• Table of Contents
• Preface To The Third Edition
• Preface To The First Edition
• Chapter 6 - The Orthodox Doctrine On The Nature And Destiny Of Mankind
• Chapter 7 - On The Possibility That Christendom Has Erred On The Doctrine Of Human Destiny
• Chapter 8 - On the Immortality of the Soul
• Chapter 9 - On The Account Given In Scripture Of The Original Constitution Of Man
• Chapter 10 - On The Nature Of The Death Threatened To The Ancestors Of Mankind In Paradise As The Penalty Of Sin.
• Chapter 15 - The Doctrine Of Future Rewards and Punishments in the Old Testament
• Chapter 25 - Examination Of The Principal Scripture Texts Supposed To Teach The Everlasting Duration Of Sin And Misery

Life In Christ

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Over 75 Free Online Bible Commentaries

by Edward White

Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row, London 1875

Chapter XXV

Examination Of The Principal Scripture Texts Supposed To Teach The Everlasting Duration Of Sin And Misery.

'The evidence accompanying the popular interpretation (of the doctrine of eternal suffering) is by no means to be compared to that which establishes our (common Christianity: and therefore the fate of the Christian religion is not to be considered as implicated in the belief or disbelief of the popular doctrine.'—Robert Hall, Works, v. 529.

IT is well known, notwithstanding the preceding arguments, that there are three or four passages in the reports of Christ's discourses, and two in the Apocalypse, which are considered by many pious and able men to contain statements so precise, distinct, and decisive, in affirmation of the awful doctrine of the eternal suffering of the wicked, as to compel us to affix a corresponding meaning to the whole mass of prophetic and apostolic language, which, it is generally admitted, must otherwise bear the sense which we have imputed to it.

The question is whether these few passages, taken in the popular sense, are to give the law to the interpretation of the general current of Scripture language on future punishment; or whether the plain and natural sense of this general language is to determine the force of the few disputed quotations.

Before proceeding to examine these well-known 'texts,' it is proper to take note of a habit of the mind which is as likely to affect those who are conscientiously opposed to us as ourselves. The eye looks, but it is the mind that sees; and when the mind contemplates phenomena under a preoccupation of thought, it interprets them in the light of its own idea; so that unless that general idea be a right one its view of every phenomenon is in some measure perverted. This is not less true of the study of Nature than of Scripture. So long as men were convinced that every word of the Bible was a distinct revelation from God, that there was no element of human limitation in its pages, and therefore that its statements on the visible universe were of as much authority: as its declarations respecting redemption, they looked upon the heavens not only with the outward eye of sense, but with the inner eye of faith in the Ptolemaic astronomy, which makes the earth a plane, and the centre around which revolve sun, moon, and stars,—a view of matters confirmed to the observer both by his senses and by the 'authority of Holy Writ.'

So long as men thus looked on the earth and heavens, every phenomenon was interpreted in the light of the general theory. And we are now aware how wrongly men saw what they so beheld in the creation. The same thing happened with respect to the strata of the crust of the earth. So long as men observed with eyes which were forbidden to see anything in the world beyond the six days' work of Genesis, and a recent creation of all things, they surveyed the mighty congeries of rocks and fossils with an eye as good as blind.

The same law of vision applies to the study of the Bible itself. So long as men read it with minds that recognise in every writer a mechanical instrument through which 'the Holy Spirit' has written a certain number of equally infallible 'texts,' it is impossible they can allow themselves even to see the discrepancies and omissions of a minor sort, which have crept into the writings of some of the holy and honest men who have 'taken in hand' to write for us the history of Redemption and of the Redeemer. It becomes a part of piety not to study phenomena so unedifying, and so fatal to the preconceived theory of what an infallible Bible ought to be.

And so long as men look on the Bible a' priori, as a series of writings given to a world of 'immortal creatures' to teach them how to escape from eternal misery, and to gain everlasting glory, half its contents will receive a tinge, or an interpretation, corresponding with that theory of Divine Government; which is found not to belong to them, when once the experiment is tried of reading the Bible through on another theory. The effect then produced resembles the sudden flooding with sunshine of a thick forest formerly suffused with the darkest shades. And many a passage once quoted with sincere reverence as evidence of the eternal duration of sin and misery is seen not only to be capable of, but to demand, a more luminous and hopeful interpretation.

The indefensible method, moreover, of citing the books of the Bible as if some one had beheld an angel inditing them in succession, without consideration of their individual history, of the degree of confidence due to the fulness of each writer's inforn1ation, of the positive marks of defective knowledge, or misconception in some,—will serve the cause of truth no longer. We may read, for example, with general confidence the gospel of Matthew,—whether a Greek original, as Dr. Roberts maintains, or a translation from the Hebrew, as Dr. Tregelles, after the fathers, affirms,—notwithstanding the omission of one sentence in the middle of Christ's last discourse on Olivet (the same discussion in which later occurs the κολασιν αιωνιων of 25:46)—an omission supplied by S. Luke (21:24), 'And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.' And in consequence of that fault of S. Matthew, or his Greek translator, we shall not unduly question the accuracy of the other reports of Christ's teaching in this Gospel. Nevertheless it is certain that that omission, leaving the discourse to end with the unqualified words, 'Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled,' 24:34, has thereby created one of the chief stumbling-blocks to faith in the New Testament,—it being clear that Christ's second advent did not occur in 'that generation,' but will take place at the end of those 'times of the Gentiles,' our Lord's reference to which S. Matthew unwittingly omitted, and S. Luke has happily supplied.

I cannot conceal my conviction that the path of duty and of wisdom in dealing with such documents as the gospels demands this practical conclusion :—If they offer to us any statements of Christ's doctrine, by excess or defect conspicuously disagreeing with the facts, or with the plain sense of His teaching as recorded by the same or other historians, resolutely to refuse to allow such exceptional misreports or omissions to interfere with the truth which has been learned by a wider survey of the evidence.

In a large collection of books, the works of authors living in different ages, through fifteen centuries, at different distances from God, enjoying different measures of that afflatus which sometimes lifted up a prophet to the third heaven, and sometimes only to the first, and sometimes left him to obtain, like S. Luke, a 'perfect understanding' by personal inquiry,—it is vain to anticipate a uniform terminology in doctrine, or an equal comprehension of the truths of redemption. The expectation of reasonable readers must be restricted to ascertaining the general sense of the books of Scripture, taken as a whole,—and that general sense lies doubtless on the surface, in words taken in their obvious signification by honest readers.

It forms no part of the present writer's belief that each contribution to the collection which we combine in one volume and call 'the Bible' has been preserved from every tinge of educational thought, from every defect in statement, from every reflection of surrounding opinion or faith. The receiving mind somewhat colours perhaps every communication. There is a certain allowance to be made for every religious as well as astronomical observer's eye. S. Matthew did not altogether see the same Christ with S. John; S. John saw a far diviner Christ than he. Our single hope of true knowledge is by comparison and careful criticism of the whole record.

It is matter of notoriety, moreover, that almost every fact in Christ's life is received by us under a slight fractional difficulty in the evidence arising from the differing statements and silences of the evangelical reporters. The greatest fact of all, the Resurrection of Christ, we believe, not because there exists any single perfectly coherent digest of testimonies concerning it in the New Testament; but because the general result of all the testimonies converges to that centre, and removes the partial difficulty which each narrative taken alone might suggest to the mind.

The same rule applies to doctrine. There is no general dogma of faith deducible from the Bible, which it is not necessary to believe under fractional difficulties of interpretation. If we hold to the Tri-unity in the Godhead, it is not because that truth is taught at all in the Old Testament, or very systematically even in the New. If we maintain the personal Deity of Christ, it is not because it is easy to understand S. Mark's most exceptional report (13:32) that 'The Son of Man knew not the hour of His coming.' If we hold to the Pauline statement on Justification, it is not because S. James has very carefully conformed his elementary terminology to that of his brother apostles, or because S. James has spoken even once of the Atonement. If we hold to the doctrine of individual election to salvation, it is not because there is not a whole array of 'texts' which seem strongly to favour the advocates of general redemption; or if we hold to this, it is not because the Calvinists can discover nothing in support of the five points of their theology in the body of the Scripture.

Thus is it also in relation to the subjects which have occupied the present volume. There are a few scattered passages which, taken alone, and much more taken together, may well seem to countenance the established theology. When such expressions, in the favourite style of religious controversialists, are extracted, tabulated, and presented in one view, without respect to masses of different phraseology, they offer the appearance of a battery ready to shatter to atoms the argument developed in these pages. We are not careful to answer such assailants. Each of these , 'texts' requires to be examined in its own terms, in its own connection, and in its own place as an extract from a book with a special history.—And all such' texts' have then to be further tried in the light of the general doctrine of the book in which they occur, and of the whole Bible. And for our own part, we are well resolved that no isolated 'text' of any synoptic gospel shall overthrow our faith in the lessons learned from the massive records of a Revelation extending from one end of man's history to the other, and specially from the writings of those great apostles of Christianity, S. Peter and S. Paul in their letters, and S. John in his gospel and epistles. In those great authentic records of 'the whole truth' promised by the Holy Spirit, there is, at all events, not a trace of any other doctrine except that of Eternal Life in Christ only, and the final destruction of the unsaved,¹ or of any expression which can with any semblance of reason be perverted into teaching the opposite.

In proceeding to examine the principal passages in the New Testament considered to teach unequivocally the doctrine of endless misery, and therefore to overthrow the fabric of the pre-ceding argument, the first in order is the great text of Matt. 25:41,46: 'Then shall He say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels . . . And these shall go away into everlasting punishment (εις κολασιν αιωνιων), but the righteous unto life eternal.'

The first question to be regarded is the Greek text, the second the English version, and the third the signification of the words.

(1.) In respect to the Greek text, there is absolutely no various reading of any account in the most ancient manuscripts; but it must always be remembered that the nearly uniform testimony of antiquity is that the original of Matthew's gospel was in Hebrew, and that it is uncertain how much of authority attaches to any particular expression in the Greek translation. It is this which renders it specially hazardous to build any system of theology on a single phrase in the Greek of this gospel. We shall, however, treat this passage on the supposition that the Greek was the original, and that Matthew wrote what we find in these expressions.²

(2.) The English version of the phrase in question requires to be amended in order to bring it into exact correspondence with the original. There is no reason why the αιωνιων should not be translated by the same word in both members of the clause, and in the same order. The clause will then in every respect answer to the Greek. 'These shall go away to punishment eternal, and the righteous to life eternal.' The English adjective everlasting is a good deal stronger in many cases than the word eternal. That which is eternal is not always an everlasting process. Eternal judgment is not everlasting judging, but the eternal effect of a judgment. Eternal redemption is not everlasting redeeming, but an eternal effect of an act of redemption. So an eternal punishment may be not everlasting punishing, but the eternal effect of an act of punishment, and we have no right to prejudge this question by an over-forcible rendering of the adjective.

It is easy to distinguish this observation from a criticism designed to make out different senses as to duration in the use of αιωνιωνin the two clauses. Of the ninety widely different subjects to which the Scripture writers apply terms which occasionally take the sense of endlessness, in seventy instances they are confessedly of a limited and temporary nature. This suffices to prove (I) that the radical meaning of these words is not endlessness, but a hidden duration, and (2) that the question whether they are to be taken in a limited or unlimited sense depends on the nature of the subject to which they are applied, Unless, therefore, the absolute eternity of misery can be established from extrinsic reasons, such as the immortality of the sinner, or from the nature of the doom threatened involving consciousness, the adjective of duration connected with the sinner's punishment would not alone suffice to prove his endless misery. In fact it is so used only two or three times in the New Testament. There are cases where, as in Rom. 16:25, 26, the word is taken in the two different senses, one limited, one infinite, within the same sentence,—'The mystery kept secret in " ancient times" (χρονοις αιωνιοις), but now made manifest, according

to the commandment of the eternal God' (αιωνιων). But am not disposed to found an argument on such a basis in the passage before us. The 'punishment,' .of whatever nature, is described in the same terms, as the'life;' and the object of the passage certainly seems to be to convey the idea that the righteous and the wicked here spoken of alike will•reach a result which is the final settlement of their destiny.

(3.) Lastly, the question comes, What did the writer intend in the words 'punishment eternal'? Did he unequivocally intend everlasting suffering, or did he intend an awful punishment, positive and privative, extending in its results to eternity, a miserable death, the opposite of the life of the righteous?

No one with the fear of God before his eyes can doubt that the main design of Christ in these closing words of His discourse on the Mount of Olives, as throughout all His teaching, was to raise in the minds of His servants and ministers a soul-terrifying conception as to the future punishment of the persons chiefly aimed at in this final prophecy—the wicked world-rulers and church-governors who should be found intheir evil activity when He the Lord should return from heaven to take possession of His kingdom. This discourse (24-25) does not deal with the judgment of the dead (cf. Rev. 20:5, 12), but with the judgment of the 'nations' found alive at Christ's coming, at the beginning of the Kingdom of God. It represents Christ's dealings with Antichrist and his satellites, and the rebellious nations,•at his Second Advent to establish God's kingdom on the earth. The parallel prophecy will be found in Ezekiel's much-neglected description of Jehovah's dealings with the•'sheep and the goats,' chap. 34, when He comes to set up His King, and His kingdom, at the end of the Kingdom of Darkness. The fate of men living at the advent will be determined by their treatment of the 'Israel of God;' without 'dying the common death of men' many of that generation will go at once into life eternal, or into the 'Gehenna of fire.' The angels shall 'gather out of Christ kingdom all things that do iniquity,' and shall 'cast them into a furnace of fire,' when the Devil and his angels will , cast out, 'and' shut up in the abyss' during the thousand years of Christ's reign on earth.

If, then, we can ascertain the doom of those who are cast into the lake of fire at that time, we may learn the nature of the 'punishment eternal' here.

The key to the true interpretation, therefore, is, I believe, with Mr. J. N. Darby, to be found in the collective statements of Scripture respecting that awful 'fire—the aeonial or eternal'—'prepared for the Devil and his angels,' reserved also as the special instrument of the judgment for those who have been his agents in church and state, in persecuting God's people and deceiving the nations. Mr. J. N. Darby, in his early days, rightly said:—

'It is commonly supposed that the judgment which is spoken of in this chapter is the last judgment,—the general judgment: this is a mistake. It is the judgment of the nations living upon this earth, and not of the dead. There is no question of the resurrection, but only of the judgment of the Gentiles. What will happen to the Jews is mentioned in chapter 24, then what will happen to believers, and then the fate of the Gentiles; it is the judgment of the living, and not of the dead. We say it is the judgment of the living, because we read, "Before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." That which has given rise to the supposition that it is the judgment of the dead are these words: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal:" but this only means that the judgment of the living will be final, like that of the dead. When God judges, whether the dead or the living, His judgment sends the good into life eternal, and the wicked into everlasting punishment. The judgment of the living is as sure as that of the dead.'—Hopes ofthe Church, p. 66, first edition.

The leading thought clearly is that there is an unquenchable fire—of whatever nature, prepared as the instrument of judgment for the Devil and his angels—who are to be 'tormented therein,' says S. John, 'for ages of ages' (εις τονς αιwnιας τως αιωνιων —Rev. 20.) along with 'the beast and the false prophet.' The perpetuity of the fire signifies at least a duration equal to any demand that may be made upon its. punitive energies. The fire will not burn itself out, for it represents outwardly the ever burning and consuming fire of God's Holiness.

But the perpetuity of the fire, on which Christ dwells with terrible emphasis, while holding out the most awful prospect of irremediable doom to the chief offenders in the universe, does not necessarily imply the eternal duration of an object thrown into it. Sodom and Gomorrah—utterly consumed—are,nevertheless, ' suffering the vengeance of eternal fire' (Jude 7). We are told by S. John that he beheld in vision 'Death and Hades cast into the lake of fire' (Rev. 20:14). These were figurative personages who represented the Powers presiding over the Body and the Soul under the reign of death. And when the saints are glorified there will be 'no more death.' Death will be 'abolished.' Their being 'cast into the lake of fire,' therefore, indicates not theireverlasting survival in it, but their absolute destruction. Here, then, we have the answer to the question, What is the meaning; ofthe 'lake of fire'? It is the instrument of destruction, but of'destruction' under different degrees and durations of 'torment.' The 'beast and the false prophet' are 'cast alive into the lake of fire,' at the beginning of the millennium. This is perhaps (if, as is utterly improbable—see Daniel 7:2, 26—individual persons are symbolised)³ the' greater damnation' of which Christ speaks, as following upon the inexpiable crime of teaching lies and of governing for devilish ends. But these, too, after their 'many stripes,' after their long agony in 'remembrance' of their sins, are to burn out of being, under the ' consuming fire' of God's wrath, 'Who shall pay the penalty, eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints,'—αιωνιονολεθρον (2 Thess. 1:8),— ολεθρος being with φθορα and θανατος, the very words chosen by Plato, as well as by the Christian Fathers, to denote the abolition of being when they desired to express that idea. The fire of judgment is always a 'consuming fire.' When a fire burns and its fuel is 'not consumed, 'as in the Bush of Horeb (Exod. 3:3), that effect is mentioned. But 'the chaff' will be 'burned up' with unquenchable fire. 'All the wicked will He destroy.' 'Our God is a consuming fire.'

That the 'punishment eternal' is for a man to have his part in 'the lake of fire which is the second death,' and to reach final extinction of life through penal infliction bodily and spiritual, suited to each man's demerits, we see no reason to question. The 'tares will be bound' in different 'bundles to be burned.' Some will be burnt with a less, and some with a far 'greater damnation4 corresponding to the atrocious crimes of the murderers of a world of souls. This is written on the face of the record of Christ's teaching, and is fitted to 'bring a great fear upon every soul.' For the 'vengeance' will be righteous, and the indignation' such as all righteous spirits will approve of; 'I heard the great voice of much people in heaven, saying' Alleluia!' (Rev. 19:1) Such, then, is the interpretation we offer of Matt. 25:46,—a text, as it stands in our English Bibles, as well fitted to uphold the traditional belief as Matt. 10:28 is fitted to overthrow it. It proceeds on the recognised principle that each book in the Bible could in the first instance be employed in self-explanation, under the real character as a separate publication. What then is the general teaching of S. Matthew's gospel on future punishment? It is (ch. 3:10-12) that 'the chaff shall be burned up with unquenchable fire;' that the fruitless tree shall be 'cut down and cast into the fire;'—that the wicked man shall be 'cast into hell-fire,' into a 'prison,' from which he shall 'not come out till he has paid the uttermost farthing' (5:26);—that the 'whole body shall be cast into hell, or Gehenna,' a doom in which he is exhorted to escape by rather allowing 'one of thy members to perish,' by being 'cut off'(5. 29—the same word being there used which is elsewhere employed to denote the fate of the 'whole body' in Gehenna).

The traveller in the 'broad road' is threatened with' destruction' (απωλειαν, a common word for death, see Acts 25:16), and loss of 'life' (7:13) 'His doom is likened to the 'great fall of a house built on sand.' The wicked are said to be 'cast out into outer darkness, where shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth' (8:12 ). The demons expected to be 'tormented' at a fixed epoch (8:29), (also, we read in Mark, to be 'destroyed '). In 10:15 those who reject the Gospel are threatened with a doom less 'tolerable in the day of judgment than that of Sodom;' and at the twenty-eighth verse the disciples themselves are warned to, 'fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather to fear Him that is able to destroy both body and soul in Gehenna.' (A passage in which it is little better than an evasion to say that Christ represents only God's ability to do this, not His intention. In respect to the meaning of απολεσαι, to destroy life, in this gospel, we may refer to 2:13, 21:40, 41, 22:7, 26:52. The word, indeed, signifies this alone when human life is the object. It never signifies in Greek to torment only.) In 10:39, 40, our Lord says that he who 'findeth his life,' by avoiding martyrdom, 'shall destroy it;' that is, he shall lose here¬after the life he saved here. In 12:32 the sin of attributing Christ's miracles to magic is declared unpardonable' either in this world or in the world to come.' In 13:50 the wicked are said to be 'cast into a furnace, where shall be weeping and wailing,' etc. In 16:25 the threat of 10:39 is repeated, that 'whosoever shall wish to save his life shall lose or destroy it.' In 18:8 the man who sins is said not to 'enter into life,' but to be 'cast into the eternal fire,' 'into the Gehenna of fire.' In verse 14 the ruin of souls is called 'perishing.' In verse 34 the unforgiving servant is delivered to the 'tormentors.' In verse 44 the stone which falls from heaven 'grinds to powder' its object. In 22:13 the man without the wedding garment is 'cast into outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth.' In 24:51 the evil servant is 'cut asunder, and has his portion with the hypocrites, where shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.' In 25:30 the unprofitable servant is 'cast into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

These are all the places in which this gospel speaks of future punishment up to this point. Then comes the description of judgment at the advent of Christ, when those who had maltreated Christ's poor are represented as the 'goats' on the left hand, and receive their sentence, 'Depart, ye cursed, into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' 'And these shall go away to punishment eternal, but the righteous to life eternal.' Applying the orthodox canon of interpretation to these words, we say that the 'punishment eternal,' if S. Matthew is to be his own commentator, is to be 'cast into the eternal fire' (whether that fire be an objective reality, or only a name for God's justice), fitted therefore to be the instrument of torment, so long as God wills, for all who are cast into it. 'There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth' the suffering will be, 'intolerable;' the prison one from which there is no escape, the penalty being capital punishment-death, penslling, destruction of soul and body in Gehenna, loss of life; words which bear, in Greek prose, only one signification-that which is self-evident.

If asked, Would such eternal destruction be 'punishment eternal'? we reply, It must be such, if S. Matthew may interpret his own words. S. Paul decides the question affirmatively (2 Thess.1:9)—'Who shall suffer punishment' (pay the penalty), 'eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord,' ολεθρον αιωνιον.

The punishment of death for sin has a double reference to a life eternal lost by transgression, under the law, and under the gospel. The cutting off of a sinner from the opening prospect of an endless life may truly be called a punishment eternal—for its effects in privation run along the infinite duration of an eternity which, but for rebellion and unbelief, would have been the scene of an endless glory. When, therefore, objectors ask—Would a man who has suffered temporal death have suffered 'punishment eternal'? we reply—Certainly not; for it was only a short life which was forfeited here. But as to the world to come, the loss is infinite and eternal, God 'not willing that any should perish,' but opening the gate of immortality to all.

MARK 3:29.

There are two passages in this gospel which are much relied on in proof of the doctrine of the immortality of the lost. The first is on the unpardonable sin, Mark 3:29. The English version is, 'He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.' The Greek Text of Tischendorf is as follows:—υκ εχει αφεσιν αιωνα εις τον αλλα ενοχος εστιν αιωνιου αμαρτηματος—'hath not forgiveness for ever; but is guilty of (chargeable with) an eternal sin.'

It is remarkable that in nearly every passage on which it is attempted to found the argument for the eternal misery of the lost, there is a less or greater difficulty in settling the text, or in reaching the conviction that we read as the author wrote. Here some manuscripts read κρισεως, and some later ones have inserted κολασεως, but the Vatican and the Sinaitic read as above, αμαρτηματος, which is adopted by the latest editors. The evidence, so far as existing manuscripts can guide us, is indeed decisive. The meaning, whether the exact words were spoken by our Lord, or are given in substance by S. Mark after S. Peter, is clear. All other sins can be forgiven and blotted out. This one sin of imputing Christ's miracles to devilish magic is unpardonable, here or hereafter. It is, therefore, an eternal sin—to be punished with its fitting doom in the everlasting fire—with 'many stripes,' and finally with that awful destruction from which there can be no revival. This sin incurs an irreversible sentence. Thus we read in the book of Enoch (Laurence's translation), 'They shall be cast into a judgment of fire; they shall perish in wrath, and by a judgment overpowering them for ever.' 'An everlasting judgment shall be executed, and blasphemers shall be annihilated everywhere' (chs. 90:13, 92:16). The same form of speech is met with in the Talmud and the Rabbins. Prof. Hudson (Debt and Grace) quotes the following' from Lightfoot (Centuria Chorog. c. 15)—'If the King of kings shall be angry with me His wrath is eternal; if He should slay me His slaying is eternal.' 'The wicked shall descend into Gehenna and shall then be judged for ever.' . On which Abrabanel remarks, 'Now the greatest retribution in the world to come, and the heaviest punishment, is extermination' (De Capite Fidei, c. 24). Maimonides says, ' Heretics have no share in the world to come, but they are cut off, destroyed, and condemned for ever and ever.' [And what Maimonides intended by these words may be seen in the note affixed to the supplement of chapter 17, in a previous page.] The wicked man who is raised for eternal judgment is under the wrath of God. He is represented as crushed for ever beneath the weight of the authority which he has defied, and his 'eternal sin' holds him fast in the bands of death. There is no forgiveness for him either under the law or under the Messiah's kingdom, either in this world or in futurity. The' wrath of God abideth on him,' and its sentence will be executed to 'the uttermost farthing.' He will suffer 'everlasting destruction.'

MARK 9:44-50

The passage in Mark 9:44-50 offers another example of an unfortunate corruption of the text in some passages brought forward in support of the eternal duration of evil. That the suspicion of an early 'pious' improvement of the original in the interest of a more terrific theology is not wholly out of the reckoning appears from the exhibition of a similar honest zeal even in our own translation, which reads thus ;—

43. If thine 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 qenched (εις την γεενναν, εις το πυρ το ασβεστον).

44. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

45. 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.

46. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

47. 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.

48. Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

49. or every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt.

The original state of the text here seems hopelessly doubtful. Tischendorf omits the repetition of the words in verses 44, 46. Alford thought them emphatic and characteristic, and retained them in his Greek Testament; while marking them as doubtful in his later English version. The 49th verse rests, under any form, only on a mass of contradictory evidence on its two clauses. But it matters not, for no valid argument for immortality in sin and suffering can be drawn hence under any reading. There is absolutely no excuse for rendering το πυρ το ασβεστονby any

stronger words than 'the unquenchable fire,' the phrase being often used to signify only destructive fire.

Such as it is, however, the argument of our opponents is as follows :—The wicked are here said to be cast into the unquenchable fire, called elsewhere the 'everlasting fire,' and that alone shows that they are destined to eternal pain; a conclusion fixed by the sequence, thrice repeated to bring out the terror of the prospect,—'where their worm (their conscience) shall not die, or cease to be, and the fire is not quenched.' They are therefore pierced eternally by the tooth of conscience, and tormented for ever by the perpetual fire of God's vengeance. 'For every one shall be salted for the fire,' every victim of divine vengeance shall be miraculously preserved to endure the torments of this avenging flame.

For at least fifteen centuries these words have been employed in sermons and devout writings in the sense now described; and it is not an easy process by which they, or any familiar but misquoted expressions, can be restored to their true interpretation.

Nevertheless I submit to the reader the following observations.

(I) The argument for endless sin and sorrow hence derived is based upon that very understanding of the verb to die, against which the argument itself is directed. The eternal suffering is supposed to be proved by the words—'their worm dieth not.' But dieth is here taken in the sense of ceaseth to be,—not in the sense of being miserable or being unholy. 'Their worm ceaseth not to be,' to live, to exist (τελευτα), which is also one of Plato's words for existence coming to an end. Be it observed, then, that when it serves the purpose of the doctrine of eternal misery to prove that the 'worm of conscience will never cease to gnaw,' then the verb to die must be taken in its natural and obvious sense of cease to be. It is so taken, indeed, as a matter of course, without a word of exhortation to enforce the figurative meaning of being 'miserable.' Thus the defenders of the traditional doctrine adopt or reject this signification at pleasure, but forbid its adoption in any other instance except this, where, with a negative, it furnishes a good argument against the same meaning everywhere else in relation to the death of the sinner. We are at liberty to accept as scriptural a 'worm' which shall not 'die,' or cease to be, :provided we understand the worm to be conscience,—butnot to believe that a sinner shall 'die,' in any other sense than that he shall live in eternal misery. The sense of the verb to die here, however, which is admitted by all, shows what its proper meaning is in relation to other inhabitants of Gehenna; for if a worm's death in Gehenna would be its ceasing to exist, the same must be true of the sinner's; unless it can be shown that in relation to hell itself the word death has two opposite meanings.

If it be said that in the Greek version here the worm's death is represented by τελευτα and not by αποθνησκει, it is sufficient to point out that in the Hebrew of Isaiah 66:24, whence the citation comes, the worm's death is represented by *jImj, the same verb which describes the death of the sinner elsewhere.

(2) The venerable gloss that the 'worm' here is a symbol of the sinner's conscience, like other ancient imaginations of similar value, must give way to opposing evidence. It is indeed a difficult lesson for a Roman Catholic to learn, that those words of Christ to Peter, 'Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church'—inscribed in vast letters around the dome of the great papal Cathedral, and used in controversy for thirteen hundred years,—have no real reference to S. Peter's supposed successors in the see of Rome; yet that and other hard lessons must be learned by students of Scripture. Here the Saviour's words are plainly a citation from the last verse in the prophecies of Isaiah—where the context proves that the 'worm' stands naturally for putrefaction, the concomitant of death, and in this case the death of those 'slain by Jehovah.'

The effect of being eaten by worms, in contrast with the eternal life of the saved, as it appeared to Isaiah, may be seen in ch. 2:6-8.⁵

The sixty-sixth chapter of Isaiah describes the awful scenes of Christ's advent, of which the New Testament version is in Matthew 24., 25:'For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many' (verses 15, 16). The following verses describe the establishment of Christ's kingdom on earth, the restoration and conversion of Israel, and the 'restitution of all things' in the setting up of 'New Heavens and New Earth.' The closing .words describe the holy central worship set up at Jerusalem; and the going forth of the worshippers to the scene of that 'supper of the fowls' (Rev. 19:17-21), to wit,—the masses of the dead who have been slain, like the Assyrian army of Sennacherib, by the hand of God. The reference to that Assyrian slaughter is still more evident in the Hebrew. 'They shall go forth and look upon the syIG pegarim—carcases (the same word translated in the history of the Assyrians in I Kings 19:20 'they were all dead corpses ')—of the men that have transgressed against me—for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be tarr deraon—an abhorring to all flesh'—the word translated contempt in Dan. 12:2 ('to shame and everlasting contempt'),describing the horror excited by the spectacle of the bodies of those who die under the stroke of God The use of the term pegarim, therefore, to describe the condition of these victims of the worm and the fire decides that the worm does not symbolise conscience, but absolute death. There will appear on the earth, at the beginning, and at the end, of the kingdom of Christ, two fearful scenes of execution of God's enemies,-who will be slain by Jehovah; .the first scene being the destruction of His assembled foes, of the armies of the kings of the earth, around Jerusalem; the second scene, still more awful, being the more gradual destruction of all the wicked dead, raised for judgment, at the end of Christ's reign on earth: when a fearful monument of the effect of sin will be established on this globe (perhaps in that same region), in that 'perpetual fire' into which all shall be cast, 'whose names are not written in the book of life.'

But in either case—the effect will be death; the wicked will become dead corpses,—thanwhich there is no stronger word to denote the 'destruction of the soul or life in Gehenna.'

If, then, there be any safety in commenting on verse 49 which follows, 'For every one shall be salted with fire,' where the Greek text is hopelessly uncertain, the meaning may be, that every such sacrifice to the avenging Justice will be, like 'Lot's wife,' 'salted with fire,' preserved as a monument in death of the tremendous results of rebellion against the Omnipotent. 'Remember Lot's wife,' is one of Christ's momentous warnings to His disciples.

THE APOCALYPSE

Rev. 14:10—'If any man worship the beast and his image, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up to ages of ages, and they have no rest day or night who worship the beast and his image.'

Rev. 19:20—'These both' (the beast and the false prophet) 'were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.'

Rev. 20:10—'And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they shall be tormented day and night to the ages of ages.'

The terms of duration here used are those which beyond doubt often signify endless duration. It is also certain that they and their Hebrew parallels are often used to signify long but limited duration, as when the Mosaic institutions are said to be 'for ever' (Deut: 29:29)—a word which must be here understood in the limited sense before the Jewish people can be expected to believe in Christianity, which has abolished the law. Dr. Adler recently assailed the gospel on this ground that the Jewish law was in this text said to be sloul, for ever.⁶

On this series of passages I offer the following observations;—

The Apocalypse, like other books, is best interpreted, first by the rule of its less obscure portions, and next, by careful comparison of the more ancient prophecies on whose pattern it is framed. From other portions of it, and those the least loaded with prophetic symbol, we learn directly, or indirectly, that the doom of wicked men is to be excluded 'from the tree of life' (2:7); to lose the 'crown of life' (verse 10); to be 'hurt of the second death' (verse 11); to 'be killed with death' if. (verse 23, the strongest expression to denote absolute extinction);⁷ to be 'broken to shivers as a potter's vessel' (verse 27); to have their , names blotted from the Book of Life' (3:5). Again, at the close of the book, we are told that 'whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire' (20:15). This 'lake of fire' is in the preceding verse called 'the second death.' Into this lake are cast Death and Hades, assuredly not to give the idea that they were to exist there for ever, but that they were put an end to, so that henceforth there was to be 'no more death.' The' last enemy is destroyed' or 'done away.'

The description of future punishment as 'the second death' determines the question as to the general nature of the penalty. As already remarked, there cannot be a 'second' of anything unless it be at least of the same genus as the first. If we say a second house, there must have been a first house, and not a first tree. If there be a first and second death, there must be a generic likeness between them. There would be no likeness whatever between death as threatened to Adam, or death as men suffer it here, and the everlasting torment of a living body and soul united in immortality. Such a doom would not, we may venture to affirm, have been called, by any writer, a second death. But there is a strong likeness between the first dissolution of humanity and the second 'destruction of body and soul' in Gehenna here-after. Such a doom in the lake of fire might well be termed the second death. That which 'the lake of fire,' the instrument of Divine vengeance, effects for 'Death and Hades,' namely, to put an end to them, it will effect on wicked men—it will 'utterly destroy' them.

We conclude, therefore, that the passages in question in Rev. 14, 19, and 20, delivered in the symbolic language of prophecy, must be interpreted so as to accord with these facts. It is remarkable that the strongholds of the two different theologies treated of in this volume are found in the two works of the Apostle John—the Gospel and the Apocalypse. The question really is, therefore, Shall the Gospel be interpreted by the key of the mystical Apocalypse, or shall the sense of the Apocalypse be fixed by the Gospel? We cannot hesitate long over such alternatives. In the Gospel we have the recorded words of the Lord Jesus, delivered in the calm language of His daily life, and also the latest work of S. John. In the Apocalypse we have in every line the exalted style of parable and allegory, suitable to a mysterious prophecy of things only half revealed. In the Old Testament similar language carries unquestionably the meaning of a temporal destruction, in Isaiah 34. The terrible words cited from Rev. 14 are allowed by nearly all commentators to predict earthly and terminable judgments on the supporters of the Apostasy. Chapters 15:and 16:announce the execution of these plagues. Chapter 17:contains the song of triumph over Babylon as actually undergoing destruction, through the burning of her flesh by the 'horns' 'and the beast.' Chapter 18 continues the strain of triumph, and here we find word for word the fulfilment in this world of the threatenings before us. 'How much she hath lived deliciously so much torment and sorrow give her. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire. And the kings of the earth shall lament for her when they see the smoke of her burning standing afar off for fear of her torment, saying, "Alas," etc. 'And the sailors cried when they saw the smoke of her burning,' etc. 'And a mighty angel took tip a stone and cast it into the sea' (to give an image of something utterly lost out of knowledge), saying, 'Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.' See the precisely similar language respecting Idumea in Isaiah 34:8-14,—a passage which the reader is invited to consider in detail.⁸ Thus it is that S. John adds of this 'spiritual Sodom,' 19:1 (as Isaiah of Edom), 'And her smoke went up for ever and ever.' The whole of the imagery describes destructive punishment on earth at Christ's advent.

REV. 20:10

There remains only to be considered the passage respecting the doom of the 'Devil,' with that of the 'beast and the false prophet.'

'And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they shall be tormented day and night to the ages of ages' (και βασανισθησονται ημερας και νυκτος εις τους αιωνας των αιωνωνRev. 20:10).

It is not certain whether 'the beast and the false prophet' are abstract symbols of the 'Fourth Kingdom upon earth,' in its double form of Church and State; or symbols denoting particular classes of persons, whether satanic spirits who inspired that fourth system of government, or human kings and priests who received and acted on such inspiration. It is possible, but not probable, that they represent individual wicked rulers and teachers who will receive a 'greater damnation' (μειζον κριμα, James 3:1; προσηλυτονκριμα, Matt. 23:14). But this is less important to decide than the meaning of the threatening; 'they shall be tormented day and night to the ages of ages.' There can be no doubt that the terms of duration here employed are sometimes used to denote an absolute eternity, as in relation to the nature of Deity. There is as little doubt that they are as frequently used to denote a very limited duration. The alternative meaning must be decided by the nature of the subject, or by other declarations.

Thus the things which were 'revealed to Israel were for them for ever to do all the words of that law' (Deut. 29:29). In this case for ever must be taken in a limited sense (contrary to the teaching of the Rabbins on the eternity of the law), if Israel is ever to submit to Christ. Again God gave the land of Israel to His people 'for ever and ever' (Jer. 7:7),—ιε αιωνας και εως αιωνως:yet the 'earth and all the works therein are to be burned up.' He set the earth so that 'it should not be removed for ever:' yet it is to 'pass away' (Rev. 21:1). The 'everlasting heavens' are to 'perish,' while God 'remaineth' (Psalm 102:26).

The language here used, then, respecting the doom of the Devil, the beast, and the false prophet' in the 'everlasting fire' is consistent, according to the Scripture usage of αιωνeither with endless torment—or a long but limited infliction, of which the date of termination is not revealed. In this sense, as may be seen in the supplement to chapter 17, a similar phrase is used by the Rabbins of the Gemara (who did not certainly believe in endless suffering), in speaking of future punishment.

In this case, although the terms are clearly designed to denote a most awful infliction of judgment on the chief malefactors in the universe, surely the terms of duration are not designed to reverse the sense of others which declare that, like Death and Hades, who are cast into the same 'lake of fire,' their 'end is to be burned up' and abolished. The imagery is taken from the vision of Daniel (7:10), in which he sees a 'fiery stream issue from the throne' of God: this very same 'beast,' or fourth empire, is then 'slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame,'—words whose literal sense is fixed by the contrast of the fate of other 'beasts' whose 'lives were prolonged for a season and a time.' And it is expressly said in Dan. 7:26 that the action of the flame is 'to consume and to destroy, aposru to extermination,'—in our version, 'unto the end.'

If, then, the result to the 'beast' of being cast into the lake of fire and brimstone to be 'tormented for ages of ages' is nevertheless that he is 'destroyed,' 'consumed,' 'slain' (Rev. 17:8-11)—'He shall ascend out of the abyss, and go into destruction (απωλειαν); if the result to Death and Hades of being cast into the same lake is to abolish them, so that there shall be 'no more death,'-—so it may be with respect to the other victims of the 'everlasting fire.' For as in the case of 'Babylon' in Rev. 14, 15, 19, the 'smoke of her torment' 'ascended up for ages and ages,' yet she was 'destroyed,' and 'found no more at all,' so it may be with other beings who are nevertheless said to go away to 'punishment eternal' in the 'everlasting fire.'9

It is from other scriptures that we infer that thus it will be with the Great Enemy of God and man. The 'unclean spirits' expect from Christ' torment' and 'destruction' (Matt. 8:29, Mark 1:24—βασανισαι, απολεσαι);and there seems no reason to think that their doom is generically different from that of their leader and lord. His conscious punishment will certainly be vastly greater than theirs, but it can scarcely differ by a whole eternity in duration. 'Torment' and 'destruction' will therefore be his doom. The same conclusion seems derivable from the words of God spoken to our first parents. The seed of the woman is to 'crush' the 'head' of the serpent—an image vividly denoting the destruction of his life. 'No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him,' and 'the Murderer from the beginning' shall die the murderer's death. 'God shall be all things in all,'—an expression seemingly inconsistent with the eternal survival of any enemy, or any evil. But through what inconceivable agonies of mind and 'spiritual body' that Infernal Origin of all Evil shall reach his final doom no tongue can tell. His judgment will correspond with his crimes; and 'many stripes' and 'great plagues and of long continuance' will doubtless avenge the murder of a world of souls.

I have now considered in detail the principal passages in the New Testament brought forward in support of the opinion of the endless future of evil. The suggestions respecting them must be weighed along with the whole argument of this book. If they are regarded as sufficient, it will be needless to examine minutely more vague examples of flying or traditional criticism. If they are not sufficient, such examination would be useless. It is morally inconceivable, if it had been the intention of Heaven to convey to mankind, speaking so great a variety of languages, into which the Bible must be translated,—the threatening of torment which should be absolutely endless, that such a threatening would be, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, expressed in terms which literally signify something in all languages wholly inconsistent with such a destiny: and that the announcement of the real danger awaiting the world should be dubiously ascertainable only from one passage in a gospel (Matthew), which is probably itself a translation; from another (in a second gospel—Mark), which has reached posterity in a very corrupted form; and lastly from two verses in the latest of the prophecies, where it is difficult to distinguish metaphors from simple terms, and where the terms employed are themselves undoubtedly employed by the Jewish Rabbins, as well as in the Bible, to denote a limited period of duration in punishment. A question so vast as the eternal destiny of the human race cannot be determined on the evidence of a few poetic or prophetic phrases. If the plain sense of the main current of language is not to be taken as decisive in such a case; we despair of learning Divine Truth on any subject from a verbal revelation.¹⁰