A 01 Scriptures teach penalty disobedience
I. The Scriptures teach that there is a penalty for disobedience awaiting the finally impenitent. THIS is plainly declared in Romans 2:5-12; Romans 2:16, “ But after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honor, and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil; of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory, honor, and peace to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law,” “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of m^en by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.” The parenthetic passages omitted here, which occur before the last of these sentences, are a direct assertion of the full accountableness of the heathen world to the tribunal of God, for their sins against their consciences and 'the light of nature. I take this whole passage of Scripture as a revelation of a future judgment and retribution, in which all men are to be judged and treated according to their works. The ideas which are presented of heaven, both by Christ and his apostles, come to us through objects of sense. Every one supposes that by these images, as, for example, “ sitting with Christ at his table in his kingdom,” “new wine,” “beholding his glory,” and “gates of pearl,” ''streets of gold,” “harps” and “crowns,” it is intended to give us the idea of the highest pleasure of which our natures, body and soul, shall in another world be capable. We never subtract anything from these images of heavenly joy, saying, They are only metaphors; we rather say. Language here is intensified, to convey the ideas of future happiness. And as we believe that we shall have bodies in heaven “ like unto “the Saviour's “ glorious body,” we are never unwilling to think that there will be enjoyments adapted to the body with the soul -- spiritual, of course, in both cases, and yet beautifully distinguished, but capable of blending, as in this world. This way of representing unseen things to us is not so much “Oriental” as the only possible way, at present, of communicating spiritual objects to our understanding. But while the attractions of heaven suffer nothing by reason of criticisms upon the language in which they are presented, some do not use the same tolerance, nor apply the same principles of interpretation, when they read or speak of future punishment. Here, they say, all is metaphorical. Oriental; they select certain images, and ask if any suppose that the wicked are, literally, to suffer such things, from just these elements of pain. But the representations • of heaven are certainly obnoxious to the very same criticisms, and similar questions may be asked concerning them. But being of a pleasurable nature, they escape criticism. Therefore, if we are inquired of in either case. Do you believe that these things are literally so? the proper answer seems to be in both cases, Either these things, or things which now can only be expressed by them. Those earthly symbols approach nearer than anything with which we are now acquainted, to the things signified. The condition of the wicked after death is represented through such symbols by Christ and his apostles as a state of positive punishment. With a desire to speak cautiously on such a point, and to follow only the most obvious leadings of Scripture, very many are constrained to believe that while the finally impenitent will experience the consequences naturally flowing from their moral condition, those consequences of their sins will be kept alive by the power of God, and that continual sin will receive continually new punishment. In the sermon on the reasonableness of endless punishment (see the preface), I assumed, for the sake of the argument, that future misery should consist only in the natural consequences of evil, and then argued that it was reasonable that these should be endless. I also deprecated any inquiry beyond the plain language of the New Testament as to the elements of punishment. The subject forbade any extended consideration of the nature of future punishment, nor did I undertake to state my own belief on that point. In attempting now to show that the Scriptures represent the future condition of the wicked to be a state of punishment, it will be submitted to the reader whether infliction from the hand of God be not necessarily involved from the language of the Bible.
One of those indirect proofs of a thing which sometimes are more forcible and convincing than direct statements, occurs in the words of Christ, which I will refer to as proving the future punishment of the wicked, in which he tells us to “fear Him ivhich is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
If God has merely the natural ability to do this, while his character makes it morally impossible that he should ever do it, the illustration is singularly at fault. It would never be proper to tell a child, as a reason why it should fear its father and mother, that they have power to inflict a punishment which we know is morally impossible. Their mere natural ability to inflict it would not justify the exhortation, '' Yea, I say unto you, fear them.” To associate the idea of destroying both body and soul in hell with our proper fear of God, our heavenly Father, if he would do no such thing, would not be in accordance with truth.
Some, to avoid this difficulty, say that the passage means merely that God can destroy life. But so can they who kill the body. There is something more which God alone can do, and which we need rather to fear. Others, knowing that the original word for hell in this passage cannot mean the grave propose to render the warning thus: that God can cast those whom he kills into the valley of Hinnom. But so could assassins or judicial executioners. We still look for that which God alone can do. Some say it must be annihilation. But the valley of Hinnom is notoriously symbolical of perpetuity -- the fire always burning, the worm ever breeding. Why, moreover, should any place be specified in which the annihilation, which is the same thing everywhere, should occur? Or what appropriateness is there in speaking of the soul as being annihilated there? Destroying both soul and body in hell seems to be equivalent to that expression, “everlasting destruction,” -- an apparent contradiction of terms, but conveying the idea of perpetual loss and misery.
We get no relief from these difficulties with the passage if we turn to the milder form in which the idea is expressed in Luke 12:5, “ Fear Him which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you.
Fear him; “ for Gehenna, understood literally as the valley of Hinnom, presents to the mind the most terrific image of positive miser}^ Nothing can be more revolting or fearful. Let those who are jealous at imputations cast upon the character of God by the doctrine of endless punishment, explain how Jesus could even suggest the idea of the Father casting his offspring into a place, the name of which was borrowed from the most fearful object then known to his hearers.
Until this passage is shown to imply no punishment from the hand of God, we must regard it as an impregnable proof of future visitations of misery upon the wicked.
Some who believe in future punishment seek to mitigate the influence of the dread truth upon their feelings by the theory that future punishment will consist only in the natural effects of sin. This relieves them of the necessity to think that God will inflict anything directly upon the wicked.
One thing seems incontrovertible, viz.: the Bible does not teach us that sin is its own complete punishment. It is true that without the elements of misery in themselves, the Bible tells us, sinners could not be made miserable; nor would outward inflictions constitute punishment, unless there were something within for the fire to kindle. But it admits of a question whether, if the sinner should be left entirely to himself, undisturbed by any external power, adding new energy to sorrow, or opening new sources of it, he could not in time adjust himself, as in this world, to any circumstances. Even in this world, trouble, or the infliction of pain and sorrow, is necessary to rouse the conscience. To some extent God punishes men in this world, for this purpose. “Because they 'have no changes, therefore they fear not God.” “ Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel.” The seventy-third Psalm describes the wicked who “ are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.” Hence “ their strength is firm.” But even tribulation is powerless in many cases, and the sinner is either emboldened by temporary respite, or provoked by the rod to further opposition. Pharaoh is an eminent example of this.
It is said of another, “ And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the Lord; this is that king Ahaz.” Other passages in accordance with these, to prove the positions just laid down, might easily be cited. So that, however terrible and bitter the condition of the sinner might be at first, it is not inconceivable that he should at last say, with Satan in Paradise Lost, “Hail! horrors, hail!
and thou, profoundest hell!” if God would but depart from him! Sinking into a torpid, brutish state, or rousing themselves into defiant forms of hatred and blasphemy, occupying themselves with plots and counterplots in their strife with each other, the wicked in hell, like bad or abandoned people here, might make their condition tolerable. They would, for example, feel the need of subordination among themselves for their own protection; selfishness would suggest many alleviations of misery by mutual forbearance; and as the worst of men -- pirates, gamblers, debauchees -- have codes of honor, and ambition its fawning flatteries, and pride smothers its resentment, and selfishness in all its forms is compelled to put on the mask of submission and obeisance, so the wicked, if left to themselves, even with their wickedness festering and their crimes becoming gigantic, might manage, by self-control, to reduce things into a system which to their wretched natures might, in very many cases, be even tolerable. Sin itself is no misery to a sinner; it must meet with ill success, it must be compelled to feel a superior power acting contrary to itself; then, indeed, it is the occasion of misery. It is no sorrow to wicked men here, for God to depart from them; it is rather their desire; “ therefore they say unto God, Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.” Saul never would have uttered that bitter cry, “ God is departed from me, and is become my enemy,” if the Philistines had not pursued hard after him. God and he had been for a long time far apart; but very little did Saul care for this, until the day of his calamity made haste.
If, therefore, there is to be, in the strict sense of the term, punishment after death, it would seem that there must, in the nature of things, be visitations upon the wicked of that which the Bible calls “ indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish.” While there must be in the sinner himself a state of things which will make these inflictions punishment, there must also be a mighty hand stretched out forever to make the future condition of the wicked, one of retribution. There is both error and truth in the common saying with many that future misery will proceed from conscience; -- error, if it be supposed that conscience left to itself will occasion torment; for, if in this world, with so much to stimulate conscience, it so easily falls asleep, the provocations, and the necessity of self-defence, and redress, and all the bad influences of hell, must have the power totally to sear it; -- but there is truth in the saying, if it be allowed that God is to visit the wicked in ways that will excite conscience against them; this would be “ infliction,” compared with which fire and brimstone, though the most appalling images of torture we can easily conceive, do not convey more terrible ideas of retribution.
Now, the Bible is continually representing the wicked as receiving from God positive inflictions, and not merely as being abandoned to themselves. Even when it speaks of many sources of misery which might seem to be the natural consequences of their sin, it often represents these consequences as being administered by the direct agency of the Almighty. So that the two things seem to be combined. '' Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and a horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup.” '' Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” “ God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow and made it ready.” These passages teach that sinners will not merely be left to the natural consequences of sin. The ideas of arrest, and of execution, are here presented; the transgressor is not left to himself, with merely his sin for his punishment. Then, again, we read: '' Woe unto the wicked; it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him,” “ Yea, woe unto them also when I depart from them.”
Even though the wicked should not suffer otherwise, nor to a greater degree, than they are capable of suffering in their minds here, yet, if they are to be punished, these sufferings must be kept active by an outward power; for their natural tendency is to harden and stupefy, or to excite passions whose gratification affords a certain redress.
All this we may believe without venturing one step into the dominion of fancy to depict the kind and manner of those inflictions which are necessary to constitute punishment. Nor is it necessary; for knowing as we do by experience and observation what the passions of the human heart are when restraint is weakened or removed, we need no external images of woe to represent what it must be for God to minister excitement to them by his presence and his intercourse with them. In a sense he departs from them, as he did from Saul. By this is signified the withdrawal of everything merciful, alleviating, hopeful, and of a restraining reformatory nature. Yet he will always make his presence to be felt; for “ if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there.” While, therefore, material images of woe, if too specific, seem to degrade, the subject, and are apt to pass over, in their effect on some, from the extreme of horror to the grotesque, they are not objectionable on the score of over-statement; nothing which fancy ever depicted being capable of expressing the misery which must be felt by a depraved soul opposed to God and with God for its punisher.
We have only to think of what is sometimes felt at funerals and closing graves, to see what future misery must be in one of its merely incidental forms -- the loss of all good forever.
If God shall but keep perpetually fresh such sorrows as men feel here, he will fulfil a large part of that which the Saviour and the apostles have declared to be the future portion of the wicked. So that when good men like Leighton, Baxter, Andrew Fuller, the Wesleys, Watts, and Edwards, portray, according to their several conceptions, the pains of the wicked, they fall far below the truth; and their representations, if at all objectionable, are not so for the reason that they surpass the dread reality; for that is impossible. Let us now consider the following passages: --
“ As therefore the tares are gathered and are burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
These same closing words are used a few verses afterwards, in explaining the parable of the net. Not to burden the attention of the reader, there is one passage more which I will quote in connection with the preceding, for the sake of briefly remarking upon them, before passing to the next topic. The passage to which I refer is: ''And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, 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 forever 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.” *
If the Bible says that angels, at the last day, inflict on the wicked that which can best be compared only to casting them into a furnace of fire, I will implicitly believe it. My reason ascertains whether this is said, beyond reasonable doubt; then reason bows to revelation. I will not object that such employment does not consist with my conceptions of angelic natures. If I did, the question would be appropriate. Do you consent that a holy angel should have cut off the hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians of * Revelation 14:9-11.
Sennacherib's army in one night, and that another should have directed the pestilence of three days in Israel? What will you do about these things? You are disposed, perhaps, to associate angels with “birds and flowers,” with elves and fairies, and not with garments rolled in blood, or hands reeking with slaughter. My reply is, I will correct my natural or acquired feelings by the word of God. But the word of God says that angels will cast “ all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, into a furnace of fire.”
Inanimate things are not meant; for it is added, “ there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Moreover, the word of God says that the idolatrous worshippers of the beast shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. My only question will be again, Does the Bible mean by this that men will be made to suffer in a way which is most appropriately expressed by fire and brimstone; that even if it be not literally so, there would really be nothing to choose between the two things, the figure and the literal meaning? And does it say that holy angels, and the Lamb of God himself, will look on, approve, and confirm the infliction? If so, I fully and firmly believe it; be it figurative or literal, I believe it, and I will take it to be the same as literal. And I will postpone the explanation to my natural feelings, till I know more. I find that when men fully understand the enormities of some outrage upon a fellow-creature, and the soul is filled with them, the punishment, swift or slow, meets with no repugnance in their nature.
Perhaps when I know more about sin and unbelief, it will be so with regard to future punishment. Only let me be persuaded that the language of the Bible, properly interpreted, declares anything; then there is no appeal. But I now respectfully ask the attention of the reader, when I say, that if I did not believe in there being a state of future punishment which justifies such language, I fear that I could not stop short of the boldest infidelity. I might even assail the Bible as unfit to be read. It is no relief to tell me that the language does not mean all which it would seem to convey. I should reply, This is bad language, unless there be something which language of this sort only can express. But if it be an exaggemtion of a truth, or if, for the sake of impression, an idea is conveyed which is false, a man may as well apologize to me for a profane blasphemer, saying that his oaths do not really mean all which they express, as try to reconcile me to the belief that such words as these are inspired. It is not the truth which offends me, but the untruthfulness of the language. The words are not decorous; my moral sense is abused, when I read such expressions, unless substantial truth requires them. The sin is not against my faith, but against my understanding. If there be nothing in holy angels, and in the Saviour, which corresponds to these representations, I should be tempted to go at once from the Bible to the teaching and preaching of some man who rejects the Bible, and rejects it partly because it uses such language. But where should I find such a preacher, who would not trouble me with the inconsistency of taking his text every Sabbath from the very book from which I seek to flee? So true is it that the stoutest unbeliever cannot shake off the hold which the Bible has upon his moral nature. Absolute scepticism seems to be as impossible as universal knowledge. “ Cast them into a furnace of fire,” “ in the presence of the holy angels,” “ and of the Lamb.”
Some tell me that this is “ Oriental; “ some, that it is merely “ flame-picture;'“ some, that it is “mere hyperbole.” Now, if a mere show of displeasure is signified by this language, the objection is, not to the punishment, but, that such inappropriate, such defamatory representations should be used in connection with the holy angels and the Lamb of God. If you will insist that the words are true, I have no objection to make. But the Bible does not observe the ordinary laws of decorum in language, unless truth would be violated by the use of other and milder terms than these, in describing the future infliction of punishment upon the wicked. The following scriptures, teaching that the wicked are in misery after death, confirm the foregoing statements: “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness.” “The ungodly are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.”
“ The men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before God exceedingly.” “ And the Lord rained fire and brimstone out of heaven, and destroyed them all.” “ The rich man died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.” “- Judas by transgression fell, and went to his own place.” “ If ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” '' And where I am, thither ye cannot come.”
He who will say that such men as are here described meet in death with a change of character which prepares them at once for happiness, may as well assert, once for all, that delusion is practised upon us by the representations of the Bible; that the object is merely to frighten the living; that apparent judgments upon the wicked, death and its terrors, are merely a dumb show, a tragic demonstration, a dissolving view turning, within the veil, into manifestations of compassion and love. There have not been wanting men, who, in their concern for the character of God, have interpreted his words of vengeance, and his terrible acts towards the wicked, in this manner -- as though such deception were any relief from imputations of undue severity. Archbishop Tillotson ventured such an explanation, and President Edwards's ironical reproof of him and others, for betraying their Maker's secret, is well known. There are some even now who, like the sect of Manichees, seem to hold that all evil resides in matter, and therefore that in the separation of the soul from the body the soul becomes pure. But the question before us is, What do the Scriptures teach? If there be anything conclusive in positive statements, this is placed beyond all reasonable dispute -- that some men die in their sins, and that after death they have in themselves the elements of misery The rich man surely is an instance of this. Judas's '' own place “ was not heaven.
We have seen thus far that, while the Scriptures represent the wicked themselves to be an essential source of their own misery, future punishment necessarily implies infliction, or excitation, from a source beyond the sinner himself. Some opprobriously call this “the doctrine of endless torture.” But there is something more terrible here than ''torture.” If the sinner were made to feel constantly that he is in the hands of a torturer, many a passion of his nature might minister strength to his resistance, and impart fortitude. But to have his, own self excited against him forever, so as to seem the proximate cause of his misery, is the more helpless woe. But however the sources of it may be combined, we have seen that the wicked are in misery after death. The question now is. Will their misery remain forever? Do the Scriptures teach that the punishment of the wicked, made up as it necessarily is from the natural consequences of evil-doing and positive inflictions from the hand of God, will be without end? The affirmative of this question I have undertaken to prove. But it may be said. You undertake an impossible task, because you know nothing of futurity.
Principles may yet be evolved which now are slumbering in the bosom of God. You must journey farther than man has gone before you can decide this subject. “- Have the gates of death been opened to thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? “
The*only question to be considered is. What do the Scriptures now teach as to the future condition of the wicked? Do they, or do they not, represent it as unalterable? If we can ascertain this we need not perplex ourselves as to ulterior revelations; nor should we refuse to receive the present testimony of God, with the objection that something more may possibly be said hereafter. What, then, does the Bible teach us as to the state and prospects of the impenitent after death?
Let the reader now endeavor to lay out of the question all considerations relating to the reasonableness or justice of future, endless punishment. Let him not foreclose the discussion in his own mind by saying that it is unreasonable and unjust, and therefore that it cannot be in the Bible. Rather let him first ascertain whether it be taught there, and then, if he will, let him debate with himself whether finding it there, he will, or will not, receive the Bible itself. In considering whether the Scriptures teach that the punishment of the wicked will be without end, we will see if the following proposition can be maintained.