091. ETERNAL SINNING INVOLVES ETERNAL MISERY

ETERNAL SINNING INVOLVES ETERNAL MISERY The Scripture speaks unmistakably of "an eternal sin," a sin which neither the reserved powers of the human will, nor the penal sufferings of the world to come, will ever change to purity. It is a sin against the Holy Ghost, the final grieving away of the only agent who can enlighten and renew the heart. It is the radical and final setting of self against God, so that no power which God can consistently use will ever suffice to save it. It hath no forgiveness, simply because the soul that commits it has ceased to be receptive of divine influences, even when those influences are exerted in the utmost strength which God has seen fit to employ in his spiritual administration.

There is a sin unto death. What God might do we do not know. He has told us what he will do. That he could not change these obstinate wills we cannot say. He has told us that some of them he will not change. He has all power; but he uses his power in wisdom. There are limits to the exertion of his power in the case of sinners. There are persistent and willful rejecters of Christ’s salvation whom he will cast off forever. The passage we have so often quoted settles the meaning of the words "eternal " and "everlasting," as applied to the condition of the lost. The " eternal sin" is explained to be a sin that, "hath never forgiveness." Not for a long time, but forever, does the sin endure; and, with the sin, the anger of God against it. As the theory that the human will is unlimited in its freedom forbids its advocates to deny the possibility of such an eternal sin; so the Scripture view that God only can change the evil will urges men to apply to him while he offers his help, because after his appointed time has passed there will be no renewal and no forgiveness.

Thus we have considered the first element in the doctrine of eternal punishment, namely, that there are some who through eternity will not cease to sin against God. The second point of the Scripture teaching we now take up. It is the following: This eternal sinning against God will involve eternal misery. We have such words as "weeping" and "torment" used of the condition of the lost. These words plainly exclude the idea of annihilation, as, indeed, the phrase "eternal sin" excludes it. All these terms imply a living, conscious soul, either acting or suffering. But a state of annihilation, if annihilation can be called a state at all, is not a state in which the soul either acts or suffers. The Bible tells us, moreover, that there shall be degrees of suffering. Some shall be beaten with few, and others with many, stripes. But upon the theory of annihilation, there can be no degrees; the lot of all is the same. Neither for the righteous nor for the wicked is death a cessation of being. On the contrary, the Scriptures represent the wicked as entering at death upon a state of conscious misery, which the resurrection and the judgment only augment and render permanent.

There have been some, indeed, who have held to a gradual weakening of the powers of the wicked, as the natural result of sin, so that they gradually cease to be. But moral evil does not, in this present life, seem to be incompatible with a constant growth of the intellectual powers, at least in certain directions. Napoleon’s overmastering egotism and ambition did not prevent a progress in his powers of military strategy and combination. We have no reason to believe Satan to be less skillful in his attacks to-day than he was in Eden. There rather seem to be evidences of a progessive subtlety, as well as of a progressive rage and malignity, from his first appearance in Genesis to his final overthrow in the Revelation. And so, in the finally lost, we have no reason to believe that the intellectual powers tend to extinction. If it were so, the greater the sin the speedier would be the relief from punishment, and future retribution would be an act of grace rather than an act of judgment.