One of the bulwarks of the doctrine of Eternal Punishment is the argument from what is called the final permanence of character in this life. This is supported by analogy, by philosophy, and by the quotation of texts of Scripture.
As far as Scripture is concerned in both its letter and rationale, there is no such thing as final permanence of character till the end of the ages; while time lasts everything is in flux and flow. the most permanent things are evanescent and transitory. We call the rocks permanent. How grandly they have stood for thousands of years! They are relatively permanent, but only relatively. Every one of them is slowly disintegrating and wearing away. One day they are to receive their baptism of fire, and they and everything else are to be made over again. At the conclusion of the age of the New Heavens and New Earth (the Age of the Ages), all things physical and spiritual will have received their full and final permanence, when God becomes ”all in all.”
All the arguments of final permanence of character follow the same analogy as that of nature. In time there may seem to be permanence, but it is only relatively permanent. Final permanence is reached only at the end of time.
One may become so hardened in this age that the only thing left for him is to be delivered over to Satan, which often means death and discipline. The purpose, we are told, is to be finally helpful, that he, the sinner, “may learn not to blaspheme,” or that his “spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Tim. 1:20; 1 Cor. 5:5).
We have considered the texts that refer to unpardonable sins (Chapter 15). We discovered that there are such sins, and that the most heinous of them is the sin “against the Holy Ghost,” of which the Word says, “it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, neither in the age to come”; but the final great age of reconciliation follows “the age to come.” The Word says in that age all things are to be brought again into Christ (Eph. 1:10; Phil. 2:10, 11, etc.).
In smelting ore that contains precious metal, one smelter often has his limitations. He can separate the metal from its dross, but can do little toward removing the alloys that it may contain. To accomplish this last, a new process needs to be applied, and frequently the metal has to be sent to a distant place to be purified. Man is by analogy doing with refractory ores and metals only what God, on a large and perfect scale, is doing with His creatures. Man may fail in some of his mechanical and chemical processes, but God never.
God is the greatest economist. Nothing is ever really lost or destroyed in His universe. His highest glory is to utilize all waste material and make out of it vessels of supreme honor.
We have not the slightest doubt that if God had not interfered, His creatures would have sunk into utter waste and uselessness. But He did, and He does interfere. God has put bounds to evil just as He has done to the sea. For the sea He “set bars and doors, And said Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” So great is His power that He can hold the sea with a rope of sand: “Which have placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree, that it can not pass it: and tho the waves thereof toss themselves, yet can they not prevail; tho they roar, yet can they not pass over it” (Jer. 5:22).
More surely than of the sea has God set the boundaries of Satan and sin. He says through the Psalmist: “Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Ps. 76:10). Evil is restrained and kept within bounds. Self-will has its limitations. Satan is far from being omnipotent, God alone is over all. “For we know that God worketh all things together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28, margin, R.V.). Among the “all things” are found evil and sin. According to this word, we know that He makes even sin work together for good. This could not be true if thousands and millions and billions of souls were left in hell throughout all eternity. Such an outcome of God’s creative and redemptive work would be a horror and a real hell to a God of Love. What father or mother could say that all things have worked together for good, if a beloved son or daughter were left in hell for eternity?
If the ordinary theory prevails, Satan is greater than God; for taking all the world together and considering it for all time, it would seem that he would have more souls than God. How are all things made “to work together for good” to the missionaries and earnest praying Christians, if the majority of the heathen of our time and of all time are lost forever? (We doubt not that multitudes are lost for this age and maybe for that which is to come, but not for eternity.) How does that work together for good if final permanence is reached in this life? If final permanence is reached in this age, what about the millions and billions of infants and little children who have died without any opportunity of even being fully developed? They certainly are far from final permanence of character. It is unthinkable that they are to be left without any moral character at all; for they never reached the years of discretion in this life, and never had an opportunity of rejecting or accepting the offer of salvation.
Also, if permanence is reached now, what is the object in having two other ages of salvation and development (Eph. 2:7)? Where is the justice in giving one man an opportunity of being saved after Jesus comes, who was too wicked to let live in our age, and at the same time assure his friends of his salvation in another age, and yet not do the same for others (1 Cor. 5:5)?
“To 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.”
The Sodomites were wicked enough, they are “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire” (not eternal, but age-abiding). Our Lord intimates that it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for certain cities of His time that rejected His messengers (Mark 6:11). God promises Israel’s restoration (Ezek. 16:62), and at the same time tells them that their sins have been more abominable than either Sodom or Samaria (Ezek. 16:49-52). He therefore promises both Sodom and Samaria to bring again their captivity and restore them to their former estate (Ezek. 16:53, 55).
Assyria has been destroyed as a punishment of their sins (Zeph. 2:13). “Its ruins have been make a gazingstock” (Nah. 3:6). But God has purposed a great blessing for Assyria in the time of Israel’s restoration. We read in Isa. 19:23, 24, “In that day shall Israel be the third with . . . Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land.”
Notice the words of the Lord against Moab and Ammon: “Therefore as I live, saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation” (Zeph. 2:9). This judgment would seem to be final, but it is final only till the judgment is completed. For God says of Moab in Jer. 48:47, “Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days”; and in Jer. 49:6, of Ammon He promises, “And afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the Lord.” If one reads only a portion of God’s Word, the facts are too few to calculate rightly the curve of God’s purposes. All the texts must be examined, that a complete induction may be made.
We can find abundant illustration of this same principle in the history of God’s ancient people. In place of permanence in judgment and evil, the words are relative and temporary and should be so translated. Our English version often conveys a wrong conception on this point. The prophet Jeremiah, in warning Judah of their Babylonian captivity says, “And thou, even thyself, shall discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn forever” (Jer. 17:4). This last word “forever” is a relative word, and does not signify final permanence. It means that judgment will continue till it accomplishes its purpose. In this particular case it lasted seventy years, the time of their captivity.
Likewise in Jer. 17:27, “But if ye will not harken 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.” This had its fulfilment in Nebuchadnezzar’s overthrowing and burning Jerusalem. It was not quenched till the judgment was accomplished. But Jerusalem was built again, destroyed again and rebuilt since that time. There still awaits another overthrow by the antichrist, and then will come the restoration for Israel’s glorious millennial kingdom. In all these seemingly final and permanent states, we have only relativity, not absoluteness; we have time that ends and not eternity. We can certainly say of all God’s judgments, when the cycle is completed, “I have hoped in Thy Judgments” (Ps. 119:43).
There is one text, that on the surface, seems unanswerable in reference to Judas and that is found in Mark 14:21, “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.” This text seems to teach that it would have been better if Judas had not been born. Here we would have the final permanence of Judas’ character implied; but if final permanence is granted to Judas’ character, something more may be inferred that we may not be so ready to admit. Here is a work of God that, in its final outcome, would have been better not to have been; that is, it would have been better for Judas not to have been created. We could admit this conclusion for every one else but God. Man may do something which would be far better for him not to have done; but to put God in this class, certainly reflects upon His wisdom and power.
God, Who sees the end from the beginning with an infinitely loving heart, would certainly not create anything which would have been better not to have been made. We are convinced that the text presents no such difficulty, and that in it there is no reflection on God’s ways. The difficulty comes from a wrong translation. The latter part of the verse should read, “Good were it for Him, if that man was not born.” The meaning is that it would have been better for Jesus if that man, Judas, had not been born. It certainly added to His suffering to be betrayed by one of His own disciples, but there is no word here that refers to the final destiny of Judas. This leaves Judas in the same class with other men who grievously sin.
Further, the prophetical Scripture, Ps. 69:25, is quoted in Acts 1:20 in reference to Judas’ judgment, “Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein.” This quotation has special reference to the sin of Israel and God’s judgment upon them; but before the Psalm closes it tells of final salvation coming to Israel: “For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah: that they may dwell there, and have it in possession.” There are scores of other texts that tell of the final restitution of Israel. It is not too much to hope that the same text may bring mercy not only to Israel, who sinned so grievously, but also to Judas who was included in their judgment. Judas, in part, tried to make some of the wrong right before his death, in going to the priests and returning the ill-gotten gains and confessing that he had “betrayed innocent blood.”
There was probably more remorse than repentance. Judas would be judged and miss the millennial kingdom and the power, rule, and possession which he so much coveted. He would suffer till the judgment accomplished its purpose; and in the final age he must be included in those who bow in homage to their king, and he must be one of those drawn to Christ, because He said, “And I, if I be lifted up . . . will draw all men unto Me” (John 12:32). He draws and they come; for He tells us how far He draws them, “unto Me.“
The question with which we first started, presents itself again, Is there such a thing as final permanence of character? In tracing the genesis of evil, we have shown (see chapter on The Problem of Evil), that evil had a temporal beginning, that in its very nature it implies separation from God. It can have existence only in time. Eternity, in its absolute state, does not contain the ground and environment for evil to exist.
Nevertheless, the temporary permanence which we see figured forth in nature, and the longing for permanent rest and stability of character, we believe can be realized only when all the tests of all the ages have been undergone. Christ is the firstfruits, and the elect are a kind of first-fruits. The first-fruits exemplify what the full harvest is to be. They are samples of what all will be when we all come to the full measure of the stature of our Lord Jesus Christ; then there will be permanence of character in knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and love. There will be a moral impossibility of sinning; not that one could not sin if he would, but his purpose will be set the other way. Every one will be matured. There will be no new kind of temptation. Everything will have been tried. The resources of sin and temptation will have been exhausted. There will be room for nothing but God in all human hearts. Sin will have burnt itself out. His death will have destroyed death.
Good is final. It is the only thing that can be absolutely final. Evil and wrong have no place in the absolute. Final permanence in goodness can not come till the Son hands over the Kingdom to the Father and God becomes “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28).