in the future world, but in misery and suffering in this.
But this is not a final condition. Wherever we locate it, it must end. Paul asks the Romans, "Have they (the Jews) stumbled that they should fall? God forbid! but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles." "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness is in part happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, and so all Israel shall be saved. As it is written, There shall come out of Zion the deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, for this is my covenant with them when I shall take away their sins. xi:11, 25, 27.
In brief terms then, we may say that this is a fictitious story or parable describing the fate in this world of the Jewish and Gentile people of our Savior's times, and has not the slightest reference to the world after death, nor to the fate of mankind in that world.
Let the reader observe that the rich man, being in Hades, was in a place of temporary detention only. Whether this be a literal story or a parable, his confinement is not to be an endless one. This is demonstrated in a two-fold manner:
1. Death and Hades will deliver up their occupants. Rev. xx:13.
2. Hades is to be destroyed. I Cor. xv:55; Rev. xx:14.
Therefore Hades is of temporary duration. The Rich Man was not in a place of endless torment. As Prof. Stuart remarks: "Whatever the state of either the righteous or the wicked may be, whilst in Hades, that state will certainly cease, and be exchanged for another at the general resurrection."
Thus the New Testament usage agrees exactly with the Old Testament. Primarily, literally, Hades is death, the grave, and figuratively, it is destruction. It is in this world, and is to end. The last time it is referred to (Rev.xx:14) as well as in other instances (Hosea xiii:14; I Cor. xv:55) its destruction is positively announced.
So that the instances (sixty-four) in the Old Testament, and (eleven) in the New; in all seventy-five in the Bible, all perfectly agree in representing the word Hell, derived from the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades, as being in this world, and of temproary duration.
TARTARUS
This word occurs but once in the Bible: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell (Tartarus) and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." II Peter ii:4. The word in the Greek is Tartarus, or rather it is a verb from that noun. "Cast down to Hell" should be tartarused (tartarosas).
Greek mythology held Tartarus, says Anthon, in his Classical Dictionary, to be "the fabled place of punishment in the lower world." "According to the ideas of the Homeric and Hesiodic ages, it would seem that the world or universe was a hollow globe, divided into two equal portions by the flat disk of the earth. The external shell of this globe is called by the poets brazen and iron, probable only to express its solidity. The superior hemisphere was called Heaven and the inferior one Tartarus. Here the poet of the Odyssey also places Erebus, the realm of Pluto and Proserpina, the final dwelling place of all the race of men, a place which the poet of the Iliad describes as lying within the bosom of the earth. At a later period the change of religions gradually affected Erebus, the place of the reward of the good; and Tartarus was raised up to form the prison in which the wicked suffered the punishment due to their crimes."
Virgil illustrates this view, (Dryden's Virgil, Aeneid, viz.):
"'Tis here, in diff'rent paths, the way divides;--
The right to Pluto's golden palace guides,
The left to that unhappy region tends,
Which to the depths of Tartarus descends--
The seat of night profound and punished fiends.
* * * * * * * * * * *
The gaping gulf low to the centre lies,
And twice as deep as earth is from the skies,
The rival of the gods, the Titan race,
Here, singed with lightning, roll within th' unfathomed space."
Now it is not to be supposed that Peter indorses and teaches this monstrous nonsense of paganism. If he did, then we must accept all the absurdities that went with it in the pagan mythology. And if this is an item of Christian faith, why is it never referred to in the Old or New Testament? Why have we no descriptions of it, such as abound in classic literature?
THE BOOK OF ENOCH
Peter alludes to the subject just as though it were well-known and understood by his correspondents. "If the angels that sinned," what angels? "were cast down to Tartarus," where is the story related? Not in the Bible, but in a book well-known at the time, called the Book of Enoch. It was written some time before the Christian Era, and is often quoted by the Christian fathers. It embodies a tradition, to which Josephus alludes, (Ant. i:3) of certain angels who had fallen. (Dr. T.J.Sawyer, in Univ. Quart) From this apocryphal book, Peter quoted the verse referring to Tartarus. Dr. Sawyer says:
"Not only the moderns are forced to this opinion, but it seems to have been universally adopted by the ancients. Irenaius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Hilary," says Professor Stuart, "all of whom refer to the book before us, and quote from it, say nothing which goes to establish the idea that any Christians of their day denied or doubted that a quotation was made by the apostle Peter from the Book of Enoch. Several, and in fact, most of these writers do, indeed, call in question the canonical rank or authority of the book of Enoch; but the apologies which they make for the quotation of it in Peter, show that the quotation itself was, as a matter of fact, generally conceded among them." There are, it is true, some individuals who still doubt whether Peter quoted the Book of Enoch; but while as Professor Stuart suggests, this doubt is incapable of being confirmed by any satisfactory proof, it avails nothing to deny the quotation; for it is evident if Peter did not quote the Book of Enoch, he did quote a tradition of no better authority."
This Book of Enoch is full of absurd legends, which no sensible man can accept.
WHAT DID PETER MEAN?
Why did Peter quote from it? Just as men now quote from the classics, not sanctioning the truth of the quotation, but to illustrate and enforce a proposition. Nothing is more common than for writers to quote fables "As the toroise said to the hare," in Aesop; "As the sun said to the wind," etc. We have the same practice illustrated in the Bible. Joshua, after a poetical quotation adorning his narrative, says: "Is not this written in the Book of Jasher?" (Josh. x:113) and Jeremiah (xlviii:45) says: "A fire shall come forth out of Heshbon," quoting from an ancient poet, says Dr. Adam Clarke. Peter alludes to this ancient legend, to illustrate the certainty of retribution, without any intention of teaching the silly notions of angels falling from heaven, and certainly not meaning to sanction the then prevalent notions concerning the heathen Tartarus. This is the only alternative: either the pagan doctrine is true, and the heathen got ahead of inspiration by ascertaining the fact before the authors of the Bible learned it--for it was currently accepted centuries before Christ, and is certainly not taught in the Old Testament--or Peter quotes it as Jesus refers to Mammon, rhetorically, to illustrate the great fact of retribution he was inculcating. If true, how can any one account for the fact that it is never referred to in the Bible, before or after this once? Besides, these angels are not to be detained always in Tartarus, they are to be released. The language is, "delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment." When their judgment comes, they emerge from duress. They only remain in Tartarus 'unto judgment." Their imprisonment is therefore a limited one, so that the language gives no proof of endless punishment, even if it were a literal description.
But no one can fail to see that the apostle employs the legend of the Book of Enoch to illustrate and enforce his doctrine of retribution. As though he had said: "If, as is believed by some, God spared not the angels that sinned, do not let us who sin, mortal men, expect to escape." If this view is denied there is no escape from the gross doctrine of Tartarus, as taught by the pagan, and that, too, on the testimony of a solitary sentence of Scripture!
But whatever may be the intent of the words, they do not teach endless torment, for the chains referred to last only unto the judgment.
GEHENNA
While nearly all "orthodox" authorities of eminence concede that sheol and Hades do not denote a place of torment in the future world, most of those who accept the doctrine of endless torment claim that Gehenna does convey that meaning. This place is the last ditch of those who are struggling to establish the fact of the endless supremacy of sin and sorrow. It is the malakoff of orthodoxy.
But no such force resides in this word, nor is there a scintilla of evidence that it ever was imagined to carry such an idea until many years after Christ. An examination of the Bible use of the term will show us that the popular view is obtained by injecting the word with current pagan superstition. Its origin and the first references to it in the Old Testament, are correctly stated by eminent critics and exegetes.
OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS
Says Campbell: "The word Gehenna is derived, as all agree, from the Hebrew words ge hinnom; which in diverse forms; e.g., Chaldee Gehennom, Arabic Gahannam, Greek Gehenna. The valley of Hinnom is a part of the pleasant wadi or valley which bound Jerusalem on the south. Josh. xv:8; xviii:6. Here, in ancient times, and under some of the idolatrous kings, the worship of Moloch, the horrid idol-god of the Ammonites, was practised. To this idol children were offered in sacrifice. II Kings xxiii:10; Ezek. xxiii:37,19; II Chron. xxviii:3; Lev. xviii:21; xxx:2. If we may credit the Rabbins, the head of the idol was like that of an ox; while the rest of the body resembled that of a man. It was hollow within; and, being heated by fire, children were laid in its arms and were literally roasted alive. We cannot wonder, then, at the severe terms in which the worship of Moloch is everywhere denounced in the Scriptures. Nor can we wonder that the place itself should have been calledTophet, i.e., abomination, detestation (from toph, to vomit with loathing)." Jer.viii:32; xix:6; II Kings xxiii:10; Ezek. xxiii:36,39.
"Gehenna, originally a Hebrew word, which signifies the valley of Hinnom, is composed of the common noun, Gee, valley, and the proper name Hinnom, the owner of this valley. The valley of the sons of Hinnom was a delightful vale, planted with trees, watered by fountains, and lying near Jerusalem, on the southeast, by the brook Kidron. Here the Jews placed that brazen image of Moloch, which had the face of a calf, and extended its hands as those of a man. It is said, on the authority of the ancient Rabbins, that, to this image, the idolatrous Jews were wont not only to sacrifice doves, pigeons, lambs, rams, calves and bulls, but even to offer their children. I Kings ix:7; II Kings xv:3,4. In the prophecy of Jeremian, (Ch. vii:31) this valley is called Tophet, from Toph, a drum; because the administrators in these horrid rites, beat drums lest the cries and shrieks of the infants who were burned, should be heard by the assembly. At length, these nefarious practices were abolished by Josiah, and the Jews brought back to the pure worship of God. II Kings xxiii:10. After this, they held the place in such abomination, it is said, that they cast into it all kinds of filth, together with the carcasses of beasts, and the unburied bodies of criminals who had been executed. Continual fires were necessary, in order to consume these, lest the putrefaction should infect the air; and there were always worms feeding on the remaining relics. Hence it came, that any severe punishment, especially a shameful kind of death, was denominated Gehenna." Schleusner.
As we trace the history of the locality as it occurs in the Old Testament, we learn that it should never have been translated by the word Hell. It is a proper name of a well-known locality, and ought to have stood Gehenna, as it does in the French Bible, in Newcome's and Wakefield's translation, in the Improved Version, Emphatic Diaglott, etc. Babylon might have been translated Hell with as much propriety as Gehenna.
It is fully described in numerous passages in the Old Testament, and is exactly located on earth.
"And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is Jerusalem, and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward." Joshua xv:8. "And he (Joshua) defiled Tophet, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch." II Kings xxiii:10. "Moreover, he (Ahaz) burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen." II Chron. xxviii:3. "And they (the children of Judah) have built the high places of Tophet which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place." Jer. vii:31,32. "And go forth into the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is by the entry of the east gate, and proclaim there the words that I shall tell thee. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that this place shall no more be calledTophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter." Jer. xix:2,6.
These and other passages show that Gehenna was a well-known valley, near Jerusalem, in which the Jews in their idolatrous days had sacrificed their children to the idol Moloch, in consequence of which it was condemned to receive the offal and refuse and sewage of the city, and into which the bodies of malefactors were cast, and where, to destroy the odor and pestilential influences, continual fires were kept burning. Here fire, smoke, worms bred by the corruption, and other repulsive features, rendered the place a horrible one, in the eyes of the Jews. It was a locality with which they were as well acquainted as they were with any place in or around the city. After these horrible practices, King Josiah polluted the place and rendered it repulsive.
"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the sons of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place. And the carcasses of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beast of the earth; and none shall fray them away. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judea, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the land shall be left desolate." Jer. vii:32-34. "And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall eat every one the flesh of his friend in the siege and straitness, wherewith their enemies, and they that seek their lives, shall straiten them. And they shall bury them in Tophet, till there be no place to bury. Thus will I do unto this place, saith the Lord, and to the inhabitants thereof, and even make this city as Tophet. And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods. Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord's house, and said to the people: Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Behold I will bring upon this city and upon all her towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words." Jer. xix:12-15.
These passages show that Gehenna or Tophet was a locality near Jerusalem, and that to be cast there literally, was the doom threatened and executed. Every Bible reference is to this world.
In Dr. Bailey's English Dictionary, Gehenna is defined to be "a place in the valley of the tribe of Benjamin, terrible for two sorts of fire in it, that wherein the Israelites sacrificed their children to the idol Moloch, and also another kept continually burning to consume the dead carcasses and filth of Jerusalem."
But in process of time Gehenna came to be an emblem of the consequences of sin, and to be employed figuratively by the Jews to denote those consequences. But always in this world. The Jews never used it to mean torment after death, until long after Christ. That the word had not the meaning of post-mortem torment when our Savior used it, is demonstrable: Josephus was a Pharisee, and wrote at about the time of Christ, and expressly says that the Jews at that time (corrupted from the teachings of Moses) believed in endless punishment, but he never employs Gehenna to denote the place of punishment. He uses the word Hadees, which the Jews had then obtained from the heathen, but he never uses Gehenna, as he would have done, had it possessed that meaning then, This demonstrates that the word had no such meaning then. In addition to this neither the Apocrypha, which was written from 280 to 150 B.C., nor Philo, ever uses the word. It was first used in the modern sense of Hell by Justin Martyr, one hundred and fifty years after Christ.
Dr. Thayer concludes a most thorough excursus on the word ("Theology") thus:
"Our inquiry shows that it is employed in the Old Testament in its literal or geographical sense only, as the name of the valley lying on the south of Jerusalem--that the septuagint proves it retained this menaing as late as B.C. 150--that it is not found at all in the Apocrypha; neither in Philo, nor in Josephus, whose writings cover the very times of the Savior and the New Testament, thus leaving us without a single example of contemporary usage to determine its meaning at this period--that from A.D. 150-195, we find in two Greek authors, Justin and Clement of Alexandria, the first resident in Italy and the last in Egypt, that Gehenna began to be used to designate a place of punishment after death, but not endless punishment, since Clement was a believer in universal restoration--that the first time we find Gehenna used in this sense in any Jewish writing is near the beginning of the third century, in the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, two hundred years too late to be of any service in the argument--and lastly, that the New Testament usage shows that while it had not wholly lost its literal sense, it was also employed in the time of Christ as a symbol of moral corruption and wickedness; but more especially as a figure of the terrible judgments of God on the rebellious and sinful nation of the Jews."
The Jewish talmud and targums use the word in the sense that the Christian Church has so long used it, though without attributing endlessness to it, but none of them are probably older than A.D. 200. The oldest is the targum (translation) of Johathan Ben Uzziel, which was written according to the best of authorities between A.D. 200 and A.D. 400.
"Most of the eminent critics now agree, that it could not have been completed till some time between two and four hundred years after Christ." Univ. Expos. Vol. 2, p.368.
At the time of Christ the Old Testament existed in Hebrew. The Septuagint translation of it was made between two hundred and four hundred years before his birth. In both Gehenna is never used as the name of a place of future punishment. A writer in the Universalist Expositor remarks, (Vol.2)):
"Both the Apocrypha and the works of Philo, when compared together, afford circumstantial evidence that the word cannot have been currently employed, during their age, to denote a place of future torment. And we cannot discover in Josephus, that either of these sects, the Pharisees or the Essenes, both of which believed the doctrine of endless misery, supposed it to be a state of fire, or that the Jews ever alluded to it by that emblem."
The Apocrypha, B.C.150-500, Philo Judaeus A.D.40, and Josephus, A.D.70-100, all refer to future punishment, but none of them use Gehenna to describe it, which they would have done, being Jews, had the word been then in use with that meaning. Were it the name of a place of future torment then, can any one doubt that it would be found repeatedly in their writings? And does not the fact that it is never found in their writings demonstrate that it had no such use then, and if so, does it not follow that Christ used it in no such sense?
Canon Farrar says of Gehenna (Preface to "Eternal Hope"): "In the Old Testament it is merely the pleasant valley of Hinnom (Ge Hinnom) subsequently desecrated by idolatry, and especially by Moloch worship, and defiled by Josiah on this account. (See I Kings, xi:7; II Kings xxiii:10; Jer. vii:31 xix:10-14; Isa. xxx:33; Tophet). Used according to Jewish tradition, as the common sewerage of the city, the corpses of the worst criminals were flung into it unburied, and fires were lit to purify the contaminated air. It then became a word which secondarily implied (1) the severest judgment which a Jewish court could pass upon a criminal--the casting forth of his unburied corpse amid the fires and worms of this polluted valley; and (2) a punishment--which to the Jews as a body never meant an endless punishment beyond the grave. Whatever may be the meaning of the entire passages in which the word occurs, 'Hell' must be a complete mistranslation, since it attributes to the term used by Christ a sense entirely different from that in which it was understood by our Lord's hearers, and therefore entirely different from the sense in which he could have used it. Origen says (c. Celsus vi:25) that Gehenna denotes (1) the vale of Hinnom, and (2) a purificatory fire (eis tem meta basanon katharsin). He declares that Celsus was totally ignorant of the meaning of Gehenna."
JEWISH VIEWS OF GEHENNA
Gehenna is the name given by Jews to Hell. Rev. H. N. Adler, a Jewish Rabbi, says: "They do not teach endless retributive suffering. They hold that is is not conceivable that a God of mercy and justice would ordain infinite punishment for finite wrong-doing." Dr. Deutsch declares: "There is not a word in the Talmud that lends any support to that damnable dogma of endless torment." Dr. Dewes in his "Plea for Rational Translation," says that Gehenna is alluded to four or five times in the Mishna, thus: "The judgment of Gehenna is for twelve months;" "Gehenna is a day in which the impious shall be burnt." Bartolloci declares that "the Jews did not believe in a material fire, and thought that such a fire as they did believe in would one day be put out." Rabbi Akiba, "the second Moses," said: "The duration of the punishment of the wicked in Gehenna is twelve months." Adyoth iii:10. Some rabbis said Gehenna only lasted from Passover to Pentecost. This was the prevalent conception. (Abridged from Excursus v, in Canon Farrar's "Eternal Hope," He gives in a note these testimonies to prove that the Jews to whom Jesus spoke, did not regard Gehenna as of endless duration). Asarath Maamaroth, f. 85, I: "There will hereafter be no Gehenna." Jalkuth Shimoni, f. 46, I: "Gabriel and Michael will open the eight thousand gates of Gehenna, and let out Israelites and righteous Gentiles." A passage in Othoth, (attributed to R. Akiba) declares that Gabriel and Michael will open the forty thousand gates of Gehenna, and set free the damned, and in Emek Hammelech, f. 138, 4, we read: "The wicked stay in Gehenna till the resurrection, and then the Messiah passing through it redeems them.": See Stephelius' Rabbinical Literature.
Rev. Dr. Wise, a learned Jewish Rabbi, says: "That the ancient Hebrews had no knowledge of Hell is evident from the fact that their language has no term for it."
Before considering the passages of Scripture containing the word, the reader should carefully read and remember the following
IMPORTANT FACTS
1 Gehenna was a well-known locality near Jerusalem. see Josh. xv:8; II Kings xvii:10; II Chron. xxviii:3; Jer. vii:31-32; xix:2.
2 Gehenna is never employed in the Old Testament to mean anything else than the locality with which every Jew was familiar.
3 The word should have been left untranslated as it is in some versions, and it would not be misunderstood. It should no more be rendered Hell than should Babylon. It was not misunderstood by the Jews to whom Jesus addressed it. Walter Balfour well says:" "What meaning would the Jews who were familiar with this word, and knew it to signify the valley of Hinnom, be likely to attatch to it, when the heard it used by our Lord?"
4 The French Bible, the Emphatic Diaglott, Improved Version, Wakefield's Translation, and Newcomb's retain the proper noun, Gehenna, the name of the well-known place.
5 Gehenna is never mentioned in the Apocrypha as a place of future punishment, as it would have been, had such been its meaning before and at the time of Christ.
6 No Jewish writer contemporary with Christ, such as Josephus, or Philo, ever uses it as the name of a place of future punishment, as would have been done had such then been its meaning.
7 No classic Greek author ever alludes to it, and therefore, it was a Jewish locality, purely.
8 The first Jewish writer who ever names it as a place of future punishment is Johnathan Ben Uzziel; who wrote, according to various authorities, from the second to the eighth century, A.D.
9 The first Christian writer who calls Hell Gehenna, is Justin Martyr, who wrote about A.D. 150.
10 Neither Christ nor his apostles ever named it to Gentiles, but only to Jews, which proves it a locality only known to Jews, whereas, if it were a place of punishment after death for sinners, it would have been preached to Gentiles as well as Jews.
11 It was only referred to twelve times, on eight occasions, in all the ministry of Christ and the apostles, and in the Gospels and Epistles. Were they faithful to their mission, to say no more, on so vital a theme as an endless Hell, if they intended to teach it?
12 Only Jesus and James ever named it. Neither Paul, John, Peter nor Jude ever employed it. Would they not have warned sinners concerning it, if there were a Gehenna of torment after death?
13 Paul says he "shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God," and yet, though he was the great preacher of the Gospel to the Gentiles he never told them that Gehenna was a place of after-death punishment. Would he not repeatedly have warned sinners against it, were there such a place?
Dr. Thayer signigicantly remarks: "The Savior and James are the only persons in all the New Testament who use the word. John Baptist, who preached to the most wicked of men, did not use it once. Paul wrote fourteen epistles, and yet never once mentions it. Peter does not name it, nor Jude; and John who wrote the gospel, three epistles, and the book of Revelations, never employs it in a single instance. Now if Gehenna or Hell really reveals the terrible fact of endless woe, how can we account for this strange silence? How is it possible, if they knew its meaning, and believed it a part of Christ's teaching, that they should not have used it a hundred or a thousand times, instead of never using it at all; especially when we consider the infinite interests involved? The Book of Acts contains the record of the apostolic preaching, and the history of the first planting of the church among the Jews and Gentiles, and embraces a period of thirty years from the ascension of Christ. In all this history, in all this preaching of the disciples and apostles of Jesus, there is no mention of Gehenna. In thirty years of missionary effort, these men of God, addressing people of all characters and nations, never, under any circumstances, threaten them with the torments of Gehenna, or allude to it in the most distant manner! In the face of such a fact as this, can any man believe that Gehenna signifies endless punishment; and that this is a part of divine revelation, a part of the gospel message to the world?"
14 Jesus never uttered it to unbelieving Jews, nor to anybody but his disciples, but twice (Matt. xxiii:15-33) during his entire ministry, nor but four times in all. If it were the final abode of unhappy millions, would not his warnings abound with exhortations to avoid it?
15 Jesus never warned unbelievers against it but once in all his ministry, (Matt. xxii:33) and he immediately explained it as about to come in this life.
16 If Gehenna is the name of Hell then men's bodies are burned there as well as their souls. Matt. v:29; xviii:9.
17 If it be the place of endless torment, then literal fire is the sinner's punishment. Mark ix:43-48.
18 Salvation is never said to be from Gehenna.
19 Gehenna is never said to be of endless duration, nor spoken of as destined to last forever, so that even admitting the popular ideas of its existence after death, it gives no support to the dogma of endless torment.
20 Clement, one of the earliest Christian fathers, was a Universalist, and yet he uses Gehenna to describe the sinner's punishment, showing that then the word did not denote endless punishment.
21 A shameful death, or a severe punishment, in this life, was, at the time of Christ, denominated Gehenna, (Schleusner, Canon Farrar and others) and there is no evidence that Gehenna meant anything else, at the time of Christ.
With these preliminaries let us consider the twelve passages in which the word occurs.
DANGER OF HELL-FIRE
"But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of Hell fire." Matt. v:22.
The purpose of Jesus was to show how exacting is Christianity. It judges the motives. This he affirms in the last sentence of the verse, after referring to the legal penalties of Judaism in the first two. The "Judgment" here is the lower ecclesiastical court of twenty-three judges: the "council" is the higher court, which could condemn to death. But Christianity is so exacting, that if one is contemptuous toward another, he will be adjudged by Christian principles guilty of the worst crimes, as "he who hateth his brother has already committed murder in his heart." We give the true meaning of this passage in the words of "orthodox" commentators.
Dr. Adam Clarke says: "It is very probable that our Lord means no more here than this: 'If a man charge another with apostasy from the Jewish religion, or rebellion against God, and cannot prove his charge, then he is exposed to that punishment (burning alive) which the other must have suffered, if the charge had been substantiated.' There are three offenses here which exceed each other in their degrees of guilt. 1. Anger against a man, accompanied with some injurious act. 2. Contempt, expressed by the opprobrious epithet 'raca', or shallow brains. 3. Hatred and mortal enmity, expressed by the term moreh, apostate, where such apostasy could not be proved. Now proportioned to these three offenses were three different degrees of punishment, each exceeding the other in severity, as the offenses exceeded each other in their different degrees of guilt. 1. The judgment, the council of twenty-three, which could inflict the punishment of strangling. 2 The Sanhedrim, or great council, which could inflict the punishment of stoning. 3. The being burnt in the valley of the son of Hinnom. This appears to be the meaning of our Lord. Our Lord here alludes to the valley of the son of Hinnom. This place was near Jerusalem; and had been formerly used for those abominable sacrifices in which the idolatrous Jews had caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch." Com. in loc.
We do not understand that a literal casting into Gehenna is here inculcated--as Clarke teaches--but that the severest of all punishments are due those who are contemptuous to others. Gehenna fire is here figuratively, and not literally used, but its torment is in this life.
Barnes: "In this verse it denotes a degree of suffering higher than the punishment inflicted by the court of seventy, the Sanhedrin. And the whole verse may therefore mean, He that hates his brother without a cause, is guilty of a violation of the sixth commandment, and shall be punished with a severity similar to that inflicted by a court of judgment He that shall suffer his passions to transport him to still greater extravagances, and shall make him an object of derision and contempt, shall be exposed to still severer punishment, corresponding to that which the Sanhedrin or council inflicts. But he who shall load his brother with odious appellations and abusive language, shall incur the severest degree of punishment, represented by being burnt alive in the horrid and awful valley of Hinnom." (Com.)--A. A. Livrmore, D.D., says: "Three degrees of anger are specified, and three corresponding gradations of punishment, proportioned to the different degrees of guilt. Where these punishments will be inflicted, he does not say, he need not say. The man who indulges any wicked feelings against his brother man, is in this world punished; his anger is the torture of his soul, and unless he repents of it and forsakes it, it must prove his woe in all future states of his being."
Whether Jesus here means the literal Gehenna, or makes these three degrees of punishment emblems of the severe spiritual penalties inculcated by Christianity, there is no reference to the future world in the language.
CAST INTO HELL-FIRE
"And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell." Matt. v:28-29. "And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into Hell-fire." Matt. xviii:9. "And 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 fire that never shall be quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into Hell-fire." Mark ix:43-49.
These passages mean that it is better to accept Christianity, and forego some worldly privilege, than to possess all worldly advantages, and be overwhelmed in the destruction then about to come upon theJews, when multitudes were literally cast into Gehenna. Or it may be figuratively used, as Jesus probably used it, thus: It is better to enter the Christian life destitute of some great worldly advantage, comparable to a right hand, than to live in sin, with all worldly privileges, and experience that moral death which is a Gehenna of the soul. In this sense it may be used of men now as then. But there is no reference to an after-death suffering, in any proper use of the terms. The true idea of the language is this: Embrace the Christian life, whatever sacrifice it calls for. The latter clause carries out the idea in speaking of the undying worm.
"Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Undoubtedly Jesus had reference to the language of the prophet: "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for the worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched: and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." Isa. lxvi:23-24.
The prophet and the Savior both referred to the overthrow of Jerusalem, though by accommodation we may apply the language generaly understanding by Hell or Gehenna, that condition brought upon the soul, in this world by sin. But the application by the prophet and the Savior was to the day then soon to come. The undying worm was in this world. The worms that bred in the filth of "Gehenna are made emblems of the corruption of the sinful soul in this world; so Isaiah taught, and Jesus quoted his language.
Strabo calls the lamp in the Parthenon, and Plutarch calls the sacred fire of a temple "unquenchable," though they were extinguished ages ago. Josephus says that the fire on the altar of the temple at Jerusalem was "always unquenchable," abeston aie, though the fire had gone out and the temple was destroyed at the time of his writing. Eusebius says that certain martyrs of Alexandria "were burned in unquenchable fire," though the fire was extinguished in the course of an hour! The very expression in English, which Homer has in Greekasbestos gelos, (Iliad, i:599) unquenchable laughter.
Bloomfield says of this text in his Notes: "Deny thyself what is even the most desireable and alluring, and seems the most necessary, when the sacrifice is demanded by the good of thy soul. Some think that there is an allusion to the amputation of diseased members of the body, to prevent the spread of any disorder." Dr. A.A.Livermore adds: "The main idea here conveyed, is that of punishment, extreme suffering, and no intimation is given as to its place, or its duration, whatever may be said in other texts in relation to these points."
Dr. Ballou says (Vol. I, Universalist Quarterly): "Jesus uses this well-known example of a most painful sacrifice for the preservation of corporeal life, only that he may the more strongly enforce a corresponding solicitude to preserve the moral life of the soul. And if so, it naturally follows that those prominent particulars in the passages which literally relate to the body, are to be understood as figures, and interpreted accordingly. If one's eye or hand become to him an offence, or cause of danger, it is better to part with it than to let it corrupt the body fit to be thrown into the valley of Hinnom."
DESTROY SOUL AND BODY IN HELL
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell. Matt. x:28. "But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him." Luke xil:5.
The reader of these verses and the accompanying language, will observe that Jeus is exhorting his disciples to have entire faith in God. The most that men can do is to destroy the body, but God "is able," "hath power" to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna. It is not said that God has any disposition or purpose of doing so. He is able to do it, as it is said (Matt. iii:9) he is "able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." He never did, and never will raise up children to Abraham of the stones of the street, but he is able to, just as he is able to destroy soul and body in Gehenna, while men could only destroy the body there. Fear the mighty power of God, who could, if he chose, annihilate man, while the worst that men could do would be to destroy mere animal life. It is a forcible exhortation to trust in God, and has no reference to torment after death. fear not those who can only torture you--man--but fear God who can annihilate, (apokteino).
1 This language was addressed by Christ to his disciples, and not to sinners.
2 It proves God's ablility to annihilate (destroy) and not his purpose to torment. Donnegan defines appollumi, "to destroy utterly."
As though Jesus had said: "Fear not those who can only kill the body, but rather him, who, if he chose could annihilate the whole being. Fear not man but God."
"So much may suffice to show the admitted fact, that the destruction of soul and body was a proverbial phrase, indicating utter extinction or complete destruction." Paige
Dr. W. E. Manley observes that the condition threatened "is one wherein the body can be killed. And no one has imagined any such place, outside the present state of being. Nor can there be the least doubt about the nature of this killing of the body; for the passage is so constructed as to settle this question beyond all controversy. It is taking away the natural life, as was done by the persecutors of the apostles. The Jews were in a condition of depravity properly represented by Gehenna. the apostles had been in that condition, but had been delivered from it. By supposing the word Hell to denote a condition now and in the present life, there is no abusurdity involved. Sinful men may here suffer both natural death and moral death; but in the future life, natural death cannot be suffered; whatever may be said of moral death. Fear not men, your persecutors, who can inflict on you only bodily suffering. But rather fear him who is able to inflict both bodily suffering, and what is worse, mental and moral suffering, in that condition of depravity represented by the foulest and most revolting locality known to the Jewish people."
"Woe unto you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of Hell than yourselves." Matt. xxiii:15.
Looking upon the smoking valley, and thinking of its corruptions and abominations, to call a man a "child of Gehenna" was to say that his heart was corrupt and his chartacter vile, but it no more indicated a place of woe after death, than a resident of New York would imply such a place by calling a bad man a child of Five Points.
THE DAMNATION OF HELL
"Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?" Matt. xxiii33.
This verse undoubtedly refers to the literal destruction that soon after befell the Jewish nation, when six hundred thousand experienced literally the condemnation of Gehenna, by perishing miserably by fire and sword. The next words explain this damnation:
"Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you all these things shall come upon this generation." This was long before prophesied by Jeremiah, (chapter xix): "Then came Jeremiah from Tophet, whither the Lord had sent him to prophesy; and he stood in the court of the Lord's house, and said to all the people, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Behold, I will bring upon this city, and upon all her towns, all the evil that I have pronounced against it; because they have hardened their necks, that they might hear my words." Isaiah has reference to the same in chapter lxvi:24: "And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh." This explains the "unquenchable fire" and the "undying worm." They are in this world.
SET ON FIRE OF HELL
"And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and is set on fire of Hell." James iii:6.
A tongue set on fire of Gehenna, when James wrote, was understood just as in London a tongue inspired by Billingsgate, or in New York by Five Points, or in Boston by Ann Street, or in Chicago by Fifth Avenue, would be understood namely, a profane and vulgar tongue. No reference whatever was made to any after-death place of torment, but the allusion was solely to a locality well known to the Jews as a place of corruption, and it was figuratively and properly applied to a vile tongue.
CONCLUSION
We have thus briefly explained all the passages in which Gehenna occurs. Is there any intimation that it denotes a place of punishment after death? Not any. If it mean such a place no one can escape believing that it is a place of literal fire, and all the modern talk of a Hell of conscience is most erroneous. But that it has no such meaning is corroborated by the tesitmony of Paul, who says he "shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God," and yet he never, in all his writings, employs the word once, nor does he use the word Hadees but once, and then he signifies its destruciton; "Oh Hadees, where is thy victory?" If Paul believed in a place of endless torment, would he have been utterly silent in reference to it, in his entire ministry? His reticence is a demonstration that he had no faith in it, though the Jews and heathen all around him preached it and believed it implicitly.
A careful reading of the Old Testament shows that the vale of Hinnom was a well known and repulsive valley near Jerusalem, and an equally careful reading of the New Testament teaches that Gehenna, or Hinnom's vale was explained as always in this world. (Jer. vii:29-34: xix:4-15: Matt. x:28) and was to befall the sinners of that generation (Matt. xxiv) in this life (Matt. x:30) that their bodies and souls were exposed to its calamities. It was only used in the New Testament on five occasions, either too few, or else modern ministers use it altogether too much. John, who wrote for Gentiles, and Paul who was the great appostle to the Gentiles, never used it once, nor did Peter. If it had a local application and meaning we can understand this, but if it be the name of the receptacle of damned souls to all eternity, it would be impossible to explain such inconsistency.
The primary meaning then, of Gehenna is a well-known locality near Jerusalem; but it was sometimes used to denote the consequences of sin, in this life. It is to be understood in these two senses only, in all the twelve passages in the New Testament. In the second century after Christ it came to denote a place of torment after death, but it is never employed in that sense in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Apocrypha nor was it used by any contemporary of Christ with that meaning, nor was it ever thus employed by any Christian until Justin and Clement thus used it (A.D. 150) and the latter was a Universalist, nor by anyJew until in the targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, about a century later. And even then it only denoted future, but did not denote endless punishment, until a still later period.
The English author, Charles Kingsley, writes ("Letters") to a friend:
"The doctrine occurs nowhere in the Old Testament, nor any hint of it. The expression, in the end of Isaiah, about the fire not quenched, and the worm not dying, is plainly of the dead corpses of men upon the physical earth, in the valley of Hinnom or Gehenna, where the offal of Jerusalem was burned perpetually. The doctrine of endless torment was, as a historical fact, brought back from Babylon by the Rabbis. It may be a very ancient primary doctrine of the Magi, an appendage of their fire-kingdom of Ahreman, and may be found in the old Zends, long prior to Christianity. St. Paul accepts nothing of it as far as we can tell, never making the least allusion to the doctrine. The Apocalypse simply repeats the imagery of Isaiah, and of our Lord; but asserts distinctly the non-endlessness of torture, declaring that in the consummation, not only death but Hell shall be cast into the lake of fire. The Christian church has never held it exclusively till now. It remained quite an open question till the age of Justinian, 530, and significantly enough, as soon as 200 years before that, endless torment for the heathen became a popular theory, purgatory sprang up synchronously by the side of it, as a relief for the conscience and reason of the church."
Canon Farrar truthfully says, in his "Eternal Hope": The word rendered Hell is in one place the Greek word "Tartarus", borrowed, as a word, for the prison of evil spirits, not after, but before the resurrection. It is in ten places 'Hadees', which simply means the world beyond the grave, and it is twleve places 'Gehenna', which means primarily, the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jeruslaem, in which, after it had been polluted by Moloch worship, corpses were flung and fires were lit; and, secondly, it is a metaphor, not of final and hopeless, but of purifying and corrective, punishment which, as we all believe, does await impenitent sin both here and beyond the grave. But, be it solemnly observed, the Jews to whom and in whose metaphorical sense, the word was used by our blessed Lord, never did, either then or at any other period, attach to that word 'Gehenna', which he used, that meaning of endless torment which we have been taught to apply to Hell. To them, and, therefore, on the lips of our blessed Savior who addressed it to them, it means not a material and everlasting fire, but an intermediate, a metaphorical, and a terminal retribution."
In Excursus II, "Eternal Hope," he says the "damnation of Hell," is the very different "judgment of Gehenna;" and Hell-fire is the "Gehenna of fire". "an expression which on Jewish lips was never applied in our Lord's days to endless torment". Origen tells us (c. Celsus vi:25) that finding the word Gehenna in the Gospels for the place of punishment, he made a special search into its meaning and history; and after mentioning (1) the Valley of Hinnom, and (2) a purifactory fire (eis teen meta basanon katharsin) he mysteriously adds that he thinks it unwise to speak without reserve about his discoveries. No one reading the passage can doubt that he means to imply the use of the word "Gehenna" among the Jews to indicate a terminable and not an endless punishment."
The English word Hell occurs in the Bible fifty-five times, thirty-two in the Old Testament and twenty-three in the New testament. The original terms translated Hell (Sheol-Hadees) occur in the Old Testament sixty times and in the New Testament twenty-four times; Hadees eleven times, Gehenna twelve times, and Tartarus once. In every instance the meaning is death, the grave, or the consequences of sin in this life.
Thus the word Hell in the Bible, whether translated from Sheol, Hadees, Gehenna, or Tartarus, yields no countenance to the doctrine of future, much less endless punishment.
It should not be concluded, however, from our expositions of the usage of the word Hell in the Bible that Universalists deny that the consequences of sin extend to the life beyond the grave. We deny that inspiration has named Hell as a place or condition of punishment in the spirit world. It seems a philosophical conclusion, and there are Scriptures that seem to many Universalists to teach that the future life is affected to a greater or lesser extent by human conduct here: but that Hell is a place or condition of suffering after death is not believed by any, and, as we trust we have shown, the Scriptures never so designate it. Sheol, Hadees and Tartarus denote literal death, or the consequences of sin here, and Gehenna was the name of a locality well known to al Jews, into which sometimes men were cast, and was made an emblem of great temproal calamities and of suffering resulting from sin. Hell in the Bible, in all the fifty-five instances in which the word occurs always refers to the present and never to the immortal world.
Thus we have shown that there is nothing in the Threatenings of the Bible that at all militates agianst the great truth of the restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouths of all his holy prophets since the world began.
To the Reader
The purpose of this book will not be fully accomplished if the reader shall perceive only that God's punishments of sin are not endless. The fatal defect of the doctrine of endless torment is that it teaches that punishment can be avoided by repentance, and so that any sinner who chooses can escape all penalty. But the Bible teaches that "Wrath," "Judgment," "Fire," "Damnation," "Hell," and all the words by which the consequences of sin are designated, denote penalties that are limited in duration because they are means to a good end, but that those penalties are absolutely certain. Every sinner will infallibly receive the exact amount of punishment deserved: "Though hand join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished." It is because God is good and holy that he has ordained,
1 That all sin and sorrow shall end; and,
2 That sin and sorrow shall be inseparable.
When the sinner shall repent and return to God here or herafter, God will be more willing to receive than the sinner can be anxious to return. God's threatenings are a portion of his methods of securing the final gathering of all the nations, families and kindreds of the earth into the one holy and happy family in heaven.
And it is because of this sublime purpose of restoring all to himself that he has made sorrow to continue in every human soul until sin is discarded.
"The more profoundly learned any one was in Christian antiquity, so much more did he cherish and defend the hope that the suffering of the wicked would at some time come to an end."--Doederlein.
"Is the Law then against the Promises of God? God forbid!"--Paul
Eighth Edition
Boston: Universalist Publishing House,
1897
Copyright, J.W. Hanson, 1878
index of scripture references
Ex.xx:5,6 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
Ex.xxxiv:7 God will by no means clear the guilty.
Deut. iv:24. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
Deut. xxxii:22-26 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest Hell and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction; I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. The sword without and terror within shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men.
II Kings xxiv:20 For through the anger of the Lord it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence.
Job viii:13 And the hypocrite's hope shall perish.
Job xxi:13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
Ps. vi:5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks.
Ps. ix:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
Ps. xxx:9 What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?
Ps. xlix:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in hell, from their dwelling.
Ps. lxxxviii:11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?
Prov. i:24-26 I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproofs. I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh.
Prov. v:5 Her feet go down to the grave; her steps take hold on hell.
Prov. xi:21 Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.
Prov. xiv:32 The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death.
Prov. xxiii:13-14 Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
Eccl. xi:3 If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.
Isa. v:13-14 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst. Therefore hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
Isa. xxxi:9 Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem.
Isa. xxxiii:14 Who among you shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
Isa. xxxiv:2 For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath delivered them to the slaughter.
Isa. xxxiv:9-10 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof 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; from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
Isa. xxxviii:18 For the grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for thy truth,
Isaiah xlvii:14 Behold they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them: they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.
Isa. lvii:21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.
Isa. lxvi:23-24 And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for the worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched: and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.
Jer. viii:20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
Jer. xvii:27 But if you will not hearken unto me to hallow the Sabbath day, and not to bear a burden, even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on theSabbath day; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.
Jer. xxiii:39-40 Therefore, behold I, even I will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you, and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence; and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame which shall not be forgotten.
Ezek. xx:45 Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field; and say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord:--Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree in thee, and every dry tree, the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therin. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it; it shall not be quenched.
Ezek. xxii:18-21 Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross: all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it, so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.
Ezek.xxxii:26-27 And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell, with their weapons of war, and they have laid their swords under their heads.
Dan. xii:2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Jonah i:3 Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord, and went down to Joppa.
Nahum i:2,3 God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.
Mal. iii:2,3 Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.
Matt.iii:7 O, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Matt. iii:10-12 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire....Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Matt. v:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of Hell fire.
Matt. v:25,26 Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say unto you, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Matt. v:28-29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into Hell.
Matt. vii:19 Every tree that brigheth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Matt. viii:11,12 And many shall come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into darkness, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matt. vii:13,14 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Matt. x:15 Verily I say unto you it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Matt. x:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell.
Matt. xi:23 And thou, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to Hell.
Matt. xi:20-24 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say uto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.
Matt. xii:31,32 Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor the world to come.
Matt.xiii:41,42 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 a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Matt.xiii:47-50 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Matt. xvi:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Matt. xviii:9 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into Hell-fire.
Matt. xxiii:14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.
Matt. xxiii:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers! how can ye escape the damnation of Hell?
Matt. xxv:1-11 Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
Matt. xxvi:24 The son of man goeth as it is written of him; but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
Matt. xxvii:3-5 Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? See thou to that; and he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.
Mark iii:28-30 "All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they said, he hath an unclean spirit.
Mark iii:29 But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation
Mark vi:11 and whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart hence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.
Mark ix:43-49 And 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 fire that never shall be quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into Hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into Hell-fire.
Mark xii:40 ...these shall receive greater damnation.
Mark xiv:21 The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.
Mark xvi:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned.
Luke iii:9-17 And also 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....Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into the garner; but the chaff he will burn with fire unquenchable.
Luke x:10-14 But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you
Luke x:15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven shall be thrust down to Hell.
Luke xii:10: "And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.
Luke xii:3 I tell you, nay; except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Luke xii:5 But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear him which, after he hath killed, hath power to cast into Hell; yea, I say unto you, fear him.
Luke xiii:7 Cut it down why cumbereth it the ground?
Luke xiii:23-28 Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
Luke xvi:22,23 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom; the rich man also died, and was buried; and in Hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
Luke xx:47 Which devour widows' houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the same shall receive greater damnation.
Luke xxii:22 And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!
John iii:18,19 He that believeth not is condemned already; because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God. And this is condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
John iii:36 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.
John v:28-29 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming when all who 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 to resurrection of damnation.
John v:29 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.
John vi:70 Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?
John vii:34. Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and die in your sins; whither I go ye cannot come.
John viii:21 Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am thither ye can not come.
John xvii:12 Those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
Acts i:25 That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.
Acts xvii:31 Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.
Acts xxiv:25 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance and judment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.
Rom. xiv:10 For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
I Cor. iii:13-15 Every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire.
I Cor. vi:9,10 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drundards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
I Cor. xi:29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.
Gal.v:19-21 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Eph. v:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Col. iii:25 He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong that he hath done; and there is no respect of persons.
Col. iii:6 the wrath of God on the children of disobedience
I Thess. ii:11-12 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
I Thess. iv:15-17 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
II Thess. ii:11,12 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
II Thessalonians i:6,9 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
Phil. iii:11 If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
Heb vi:4-6 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Heb. x:39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul
Heb. xii:29 Our God is a consuming fire.
Heb.x:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Hebrews ix:27-28 And as it is appointed unto men once to die; but after this the judgment; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him, shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.
Hebrews vi:1-2 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on to perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
James iii:6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and is set on fire of Hell.
I Peter iii:19,20 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water.
I Peter iv:18 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?
II Pet. ii:6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly.
II Peter ii:4,9 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;...The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.
II Peter iii:16 As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
I John iii:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
II Thess. ii:11,12 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
II Thessalonians i:6,9 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
I John v:16,17 If a man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin unto death.
II Cor. iv:3 But if our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost.
II Cor. v:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Jude 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Jude 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
Rev. i:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of Hell and of death.
Rev. vi:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.
Rev. vi:12,13 At the opening of the sixth seal, the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, and the heavens departed as a scroll.
Rev. vi:16 And said to the mountains and rock, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
Rev. xiv:6,7 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is come.
Rev. xiv:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev. xix:20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone
Rev. xx:5,6 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.
Rev. xx:12-14 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand befgore God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in those books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead that were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev. xxi:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderer, and whoremonger, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.
Rev. xxii:11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still.