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  THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
  by William Gt Shedd
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Shedd's historical and theological examination of the doctrine of eternal
punishment, reviewing how the church throughout history has understood the final
state of the impenitent and defending the orthodox position.

  Chapters: 7

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00 Shedd - Doctrine of Endless Punishment
    2. 01 History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment
    3. 02a Biblical Argument for Eternal Punishment
    4. 02b Biblical Argument for Eternal Punis (continue)
    5. 02c Biblical Argument for Eternal Punis (continue)
    6. 03a Rational Argument for Doctrine of Etern. Pun.
    7. 03b Rational Argument for Doctrine of Etern. Pun.

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  CHAPTER 1: 00 SHEDD - DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
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Table of Contents Introduction and the History of the Doctrine of Endless
Punishment The Biblical Argument for the Doctrine of Endless Punishment The
Rational Argument for the Doctrine of Endless Punishment

PREFACE At the request of the editor of the North American Review, the author of
this book prepared an argument in defense of the doctrine of Endless Punishment,
which was published in the number of that periodical for February, 1885. It was
agreed that the writer should have the right to republish it at a future time.
Only the rational argument was presented in the article. The author now
reproduces it, adding the Biblical argument, and a brief historical sketch.

Every doctrine has its day to be attacked, and defended. Just now, that of
Eternal Retribution is strenuously combated, not only outside of the church, but
to some extent within it. Whoever preaches it is said, by some, not "to preach
to the times"--as if the sin of this time were privileged, and stood in a
different relation to the law and judgment of God, from that of other times. The
argument from Scripture here given turns principally upon the meaning of Sheol
and Hades, and of the adjective aiwnioV. In determining the signification of the
former, the author has relied mainly upon the logic and aim of the inspired
writers. The reasoning of a writer is a clue to his technical terms. When his
object unquestionably is to alarm and deter, it is rational to infer that his
phraseology has a meaning in his own mind that is adapted to this. When,
therefore, the wicked are threatened with a Sheol and a Hades, it must be an
erroneous interpretation that empties them of all the force of a threat. And
such is the interpretation which denies that either term denotes the place of
retributive suffering.

It is freely acknowledged, that if the meaning of Sheol, or Hades, is to be
derived from the usage of a majority of the fathers, and the schoolmen
generally, it has no special and exclusive reference to the wicked, and is not
of the nature of an evil for them alone. If Sheol, or Hades, is nothing but an
underworld for all souls, then it is morally nondescriptive, and whatever of
danger there may be in an underworld pertains alike to the righteous and the
wicked. But if the Scriptures themselves, and their interpretation by a portion
of the fathers, and the reformers generally, are consulted, it is claimed that
the position taken in this book, that Sheol, or Hades, is the equivalent of the
modern Hell, will hold. It is with eschatology as it is with ecclesiastical
polity. If the authority of the Post Nicene fathers and the schoolmen is
conceded to be the chief determinant of the questions at issue, the prelatist
[priestly traditions] will carry the day. But if the Bible and the
interpretation of the Apostolic and Reformation churches are appealed to, he
[the prelatist] will lose it. The simplicity of the faith was departed from,
when under Hellenizing influences in the church the Heathen Orcus was
substituted for the Biblical Hades. A superstitious and materializing
eschatology came in along with the corruption of the Christian system, and held
sway for a thousand years, until the return to the Scriptures themselves by the
leaders of the Reformation, restored the older and purer type of doctrine.

Although the author, in the prosecution of the argument, does not turn aside to
enlarge on the awfulness of the doctrine of Endless Punishment, it must not be
supposed that he is unimpressed by it. It is a doctrine which throws in its
solemn shadows on even the most careless human life. No man is utterly
indifferent to the possible issues of the great Hereafter. The fall and eternal
ruin of an immortal spirit is the most dreadful event conceivable. That some of
God’s rational and self-determined creatures will forever be in deadly enmity to
Him, cannot be thought of without sorrow and awe. But from the nature of finite
free will, it is a possibility; and it is revealed to us as a fact, as clearly
as the facts of incarnation and redemption. Neither the Christian ministry, nor
the Christian church, are responsible for the doctrine of Eternal Perdition. It
is given in charge to the ministry, and to the church, by the Lord Christ
Himself, in His last commission, as a truth to be preached to every creature. If
they are false to this trust, His message to the church of Ephesus is for them:
Remember from where you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else
I will come to you quickly, and will remove your candlestick out of his place,
except you repent [REV 2:5]. The question, How many are to be saved? the Son of
God refused to answer--thereby implying that His mercy is unobligated and
sovereign. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy [Romans 9:15]. It becomes
man the sinner, not to murmur at this. That incarnate God Who has vicariously
suffered more for man’s sin, than any man has or will personally, surely has the
right to determine the method and extent of His own self-immolating compassion.
To the transgressor who says, Lord, if You will, You can make me clean, He
answers, I will, be clean [Mark 1:40]. But to the transgressor who looks on
redemption as something to which he is entitled, He replies, as in the parable,
Is it not lawful for Me, to do what I will with My own? [Matthew 20:15]. The
kindest way, therefore, for both the preacher and the hearer is, to follow the
revealed Word of God, and teach the plain and exact truth. Eternal perdition is
like any other danger. In order to escape danger, one must believe in it.
Disbelief of it is sure destruction. To be forewarned, is to be forearmed. Those
who foresee an evil, prepare for it and avoid it; but the simple pass on and are
punished [Proverbs 22:3]. Speaking generally, those who believe that there is a
Hell, and intelligently fear it, as they are commanded to do by Christ Himself,
will escape it; and those who deny that there is a Hell, and ridicule it, will
fall into it. Hence the minister of Christ must be as plain as Christ, as solemn
as Christ, and as tender as Christ, in the announcement of this fearful truth.
When He was come near, He beheld the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had
known, even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong to your
peace! but now they are hid from your eyes’ [Luke 19:41-42]. The dogmatic
bearings of Universalism are not to be overlooked. The rejection of the doctrine
of Endless Punishment cuts the ground from under the gospel. Salvation supposes
a prior damnation. He who denies that he deserves eternal death cannot be saved
from it so long as he persists in his denial [emphasis added - aal]. If his
denial is the truth, he needs no salvation. If his denial is an error, the error
prevents penitence for sin, and this prevents pardon. No error, consequently, is
more fatal than that of Universalism. It blots out the attribute of retributive
justice; transmutes sin into misfortune, instead of guilt; turns all suffering
into chastisement; converts the atonement work of Christ into moral influence;
and makes it a debt due to man, instead of an unmerited boon from God. No
teaching is more radical and revolutionizing, in its influence upon the
Christian system. The attempt to retain the evangelical theology in connection
with it is futile. The destructive nature of the error is still more apparent in
practical theology. Could it be proved that the Christian church have been
deceived in finding the doctrine of Endless Punishment in the Christian
Scriptures, and that there is no such thing, havoc would be made of all the
liturgies of the Church, as well as of its literature. Consider the following
petition from the "Morning Prayer for Families," in the Book of Common Prayer
used in the Episcopal church: "Keep in our minds a lively remembrance of that
great day in which we must give a strict account of our thoughts, words, and
actions, and according to the works done in the body be eternally rewarded or
punished by Him Whom You have appointed the Judge of living and dead, Your Son
Jesus Christ our Lord." Suppose, after uttering this petition, the person to say
to himself: "There is no eternal punishment." Consider, again, that searching
and anguished cry from the Litany: "From Your wrath, and from everlasting
damnation, Good Lord, deliver us," and imagine a bystander to say to the soul
that has just agonized this prayer: "You fool, there is no everlasting
damnation." And the effect of this denial is equally destructive in devotional
literature. Take the doctrine of eternal perdition, and the antithetic doctrine
of eternal salvation, out of the Confessions of Augustine; out of the Sermons of
Chrysostom; out of the Imitation of à Kempis; out of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress; out of Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying; out of Baxter’s Saints’
Everlasting Rest; and what is left?

UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK, November 18, 1885.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The author avails himself of the opportunity
afforded by the issue of a second edition of this volume, to revise and somewhat
enlarge it. He has added pp. 163-169 to the body of the work, for the purpose of
calling attention to the important truth that the necessity for endless
retribution is grounded in the action of man, not of God. "God," says Augustine
[Trinity IV. xii], "made not death [Wis 1:13], since He was not Himself the
cause of death; but yet death was inflicted on the sinner through His most just
retribution. Just as the judge inflicts punishment on the guilty; yet it is not
the justice of the judge, but the desert of the crime, which is the cause of the
punishment." It is the author of sin who is the author of Hell. The opponent of
endless punishment should, therefore, level his reproaches against sin and the
sinner, not against holiness and God. An Appendix has also been added to the
volume, for the purpose of expanding and strengthening some of the positions
taken in it. The material is to a considerable extent derived from the writings
of others. It is put into the form of notes, which are referred to by their
several numbers on the pages of the volume [changed the form and these notes
have been integrated into the text within square brackets - aal].

NEW YORK, November 4, 1887.

Reformatted for e-Sword by Stored on http://www.davidcox.com.mx/


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  CHAPTER 2: 01 HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT
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THE HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF ENDLESS PUNISHMENT The common opinion in the
Ancient church was, that the future punishment of the impenitent wicked is
endless. This was the catholic faith; as much so as belief in the trinity. But
as there were some church fathers who deviated from the creed of the church
respecting the doctrine of the trinity, so there were some who dissented from it
in respect to that of eternal retribution. The deviation in eschatology,
however, was far less extensive than in trinitarianism. The Semi-Arian and Arian
heresies involved and troubled the Ancient church much more seriously, than did
the Universalism of that period. Long controversies, ending in ecumenical
councils and formulated statements, were the consequence of the Trinitarian
errors, but no ecumenical council, and no authoritative counter-statement, was
required to prevent the spread of the tenet of Restoration. Having so little
even seeming support in scripture and reason, it gradually died out of the
Ancient church by its own intrinsic mortality. Neander [II., 737], speaking of
the second period in his arrangement (312-590), when there was more
Restorationism than in the first, says: "The doctrine of eternal punishment
continued, as in the preceding period, to be dominant in the creed of the
church. Yet, in the Oriental church, in which, with the exception of those
subjects immediately connected with the doctrinal controversies, there was
greater freedom and latitude of development, many respectable church teachers
still stood forth, without injuring their reputation for orthodoxy, as advocates
of the opposite doctrine, until the time when the Origenistic disputes caused
the agreement with Origen in respect to this point also [viz., Restorationism]
to be considered as something decidedly heretical." Hagenbach [History of
Doctrine, § 78] says of the period down to AD 250: "Notions more or less gross
prevailed concerning the punishment of the wicked, which most of the fathers
regarded as eternal." The principal deviation from the catholic doctrine of
endless retribution was in the Alexandrine school, founded by Clement and
Origen. The position taken by them was, that "the punishments of the condemned
are not eternal, but only remedial; the Devil himself being capable of
amelioration" [Gieseler. I. 214]. Thus early was the question raised, whether
the suffering to which Christ sentences the wicked is for the purpose of
correcting and educating the transgressor, or of vindicating and satisfying the
law he has broken--a question which is the key to the whole controversy. For, if
the individual criminal is of greater consequence than the universal law, then
the suffering must refer principally to him and his interests. But if the law is
of more importance than any individual, then the suffering must refer
principally to it. 1[The design of chastisement as such rests entirely in the
person chastised; but punishment properly so called--for it may, of course,
include sometimes an element of chastisement (as in human punishment)--has to
vindicate the universal against the individual. Chastisement, accordingly, as
that other word for it, discipline, implies (paideia from paiV), presupposes a
tutorial relationship of which punishment as such knows nothing" [Müller, On
Sin, I., 245, Urwick’s Trans.]].

Origen’s Restorationism grew naturally out of his view of human liberty. He held
that the liberty of indifference and the power of contrary choice, instead of
simple self-determination, are the substance of freedom. These belong
inalienably and forever to the nature of the finite will. They cannot be
destroyed, even by apostasy and sin. Consequently, there is forever a
possibility of a self-conversion of the will in either direction. Free will may
fall into sin at any time; and free will may turn to God at any time. This led
to Origen’s theory of an endless alternation of falls and recoveries, of hells
and heavens; so that practically he taught nothing but a hell. For, as Augustine
[City of God, XXI., 17] remarks, in his refutation of Origen, "heaven with the
prospect of losing it is misery." "Origen’s theory," says Neander [I., 656],
"concerning the necessary mutability of will in created beings, led him to infer
that evil, ever germinating afresh, would still continue to render necessary new
processes of purification, and new worlds destined for the restoration of fallen
beings, until all should again be brought back from manifoldness to unity, so
that there was to be a constant interchange between fall and redemption, between
unity and manifoldness."

Traces, more or less distinct, of a belief in the future restoration of the
wicked are found in Didymus of Alexandria, the two Gregories, and also in
Diodore of Tarsus, and Theodore of Mopsuestia--the leaders of the Antiochian
school. All of these were more or less under the influence of Origen. Origen’s
opinions, however, both in trinitarianism and eschatology, were strongly
combated in his own time by the great body of contemporary fathers, and
subsequently by the church under the lead of Epiphanius, Jerome, and Augustine.
The Mediaeval church was virtually a unit in holding the doctrine of Endless
Punishment. The Reformation churches, both Lutheran and Calvinistic, adopted the
historical and catholic opinion.

Since the Reformation, Universalism, Restorationism, and Annihilation, have been
asserted by some sects and many individuals. But these tenets have never been
adopted by those ecclesiastical denominations which hold, in their integrity,
the cardinal doctrines of the trinity and incarnation, the apostasy and
redemption, although they have exerted some influence within these
denominations. None of the evangelical churches have introduced the doctrine of
Universalism, in any form of it, into their symbolical books. The denial of
endless punishment is usually associated with the denial of those tenets which
are logically and closely connected with it--such as original sin, vicarious
atonement, and regeneration. Of these, vicarious atonement is the most
incompatible of any with universal salvation; because the latter doctrine, as
has been observed, implies that suffering for sin is remedial only, while the
former implies that it is retributive. Suffering that is merely educational does
not require a vicarious atonement in order to release from it. But suffering
that is judicial and punitive can be released from the transgressor, only by
being inflicted upon a substitute. He, therefore, who denies personal penalty
must, logically, deny vicarious penalty. If the sinner himself is not obliged by
justice to suffer in order to satisfy the law he has violated, then, certainly,
no one needs suffer for him for this purpose.

Within the present century, Universalism has obtained a stronger hold upon
German theology than upon any other, and has considerably vitiated it. It grew
up in connection with the rationalism and pantheism which have been more
powerful in Germany than elsewhere. Rationalism has many of the characteristics
of deism, and is vehemently polemic toward evangelical truth. That it should
combat the doctrines of sin and atonement is natural. Pantheism, on the other
hand, has to some extent been mingled with evangelical elements. A class of
anti-rationalistic theologians, in Germany, whose opinions are influenced more
or less by Spinoza and Schelling, accept the doctrines of the trinity,
incarnation, apostasy, and redemption, and assert the ultimate recovery from sin
of all mankind. Schleiermacher, the founder of this school, whose system is a
remarkable blending of the gospel and pantheism, has done much toward the spread
of Restorationism. The following are the objections which this theologian
[Glaubenslehre, § 163, Anhang] makes to eternal damnation: "1. Christ’s words in
Matthew 25:46; Mark 9:44; John 5:29, are figurative. 2. The passage 1
Corinthians 15:25-26, teaches that all evil shall be overcome. 3. Misery cannot
increase, but must decrease. If it is bodily misery, custom habituates to
endurance, and there is less and less suffering instead of more and more.
2[Satan, in Milton’s Paradise Lost (II., 274-278), suggests that custom may
mitigate the pains of Hell. Our torments also may, in length of time, Become our
elements; these piercing fires As soft as now severe; our temper changed Into
their temper; which must needs remove The sensible of pain.

If, on the other hand, it is mental suffering, this is remorse. The damned
suffer more remorse in Hell than they do upon Earth. This proves that they are
better men in Hell than upon Earth. They cannot, therefore, grow more wretched
in Hell, but grow less so as they grow more remorseful. 4. The sympathy which
the saved have with their former companions, who are in Hell, will prevent the
happiness of the saved. The world of mankind, and also the whole universe, is so
connected that the endless misery of a part will destroy the happiness of the
remainder." 3[Respecting this very common objection, that the misery of a part
of the human race will interfere with the happiness of the remainder, Müller [On
Sin, I., 239] makes the following remark: "The primary meaning of krisiV is
discrimination and separation, and implies that the main contrast between man in
relation to the future state is made manifest by the cessation of intercourse
between those who obey God, and those who resist him. Beings whose relations to
God are diametrically opposite, and persistently so, differ so greatly from each
other that other ties of relationship become as nothing in comparison. Bonds of
union among men arising out of the relationships of natural life must give way
of themselves, if the tie which binds man’s spiritual consciousness and will to
his Creator be on either side wholly severed. For those bonds have not in
themselves an eternal significance, save so far as they are included in that
relation to God which is of everlasting importance]. These objections appeal
mainly to reason. But the two assumptions, that Hell is abolished by becoming
used to it, and that remorse is of the nature of virtue, do not commend
themselves to the intuitive convictions.

Besides the disciples of Schleiermacher, there are Trinitarian theologians
standing upon the position of theism, who adopt some form of Universalism.
Nitzsch [Dogmatics, § 219] teaches Restorationism. He cites in support of it
only two passages out of the entire scriptures--namely, 1 Peter 3:19, which
speaks of the preaching to the spirits in prison; and Hebrews 11:39-40 : These
received not the promises. These two passages Nitzsch explains, as teaching that
"there are traces of a capacity in another state of existence for comprehending
salvation, and for a change and purification of mind;" and upon them solely he
founds the sweeping assertion, that "it is the apostolic view, that for those
who were unable in this world to know Christ in his truth and grace, there is a
knowledge of the Redeemer in the other state of existence which is never
inoperative, but is either judicial or quickening".

Rothe [Dogmatics, Th. II., Abth., ii. §§ 46-49, 124-131] contends for the
annihilation of the impenitent wicked, in the sense of the extinction of
self-consciousness. Yet he asserts that the aim of penalty is requital, and the
satisfaction of justice--an aim that would be defeated by the extinction of
remorse. Julius Müller [On Sin, II., 191, 418, 425] affirms that the sin against
the Holy Spirit is never forgiven, because it implies such a hardness in sin as
is incapable of penitence. But he holds that the offer of forgiveness through
Christ will be made to every human being, here or hereafter. "Those who have
never in this life had an opportunity of knowing the way of salvation will
certainly be placed in a position to accept and enter upon this way of return,
if they will, after their life on Earth is ended. We may venture to hope that in
the interval between death and the judgment many serious misconceptions, which
have hindered men from appropriating truth in this life, will be removed." The
use of the term "misconception" would seem to imply that some who had the offer
of salvation in this life, but had rejected it, will have the opportunity in the
next life to correct their error in this. Dorner [Christian Doctrine, IV.,
416-428], after giving the arguments for and against endless punishment,
concludes with the remark that "we must be content with saying that the ultimate
fate of individuals, namely, whether all will attain the blessed goal or not,
remains veiled in mystery" [! see Matthew 7:13-14 - aal]. His further remark,
that "there may be those eternally damned, so far as the abuse of freedom
continues eternally, but, in this case, man has passed into another class of
beings," looks in the direction of annihilation--suggesting that sin will
finally destroy the humanity of man, and leave him a mere brute. Respecting the
future offer of mercy, Dorner asserts that "the final judgment can take place
for none before the gospel has been so addressed to him that free appropriation
of the same was possible" [Christian Doctrine, III., 77].

Universalism has a slender exegetical basis. The Biblical data are found to be
unmanageable, and resort is had to human feeling and sympathy. Its advocates
quote sparingly from scripture. In particular, the words of Christ relating to
eschatology are left with little citation or interpretation. Actual attempts by
the Restorationist, to explain what the words, Depart from Me, you cursed, into
everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels [Matthew 25:41], really
mean, are rare. The most common device is to dismiss them, as Schleiermacher
does, with the remark that they are figurative. Some words of Paul, on the other
hand, whose views upon sin, election, and predestination, however, are not
especially attractive to this class, are made to do yeoman’s service. Texts like
Romans 5:18, As judgment came upon all men unto condemnation, so the free gift
came upon all men unto justification; and 1 Corinthians 15:22, As in Adam all
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive; are explained wholly apart from their
context, and by vocalizing [improperly emphasing] the word all. When Paul
asserts that the free gift came upon all men unto justification [Romans 5:18],
this is severed from the preceding verse, in which the all are described as
those who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness [Romans
5:17]. And when the same apostle affirms that in Christ shall all be made alive
[1 Corinthians 15:22], no notice is taken of the fact mentioned in the
succeeding verse, that not all men are in Christ--the clause, they that are
Christ’s, at His coming, implying that there are some who are not Christ’s at
His coming [1 Corinthians 15:23 - emphasis added - aal]. The small number of
texts of scripture that can with any plausibility be made to teach Universalism
sometimes leads to an ingenuity that is unfavorable to candid exegesis. The
endeavor to escape the force of plain revelation introduces unnatural
explanations. A curious example of caprice in interpretation is found in
Ruetschi’s Kritik vom Sündenfall [p. 231]. To prove his assertion, that sin by
its very nature finally ceases to be, he quotes Romans 6:23, The wages of sin is
death. This means, according to him, that sin ultimately consumes and abolishes
itself (muss sich schliesslich selbst verzehren und aufheben), and this is its
wages or punishment. This essay actually obtained the prize offered by the Hague
Association for the defense of the Christian Religion. This specimen of Biblical
interpretation is matched by that of a recent advocate of "Conditional
Immortality," who contends that Satan taught the natural immortality of the
human soul when he said to Eve: You shall not surely die [Genesis 3:4]; and that
God taught its natural mortality in the words: You shall surely die [Genesis
2:17].


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  CHAPTER 3: 02A BIBLICAL ARGUMENT FOR ETERNAL PUNISHMENT
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THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT FOR ETERNAL PUNISHMENT The strongest support of the
doctrine of Endless Punishment is the teaching of Christ, the Redeemer of man.
Though the doctrine is plainly taught in the Pauline Epistles, and other parts
of Scripture, yet without the explicit and reiterated statements of God
incarnate, it is doubtful whether so awful a truth would have had such a
conspicuous place as it always has had in the creed of Christendom. If, in spite
of that large mass of positive and solemn threatening of everlasting punishment
from the lips of Jesus Christ, which is recorded in the four Gospels, the
attempt has nevertheless been made to prove that the tenet is not an integral
part of the Christian system, we may be certain that had this portion of
Revelation been wanting, this attempt would have been much more frequent, and
much more successful. The Apostles enter far less into detailed description, and
are far less emphatic upon this solemn theme, than their divine Lord and Master.
And well they might be. For as none but God has the right, and would dare, to
sentence a soul to eternal misery, for sin; and as none but God has the right,
and would dare, to execute the sentence; so none but God has the right, and
should presume, to delineate the nature and consequences of this sentence. This
is the reason why most of the awful imagery in which the sufferings of the lost
are described is found in the discourses of our Lord and Savior. He took it upon
Himself to sound the note of warning. He, the Judge of living and dead, assumed
the responsibility of teaching the doctrine of Endless Retribution. I will
forewarn you whom you shall fear: Fear Him who after He has killed has power to
cast into Hell; yes, I say to you, Fear Him [Luke 12:5]. "Nothing," says Dr.
Arnold, "is more striking to me, than our Lord’s own description of the
judgment. It is so inexpressibly forcible, coming from His very own lips, as
descriptive of what He Himself would do" [Stanley’s Life of Arnold, I. 176].

Christ could not have warned men so frequently and earnestly as he did against
the fire that never shall be quenched, and the worm that dies not [Mark
9:43-44], had He known that there is no future peril fully corresponding to
them. That omniscient Being who made the statements respecting the day of
judgment, and the final sentence, that are recorded in Matthew 25:31-46, could
neither have believed nor expected that all men without exception will
eventually be holy and happy. To threaten with everlasting punishment a class of
persons described as goats upon the left hand [Matthew 25:41] of the eternal
Judge, while knowing at the same time that this class would ultimately have the
same holiness and happiness with those described as sheep on the right hand
[Matthew 25:34] of the judge, would have been both falsehood and folly. The
threatening would have been false. For even a long punishment in the future
world would not have justified Christ in teaching that this class of mankind are
to experience the same retribution with the Devil and his angels [Matthew
25:41]; for these were understood by the Jews, to whom He spoke, to be
hopelessly and eternally lost spirits: *[Edersheim [Life of Jesus, II. 789]
asserts that the schools of Shammai and Hillel both taught the doctrine of
eternal punishment. "These schools represented the theological teaching in the
time of Christ and His Apostles, showing that the doctrine of Eternal Punishment
was held in the days of our Lord, however it may have been afterwards modified."
Edersheim adds, that "the doctrine of the eternity of punishment seems to have
been held by the Synagogue throughout the whole first century. In the second
century, there is a decided difference in Rabbinic opinion; some denying the
doctrine of endless retribution. In the third century, there is a reaction and a
return to former views"]. And the threatening would have been foolish, because
it would have been a brutum fulmen, an exaggerated danger, certainly in the mind
of its Author. And for the persons threatened, it would have been a terror only
because they took a different view of it from what its Author did--they
believing it to be true, and He knowing it to be false! The mere perusal of
Christ’s words when He was on Earth, without note or comment on them, will
convince the unprejudiced that the Redeemer of sinners knew and believed, that
for impenitent men and demons there is an endless punishment. We solicit a
careful reading and pondering of the following well known passages: When the Son
of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He
sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations,
and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep
from the goats. And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on
the left. Then shall he say to those on the left hand, Depart from Me, you
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels. And these
shall go away into everlasting punishment [Matthew 25:31-33, Matthew 25:41,
Matthew 25:46]. If your right hand offend you, cut it off: it is better for you
to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into Hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched; where their worm dies not, and the fire is not
quenched. And if your foot offend you, cut it off: it is better for you to enter
crippled into life, than having two feet to be cast into Hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched; where their worm dies not, and the fire is not
quenched. And if your eye offend you, pluck it out: it is better for you to
enter into the Kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into
Hell fire: where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched [Mark
9:43-48]. What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose
his soul? What is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and be cast
away? [Mark 8:36; Luke 9:25]. The rich man died and was buried, and in Hell he
lifted up his eyes being in torments [Luke 16:22-23]. Fear not those who kill
the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him Who is able to
destroy both soul and body in Hell [Matthew 10:28]. The Son of man shall send
forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that
offend, and those who do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire:
there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth [Matthew 13:41-42]. Many will say
to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name? Then will I
profess to them, I never knew you: depart from Me, you who work iniquity
[Matthew 7:22-23]. He who denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels
of God. Unto him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it shall never be
forgiven [Luke 12:9-10]. Woe to you, you blind guides. You serpents, you
generation of vipers, how can you escape the damnation of Hell? [Matthew 23:16,
Matthew 23:33]. Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been
good for that man if he had not been born [Matthew 26:24]. The Lord of that
servant will come in a day when he looks not for Him, and at an hour when he is
not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and appoint him his portion with
unbelievers [Luke 12:46]. He who believes not shall be damned [Mark 16:16]. You
Capernaum, which are exalted to Heaven, shall be brought down to Hell [Matthew
11:23]. At the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the
wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire
[Matthew 13:49-50]. Then said Jesus again to them, I go My way, and you shall
seek Me, and shall die in your sins: where I go you cannot come [John 8:21]. The
hour is coming in which all who are in their graves shall hear My voice, and
shall come forth; they who have done good, to the resurrection of life; and they
who have done evil, to the resurrection of damnation [John 5:28-29]. To all
this, add the description of the manner in which Christ will discharge the
office of the Eternal Judge. John the Baptist represents Him as one Whose fan is
in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into
the garner, but will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire [Matthew 3:12].
And Christ describes himself as a householder who will say to the reapers,
Gather together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them [Matthew
13:30]; as a fisherman casting a net into the sea, and gathering of every kind;
which when it was full he drew to the shore, and sat down and gathered the good
into vessels, but cast the bad away [Matthew 13:47-48]; as the bridegroom who
took the wise virgins with him to the marriage, and shut the door upon the
foolish [Matthew 25:10]; and as the man traveling into a far country who
delivered talents to his servants, and afterwards reckons with them, rewarding
the good and faithful, and casting the unprofitable servant into outer darkness,
where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth [Matthew 25:19-30].

Let the reader now ask himself the question: Do these representations, and this
phraseology, make the impression that the future punishment of sin is to be
remedial and temporary? Are they adapted to make this impression? Were they
intended to make this impression? Is it possible to believe that that Holy and
Divine Person who uttered these fearful and unqualified warnings, nineteen
hundred years ago, respecting the destiny of wicked men and demons, knew that a
time is coming when there will be no wicked men and demons in the universe of
God, and no place of retributive torment? Did Jesus of Nazareth hold an esoteric
doctrine of Hell--a different view of the final state of the wicked, from that
which the common and natural understanding of His language would convey to His
hearers, and has conveyed to the great majority of His readers in all time? Did
He know that in the far-off future, a day will come when those tremendous scenes
which He described--the gathering of all mankind, the separation of the evil
from the good, the curse pronounced upon the former and the blessing upon the
latter--will be looked back upon by all mankind as "an insubstantial pageant
faded," as a dream that is passed, and a watch in the night?

Having thus noticed the positive and explicit nature of Christ’s teaching, we
now proceed to examine the terms employed in Scripture to denote the abode of
the lost, and the nature of their punishment. The Old Testament term for the
future abode of the wicked, and the place of future punishment, is Sheol (lwav).
This word, which is translated by Hades (adhV) in the Septuagint, has two
meanings: 1. The place of future retribution. 2. The grave.

Before presenting the proof of this position, we call attention to the fact,
that it agrees with the explanation of Sheol and Hades common in the Early
Patristic and Reformation churches, and disagrees with that of the Later
Patristic, the Mediaeval, and a part of the Modern Protestant church. It agrees
also with the interpretation generally given to these words in the versions of
the Scriptures made since the Reformation, in the various languages of the
world. The view of the Reformers is stated in the following extract from the
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia [Article Hades]: "The Protestant churches rejected,
with purgatory and its abuses, the whole idea of a middle state, and taught
simply two states and places--Heaven for believers, and Hell for unbelievers.
Hades was identified with Gehenna, and hence both terms were translated alike in
the Protestant versions. The English (as also Luther’s German) version of the
New Testament translates Hades and Gehenna by the same word ‘Hell,’ and thus
obliterates the important distinction between the realm of the dead (or
nether-world, spirit-world), and the place of torment or eternal punishment; but
in the Revision of 1881 the distinction is restored, and the term Hades
introduced." The same change is made in the Revised Old Testament, published in
1885. The Authorized version renders Sheol sometimes by "Hell," in the sense of
the place of punishment, and sometimes by "grave"--the context determining which
is the meaning. The Revisers substitute "Sheol" for "Hell," and whenever they
leave the word "grave" in the text, add the note: "The Hebrew is Sheol," in
order, as they say, "to indicate that it is not the place of burial." Had they
been content with the mere transliteration of Sheol, the reader might interpret
for himself. But in the preface to their version they become commentators, and
interpret for him. They deny that Sheol means "Hell" in the sense of "the place
of torment," and assert that it "signifies the abode of departed spirits, and
corresponds to the Greek Hades, or the Underworld" [Preface to the Revised Old
Testament]. The meaning of an important technical term, such as Sheol, must be
determined, certainly in part, by the connection of thought, and the general
tenor of Scripture. An interpretation must not be put upon it that will destroy
the symmetry of doctrine. Whether Sheol is from lav or luv, or any other merely
linguistic particular, will not of itself decide the question whether it denotes
the Heathen Orcus, or the Christian Hell. That Sheol is a fearful punitive evil
mentioned by the sacred writers to deter men from sin, lies upon the face of the
Old Testament, and any interpretation that essentially modifies this must
therefore be erroneous. But such an essential modification is made by denying
that it is the place of torment, and converting it into a promiscuous and
indiscriminate abode for all disembodied spirits. The indiscriminateness
nullifies the evil, and the fear of it. A successful version of the Bible
requires the union of philology and theology. A translation of Scripture made
wholly upon assumed philological grounds, and independent of the analogy of
faith, would be certain to contain errors. The general system of Christian
truth, and the connection of ideas, confessedly controls the explanation of such
terms as pistiV, zwh, pneuma, and logoV. Merely to apply classical and lexical
philology in these cases, would lead to misconception. Even, therefore, if it
were conceded that the Greek and Hebrew learning of the English Revisers is
superior to that of the age of Usher and Selden, it would not necessarily follow
that the truth in this instance is with them, and not with their predecessors.
That they may have been under a dogmatic prepossession, and have interpreted
Scripture by mythology, and the spurious clause of a creed, instead of by
Scripture itself, is a possibility

4[The mythological explanation of Sheol, or Hades, prevails considerably at
present. Many evangelical exegetes assert that the Biblical Hades is an
under-world for all souls, and not a place of retribution. They support their
opinion principally by the Rabbinical writings, the Greek and Roman classics,
and the records of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. This assumes that there is no
essential difference between the Hades of Scripture and that of the nations;
that the inspired mind took the same general view with the uninspired, of the
state of souls after death; that Moses, Samuel, David, and Isaiah, together with
Christ and his Apostles, agreed in their eschatology with Homer, Plato, Virgil,
the Egyptian "Ritual of the Dead," and the Babylonian tablets. A close adherence
to the text and context of Scripture shows, we think, that this assumption is
unfounded.

[Increasing knowledge of the national religions has surrounded the Scriptures
with a great mass of illustrative material which demands good judgment in its
use. The tendency, of late, has been to forget that Divine Revelation is
complete in itself and self-interpreting, and therefore must, first of all, be
examined in its own light. Christianity may be illustrated by ethnical religion
when the latter coincides with the former, not when it conflicts with it. When
mythology is an echo, even broken and imperfect, of Revelation, it may be
employed to explain it, but not when it contradicts. Scripture must rectify
mythology, not mythology scripture. The meaning of Sheol, or Hades should be
obtained by comparing scripture with scripture, not by conforming scripture to
the workings of man’s imagination as he peers into the darkness beyond the
grave, and endeavors to image to himself the abode of departed spirits. The
mythological eschatology is a fanciful and picturesque conjecture respecting the
unseen world. The Biblical eschatology is the sober unimaginative account of it
by an eye-witness--namely, God speaking through prophets, apostles, and his Son
Jesus Christ, Who came forth from the Father into the world, and, again, left
the world, and went to the Father [John 16:28]].

I. In the first place, Sheol signifies the place of future retribution.

1. This is proved, first, by the fact that it is denounced against sin and
sinners, and not against the righteous. It is a place to which the wicked are
sent, in distinction from the good. The wicked in a moment go down to Sheol [Job
21:13]. The wicked shall be turned into Sheol, and all the nations that forget
God [Psalms 9:17]. Her steps take hold on Sheol [Proverbs 5:5]. Her guests are
in the depths of Sheol [Proverbs 9:18]. You shall beat your child with a rod,
and shall deliver his soul from Sheol [Proverbs 23:14]. A fire is kindled in my
anger, and it shall burn to the lowest Sheol [Deuteronomy 32:22]. If I ascend up
into Heaven, You are there; if I make My bed in Sheol [the contrary of Heaven],
behold You are there [Psalms 139:8]. The way of life is above to the wise, that
he may depart from Sheol beneath [Proverbs 15:24]. Sheol is naked before Him,
and destruction [Abaddon, Rev. ver.] has no covering [Job 26:6]. Sheol and
destruction [Abaddon, Rev. ver.] are before the Lord [Proverbs 15:11]. Sheol and
destruction [Abaddon, Rev. ver.] are never full [Proverbs 27:20]. If in these
last three passages the Revised rendering be adopted, it is still more evident
that Sheol denotes Hell; for Abaddon is the Hebrew for Apollyon, who is said to
be the angel and king of the bottomless pit [Revelation 9:11]. 5[Additional
texts which prove that Sheol is a retributive evil denounced against sin and
sinners are: [Proverbs 7:27], Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the
chambers of death. [Psalms 86:13], Great is Your mercy toward me: and you have
delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol. To explain this latter passage as
meaning only that God had raised the writer from a bed of sickness, or delivered
him from some earthly calamity, disagrees with the entire Psalm--which is a
prayer for spiritual and eternal blessings, and a thanksgiving for them. You,
Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all who call
upon You [ver. 5]].

There can be no rational doubt, that in this class of Old Testament texts the
wicked are warned of a future evil and danger. The danger is, that they shall be
sent to Sheol. The connection of thought requires, therefore, that Sheol in such
passages have the same meaning as the modern Hell, and like this have an
exclusive reference to the wicked. Otherwise, it is not a warning. To give it a
meaning that makes it the common residence of the good and evil, is to destroy
its force as a Divine menace. If Sheol be merely a promiscuous underworld for
all souls, then to be turned into Sheol is no more a menace for the sinner than
for the saint, and consequently a menace for neither. In order to be of the
nature of an alarm for the wicked, Sheol must be something that pertains to them
alone. If it is shared with the good, its power to terrify is gone. If the good
man goes to Sheol, the wicked man will not be afraid to go with him. It is no
answer to this, to say that Sheol contains two divisions, Hades and Paradise,
and that the wicked go to the former. This is not in the Biblical text, or in
its connection. The wicked who are threatened with Sheol, as the punishment of
their wickedness, are not threatened with a part of Sheol, but with the whole of
it. Sheol is one, undivided, and homogeneous in the inspired representation. The
subdivision of it into heterogeneous compartments, is a conception imported into
the Bible from the Greek and Roman classics. The Old Testament knows nothing of
a Sheol that is partly an evil, and partly a good. The Biblical Sheol is always
an evil, and nothing but an evil. When the human body goes down to Sheol in the
sense of the "grave," this is an evil. And when the human soul goes down to
Sheol in the sense of "hell and retribution," this is an evil. Both are
threatened, as the penalty of sin, to the wicked, but never to the righteous.

Consequently, in the class of passages of which we are speaking, going down to
Sheol denotes something more dreadful than "going down to the grave," or than
entering the so-called underworld of departed spirits. To say that the wicked
shall be turned into Sheol, implies that the righteous shall not be; just as to
say that those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be
punished with everlasting destruction [2 Thessalonians 1:8-9], implies that
those who do obey it shall not be. To say that the steps of the prostitute take
hold on Sheol, is the same as to say that whoremongers shall have their part in
the lake which burns with fire and brimstone [Revelation 21:8]. To deliver the
soul of a child from Sheol by parental discipline, is not to deliver him either
from the grave, or from a spirit-world, but from the future torment that awaits
the morally undisciplined. In mentioning Sheol in such a connection, the
inspired writer is not mentioning a region that is common alike to the righteous
and the wicked. This would defeat his purpose to warn the latter *[The meaning
of the Hebrew word Sheol is doubtful, but I have not hesitated to translate it
hell. I do not find fault with those who translate it grave, but it is certain
that the prophet means something more than common death; otherwise he would say
nothing else concerning the wicked, than what would also happen to all the
faithful in common with them [Calvin on Psalms 9:17]]. Sheol, when denounced to
the wicked, must be as peculiar to them, and as much confined to them, as when
the lake of fire and brimstone is denounced to them. All such Old Testament
passages teach that those who go to Sheol suffer from the wrath of God, as the
Eternal Judge who punishes iniquity. The words: The wicked is snared in the work
of his own hands. The wicked shall be turned into Sheol, and all the nations
that forget God [Psalms 9:16-17], are as much of the nature of a Divine menace
against sin, as the words, In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die
[Genesis 2:17]. And the interpretation which eliminates the idea of penal
suffering from the former, to be consistent, should eliminate it from the
latter.

Accordingly, these texts must be read in connection with, and interpreted by,
that large class of texts in the Old Testament which represent God as a judge
and assert a future judgment, and a future resurrection for this purpose. Shall
not the judge of all the earth do right [Genesis 18:25]? To Me belongs vengeance
and recompense; their feet shall slide in due time [Deuteronomy 32:35]. Enoch
the seventh from Adam prophesied of these, saying, Behold the Lord comes with
ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all
that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly
committed [Jude 1:14-15]. The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction. They
shall be brought forth to the day of wrath [Job 21:30]. The ungodly shall not
stand in the judgment; the way of the ungodly shall perish [Psalms 1:5-6].
Verily, he is a God Who judges in the Earth [Psalms 58:11]. Who knows the power
of Your anger? even according to Your fear, so is Your wrath [Psalms 90:11]. O
Lord God, to Whom vengeance belongs, show Yourself. Lift up Yourself, You Judge
of the earth: render a reward to the proud [Psalms 94:1-2]. There is a way that
seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death [Proverbs
16:25]. God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time for
every purpose, and every work [Ecclesiastes 3:17]. Walk in the ways of your
heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God
will bring you into judgment [Ecclesiastes 11:9]. God shall bring every work
into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be
evil [Ecclesiastes 12:14]. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has
surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with devouring fire? who
among us shall dwell with devouring burnings [Isaiah 33:14]? Of the men that
have transgressed against God, it is said that their worm shall not die, neither
shall their fire be quenched [Isaiah 66:24]. I beheld till the thrones were cast
down, and the Ancient of days did sit. His throne was like the fiery flame, and
His wheels like burning fire; thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten
thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the
books were opened [Daniel 7:9-10]. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the
Earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt [Daniel 12:2]. The Lord has sworn by the excellency of Jacob, Surely I
never will forget any of their works [Amos 8:7]. They shall be Mine, says the
Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up My jewels [Malachi 3:17]. 6[Additional
Old Testament texts teaching a future judgment are: Deuteronomy 7:10, The Lord
your God repays those who hate Him to their face, to destroy them: He will not
be slack to him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face. Job 21:19-20, Job
21:30 God lays up his iniquity: He rewards him, and He shall know it. His eyes
shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty. The
wicked is reserved to the day of destruction: they shall be brought forth to the
day of wrath. Ezekiel 22:21-22 I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire
of My wrath, and you shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted
in the midst of the furnace, so shall you be melted in the midst thereof: and
you shall know that I the Lord have poured out My fury upon you. Proverbs 16:14
The Lord has made all things for Himself: yes, even the wicked for the day of
evil. For a full citation of the Old Testament passages that teach the final
judgment, [see Edwards, "On God’s Moral Government." Works, I., 574-582]]. A
final judgment, unquestionably, supposes a place where the sentence is executed.
Consequently, these Old Testament passages respecting the final judgment throw a
strong light upon the meaning of Sheol, and make it certain, in the highest
degree, that it denotes the world where the penalty resulting from the verdict
of the Supreme Judge is to be experienced by the transgressor. The wicked, when
sentenced at the last judgment, are turned into Sheol, as idolaters and all
liars, when sentenced, have their part in the lake which burns with fire and
brimstone [Revelation 21:8].

2. A second proof that Sheol is the proper name for Hell, in the Old Testament,
is the fact that there is no other proper name for it in the whole volume--for
Tophet is metaphorical, and rarely employed. If Sheol is not the place where the
wrath of God falls upon the transgressor, there is no place mentioned in the Old
Testament where it does. But it is utterly improbable that the final judgment
would be announced so clearly as it is under the Old Dispensation, and yet the
place of retributive suffering be undesignated. In modern theology, the Judgment
and Hell are correlates; each implying the other, each standing or falling with
the other. In the Old Testament theology, the Judgment and Sheol sustain the
same relations. The proof that Sheol does not signify Hell would, virtually, be
the proof that the doctrine of Hell is not contained in the Old Testament; and
this would imperil the doctrine of the final judgment. Universalism receives
strong support from all versions and commentaries which take the idea of
retribution out of the term Sheol. No texts that contain the word can be cited
to prove either a future sentence, or a future suffering. They only prove that
there is a world of disembodied spirits, whose moral character and condition
cannot be inferred from anything in the signification of Sheol; because the good
are in Sheol, and the wicked are in Sheol. When it is merely said of a deceased
person that he is in the world of spirits, it is impossible to decide whether he
is holy or sinful, happy or miserable.

3. A third proof that Sheol, in these passages, denotes the dark abode of the
wicked, and the state of future suffering, is found in those Old Testament texts
which speak of the contrary bright abode of the righteous, and of their state of
blessedness. According to the view we are combating, Paradise is in Sheol, and
constitutes a part of it. But there is too great a contrast between the two
abodes of the good and evil, to allow of their being brought under one and the
same gloomy and terrifying term Sheol. When the Lord put a word in Balaam’s
mouth, Balaam said, Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end
be like his [Numbers 23:5, Numbers 23:10]. The Psalmist describes this last end
of the righteous in the following terms: My flesh shall rest in hope. You will
show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right
hand there are pleasures for evermore [Psalms 16:11]. As for me, I will behold
Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with Your likeness
[Psalms 17:15]. God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol; for He shall
receive me [Psalms 49:15]. You shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterwards
receive me to glory. Whom have I in Heaven but You [Psalms 73:24]? In like
manner, Isaiah [Isaiah 25:8] says, respecting the righteous, that the Lord God
will swallow up death in victory, and will wipe away tears from all faces; and
Solomon asserts that the righteous has hope in his death [Proverbs 14:32]. These
descriptions of the blessedness of the righteous when they die have nothing in
common with the Old Testament conception of Sheol, and cannot possibly be made
to agree with it. The anger of God burns to the lowest Sheol; which implies that
it burns through the whole of Sheol, from top to bottom. The wicked are turned
into Sheol, and in a moment go down to Sheol; but the good are not "turned" into
"glory," nor do they "in a moment go down" to the right hand of God. The
presence of God, the right hand of God, the glory to which the Psalmist is to be
received, and the Heaven which he longs for, are certainly not in the dreadful
Sheol. They do not constitute one of its compartments. If between death and the
resurrection, the disembodied spirit of the Psalmist is in Heaven, at the right
hand of God, in His presence, and beholding His glory, it is not in a dismal
underworld. There is not a passage in the Old Testament that asserts, or in any
way suggests, that the light of the Divine countenance, and the blessedness of
communion with God, are enjoyed in Sheol. Sheol, in the Old Testament, is gloom,
and only gloom, and gloomy continually. Will any one seriously contend that in
the passage: Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him, it would
harmonize with the idea of walking with God, and with the Old Testament
conception of Sheol, to supply the ellipsis by saying that "God took him to
Sheol?" Was Sheol that better country, that is, an Heavenly, which the Old
Testament saints desired, and to attain which they were tortured, not accepting
deliverance [Hebrews 11:16, Hebrews 11:35]?

4. A fourth proof that Sheol is the place of future retribution, is its
inseparable connection with spiritual and eternal death. The Old Testament, like
the New, designates the punishment of the wicked by the term death. And
spiritual death is implied, as well as physical. Such is the meaning in Genesis
2:17. The death there threatened is the very same qanatoV to which Paul refers
in Romans 5:12, and which passed upon all men by reason of the transgression in
Eden. Spiritual death is clearly taught in Deuteronomy 30:15, I have set before
you this day life and good, and death and evil; in Jeremiah 21:8, I set before
you the way of life, and the way of death; in Ezekiel 18:32; Ezekiel 33:11, I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his
way and live; in Proverbs 8:36, All they that hate Me love death. Spiritual
death is also taught, by implication, in those Old Testament passages which
speak of spiritual life as its contrary. As righteousness tends to life, so he
who pursues evil pursues it to his own death Proverbs 11:19. Whoever finds Me
finds life Proverbs 8:35. He is in the way of life who keeps
instruction[Proverbs 10:17. You will show me the path of life Psalms 16:11. With
You is the fountain of life Psalms 36:9. There the Lord commanded the blessing,
even life for evermore Psalms 133:3.

Sheol is as inseparably associated with spiritual death and perdition, in the
Old Testament, as Hades is in the New Testament, and as Hell is in the common
phraseology of the Christian Church. Sheol is naked before Him, and destruction
has no covering [Job 26:6]. Sheol and destruction are before the Lord Proverbs
15:11. Sheol and destruction are never full [Proverbs 27:20]. Her house is the
way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death [Proverbs 7:27]. Her house
inclines to death, and her paths to the dead Proverbs 2:18. Her feet go down to
death; her steps take hold on Sheol [Proverbs 5:5]. The sense of these passages
is not exhausted, by saying that licentiousness leads to physical disease and
death. The death here threatened is the same that Paul speaks of, when he says
that those who commit such things are worthy of death Romans 1:32, and that the
end of those things is death Romans 6:21. Eternal death and Sheol are as
inseparably joined in Proverbs 5:5, as eternal death and Hades are in Revelation
20:14. But if Sheol be taken in the mythological sense of an underworld, or
spirit-world, there is no inseparable connection between it and death, either
physical or spiritual. Physical death has no power in the spirit-world over a
disembodied spirit. And spiritual death is separable from Sheol, in the case of
the good. If the good go down to Sheol, they do not go down to eternal death.

II. In the second place, Sheol signifies the grave, to which all men, the good
and evil alike, go down. That Sheol should have the two signification’s of Hell
and the grave, is explained by the connection between physical death and eternal
retribution. The death of the body is one of the consequences of sin, and an
integral part of the penalty. To go down to the grave, is to pay the first
installment of the transgressor’s debt to justice. It is, therefore, the
metonymy of a part for the whole, when the grave is denominated Sheol. As in
English, "death" may mean either physical or spiritual death, so in Hebrew,
Sheol may mean either the grave or Hell. When Sheol signifies the "grave," it is
only the body, See Acts 2:27 that goes down to Sheol. But as the body is
naturally put for the whole person, the man is said to go down to the grave when
his body alone is laid in it. Christ called Lazarus out of his grave [John
12:17]. This does not mean that the soul of Lazarus was in that grave. When a
sick person says, "I am going down to the grave," no one understands him to mean
that his spirit is descending into a place under the Earth. And when the aged
Jacob says, I will go down into Sheol, unto my [dead] son mourning [Genesis
37:35], no one should understand him to teach the descent of his disembodied
spirit into a subterranean world. The spirit of man goes upward, and the spirit
of the beast goes downward [Ecclesiastes 3:21]. The soul of the animal dies with
the body; that of the man does not. The statement that the Son of man shall be
three days and three nights in the heart of the Earth [Matthew 12:40], refers to
the burial of his body, not to the residence of his soul 7[That the heart of the
Earth means the grave, Witsius [Apostles’ Creed, Dissertation XVII] argues in
the following manner: "Jonah says, that while he was in the bowels of the fish,
he was ’in the belly of hell,’ or of the grave, and ’in the midst (HEB., heart)
of the sea;’ and in this respect he was a figure of Christ placed in the heart
of the Earth. This does not mean the hell of the damned which, as Jerome says,
is commonly said to be ’in the midst of the Earth;’ but an earthen receptacle,
which has Earth above, below, and on every side--or more briefly, which is
within the Earth. As the Scripture places Tyre ’in the heart of the sea,’ that
is, surrounded by the sea; as ’the way of a ship is in the heart of the sea,’
when it is surrounded on all sides by the sea; as Absalom was ’alive in the
heart of the oak,’ that is, in the oak, within its branches--so the grave is
’the heart of the earth.’ Chrysostom remarks that ’the sacred writer does not
say in the Earth, but in the heart of the Earth, that the expression might
clearly denote the grave, and that no one might suspect a mere appearance [of
death]].’ " When Christ said to the penitent thief, Today shall you be with Me
in paradise, He did not mean that His human soul and that of the penitent should
be in the heart of the Earth, but in the Heavenly paradise. Christ is
represented as dwelling in Heaven between His ascension and His second advent.
Him must the Heavens receive, till the time of the restitution of all things
Acts 3:21. The Lord shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of
the archangel, and with the trump of God 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Our conversation
is in Heaven, from which we look for our Savior the Lord Jesus [Php 3:20]. But
the souls of the redeemed, during this same intermediate period, are represented
as being with Christ. Father, I will that those whom You have given Me be with
Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me John 17:24.
We desire rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord [2
Corinthians 5:8]. When, therefore, the human body goes down to Sheol, or Hades,
it goes down to the grave, and is unaccompanied with the soul. The following are
a few out of many examples of this signification of Sheol. The Lord kills, and
makes alive: He brings down to Sheol, and brings up [1 Samuel 2:6]. Your
servants shall bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow
to Sheol Genesis 44:31 8[This text and Genesis 42:38, are parallel to Genesis
37:35, and explain Jacob’s words, I will go down into Sheol, unto my son. "Gray
hairs" cannot descend to an under-world]. O that You would hide me in Sheol [Job
14:13]. Sheol is my house [Job 17:13] 9[That Sheol in Job 17:13 means the grave,
is proved by the rest of the passage: I have made my bed in the darkness. I have
said to corruption, You are my father; to the worm, You are my mother, and my
sister. Another conclusive text is Psalms 141:7, Our bones are scattered at the
mouth of Sheol]. Korah and his company went down alive into Sheol, and they
perished from the congregation [Numbers 16:33]. In Sheol, who shall give You
thanks [Psalms 6:5]? There is no wisdom in Sheol where you go [Ecclesiastes
9:10]. I will ransom them from the power of Sheol; O Sheol, I will be your
destruction [Hosea 13:14]. My life draws near unto Sheol [Psalms 88:3]. What man
is he who lives, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the
hand of Sheol [Psalms 89:48]? "The English version," says Stuart, "renders Sheol
by ‘grave’ in 30 instances out of 64, and might have so rendered it in more."

Sheol in the sense of the "grave" is invested with gloomy associations for the
good, as well as the wicked; and this under the Christian dispensation, as well
as under the Jewish. The Old economy and the New are much alike in this respect.
The modern Christian believer shrinks from the grave, like the ancient Jewish
believer. He needs as much grace in order to die tranquilly, as did Moses and
David. It is true that Christ has brought immortality to light in the gospel;
has poured upon the grave the bright light of His own resurrection, a far
brighter light than the Patriarchal and Jewish church enjoyed; yet man’s faith
is as weak and wavering as ever, and requires the support of God.

Accordingly, Sheol in the sense of the "grave" is represented as something out
of which the righteous are to be delivered by a resurrection of the body to
glory, but the bodies of the wicked are to be left under its power. Like sheep,
the wicked are laid in Sheol; death shall feed on them. But God will redeem my
soul [my body] from the power of Sheol [Psalms 49:14-15]. You will not leave my
soul [my body] in Sheol; neither will You suffer your Holy One to see corruption
[Psalms 16:10]: *[Peter [Acts 2:31] asserts that David spoke of the resurrection
of Christ, when he said that His soul was not left in Sheol, neither did His
flesh see corruption. But there is no resurrection of the soul. Consequently, it
is the body that David spoke of. To "leave Christ’s soul in Sheol," is the same
thing as to let His flesh see corruption--evincing, that "soul," here, is put
for "body," and "Sheol" means the "grave." Paul [Acts 13:35] omits the clause,
You will not leave My soul in Sheol, evidently regarding the clause, You will
not suffer Your Holy One to see corruption, as stating the whole fact in the
case. In support of this interpretation of these words, we avail ourselves of
the unquestioned learning and accuracy of Bishop Pearson. After remarking that
the explanation which makes the clause, "He descended into Hell," to mean "that
Christ in his body was laid in the grave," is "ordinarily rejected by denying
that ‘soul’ is ever taken for ‘body,’ or ‘Hell’ for the ‘grave,’" he proceeds to
say that "this denial is in vain: for it must be acknowledged, that sometimes
the Scriptures are rightly so, and cannot otherwise be, understood. First, the
same word in the Hebrew, which the Psalmist used, and in the Greek, which the
Apostle used, and we translate ‘the soul,’ is elsewhere used for the body of a
dead man, and rendered so in the English version. Both vpn and yuch are used for
the body of a dead man in the Hebrew, and Septuagint of Numbers 6:6 He shall
come at no dead body (tm vpn). The same usage is found in [Leviticus 5:2;
Leviticus 19:28; Leviticus 21:1, Leviticus 21:11; Leviticus 22:4; Numbers 18:11,
Numbers 18:13; Haggai 2:13]. Thus, several times, vpn and yuch are taken for the
body of a dead man; that body which polluted a man under the Law, by the touch
thereof. And Maimondes has observed, that there is no pollution from the body
till the soul be departed. Therefore vpn and yuch did signify the body after the
separation of the soul. And this was anciently observed by Augustine, that the
soul may be taken for the body only: ‘Animae nomine corpus solum posse
significari, modo quodam locutionis ostenditur, quo significatur per id quod
continetur illud quod continet’ [Epist. 157, al. 190 ad Optatum; De animarum
origine, c. 5, § 19]. Secondly, the Hebrew word lwav which the Psalmist used,
and the Greek word adhV which the Apostle employed, and is translated ‘Hell’ in
the English version, does certainly in some other places signify no more than
the ‘grave,’ and is translated so. As when Mr. Ainsworth follows the word, For I
will go down unto my son, mourning, to Hell; our translation, arriving at the
sense, renders it, For I will go down into the grave, unto my son, mourning
[Genesis 37:35]. So again he renders, You shall bring down my gray hair with
sorrow unto Hell, that is to the grave [Genesis 42:38]. And in this sense we
say, The Lord kills and makes alive: He brings down to the grave, and brings up
[1 Samuel 2:6]. It is observed by Jewish commentators that those Christians are
mistaken who interpret those words spoken by Jacob, I will go down into Sheol,
of Hell [in the sense of underworld]; declaring that Sheol there is nothing but
the grave" [Pearson, On the Creed, Article V]. The position that vpn is
sometimes put for a dead body, and that Sheol in such a connection denotes the
grave, was also taken by Usher (as it had been by Beza, on Acts 2:27, before
him), and is supported with his remarkable philological and patristic learning.
See his discussion of the Limbus Patrum and Christ’s Descent into Hell, in his
Answer to a Challenge of a Jesuit in Ireland [Works, Vol. III]. This metonymy of
"soul" for "body" is as natural an idiom in English, as it is in Hebrew and
Greek. It is more easy for one to say that "the ship sank with a hundred souls,"
than to say that it "sank with a hundred bodies." And yet the latter is the real
fact in the case.

It is objected that Sheol does not mean the "grave," because there is a word
(rbq) for grave. A grave is bought and sold, and the plural is used; but Sheol
is never bought and sold, or used in the plural. The reply is, that "grave" has
an abstract and general sense, denoted by lwav, and a concrete and particular,
denoted by rbq. All men go to the grave; but not all men have a grave. When our
Lord says that all that are in their graves (mnhmeioiV) shall come forth John
5:28, he does not mean that only those shall be raised who have been laid in a
particular grave with funeral ceremonies. A man is "in the grave," in the
general sense, when his soul is separated from his body and his body has
returned to the dust Genesis 3:19. To be "in the grave," in the abstract sense,
is to have the elements of the body mingled with those of the Earth from which
it was taken Ecclesiastes 12:7. The particular spot where the mingling occurs is
unessential. Moses is in the grave; but no man knows of his grave to this day.
We say of one drowned in the ocean, that he found a watery grave. These remarks
apply also to the use of adhV and mnhmeion. 10[To the objection that Jacob knew,
or supposed, that his son had been devoured by wild beasts, and consequently had
no grave, and, therefore, meant to say that he should go down to the world of
spirits to meet him, Rivetus [Exercitatio CLI. in GEN] replies as follows: "Per
sepulchrum non intelligimus stricte, id de quo apud jurisconsultos disputatur,
cum agunt de sepulchro violato, sed id referimus ad rationem humationis in
genere, quandocumque modo terra reddatur terrae, juxta sententiam divinam,
’Pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.’ Sepeliri enim dicuntur quicunque terrae
redduntur, etiam qui sepeliuntur ’sepulturaasini’ quod de Joachimo pronuntiavit
Jeremias, Cap. 22, vers. 19. Igitur verba Jacobi ’Descendam ad filium meum
lugens in infernum,’ id e st, in sepulchrum, non possumus melius explicare quam
verbis Albini, qui sic ingemiscentis patris exponit querelam: ’In luctu
permanebo, donec me terra suscipiat, ut filium meum sepulchrum jam suscepit.’ Id
ipse Jacob etiam intellexit, qui per vocem Sheol locum denotat ’quo senum cani
cum dolore deducuntur’"]. According to Pearson (see above) the Jerusalem Targum,
with that of Jonathan, and the Persian Targum, explains lwav, in Genesis 37:35;
Genesis 42:38, by rbq]. This passage, while Messianic, has also its reference to
David and all believers. I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. O death, I
will be your plagues; O Sheol, I will be your destruction [Hosea 13:14]. Paul
quotes this [1 Corinthians 15:55], in proof of the blessed resurrection of the
bodies of believers--showing that "Sheol" here is the "grave," where the body is
laid, and from which it is raised. The bodies of the wicked, on the contrary,
are not delivered from the power of Sheol, or the grave, by a blessed and
glorious resurrection, but are still kept under its dominion by a resurrection
to shame and everlasting contempt [Daniel 12:2]. Though the wicked are raised
from the dead, yet this is no triumph for them over death and the grave. Their
resurrection bodies are not "celestial" and "glorified," like those of the
redeemed, but are suited to the nature of their evil and malignant souls. Like
sheep they are laid in Sheol; death shall feed upon them [Psalms 49:14].
Respecting sinful Judah and the enemies of Jehovah, the prophet says, Sheol has
enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure, and their glory shall
descend unto it [Isaiah 5:14]. Of the fallen Babylonian monarch, it is said,
Sheol from beneath is moved for you to meet you at your coming. Your pomp is
brought down to Sheol: the worm is spread under you, and the worms cover you
Isaiah 14:9, Isaiah 14:11. To convert this bold personification of the "grave,"
and the "worm," which devour the bodies of God’s adversaries, into an actual
underworld, where the spirits of all the dead, the friends as well as the
enemies of God, are gathered, is not only to convert rhetoric into logic, but to
substitute the mythological for the Biblical view of the future life. "Some
interpreters," says Alexander on Isaiah 14:9, "proceed upon the supposition,
that in this passage we have before us not a mere prosopopoeia or poetical
creation of the highest order, but a chapter from the popular belief of the
Jews, as to the locality, contents, and transactions of the unseen world. Thus
Gesenius, in his Lexicon and Commentary, gives a minute topographical
description of Sheol as the Hebrews believed it to exist. With equal truth a
diligent compiler might construct a map of Hell, as conceived by the English
Puritans, from the descriptive portions of the Paradise Lost." The clear
perception and sound sense of Calvin penetrate more unerringly into the purpose
of the sacred writer. "The prophet," he says [Commentary on Isaiah 14:9], "makes
a fictitious representation, that when this tyrant shall die and go down to the
grave, the dead will go forth to meet him and honor him." Theodoret [on Isaiah
14:9] explains in the same way. 11[Theodoret remarks on the words, "Hell from
beneath is moved for you, to meet you," etc., that "it is the custom of
Scripture sometimes to employ a figure, in order to state a thing more clearly.
In this place the prophet introduces death as endowed with mind and reason, and
expostulating with the king of Babylon" (Migne’s, Ed. II., 334)]. The New
Testament terms for the place of future punishment are Hades (adhV) and Gehenna
(geenna). Besides these, the verb tartarow is once used, in 2 Peter 2:4. God
spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus. Tartarus was
one of the compartments of the pagan Hades, the contrary of Elysium, from which
there was no deliverance. Tantalus, Sisyphus, Tityus, and Ixion were doomed to
endless punishment in Tartarus [Odyssey, XI. 575]. Plato [Gorgias, 235]
describes this class of transgressors as "forever (ton aei cronon) enduring the
most terrible, and painful sufferings." It is noteworthy, that the place in
which they suffer is denominated Hades, by both Homer and Plato--showing that in
the classical use, Hades is sometimes the equivalent of Tartarus and the modern
Hell, and the contrary of Elysium.

There is no dispute respecting the meaning of Gehenna. It denotes the place of
retributive suffering. It is employed twelve times in the New Testament: seven
times in Matthew’s Gospel; three times in Mark’s, and once in Luke’s. In every
one of these instances, it is Christ who uses the term. The only other person
who has used it is James James 3:6. It is derived from mnj yg, valley of Hinnom;
Chaldee mnjg = Geenna, Sept. Ennom. It was a valley southeast of Jerusalem, in
which the Moloch worship was practiced [2 Kings 23:10; Ezekiel 23:37, Ezekiel
23:39]. It was called Tophet, abomination [Jeremiah 31:32]. King Josiah caused
the filth of Jerusalem to be carried thither and burned [2 Kings 23:10].
Robinson asserts that there is no evidence that the place was used in Christ’s
day for the deposit and burning of offal. "Gehenna," at the time of the Advent
[coming of Christ], had become a technical term for endless torment; as
"Paradise" and "Abraham’s bosom" had for endless blessedness; and as "paganus"
(villager) subsequently became, for a "heathen."

Hades (adhV) is the word by which the Seventy translate Sheol. It has the same
two meanings in the New Testament that Sheol has in the Old: 1. The place of
retribution. 2. The grave.

1. First of all, Christ’s solemn and impressive parable of Lazarus and Dives
demonstrates that Hades is the place of future punishment. The rich man died and
was buried; and in Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments. And he cried,
and said, Father Abraham have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip
the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this
flame Luke 16:22-24. Our Lord describes Dives as a disembodied spirit, and as
suffering a righteous retribution for his hardhearted, luxurious, and impenitent
life. He had no pity for the suffering poor, and squandered all the "good things
received" from his Maker, in a life of sensual enjoyment. The Savior also
represents Hades to be inexorably retributive. Dives asks for a slight
mitigation of penal suffering, "a drop of water." He is reminded that he is
suffering what he justly deserves, and is told that there is a "fixed gulf"
between Hades and Paradise. He then knows that his destiny is decided, and his
case hopeless, and requests that his brothers may be warned by his example.
After such a description of it as this, it is strange that Hades should ever
have been called an abode of the good. 12[Müller regards it as so
unquestionable, from the description in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, that
Hades is not a place for repentance and salvation, that he places future
redemption after the day of judgment. He asserts that "those theories of
apokatastasiV which represent it as taking place in the interval between death
and the general resurrection directly violate the New Testament eschatology. If,
therefore, the idea of an apokatastasiV pantwn is to be maintained, it must be
referred to a period lying beyond the general resurrection" [Sin, II., 426]].

2. Second, Hades is represented as the contrary of Heaven, and the contrary of
Heaven is Hell. You, Capernaum, who is exalted to Heaven shall be brought down
to Hades Matthew 11:23; Luke 10:15. This is explained by the assertion, that it
shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for
you.

3. Third, Hades is represented as Satan’s kingdom, antagonistic to that of
Christ. The gates of Hades shall not prevail against My church Matthew 16:18. An
underworld, containing both the good and the evil, would not be the kingdom of
Satan. Satan’s kingdom is not so comprehensive as this. Nor would an underworld
be the contrary of the church, because it includes Paradise and its inhabitants.

4. Fourth, Hades is represented as the prison of Satan and the wicked. Christ
said to John, I have the keys of Hades and of death Revelation 1:18, and
describes Himself as He Who opens, and no man shuts, and shuts, and no man opens
Revelation 3:7. As the Supreme Judge, Jesus Christ opens and shuts the place of
future punishment upon those whom He sentences. I saw an angel come down from
Heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, and
he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, who is the Devil, and Satan, and
bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him
up Revelation 20:1-3. All modifications of the imprisonment and suffering in
Hades are determined by Christ. I saw the dead, small and great, stand before
God; and the books were opened, and the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in those books; and death and Hades gave up the dead which
were in them, and they were judged every man according to their works; and death
and Hades were cast into the lake of fire Revelation 20:12-14. On the day of
judgment, at the command of the Son of God, Hades, the intermediate state for
the wicked, surrenders its inhabitants that they may be re-embodied and receive
the final sentence, and then becomes Gehenna, the final state for them. Hell
without the body becomes Hell with the body.

5. Fifth, Hades, like Sheol, is inseparably connected with spiritual and eternal
death. I have the keys of Hades and of death Revelation 1:18. Death and Hades
gave up the dead which were in them Revelation 20:13. I saw a pale horse; and
his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hades followed him Revelation 6:8.
Hades here stands for its inhabitants, who are under the power of ("follow") the
second death spoken of in Revelation 2:11; Revelation 20:6, Revelation 20:14;
Revelation 21:8. This is spiritual and eternal death, and must not be confounded
with the first death, which is that of the body only. This latter, Paul 1
Corinthians 15:26 says was destroyed by the blessed resurrection of the body, in
the case of the saints, not of the wicked. The second death is defined as the
being cast into the lake of fire Revelation 20:14. 13[If Hades, in Revelation
20:14, means the under world, it includes Paradise, and Paradise is cast into
the lake of fire. That Hades, in Revelation 6:8, is put for its inhabitants, is
asserted by Eichhorn and Ebrard. Hengstenberg understands it to denote the place
of torment (Speaker’s Commentary on Revelation 6:8)]. This death is never
destroyed; because those who are cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, with
the Devil who deceived them, shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever
Revelation 20:10.

Besides these instances, there are only three others in which Hades is found in
the Received text of the New Testament: namely, Acts 2:27, Acts 2:31; 1
Corinthians 15:55. In 1 Corinthians 15:55, the uncials a B C D, followed by
Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Hort, read qanate twice. In all these instances Hades
signifies the "grave." From this examination of texts, it appears that Hades, in
the New Testament, has the same two significations that Sheol has in the Old.
The only difference is, that, in the Old Testament, Sheol less often, in
proportion to the whole number of instances, denotes "Hell," and more often the
"grave," than Hades does in the New Testament. And this, for the reason that the
doctrine of future retribution was more fully revealed and developed by Christ
and his apostles, than it was by Moses and the prophets.

If after this study of the Biblical data, there still be doubt whether Sheol and
Hades denote, sometimes the place of retribution for the wicked, and sometimes
the grave, and not an under-world, or spirit-world, common to both the good and
evil, let the reader substitute either the latter or the former term in the
following passages, and say if the connection of thought, or even common sense,
is preserved. "The wicked in a moment go down to the spirit-world." "The wicked
shall be turned into the spirit-world, and all the nations that forget God."
"Her steps take hold on the spirit-world." Her guests are in the depths of the
spirit-world." "You shall beat your child with a rod, and shall deliver his soul
from the spirit-world." "The way of life is above to the wise, that he may
depart from the spirit-world beneath." "In the spirit-world, who shall give you
thanks?" "There is no wisdom in the spirit-world, where you go." I will ransom
them from the power of the spirit-world; O spirit-world I will be your
destruction." Like sheep the wicked are laid in the spirit-world; death shall
feed upon them. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the spirit-world."
"You will not leave My soul in the spirit-world; neither will You suffer Your
Holy One to see corruption." "The gates of the spirit-world shall not prevail
against the church." "You Capernaum who are exalted unto Heaven shall be brought
down to the spirit-world." "And in the spirit-world he lifted up his eyes being
in torments." "Death and the spirit-world were cast into the lake of fire." "I
saw a pale horse, and his name that sat upon him was Death, and the spirit-world
followed him."

Hades is the disembodied state for the souls of the wicked between death and the
resurrection, as Paradise is for the souls of the righteous. All human souls
between death and the resurrection are separated from their bodies. Then shall
the dust return to the Earth as it was; and the spirit shall return to God who
gave it Ecclesiastes 12:7. 14[Additional Old Testament texts which teach the
separation of the soul from the body at death, and the continued existence of
the soul after the separation, are Genesis 49:33, When Jacob had made an end of
commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and yielded up the
spirit, and was gathered unto his fathers. Job 10:18, Oh, that I had given up
the spirit, and no eye had seen me! Job 11:20, Their hope shall be as the giving
up of the spirit. Job 14:10, Man gives up the spirit, and where is he? Jeremiah
15:9, She has given up the spirit. 2 Samuel 12:23, Can I bring him back again? I
shall go to him, but he shall not return to me. 1 Kings 17:21-22, And Elijah
cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord, my God, I pray You let this child’s soul
come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the
child came into him again, and he revived. Ecclesiastes 8:8, There is no man who
has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day
of death]. Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the
spirit Matthew 27:50. When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, He said, Father,
into Your hands I commend My spirit; and having said this, He gave up the spirit
Luke 23:46. Stephen called upon God, saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit Acts
7:59. We are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with
the Lord 2 Corinthians 5:8. I knew a man in Christ about four years ago, whether
in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell 2 Corinthians 12:2. I think it
proper, as long as I am in this tabernacle [body], to stir you up by putting you
in remembrance: knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as
our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me 2 Peter 1:13-14. I saw the souls of those who
were beheaded for the witness of Jesus Revelation 20:4. I saw under the altar
the souls of those who were slain for the word of God Revelation 6:9. All texts
which teach the resurrection of the body at the day of judgment, imply that
between death and the final judgment the human soul is disembodied.

Belief in the immortality of the soul, and its separate existence from the body
after death, was characteristic of the Old economy, as well as the New. It was
also a pagan belief. Plato elaborately argues for the difference, as to
substance, between the body and the soul, and asserts the independent existence
of the latter. He knows nothing of the resurrection of the body, and says that
when men are judged, in the next life, "they shall be entirely stripped before
they are judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge too
shall be naked, that is to say, dead; he with his naked soul shall pierce into
the other naked soul, as soon as each man dies" [Gorgias 523]. That the
independent and separate existence of the soul after death was a belief of the
Hebrews, is proved by the prohibition of necromancy in Deuteronomy 18:10-12. The
gathering of the patriarchs to their fathers implies the belief. Jehovah calls
Himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and this supposes the immortality
and continued existence of their spirits; for, as Christ Luke 20:28 argues in
reference to this very point, God is not the God of the dead, but of the living;
not of the unconscious, but the conscious. Our Lord affirms that the future
existence of the soul is so clearly taught by Moses and the prophets, that if a
man is not convinced by them, neither would he be though one should rise from
the dead Luke 16:29.

Some, like Warburton, have denied that the immortality of the soul is taught in
the Old Testament, because there is no direct proposition to this effect, and no
proof of the doctrine offered. But this doctrine, like that of the Divine
existence, is nowhere formally demonstrated, because it is everywhere assumed.
Much of the matter of the Old Testament is nonsense, upon the supposition that
the soul dies with the body, and that the sacred writers knew nothing of a
future life. For illustration, David says, My soul pants after You. He could not
possibly have uttered these words, if he had expected death to be the extinction
of his consciousness. The human soul cannot pant for a spiritual communion with
God that is to last only seventy years, and then cease forever. Every spiritual
desire and aspiration has in it the element of infinity and endlessness. No
human being can say to God: "You are my God, the strength of my heart, and my
portion, for three-score years and ten, and then my God and portion no more
forever." When God promised Abraham that in him should all the families of the
earth be blessed [Genesis 12:3], and Abraham believed in the Lord, and He
counted it to him for righteousness [Genesis 15:16], this promise of a Redeemer,
and this faith in it, both alike involve a future existence beyond this
transitory one. God never would have made such a promise to a creature who was
to die with the body; and such a creature could not have trusted in it. In like
manner, Adam could not have believed the protevangelism, knowing that death was
to be the extinction of his being. All the Messianic matter of the Old Testament
is absurd, on the supposition that the soul is mortal. To redeem from sin a
being whose consciousness expires at death, is superfluous. David prays to God,
Take not the word of truth out of my mouth; so shall I keep Your law continually
forever and ever [Psalms 119:43-44]. Every prayer to God in the Old Testament
implies the immortality of the person praying. My flesh fails, but God is the
strength of my heart forever Psalms 63:2.


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  CHAPTER 4: 02B BIBLICAL ARGUMENT FOR ETERNAL PUNIS (CONTINUE)
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Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is ever for in the Lord
Jehovah is everlasting strength [Isaiah 26:4]. The nothingness of this life only
leads the Psalmist to confide all the more in God, and to expect the next life.
Behold, You have made my days as a handbreadth; and my age is as nothing before
You: verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. And now, Lord,
what wait I for? my hope is in You [Psalms 39:5-7]. As Sir John Davies says of
the soul, in his poem on Immortality:

Water in conduit pipes, can rise no higher Than the well-head from whence it
first does spring: Then since to eternal God she does aspire, She cannot be but
an eternal thing.

Another reason why the Old Testament contains no formal argument in proof of
immortality, and a spiritual world beyond this life, is, because the intercourse
with that world on the part of the Old Testament saints and inspired prophets
was so immediate and constant. God was not only present to their believing minds
and hearts, in his paternal and gracious character, but, in addition to this, he
was frequently manifesting himself in theophanies and visions. We should not
expect that a person who was continually communing with God would construct
arguments to prove His existence; or that one who was brought into contact with
the unseen and spiritual world, by supernatural phenomena and messages from it,
would take pains to demonstrate that there is such a world. The Old Testament
saints endured as seeing the invisible. 15[Additional texts which have no
consistency, on the supposition that the Old Testament writers had little or no
knowledge of a future blessed life for the Godly, are the following: Genesis
17:7, I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and your seed after you,
in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto you, and to
your seed after you. Genesis 49:18, I have waited for Your salvation O Lord.
Exodus 6:7, I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a God.
Deuteronomy 33:3, Deuteronomy 33:29, Yea, he loved the people; all his saints
are in Your hand. Happy are you, O Israel: who is like unto you, O people saved
by the Lord. Job 13:15, Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him. Isaiah
33:22, For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our
King; He will save us. Habakkuk 1:12, Are You not from everlasting, O Lord my
God, my Holy One? we shall not die. Psalms 31:5, Into Your hand I commit my
spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.

[It is impossible to confine this "covenant" of God, this "love" of God, this
"salvation" of God, this "trust" in God, and this "redemption" of God, to this
short life of threescore years and ten. Such a limitation empties them of their
meaning, and makes them worthless. The words of Paul apply in this case: If in
this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable [1
Corinthians 15:19]. Calvin [Inst., II., x., 8] remarks that "these expressions,
according to the common explanation of the prophets, comprehend life, and
salvation, and consummate felicity. For it is not without reason that David
frequently pronounces how blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the
people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance; and that, not on account of
any Earthly felicity, but because he delivers from death, perpetually preserves,
and attends with everlasting mercy, those whom He has taken for his people." In
the same reference, Augustine [Confessions, VI., xi., 19] says: "Never would
such and so great things be wrought for us by God, if with the death of the body
the life of the soul came to an end." When God said to Abraham, You shall go to
your fathers in peace [Genesis 16:16], He meant spiritual and everlasting peace.
It was infinitely more than a promise of an easy and quiet physical death. When
Jacob, on his death-bed, says: I have waited for Your salvation, 0 Lord [Genesis
49:18], he was not thinking of deliverance from physical and temporal evil. What
does a man care for this in his dying hour?] The Old Testament teaches the
conscious happiness of believers after death. Enoch walked with God: and he was
not; for God took him [Genesis 5:24]. Let me die the death of the righteous, and
let my last end be like his [Numbers 23:10]. My flesh shall rest in hope. You
will show me the path of life: in Your presence is fullness of joy [Psalms 16:9,
Psalms 16:11]. As for me, I will behold Your face in righteousness: I shall be
satisfied when I awake with Your likeness [Psalms 17:15]. God will redeem my
soul from the power of the grave; for He shall receive me [Psalms 49:15]. You
shall guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. My flesh
and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion forever
[Psalms 73:24-26]. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will
wipe away tears from all faces [Isaiah 25:8]. This is quoted by Paul [1
Corinthians 15:54], in proof that this mortal shall put on immortality. Paul
also teaches that the Old Testament saints, like those of the New, trusted in
the Divine promise of the Redeemer, and of the resurrection. I stand and am
judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which
promise, our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come.
For which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be
thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? [Acts
26:6-8; comp. Acts 23:6]. These all died in faith, not having received the
promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and
embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the Earth.
For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And,
truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they
might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better
country, that is, a Heavenly [Hebrews 11:13-16]. These bright and hopeful
anticipations of the Old Testament saints have nothing in common with the pagan
world of shades, the gloomy Orcus, where all departed souls are congregated. The
New Testament abundantly teaches the conscious happiness of believers in the
disembodied state. Today shall you be with Me in paradise, said Christ to the
penitent thief [Luke 23:43]. They stoned Stephen, while he was calling upon God,
and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit [Acts 7:59]. Immediately on dying,
Lazarus is in Abraham’s bosom; receives good things; and is comforted [Luke
16:23-25]. To die is gain. I am in a strait between two, having a desire to
depart, and be with Christ, which is far better [Php 1:21-23]. I knew a man in
Christ, above fourteen years ago, who was caught up to the third Heaven, into
paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter
[2 Corinthians 12:2-4]. We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a building of God; a house not made with hands, eternal
in the Heavens. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that while we are at
home in the body we are absent from the Lord. We desire rather to be absent from
the body, and to be present with the Lord [2 Corinthians 5:1, 2 Corinthians 5:6,
2 Corinthians 5:8]. Christ died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we
should live together with Him 2 Corinthians 5:10. I bow my knees unto the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, of Whom the whole family in Heaven [not Hades] and
Earth is named [Ephesians 3:14-15]. Which hope enters into that within the veil;
where the Forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus [Hebrews 6:20]. And when he
had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who were
slain for the word of God, and white robes were given unto every one of them
[Revelation 6:9-11]. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord [Revelation
14:13]. The doctrine that the condition of all men between death and the
resurrection is a disembodied condition has been greatly misconceived, and the
misconception has introduced errors into eschatology. Inasmuch as the body,
though not necessary to personal consciousness, is yet necessary in order to the
entire completeness of the person, it came to be supposed in the Patristic
church, that the intermediate state is a dubious and unfixed state; that the
resurrection adds very considerably both to the holiness and happiness of the
redeemed, and to the sinfulness and misery of the lost. This made the
intermediate, or disembodied state, to be imperfectly holy and happy for the
saved, and imperfectly sinful and miserable for the lost. According to Hagenbach
[§142], the majority of the fathers between 250 and 730 "believed that men do
not receive their full reward till after the resurrection." Jeremy Taylor
[Liberty of Prophesying, § 8] asserts that the Latin fathers held that "the
saints, though happy, do not enjoy the beatific vision before the resurrection."
Even so respectable an authority as Ambrose, the spiritual father of Augustine,
taught that the soul "while separated from the body is held in an ambiguous
condition" [ambiguo suspenditur]: *[It is often difficult to say positively, and
without qualification, what the opinion of a church father really was upon the
subject of Hades, owing to the unsettled state of opinion. One and the same
writer; like Tertullian, or Augustine, for example, makes different statements
at different times. This accounts for the conflicting representations of
dogmatic historians. One thing, however, is certain, that the nearer we approach
the days of the Apostles, the less do we hear about an underworld, and of
Christ’s descent into it. Little is said concerning Hades, by the Apostolic
fathers. In the longer recension of Ignatius ad Smyrnaeos [Ch. ix], they are
exhorted to "repent while yet there is opportunity, for in Hades no one can
confess his sins." Justin Martyr [Trypho, Ch. v] simply says that "the souls of
the pious remain in a better place, while those of the wicked are in a worse,
waiting for the time of judgment." The extracts from the fathers in Huidekoper’s
volume on Christ’s Mission to the Underworld, show the uncertainty that
prevailed. The same is true of those in König’s Christi Höllenfahrt,
notwithstanding the bias of the author 16[In proof of the unsettled state of
opinion among the Fathers, on many points of doctrine, see Jeremy Taylor’s
(Liberty of Prophesying, Section VIII)]. The incompleteness arising from the
absence of the body was more and more exaggerated in the Patristic church, until
it finally resulted in the doctrine of a purgatory for the redeemed, adopted
formally by the Papal church, according to which, the believer, between death
and the resurrection, goes through a painful process in Hades which cleanses him
from remaining corruption, and fits him for Paradise. The corresponding
exaggeration in the other direction, in respect to the condition of the lost in
the disembodied state, is found mostly in the Modern church. The Modern
Restorationist has converted the intermediate state into one of probation, and
redemption, for that part of the human family who are not saved in this life.
17[Neander (II., 729, 730) shows that the later patristic view respecting the
state of unbaptized children was an important factor in the development of the
mythological theory of the intermediate state. "The doctrine of the damnation of
unbaptized infants, which, ever since the time of Cyprian, by the habit of
confounding the inward grace with its outward sign, had become predominant,
appeared to the Pelagians as something revolting. Yet even they made no
distinction of the baptism of the spirit from the baptism with water.
Accordingly they must of necessity affirm, with regard to unbaptized infants,
that, although exempt from punishment, they were still excluded from that higher
state of being, and attained only to a certain intermediate state. And to the
same result on this subject must everyone have been led, who was inclined to
adopt the Oriental mode of considering the effects of baptism, and would
consistently follow out the matter to a definite conclusion--unless he supposed
a universal redemption or restoration as the final end, to which that
intermediate state was destined to prove a point of transition for unbaptized
infants. Such an intermediate state Gregory Nazianzen assigned for those who
were unbaptized through no fault of their own. Augustine himself [De. Lib.
Arbit., III., 23] had once entertained a like opinion." Neander adds that
subsequently Augustine contended that "the notion of an intermediate place
between the state of woe and the Kingdom of Heaven was a thing altogether
unscriptural and incredible in itself; for man, being in the image of God, was
destined to find his bliss in communion with God, and out of that communion
could be no otherwise than wretched [Do peccat. et rem., I., 58; Sermo, 294, 3].
The Council of Carthage, AD 418, finally condemned, in its 2nd canon, the
doctrine concerning such an intermediate state for unbaptized children, on the
ground that nothing could be conceived as existing between the Kingdom of God
and perdition, and affirmed the eternal perdition of all unbaptized infants"].
The Protestant Reformers, following closely the Scripture data already cited,
which represent the redeemed at death as entirely holy and happy in Paradise,
and the lost at death as totally sinful and miserable in Hades, rejected
altogether the Patristic and Mediaeval exaggeration of the corporeal
incompleteness of the intermediate state. They affirmed perfect happiness at
death for the saved, and utter misery for the lost. The first publication of
Calvin was a refutation of the doctrine of the sleep of the soul between death
and the resurrection. The Limbus and Purgatory were energetically combated by
all classes of Protestants. "I know not," says Calvin [Institutes II. xvi 9],
"how it came to pass that any should imagine a subterraneous cavern, to which
they have given the name of limbus. But this fable, although it is maintained by
great authors, and even in the present age is by many seriously defended as a
truth, is after all nothing but a fable" 18[The Heidelberg Catechism (Qu. 44),
as did Calvin (Inst., II., xvii., 8-12), explains Christ’s "descent to Hell"
figuratively, as denoting his piacular agony in the garden and on the cross.
Witsius does the same in an exceedingly lucid and logical manner (Apostles’
Creed, Dissertation XVIII)]. The doctrine of the intermediate or disembodied
state, as it was generally received in the Reformed (Calvinistic) churches, is
contained in the following statements in the Westminster standards: "The souls
of believers are, at their death, made perfect in holiness, and do immediately
pass into glory [The Larger Catechism (86) and Confession (xxxii. 1) say, "into
the highest Heavens"]; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest
in their graves till the resurrection. At the resurrection, believers, being
raised up in glory, shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of
judgment, and made perfectly blessed in full enjoying of God to all eternity"
(Shorter Catechism, 37, 38). According to this statement, there is no essential
difference between Paradise and Heaven. The Larger Catechism (86) asserts that
"the souls of the wicked are, at death, cast into Hell, and their bodies kept in
their graves till the resurrection and judgment of the great day." The Larger
Catechism (89) and Confession (xxxii 1) say that "at the day of judgment, the
wicked shall be cast into Hell, to be punished forever." According to this,
there is no essential difference between Hades and Hell. The substance of the
Reformed view, then, is, that the intermediate state for the saved is Heaven
without the body, and the final state for the saved is Heaven [NOTE: the Bible
actually teaches that the final abiding place for the saved is the new
Earth–Revelation 21:1-3, Revelation 21:9Revelation 2:5 aal] with the body; that
the intermediate state for the lost is Hell without the body, and the final
state for the lost is Hell with the body. In the Reformed, or Calvinistic
eschatology, there is no intermediate Hades between Heaven and Hell, which the
good and evil inhabit in common. When this Earthly existence is ended, the only
specific places and states are Heaven and Hell [see NOTE above -aal]. Paradise
is a part of Heaven; Sheol, or Hades, is a part of Hell. A pagan underworld
containing both Paradise and Hades, both the happy and the miserable, like the
pagan idol, is "nothing in the world." There is no such place. 19[Dr. Charles
Hodge (Theology, III., 716-756) presents and defends the reformed view of Hades
in distinction from the patristic and papal, yet with some vacillation. On p.
734 he remarks that "there is no great difference between the [Rabbinical]
Jewish doctrine of Sheol, in its essential features, and the true doctrine as
presented by our Lord in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Both are
represented as going into Sheol, or Hades." But on p. 736 he strongly combats
that explanation, by "many modern interpreters," of Peter’s discourse on the day
of Pentecost, which makes him "to teach that the souls of the pious dead do not
ascend to Heaven, but descend to the gloomy abode of Sheol, Hades, or Hell--all
these terms being equivalent"]. This view of Hades did not continue to prevail
universally in the Protestant churches. After the creeds of Protestantism had
been constructed, in which the Biblical doctrine of Sheol is generally adopted,
the mythological view began again to be introduced. Influential writers like
Lowth and Herder gave it currency in Great Britain and Germany. "A popular
notion," says Lowth (Hebrew Poetry, Lect. VIII), "prevailed among the Hebrews,
as well as among other nations, that the life which succeeded the present was to
be passed beneath the Earth; and to this notion the sacred prophets were obliged
to allude, occasionally, if they wished to be understood by the people, on this
subject." Says Herder (Hebrew Poetry, Marsh’s Translation, II. 21), "No
metaphorical separation of the body and soul was yet known among the Hebrews, as
well as among other nations, and the dead were conceived as still living in the
grave, but in a shadowy, obscure, and powerless condition." The theory passed to
the lexicographers, and many of the lexicons formally defined Sheol and Hades as
the underworld. It then went rapidly into commentaries, and popular expositions
of Scripture. The Pagan conception of Hades is wide and comprehensive; the
Biblical is narrow and exclusive. The former includes all men; the latter, only
wicked men. The Greeks and Romans meant by Hades, neither the grave in which the
dead body is laid, nor the exclusive place of retribution, but a nether world in
which all departed souls reside. There was one adhV for all, consisting of two
subterranean divisions: Elysium and Tartarus. 20[The Pagan nomenclature is
self-consistent but the Pagan-Christian is not. In the Pagan scheme, Hades is a
general term, having two special terms under it: namely, Elysium and Tartarus.
But in the paganized Christian scheme, Hades does double duty, being both a
general and a special term. When the Pagan is asked: "Of what does Hades
consist?" he answers, "Of Elysium and Tartarus." But when the mythological
Christian is asked: "Of what does Hades consist?" he answers, "Of Paradise and
Hades." He cannot answer , "Of Paradise and Tartarus," because the latter is
Gehenna, which he denies to be in Hades. Hence he converts the whole into a part
of itself. To say that Hades is made up of Paradise and Hades, is like saying
that New York City is made up of the Central Park and New York City]. In
proportion as the Later-Jews came to be influenced by the Greek and Roman
mythology, the Old Testament Sheol was widened, and made to be a region for the
good as well as the evil. Usher (Limbus Patrum), and Pearson (Creed, Art. V),
cite Josephus as an example. This mythological influence increased, until the
doctrine of purgatory itself came into the Jewish apocryphal literature.
Purgatory is taught in 2Ma 12:45. Manasses, in his Prayer, asks God not "to
condemn him into the lower parts of the Earth." The Synagogue, according to
Charnocke (Discourse II), believed in a purgatory. *[On the influence of
Hellenism upon the Later-Judaism, see Edersheim’s Messianic Prophecy and
History. Lecture IX]. 21[The strong tendency of the later Jews to adopt both the
customs and opinions of the heathen nations is noticed by Chemnitz in his
learned and thorough examination of the Tridentine doctrine of Purgatory
(Examen: De Purgatorio, Cap . II) "Ex philosophorum ratiocinationibus, et ex
superstitiosis gentium sacrificiis, quae ubique usitata erant, cum quidem sicut
de caris absentibus ita etiam de mortuis naturalis quaedam cura et sollicitudo
animis nostris insita est, ad Judaeos etiam hujus opinionis contagium quoddam,
inclinato jam Judaismo, serpere coepit. Quanquam enim incisio carnis, et evulsio
capillorum, in luctu mortuorum, expresse prohibita erant Leviticus 19:1-37,
Deuteronomy 14:1-29], ex conversatione tamen inter gentes, Israelitis etiam
prophetarum tempore illa usurpari coepta fuisse, ex Jeremiae, cap. xvi., non
obscure colligitur. Sicut a gentibus etiam tibicines in funerum curatione
mutuati sunt [Matthew 9:1-38], juxta versum poetae: ’cantatat moestis tibia
funeribus.’

["Eadem ratione tandem post propheta rum tempora, etiam orationes et sacrificia
pro mortuis, Judaei imitari coeperunt circa annum 170 ante natum Christum, cujus
exemplum extat 2 Maccabaeorum 12. Id quod tum fieri coepit, cum collapsa
doctrina, et rebus omnibus, cum in imperio tum in templo, perturbatissimis,
Judaei una cum foederibus, etiam lingua, appellationibus, moribus, et ritibus,
conformitatem cum gentibus quaererent et affectarent: sicut tota historia
Maccabaeorum ostendit"]. The Pagan conception, as has been observed, passed also
into the Christian church. It is found in the writings of many of the fathers,
but not in any of the primitive creeds. "The idea of a Hades (lwav), known to
both Hebrews and Greeks, was transferred to Christianity, and the assumption
that the real happiness, or the final misery of the departed, does not commence
till after the general judgment and the resurrection of the body, appeared to
necessitate the belief in an intermediate state, in which the soul was supposed
to remain, from the moment of its separation from the body to the last
catastrophe. Tertullian, however, held that the martyrs went at once to
paradise, the abode of the blessed, and thought that in this they enjoyed an
advantage over other Christians, while Cyprian does not seem to know about any
intermediate state whatever" (Hagenbach: History of Doctrine, § 77). 22[As an
example of the degree to which the mythological view of the condition of the
dead had worked itself into the Christian church in the first part of the third
century, take the following fanciful description of Hades by Hippolytus, in a
fragment of his Discourse against the Greeks: "Hades is a place in the created
system, unformed, beneath the Earth, in which the light does not shine, and
where there is perpetual darkness. This locality has been appointed to be, as it
were, a guard-house for souls, in which the angels are stationed as guards,
distributing to each one’s deeds the temporary punishments for different
characters. In this locality there is a certain place set apart by itself, a
lake of unquenchable fire, into which we suppose no one has ever yet been cast:
for it is prepared against the day determined by God, in which one sentence of
righteous judgment shall be justly applied to all. The unrighteous shall be
sentenced to this endless punishment; but the righteous shall obtain the
incorruptible kingdom, who, indeed, are at present detained in Hades, but not in
the same place with the unrighteous. For this locality there is one descent, at
the gate whereof we believe an archangel is stationed with a host. And when
those who are conducted by the angels appointed for the care of souls have
passed through this gate, they do not proceed on one and the same way; but the
righteous, being conducted in the light toward the right hand, are brought into
a locality full of light. There, there is neither fierce heat nor cold, but the
face of the [OT] fathers and the righteous is seen to be always similar, as they
wait for the rest and eternal revival in Heaven, which succeed this location.
And we call it by the name of Abraham’s bosom. But the unrighteous are dragged
toward the left hand by the angels who are ministers of punishment, and they go
of their own accord no longer, but are dragged by force as prisoners. And the
angels appointed over them send them along, threatening them with an eye of
terror, forcing them down into the lower parts. And when they are brought there,
those appointed to that service drag them to the confines of Hell (geenna). And
the unrighteous hear the agitation and feel the hot smoke. And when that vision
is so near that they see the excessively red spectacle of the fire, they shudder
in horror at the expectation of the future judgment. And, again, when they see
the place of the [OT] fathers and the righteous, they are also tormented. For a
deep and vast abyss is set there in the midst, so that neither can any of the
righteous from sympathy think to pass it, nor any of the unrighteous dare to
cross it. Thus far, on the subject of Hades, in which the souls of all are
detained until the time which God has determined; and then he will accomplish a
resurrection of all."

[The Koran has also borrowed from the patristic Christianity this view of the
intermediate state. Paradise and Hades are represented as coterminous in an
under world. "The inhabitants of Paradise shall call out to the inhabitants of
hell-fire, saying, Now we have found that which our Lord promised us to be true;
have you also found out that which your Lord promised you to be true? They shall
answer, Yea" (Koran, Ch. VII)].

According to this Hellenized eschatology, at death all souls go down to Hades:
in inferna loca, or ad inferos homines. This is utterly unbiblical. It is
connected with the heathen doctrine of the infernal divinities, and the infernal
tribunal of Minos and Rhadamanthus. The God of revelation does not have either
His abode, or his judgment-seat, in Hades. From Christ’s account of the last
judgment, no one would infer that it takes place in an underworld. In both the
Old and New Testament, the good dwell with God, and God’s dwelling-place is
never represented as "below," but "on high." Elijah ascends in a chariot of
fire. David expects to be "received to glory." Christ describes the soul of a
believer, at death, as going up to Paradise. The beggar died, and was carried by
the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried. And in
Hades he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and saw Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom [Luke 16:22-23]. According to this description, Abraham’s
bosom and Hades are as opposite and disconnected as the zenith and the nadir. To
say that Abraham’s bosom is a part of Hades, is to say that the Heavens are a
compartment of the Earth. Matthew [Matthew 8:11] teaches that Abraham’s bosom is
in Heaven: Many shall recline (anakliqhsontai) with Abraham, in the Kingdom of
Heaven. Paradise is separated from Hades by a great chasm [Luke 16:26]. The word
casma denotes space either lateral or vertical, but more commonly the latter.
Schleusner, in voce, says: "Maxime dicitur de spatio quod e loco superiore ad
inferiorem extenditur." Hades is in infernis; Abraham’s bosom, or Paradise, is
in superis; and Heaven, proper, is in excelsis, or summis.

If Paradise is a section of Hades, then Christ descended to Paradise, and saints
at death go down to Paradise, and at the last day are brought up from Paradise.
This difficulty is not met, by resorting to the Later-Jewish distinction between
a supernal and an infernal paradise. The paradise spoken of by Christ, in Luke
24:33, is evidently the same that Paul speaks of, in 2 Corinthians 12:3-4, which
he calls the third Heaven.

It is sometimes said, that there is no "above" or "below" in the spiritual
world, and therefore the special representation in the parable of Dives and
Lazarus must not be insisted upon. This, certainly, should not be urged by those
who contend for an under world. Paradise and Hades, like Heaven and Hell, are
both in the universe of God. But wherever in this universe they may be, it is
the Biblical representation (unlike the mythological), that they do not
constitute one system, or one sphere of being, any more than Heaven and Hell do.
They are so contrary and opposite, as to exclude each other, and to constitute
two separate places or worlds; so that he who goes to the one does not go to the
other. This contrariety and exclusiveness is metaphorically expressed by space
vertical, not by space lateral. Things on the same plane are alike. Those on
different planes are not. If Paradise is above and Hades is beneath, Hades will
be regarded as Hell, and be dreaded. But if Paradise and Hades are both alike
beneath, and Paradise is a part of Hades, then Hades will not be regarded as
Hell (as some affirm it is not), and will not be dreaded. Hades will be merely a
temporary residence of the human soul, where the punishment of sin is imperfect,
and its removal possible and probable. A portion of the fathers, notwithstanding
the increasing prevalence of the rnythological view, deny that Paradise is a
compartment of Hades. In some instances, it must be acknowledged, they are not
wholly consistent with themselves, in so doing. According to archbishop Usher
(Works, III. 281), "the first who assigned a resting-place in hell [Hades] to
the fathers of the Old Testament was Marcion the Gnostic." This was combated, he
says, by Origen, in his Second Dialogue Against Marcion. 23[Irenaeus (Adv. Haer.
I. xxvii., 3) mentions as one of Marcion’s heresies, his teaching that "Cain,
and those like him, and the Sodomites, and the Egyptians, and others like them,
and, in fine, all the nations who walked in all sorts of abomination, were saved
by the Lord on his descending into Hades." Another opinion of Marcion, which
Irenaeus mentions as heretical, was, that "Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and those
other righteous men who sprang from the patriarch Abraham, with all the
prophets, and those who were pleasing to God, did not partake in salvation. For
since these men, he says, knew that their God was constantly tempting them, so
now they suspected that He was tempting them, and did not run to Jesus, or
believe His announcement; and for this reason he declared that their souls
remained in Hades" Irenaeus agreed with Marcion in regard to the assumed fact of
Christ’s descent to Hades, but differed from him in regard to its purpose and
effects]. In his comment on Psalms 9:18, Origen remarks that "as Paradise is the
residence of the just, so Hades is the place of punishment (kolasthrion) for
sinners." The locating of Paradise in Hades is opposed by Tertullian (Adv.
Marcionem, IV. 34), in the following terms: "Hades (inferi) is one thing, in my
opinion, and Abraham’s bosom is another. Christ, in the parable of Dives,
teaches that a great deep is interposed between the two regions. Neither could
the rich man have lifted up his eyes, and that too afar off, unless it had been
to places above him, and very far above him, by reason of the immense distance
between that height and that depth." 24[The abode of the demons is denominated
the abyss, in Luke 8:31. But, in Ephesians 2:2, Satan is called the prince of
the power of the air. Ellicotts (in loco) explanation is probable. "As ouranoV
is used in a limited and partial [Matthew 6:26], as well as an unlimited
meaning, so ahr, which is commonly confined to the region of the air or
atmosphere, may be extended to all that supra-terrestrial but subcelestial
region (o upouranioV topoV, Chrysostom) which seems to be, if not the abode, yet
the haunt of evil spirits." See the authorities in favor of this explanation
mentioned by Ellicott.

[Hodge [On Ephesians 2:2] regards ahr as synonymous with skotoV."The word
skotoV, darkness, is so often used just as ahr is here employed, as to create a
strong presumption that the latter was meant to convey the same meaning as the
former. Thus, the power of darkness, [Luke 22:53]; rulers of darkness,
[Ephesians 6:12]; the kingdom of darkness, [Colossians 1:13], are all scriptural
expressions, and are all used to designate the kingdom of Satan. This
signification of ahr is not without the authority of usage. The word properly,
especially in the earlier writers, means the lower, obscure, misty atmosphere,
as opposed to aiqhr, the pure air. Hence it means obscurity, darkness, whatever
hides from sight"]. Similarly, Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Dives and Lazarus,
as quoted by Usher, asks and answers: "Why did not Lazarus see the rich man, as
well as the rich man is said to see Lazarus? Because he that is in the light
does not see him who stands in the dark; but he that is in the dark sees him
that is in the light." Augustine, in his exposition of Psalms 6:1-10 [Migne, IV.
93], calls attention to the fact that "Dives looked up, to see Lazarus." Again,
he says, in his Epistle to Evodius [Migne, II. 711], "it is not to be believed
that the bosom of Abraham is a part of Hades (aliqua pars inferorum). How
Abraham, into whose bosom the beggar was received, could have been in the
torments of Hades, I do not understand. Let them explain who can." Again, in De
Genesi ad literam, XII. 33, 34 [Migne, III. 482], he remarks: "I confess, I have
not yet found that the place where the souls of just men rest is Hades
(inferos). If a good conscience may figuratively be called paradise, how much
more may that bosom of Abraham, where there is no temptation, and great rest
after the grief’s of this life, be called paradise." To the same effect, says
Gregory of Nyssa (In Pascha. Migne, III. 614): "This should be investigated by
the studious, namely, how, at one and the same time, Christ could be in those
three places: in the heart of the Earth, in paradise with the thief, and in the
‘hand’ of the Father. For no one will say that paradise is in the places under
the Earth (en upocqonioiV), or the places under the Earth in paradise; or that
those infernal places (ta upocqonia) are called the ‘hand’ of the Father." Cyril
of Alexandria, in his De exitu animi [Migne, X. 1079-82], remarks: "Insontes
supra, sontes infra. Insontes in coelo, sontes in profundo. Insontes in manu
dei, sontes in manu diaboli." Usher asserts that the following fathers agree
with Augustine, in the opinion that Paradise is not in Hades: namely,
Chrysostom, Basil, Cyril Alexandrinus, Gregory Nazianzen, Bede, Titus of Bostra,
and others 25[The Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-9), composed of (Greek and
Latin bishops, which endeavored to unite the Latin and Greek churches, decided
"that the souls of the saints are received immediately into Heaven and behold
God Himself as He is three and one" [Taylor, Liberty of Prophesying, Section
VIII]].

These patristic statements respecting the supernal locality of Paradise agree
with Scripture. The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from
Sheol beneath [Proverbs 15:24]. When Samuel is represented as coming up from the
Earth [1 Samuel 28:7-20], it is because the body reanimated rises from the
grave. This does not prove that the soul had been in an underworld, any more
than the statement of John [John 12:17], that Christ called Lazarus out of his
grave, proves it. Paradise is unquestionably the abode of the saved; and the
saved are with Christ. The common residence of both is described as on high.
When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive [Ephesians 4:8]. Father, I
will that they also whom You have given Me be with Me where I am, that they may
see My glory [John 17:24]. Those who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him
[down from Paradise, not up from Hades] [2TH 4:14]. At the second advent, we who
are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the
air [1TH 4:17]. Stephen looked up into Heaven, and saw Jesus standing on the
right hand of God [Acts 7:55]. Christ said to the Pharisees, You are from
beneath, I am from above [John 8:23]. Satan and his angels are cast down to
Tartarus [2 Peter 2:4]. The penitent thief says to Christ: Lord remember me when
You come into Your Kingdom. Christ replies: This day shall you be with Me in
paradise [Luke 23:42-43]. This implies that paradise is the same as Christ’s
Kingdom; and Christ’s Kingdom is not an infernal one. Christ cried with a loud
voice, Father into Your hands I commend My spirit, and having said this, He gave
up the spirit [Luke 23:46]. The hands of the Father, here meant, are in Heaven
above, not in Sheol beneath.

These teachings of Scripture, and their interpretation by a portion of the
fathers, show that Paradise is a section of Heaven, not of Hades, and are
irreconcilable with the doctrine of an under world containing both the good and
the evil.

Another stimulant, besides that of mythology, to the growth of the doctrine that
the intermediate state for all souls is the under world of Hades, was the
introduction into the Apostles’ creed of the spurious clause, "He descended into
Hades." Biblical exegesis is inevitably influenced by the great ecumenical
creeds. When the doctrine of the descent to Hades was inserted into the oldest
of the Christian symbols, it became necessary to find support for it in
Scripture. The texts that can, with any success, be used for this purpose, are
few, compared with the large number that prove the undisputed events in the life
of Christ. This compelled a strained interpretation of such passages as Matthew
12:40; Acts 2:27; Romans 10:7; 1 Peter 3:18-20; 1 Peter 4:6, and largely
affected the whole subject of eschatology, as presented in the Scriptures.

Chapter 2 - PART TWO THE BIBLICAL ARGUMENT FOR ETERNAL PUNISHMENT The Apostles’
creed, in its original form, read as follows: "Suffered under Pontius Pilate;
was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day he rose again from the dead." The
first appearance of the clause, "He descended into Hades," is in the latter half
of the 4th century, in the creed of the church of Aquileia. Pearson [Creed, Art.
V], by citations, shows that the creeds, both ecclesiastical and individual,
prior to this time, do not contain it. Burnet [Thirty Nine Articles, Art. III]
asserts the same. Rufinus, the presbyter of Aquileia, says that the intention of
the Aquileian alteration of the creed was, not to add a new doctrine, but to
explain an old one; and therefore the Aquileian creed omitted the clause, "was
crucified, dead, and buried," and substituted for it the new clause, "descendit
in inferna." Rufinus also adds, that "although the preceding Roman and Oriental
editions of the creed had not the words. ‘He descended into Hades,’ yet they had
the sense of them in the words, ‘He was crucified, dead, and buried,’" quoted in
Pearson [Creed, Article V]. The early history of the clause, therefore, clearly
shows that the "Hades" to which Christ was said to have descended was simply the
"grave" in which He was buried.

Subsequently, the clause went into other creeds. The Athanasian (600) follows
that of Aquileia, in inserting the "descent" and omitting the "burial." It
reads: "Who suffered for our salvation, descended into Hades, rose again the
third day from the dead." Those of Toledo, in 633 and 693, likewise contain it.
It is almost invariably found in the Mediaeval and Modern forms of the Apostles’
creed, but without the omission, as at first, of the clause, "was crucified,
dead, and buried." 26[If both clauses are retained, the explanation proposed by
Whitby [On Acts 2:26-27] is consistent with Scripture. "The Scripture does
assure us that the soul of the holy Jesus, being separated from His body, went
to Paradise [Luke 23:43], and from thence it must descend into the grave or
sepulcher to be united to His body, that this might be revived; and thus it may
be truly said: ’He was dead and buried; His soul descended afterwards into Hades
(the grave) to be united to His body; and His body being thus revived, He rose
again the third day.’"] If, then, the text of the Apostles’ creed shall be
subjected, like that of the New Testament, to a revision in accordance with the
text of the first four centuries, the Descensus ad inferos must be rejected as
an interpolation.

While the tenet of Christ’s local descent into Hades has no support from
Scripture, or any of the first ecumenical creeds, it has support, as has already
been observed, from patristic authority *[See Hagenbach’s History of Doctrine,
§§ 77, 78, 141, 142. Smith’s Ed]. "The ancient fathers," says Pearson [Creed,
Article V], "differed much respecting the condition of the dead, and the nature
of the place into which the souls, before our Saviors death, were gathered; some
looking on that name which we now translate Hell, Hades, or infernus, as the
common receptacle of the souls of all men, both the just and unjust, while
others thought that Hades, or infernus, was never taken in the Scriptures for
any place of happiness; and therefore they did not conceive the souls of the
patriarchs or the prophets did pass into any such infernal place." This
difference of opinion appears in Augustine, who wavered in his views upon the
subject of Hades, as Bellarmine concedes. Pearson [Creed, Art. V] remarks of
him, that "he began to doubt concerning the reason ordinarily given for Christ’s
descent into Hell, namely, to bring up the patriarchs and prophets thence, upon
this ground, that he thought the word infernus [adhV] was never taken in
Scripture in a good sense, to denote the abode of the righteous"
#[Notwithstanding the currency which the view of Hades as the abode of the good
and evil between death and the resurrection has obtained, it would shock the
feelings, should a clergyman say to mourning friends: "Dry your tears, the
departed saint has gone down to Hades"]. Pearson cites, in proof, the passages
already quoted from Augustine’s Epistles, and Commentary on Genesis. On the
other hand, in his City of God [XX. 15], Augustine hesitatingly accepts the
doctrine that the Old Testament saints were in limbo, and were delivered by
Christ’s descent into their abode. "It does not seem absurd to believe, that the
ancient saints who believed in Christ, and His future coming, were kept in
places far removed, indeed, from the torments of the wicked, but yet in Hades
(apud inferos), until Christ’s blood and His descent into these places delivered
them." Yet in his exposition of the Apostles’ creed [De Fide et Symbolo],
Augustine makes no allusion to the clause, "He descended into Hades." And the
same silence appears in the De Symbolo, attributed to him. After expounding the
clauses respecting Christ’s passion, crucifixion, and burial, he then explains
those concerning His resurrection and ascent into Heaven. This proves that when
he wrote this exposition, the dogma was not an acknowledged part of the catholic
faith 27[The American Episcopal Church does not regard the "descent into Hell"
as a necessary part of the Christian faith. In the order for Evening Prayer, it
is said that "any churches may omit the words, ’He descended into Hell,’ or may,
instead of them, use the words, ’He went into the place of departed spirits,’
which are considered as words of the same meaning in the Creed"]. Still later,
Peter Chrysologus, archbishop of Ravenna, and Maximus of Turin, explain the
Apostles’ creed, and make no exposition of the "descent to Hades." The
difference of opinion among the fathers of the first four centuries, together
with the absence of Scriptural support for it, is the reason why the Descensus
ad inferos was not earlier inserted into the Apostles’ creed. It required the
development of the doctrine of purgatory, and of the mediaeval eschatology
generally, in order to get it formally into the doctrinal system of both the
Eastern and Western churches. %[Baumgarten-Crusius [Dogmengeschichte II. § 109]
finds three stadia in the development of the dogma of the "descent to Hades." 1.
The Descent was the Burial itself put into an imaginative form. 2. The Descent
was a particular condition or status of Christ resulting from his Burial. 3. The
Descent was entirely separate from the Burial, being another and wholly distinct
thing] 28[Van Oosterzee’s [Dogmatics, II., 559, 560] history of the clause, "He
descended into Hell," is as follows: "As concerns the history of this article,
we find the conviction expressed, even by the earliest of the fathers--Justin
Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and others--that Jesus,
after His burial, actually tarried in the world of spirits, and by some of them,
also, that He there preached the gospel; while the romantic manner in which this
mysterious subject is presented in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus is well
known. Gnosticism, especially, warmly espoused this idea; according to Marcion,
this activity of the Lord was directed to delivering the victims of the
Demiurge, and leading them upwards with himself. From the symbols of the
semi-Arians this much-debated article appears to have passed over to those of
the orthodox church, according to some, with a view to controvert Apollinarism.
In the Expositio Symboli Aquileiensis of Rufinus, this formula is found, and
especially through his influence it appears also to have passed over into other
confessions of faith; although it is remarkable that in the Nicene Creed mention
is made only of ’was buried;’ in the Athanasian Creed, on the other hand, only
of ’descended into Hell.’ It is manifest from this that both expressions were
first employed by many interchangeably, though very soon greater stress was laid
upon the latter, and its contents regarded as the indication of a special
remedial activity of the Lord. As the doctrine of purgatory became more
developed, the conceptions found wider acceptance, that the Lord had descended
into the lower world, in order to deliver the souls of the Old Testament
believers from their subterranean abode, the limbus patrum. Especially under the
influence of Thomas Aquinas, was developed the doctrine of the Romish Church,
that the whole Christ--as to His divine and human nature--voluntarily repaired
thither, to assure to the above-mentioned saints the fruit of His death on the
cross, and to raise them out of this prison-house to the full enjoyment of
Heavenly blessedness. According to Luther, on the other hand, who regards the
Descensus as the first step on the path of the exaltation, the Lord, after His
being made alive according to the spirit, and, immediately upon His return from
the grave, descended, body and soul, into Hell, there to celebrate his triumph
over the Devil and his powers [Colossians 2:15], and to proclaim to them
condemnation and judgment. The Reformed theologians either understood the
expression in the sense of ’buried,’ or explained it of the final anguish and
dismay of the suffering Christ. This latter is the view of Calvin [Inst., II.,
xvi], and of the Heidelberg Catechism (Ans. 44). Some divines, the Lutheran
Aepinus, e.g., even maintained that the reference is to the sufferings of Hell,
which Christ endured in His soul, while His body was lying in the grave. No
wonder that the Formula Concordiae declared this article to be one ’qui neque
sensibus, neque ratione nostra comprehendi queat, solo autem fide acceptandus
sit;’ which, however, did not prevent its being possible to say, on the other
side, that ’there are almost as many dissertations concerning the Descensus as
there are flies in the height of summer’ (Witsius). Left by the supra-naturalism
of the past century entirely in a misty obscurity, it was wholly rejected by the
Rationalists, as the fruit of an exploded popular notion, to which, according to
Schleiermacher, nothing but a fact wholly unnoticed by the apostles (unbezeugte
Thatsache) served as a basis. Only in our day has the tide turned, and
theologians of (different schools have begun to return with increased interest,
yea, with manifest preference to this dogma; and to bring it into direct
connection not only with soteriology, but also with eschatology." After this
historical account, Van Oosterzee proceeds to defend the doctrine of a local
descent to Hades, founding upon Psalms 16:10; Acts 2:25-31; Acts 13:33-37;
Ephesians 4:8-10; 1 Peter 3:19-21; 1 Peter 4:6]. The personal and local descent
of Christ into Hades--whether to deliver the Old Testament saints from limbo; or
to preach judicially, announcing condemnation to the sinners there; or
evangelically, offering salvation to them--if a fact, would have been one of the
great cardinal facts connected with the Incarnation. It would fall into the same
class with the nativity, the baptism, the passion, the crucifixion, the
resurrection, and the ascension. Much less important facts than these are
recorded. Matthew speaks of the descent of Christ into Egypt, but not of his
descent into Hades. Such an act of the Redeemer as going down into an infernal
world of spirits, would certainly have been mentioned by some one of the
inspired biographers of Christ. The total silence of the four Gospels is fatal
to the tenet. Paul, in his recapitulation of the principal events of our Lord’s
life, evidently knows nothing of the descent into Hades. I delivered unto you
that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins; and that He was
buried, and that He rose again the third day [1 Corinthians 15:3-4]. The remark
of bishop Burnet [Thirty-Nine Articles, Art. III] is sound. "Many of the fathers
thought that Christ’s soul went locally into Hell, and preached to some of the
spirits there in prison; that there he triumphed over Satan, and spoiled him,
and carried some souls with Him into glory. But the account that the Scripture
gives us of the exaltation of Christ begins it always at his resurrection. Nor
can it be imagined that so memorable a transaction as this would have been
passed over by the first three Evangelists, and least of all by John, who coming
after the rest, and designing to supply what was wanting in them, and intending
particularly to magnify the glory of Christ, could not have passed over so
wonderful an instance of it. The passage in Peter seems to relate to the
preaching to the Gentile world, by virtue of that inspiration that was derived
from Christ"

*[Augustine, Bede, Aquinas, Erasmus, Beza, Gerhard, Hottinger, Clericus,
Leighton, Pearson, Secker, Hammond, Hofmann, and most of the Reformed
theologians, explain 1 Peter 3:18-20 to mean, that Christ preached by Noah to
men who were disobedient in the days of Noah, and who for this cause were
spirits in prison at the time of Peter’s writing. 29[It is objected that the
phrase, He "went and preached" (poreuqeiV ekhruxen), in 1 Peter 3:19, would not
apply to a preaching that was instrumental and spiritual. But the same use is
found in Ephesians 2:17; Christ "came and preached (elqwn euaggelisato) to you
who were afar off." The reference is to Christ’s preaching to the Gentile world
by his apostles. Christ, in his own person, did not preach to them which were
afar off; and He forbade His disciples to do so until the time appointed by the
Father; [Matthew 10:5; Acts 1:4. See, also, Ephesians 1:20-21; Acts 26:23; John
10:16], for instances in which Christ’s preaching by others is called His
preaching]. The particle pote, qualifying apeiqhsasi, shows that the
disobedience (or disbelief) occurred when the ark was being prepared. But the
preaching must have been contemporaneous with the disobedience, or disbelief.
What else was there to disobey, or disbelieve? Says Pearson [Creed, Art. II],
"Christ was really before the flood, for He preached to them that lived before
it. This is evident from the words of Peter [1 Peter 3:18-20]. From which words
it appears, first, That Christ preached by the same spirit by the virtue of Whom
He was raised from the dead: but that Spirit was not His [human] soul, but
something of a greater power; second, That those to whom he preached were such
as were disobedient; third, That the time when they were disobedient was the
time before the flood, when the ark was being prepared. The plain interpretation
is to be acknowledged for the true, that Christ did preach unto those men who
lived before the flood, even while they lived, and consequently that he was
before it. For though this was not done by an immediate act of the Son of God,
as if He personally had appeared on Earth and actually preached to that world,
but by the ministry of a prophet, by the sending of Noah, the eighth preacher of
righteousness: yet to do anything by another not able to perform it without Him,
as much demonstrates the existence of the principal cause, as if He did it
Himself without any intervening instrument."

[Another proof of the correctness of this interpretation is the fact that
Christ’s preaching to the spirits in prison was pneumati, alone. The total
qeanqrwpoV did not preach. The sarx, or human nature, of Christ had no part in
the act. But Christ’s personal and local preaching in Hades would require His
whole Divine-human person; as much so as His preaching in Galilee or Jerusalem.
The Formula Concordiae [IX. 2] so understands and teaches: "Credimus quod tota
persona, deus et homo, post sepulturam, ad inferos descenderit, Satanam
devicerit," etc. Christ’s preaching through Noah, a preacher of righteousness [2
Peter 2:5], and therefore an ambassador of Christ [2 Corinthians 5:20], might be
done through His divinity alone. Christ preached pneumati through Noah, as David
en pneumati called Him Lord [Matthew 22:43]. The objection that actually living
men upon Earth would not be called spirits is met by Romans 13:1; 1 John 4:1-3;
and by the fact that at the time of Peter’s writing the persons meant are
disembodied spirits.

[The passage 1 Peter 4:6, sometimes cited in proof of the Descensus ad inferos,
refers to the preaching of the gospel to the spiritually dead in trespasses and
sins. This is Augustine’s interpretation [Ep. ad. Evodium VI. 21]. In Ephesians
4:9, ta katwtera merh thV ghV to which Christ descended from on high signify
this lower world of Earth. Paul is speaking here of the incarnation. The
incarnate Logos did not descend from Heaven to Hades, nor ascend from Hades to
Heaven. Compare Isaiah 44:23 Shout you lower parts of the Earth. This is the
opposite of the Heavens, which are bidden to sing. In Acts 2:19, this world is
called h gh katw. Hades would be ta katwtata merh thV ghV 30["The Hebrew phrase,
Jra twytjt, to which the apostles’ ta katwtera merh thV ghV answers, is used for
the Earth in opposition to Heaven, in Isaiah 44:23; probably for the grave in
Psalms 63:9; as a poetical designation for the womb in Psalms 139:15; and for
Hades, or the invisible world, in Ezekiel 32:24. [The context, however, shows
that in this place, also, as in Psalms 63:9, it means "the grave." The
"multitudes" of Elam, like those of Asshur, are "slain," and go down "to their
graves."] Perhaps the majority of commentators take this last to be the meaning
of the passage before us. They suppose the reference is to the descensus ad
inferos, or to Christ’s ’descending into Hell.’ But, in the first place, this
idea is entirely foreign to the meaning of the passage in the Psalm on which the
apostle is commenting. In the second place, there as here, the only descent of
which the context speaks is opposed to the ascending to Heaven. He Who ascended
to Heaven is He Who first descended to Earth. In the third place, this is the
opposition so often expressed in other places and in other forms of expression,
as in John 3:13, No man has ascended up to Heaven, but He Who came down from
Heaven, even the Son of Man, Who is in Heaven. [Compare John 6:38; John 8:14;
16:68]. The expression of the apostle, therefore, means, ’the lower parts,
namely, the Earth.’ The genitive thV ghV is the genitive of opposition." [Hodge,
on Ephesians 4:9-10.] Ellicott, in loco, while not adopting it, says that this
is the interpretation "of the majority of recent commentators," and of
Chrysostom and Theodoret among the patristic]. In Romans 10:7, Christ’s descent
into the deep (abusson) is shown by the context to be His descent into the
grave.

[Whatever be the interpretation of 1 Peter 3:18-20, such a remarkable doctrine
as the Descent to Hades should have more foundation than a single disputed text.
The doctrine itself is so obscure that it has had five different forms of
statement. 1. Christ virtually descended into Hades, because His death was
efficacious upon the souls there. 2. Christ actually descended into Hades. 3.
Christ’s descent into Hades was His suffering the torments of Hell. 4. Christ’s
descent into Hades was His burial in the grave. 5. Christ’s descent into Hades
was His remaining in the state of the dead, for a season. The Westminster Larger
Catechism (50) combines the last two: "Christ’s humiliation after His death
consisted in His being buried, and continuing in the state of the dead, and
under the power of death, till the third day, which has been otherwise expressed
in these words, ‘He descended into Hell’"].

Having given the argument from Scripture, in proof that Sheol, Hades, and
Gehenna, all denote the place of punishment for the wicked, we proceed to
consider the nature and duration of the suffering inflicted in it. The Old
Testament is comparatively silent upon these particulars. Sheol is represented
vaguely, as an evil to be dreaded and avoided, and little description of its
fearfulness is given by the holy men of old who spoke as they were moved by the
Holy Spirit. The New Testament makes a fuller revelation and disclosure; and it
is principally the Redeemer of the world who widens the outlook into the
tremendous future. The suffering in Hades and Gehenna is described as
everlasting (aiwnioV) punishment [Matthew 25:46]; everlasting (aiwnioV) fire
[Matthew 18:8]; the fire that never shall be quenched [Mark 9:45]; the worm that
dies not [Mark 9:46]; flaming fire [2 Thessalonians 1:8]; everlasting (aidioV)
chains [Jude 1:6]; eternal (aiwnioV) fire [Jude 1:7]; the blackness of darkness
forever [Jude 1:13]; the smoke of torment ascending up forever and ever
[Revelation 14:11; Revelation 19:3]; the lake of fire and brimstone, in which
the Devil, the beast, and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night,
forever and ever [Revelation 20:10].

Sensible figures are employed to describe the misery of Hell, as they are to
describe the blessedness of Heaven. It cannot be inferred from the mere use of
metaphors, that the duration of either is temporary. Figures are employed to
describe both temporal and eternal realities. The Psalmist describes God as a
rock, a fortress, a shield, etc.; and man as a vapor, a flower, etc. A figure by
its form, as the rhetoricians call it, indicates the intention of the writer. No
one would employ the figure of a rock to denote transiency, or of a cloud to
denote permanence. Had Christ intended to teach that future punishment is
remedial and temporary, He would have compared it to a dying worm, and not to an
undying worm; to a fire that is quenched, and not to an unquenchable fire. The
ghost in Hamlet [I. v] describes the "glow-worm’s fire" as "ineffectual," that
is, harmless. None of the figures employed in Scripture to describe the misery
of the wicked are of the same rhetorical "form" with those of the "morning
cloud," the "early dew," etc. They are invariably of the contrary "form," and
imply fixedness and immutability. The smoke of torment ascends forever and ever.
The worm of conscience does not die. The fire is unquenchable. The chains are
eternal. The blackness of darkness overhangs forever. Had the sacred writers
wished to teach that future punishment is for a time only, even a very long
time, it would have been easy to have chosen a different species and form of
metaphor that would have conveyed their meaning. And if the future punishment of
the wicked is not endless, they were morally bound to have avoided conveying the
impression they actually have conveyed by the kind of figures they have
selected. "It is the willful deceit," says Paley, "that makes the lie; and we
willfully deceive, when our expressions are not true in the sense in which we
believe the hearer to apprehend them." The epithet aiwnioV (everlasting) is of
prime importance. In order to determine its meaning when applied to the
punishment of the wicked, it is necessary, first, to determine that of the
substantive from which the adjective is derived. Aiwn signifies an age. It is a
time word. It denotes "duration," more or less. Of itself, the word "duration,"
or "age," does not determine the length of the duration, or age. God has
duration, and angels have duration. The Creator has an aiwn, and the creature
has an aiwn; but that of the latter is as nothing compared with that of the
former. Behold You have made my days as an handbreadth; and my age is as nothing
before You [Psalms 39:5]. In reference to man and his existence, the Scriptures
speak of two, and only two aiwne", or ages; one finite, and one infinite; one
limited, and one endless; the latter succeeding the former 31[The common phrase,
"Here, and Hereafter," denotes that human existence divides into only two
sections. When Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles, both parties understand
that there are only two worlds--the temporal and the eternal. The former
covenants with the latter as follows:

I to thy service here agree to bind me, To run and never rest at call of thee;
When over yonder thou shalt find me, Then thou shalt do as much for me. The same
tremendous truth, that after the temporal the endless follows, is taught in the
"mighty line" of Marlowe, in which he describes the emotions of Faustus as "the
clock strikes eleven."

Ah, Faustus, Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be
damned perpetually! Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven, That time
may cease, and midnight never come: Fair Nature’s eye, rise, rise again, and
make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural
day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul! O lente, lente currite, noctis
equi! The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The Devil will
come, and Faustus must be damned]. An indefinite series of limited aeons with no
final endless aeon is a Pagan, and Gnostic, not a Biblical conception. The
importation of the notion of an endless series of finite cycles, each of which
is without finality and immutability, into the Christian system, has introduced
error, similarly as the importation of the Pagan conception of Hades has. The
misconceiving of a rhetorical figure, in the Scripture use of the plural for the
singular, namely, touV aiwnaV twn aiwnwn for ton aiwna, has also contributed to
this error. The two aeons, or ages, known in Scripture, are mentioned together
in Matthew 12:32, It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world (aiwn),
nor in the world (aiwn) to come; in Mark 10:30, He shall receive a hundred-fold
now in this time (cairoV), and in the world (aiwn) to come, eternal life; in
Luke 18:30, He shall receive manifold more in this present time (cairoV), and in
the world (aiwn) to come, life, everlasting; in Ephesians 1:21, Above every name
that is named, not only in this world (aiwn), but also in that which is to come.
The things present and the things to come, mentioned in Romans 8:38; 1
Corinthians 3:22, refer to the same two ages. These two aeons, or ages,
correspond to the two durations of "time" and "eternity," in the common use of
these terms. The present age, or aeon, is "time;" the future age, or aeon, is
"eternity." *[It is relative, not absolute eternity; eternity a parte post, not
a parte ante. The future aeon, or age, has a beginning, but no ending. This is
the meaning, when in common phrase it is said that "a man has gone into
eternity"; and that his happiness, or misery, is "eternal." The absolutely
eternal has no beginning, as well as no ending; it is the eternity of God. The
relatively eternal has a beginning but no end; it is the immortality of man and
angel. The schoolman called the former, eternitas; the latter, sempiternitas.
Scripture designates the absolute eternity of God, by the phrase, from
everlasting to everlasting [Psalms 90:2]. The punishment of the wicked is more
properly endless, than eternal].

1. The present finite and limited age, or aeon, is denominated in Scripture,
this world (o aiwn outoV), hzh mlwu: [Matthew 12:32; Matthew 13:22; Luke 16:8;
Luke 20:34; Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 1:20; 1 Corinthians 2:6], et alia.
Another designation is, this present world (o nun aiwn, or o enestwV aiwn): [1
Timothy 6:17; 2 Timothy 4:10; Titus 2:12; Galatians 1:4]. Sometimes the present
limited age, or aeon, is denoted by aiwn without the article: [Luke 1:70], Which
He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world
began (ap aiwnoV); [John 9:39], It was not heard since the world began (ap
aiwnoV).


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  CHAPTER 5: 02C BIBLICAL ARGUMENT FOR ETERNAL PUNIS (CONTINUE)
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For rhetorical effect, the present limited age, or aeon, is sometimes
represented as composed of a number of lesser ages or cycles, as in modern
phrase the sum total of finite Earthly time is denominated "the centuries," or
"the ages." The following are examples: [1 Corinthians 2:7], The hidden wisdom
which God ordained before the ages (pro twn aiwnwn). Compare Ephesians 3:9;
Colossians 1:26. In 1 Timothy 1:17, God is denominated basileuV twn aiwnwn, king
of the ages of time, and therefore the king eternal [AV]. In Romans 16:25, a
mystery is said to have been kept secret cronoiV aiwnioiV, "during aeonian
times" [AV, since the world began]. The ages of the limited aeon are meant. The
secret was withheld from all the past cycles of time. In Titus 1:2, eternal life
is said to have been promised pro cronwn aiwniwn, "before aeonian times" [AV,
before the world began]. The ages of the limited aeon are meant. God promised
eternal life, prior to all the periods of time; i.e., eternally promised. In
these passages, "aeonian times" is equivalent to "the centuries," or the "long
ages." The Revisers make the reference to be to the unlimited aeon--to eternity,
not to time. Their rendering of Titus 1:2 by, Before times eternal, involves the
absurdity that a Divine promise is made prior to eternity; and of Romans 16:25
by, Through times eternal, represents the mystery as concealed during eternity:
that is to say, as forever concealed. This rhetorical plural does not destroy
the unity of the limited age, or aeon. To conceal a mystery from the past
"aeonian ages," or the past centuries and cycles of finite time, is the same as
to conceal it from past finite time as a whole 32[The phrases, end of the ages
(telh twn aiwnwn), [1 Corinthians 10:11]; fullness of the time, [Galatians 4:4];
fullness of times, [Ephesians 1:10]; these last days escatoV twn hmeron toutwn,
[Hebrews 1:1], denote the time of the Messiah’s first advent--that epoch in the
temporal aiwn when the incarnation occurred (Hodge on Ephesians 1:10)].

2. The future infinite and endless age, or aeon, is denominated, in Scripture,
the future world; AV and RV the world to come (aiwn o mellwn), abj mlwu [Matthew
12:32; Hebrews 2:5; Hebrews 6:5]. Another designation is, the world to come
(aiwn o ercomenoV) [Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30]. Still another designation is, that
world (aiwn ekeinoV) [Luke 20:35]. Frequently, the infinite and endless age is
denoted by aiwn simply, but with the article for emphasis (o aiwn) [Mark 3:29],
Has never forgiveness (eiV ton aiwna) [MAT 51:29; John 4:14; John 6:51, John
6:58; John 8:35, John 8:51-52; John 10:28; John 11:26; John 12:34; John 13:8;
John 14:16; 2 Corinthians 9:9; Hebrews 5:6; Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:17; 2 Peter
2:17; 1 John 2:17; Jude 1:13]. The same use of the plural for rhetorical effect,
employed in the case of the limited aeon, is also employed in that of the
unlimited. The future infinite aiwn is represented as made up of lesser aiwneV
or cycles, as, in English, "infinity" is sometimes denominated "the infinities,"
"eternity," "the eternities," and "immensity," "the immensities." The rhetorical
plural, in this instance as in the other, does not conflict with the unity of
the infinite age, or aeon. The following are examples of this use [Romans 1:25],
The Creator is blessed forever (eiV touV aiwnaV) [Romans 9:5; Romans 11:36;
Romans 16:27; 2 Corinthians 11:31; Php 4:20; Galatians 1:5 (eiV touV aiwnaV twn
aiwnwn) 1 Timothy 1:17; Revelation 1:6, Revelation 1:18; Revelation 4:9-10;
Revelation 5:13; Revelation 7:12], et alia. The phrases, eiV touV aiwnaV, and
eiV touV aiwnaV twn aiwnwn, are equivalent to eiV ton aiwna. All alike denote
the one infinite and endless aeon, or age.

Since the word aeon (aiwn), or age, in Scripture, may denote either the present
finite age, or the future endless age, in order to determine the meaning of
"aeonian" (aiwnioV), it is necessary first to determine in which of the two
aeons, the limited or the endless, the thing exists to which the epithet is
applied; because anything in either aeon may be denominated "aeonian." The
adjective follows its substantive, in meaning. Onesimus, as a slave, existed in
this world (aiwn) of "time," and when he is called an aeonian, or "everlasting"
(aiwnioV) servant [Philemon 1:15], it is meant that his servitude continues as
long as the finite aeon in which he is a servant; and this is practically at an
end for him, when he dies and leaves it. The mountains are denominated aeonian,
or "everlasting" (aiwnia), in the sense that they endure as long as the finite
world (aiwn) of which they are a part endures. God, on the other hand, is a
being that exists in the infinite aiwn, and is therefore aiwnioV in the endless
signification of the word. The same is true of the spirits of angels and men,
because they exist in the future aeon, as well as in the present one. If
anything belongs solely to the present age, or aeon, it is aeonian in the
limited signification; if it belongs to the future age, or aeon, it is aeonian
in the unlimited signification. If, therefore, the punishment of the wicked
occurs in the present aeon, it is aeonian in the sense of temporal; but if it
occurs in the future aeon, it is aeonian in the sense of endless. The adjective
takes its meaning from its noun *["Aiwn de quocunque temporis spatio ita
dicitur, ut, quale sit, judicari debeat in singulis locis ex orationis serie et
mente scriptoris, rebus adeo et personis, de quibus sermo est." Schleusner, in
voce]. The English word "forever" has the same twofold meaning, both in
Scripture and in common use. Sometimes it means as long as a man lives upon
Earth. The Hebrew servant that had his ear bored with an awl to the door of his
master, was to be his servant forever [Exodus 21:6]. Sometimes it means as long
as the Jewish state should last. The ceremonial laws were to be statutes forever
[Leviticus 16:34]. Sometimes it means, as long as the world stands. One
generation passes away, and another generation comes; but the Earth abides
forever [Ecclesiastes 1:4]. In all such instances, forever refers to the
temporal aeon, and denotes finite duration. But in other instances, and they are
the great majority in Scripture, forever refers to the endless aeon; as when it
is said that God is over all blessed forever. The limited signification of
forever in the former cases, does not disprove its unlimited signification in
the latter. That Onesimus was an everlasting (aiwnioV) servant, and that the
hills are everlasting (aiwnia), no more disproves the everlastingness of God,
and the soul; of Heaven, and of Hell; than the term "forever" in a title deed
disproves it. To hold land "forever," is to hold it "as long as grass grows and
water runs"--that is, as long as this world, or, aeon, endures. The objection
that because aiwnioV, or "aeonian," denotes "that which belongs to an age," it
cannot mean endless, rests upon the assumption that there is no endless aiwn, or
age. It postulates an indefinite series of limited aeons, or ages, no one of
which is final and everlasting. But the texts that have been cited disprove
this. Scripture speaks of but two aeons, which cover and include the whole
existence of man, and his whole duration. If, therefore, he is an immortal
being, one of these must be endless. The phrase "ages of ages," applied to the
future endless age, does not prove that there is more than one future age, any
more than the phrase "the eternities" proves that there is more than one
eternity; or the phrase "the infinities" proves that there is more than one
infinity. The plural in these cases is rhetorical and intensive, not
arithmetical, in its force. This examination of the Scripture use of the word
aiwnioV refutes the assertion, that "aeonian" means "spiritual" in distinction
from "material" or "sensuous," and has no reference at all to time or duration;
that when applied to "death," it merely denotes that the death is mental and
spiritual in its nature, without saying whether it is long or short, temporary
or endless. Beyond dispute, some objects are denominated "aeonian," in
Scripture, which have nothing mental or spiritual in them. The mountains are
"aeonian." The truth is, that aiwn is a term that denotes time only, and never
denotes the nature and quality of an object. All the passages that have been
quoted show that duration, either limited or endless, is intended by the word.
Whenever this visible world in the sense of the matter constituting it is meant,
the word employed is kosmoV, and not aiwn. It is only when this world in the
sense of the time of its continuance is intended, that aiwn is employed. Paul,
in Ephesians 2:2, combines both meanings. The heathen, he says, walk kata ton
aiwna tou cosmou toutou--according to the course [duration] of this world [of
matter]. In Hebrews 1:2; Hebrews 11:3, where aiwneV denotes the worlds created
by God, it is, as Lewis [Lange’s Ecclesiastes, p. 47] remarks, in opposition to
Winer and Robinson, "the time sense, of worlds after worlds," not "the space
sense, of worlds beyond or above worlds," that is intended. In by far the
greater number of instances, aiwn and aiwnio" refer to the future infinite age,
and not to the present finite age; to eternity, and not to time. Says Stuart
[Exegetical Essays, §§ 13, 16], "aiwnioV is employed 66 times in the New
Testament. Of these, 51 relate to the future happiness of the righteous; 7
relate to future punishment: namely, Matthew 18:8; Matthew 25:41, Matthew 25:46;
Mark 3:29; 1 Thessalonians 1:9; Hebrews 6:2; Jude 1:6; 2 relate to God; 6 are of
a miscellaneous nature (5 relating to confessedly endless things, as covenant,
invisibilities; and one, in Philemon 1:15, to a perpetual service). In all the
instances in which aiwnioV refers to future duration, it denotes endless
duration; saying nothing of the instances in which it refers to future
punishment. The Hebrew mlwu is translated in the Septuagint by aiwn, 308 times.
In almost the whole of these instances, the meaning is, time unlimited; a period
without end. In the other instances, it means aiwn in the secondary, limited
sense; it is applied to the mountains, the Levitical statutes, priesthood, etc."
The younger Edwards [Reply to Chauncy Ch. XIV] says that "aiwn, reckoning the
reduplications of it, as aiwneV twn aiwnwn, to be single instances of its use,
occurs in the New Testament in 104 instances; in 32 of which it means a limited
duration. In 7 instances, it may be taken in either the limited or the endless
sense. In 65 instances, including 6 instances in which it is applied to future
punishment, it plainly signifies an endless duration." An incidental proof that
the adjective aiwnioV has the unlimited signification when applied to future
punishment, is the fact that the destiny of lost men is bound up with that of
Satan and his angels. Then shall He say unto those on the left hand, Depart from
Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil and his angels
[Matthew 25:41]. These are represented in Scripture as hopelessly lost. The
Devil who deceived them shall be tormented day and night forever and ever
[Revelation 20:10]. The Jews, to whom Christ spoke, understood the perdition of
the lost angels to be absolute. If the positions of the Restorationist are true
in reference to man, they are also in reference to demons. But Scripture teaches
that there is no redemption for the lost angels. Christ took not on Him the
nature of angels [Hebrews 2:16].

Respecting the nature of the everlasting punishment, it is clear from the
Biblical representations that it is accompanied with consciousness. Dives is in
torments [Luke 16:23]. The smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever
[Revelation 14:11]. Fear has torment [1 John 4:18], and the lost fear the wrath
of the Lamb [Revelation 6:16]. The figures of the fire, and the worm are
intended to denote conscious pain. An attempt has been made to prove that the
punishment of the wicked is the extinction of consciousness. This doctrine is
sometimes denominated Annihilation. Few of its advocates, however, have
contended for the strict annihilation of the substance of the soul and body. The
more recent defenders maintain the doctrine of Conditional Immortality.
According to this view, the soul is not naturally immortal. Some of this class
contend that it is material. It gains immortality only through its redemption by
Christ. All who are not redeemed, lose all consciousness at the death of the
body, and this is the spiritual death threatened in Scripture. As the death of
the body is the extinction of sensation, so the death of the soul is the
extinction of consciousness. The falsity of the theory of Annihilation, in both
of its forms, is proved by the following considerations:

1. First, death is the opposite of birth, and birth does not mean the creation
of substance. The conception and birth of an individual man, is the production
of a soul and a body, not the creation ex nihilo of either; and the physical
death of an individual man, is the separation of a soul and body, not the
annihilation of either. Death is a change of the mode in which a substance
exists, and supposes that the substance itself continues in being.

Now, when the life decays and form does fade, Does it consume and into nothing
go, But changed is and often altered to and fro. The substance is not changed
nor altered, But only the form and outward fashion. -- Faerie Queene, III. vi.
The death of an animal substance makes an alteration in the relations of certain
material atoms, but does not put them out of existence. Dead matter is as far
from nonentity as living matter. That physical death is not the annihilation of
substance, is proved by 1 Corinthians 15:36 That which you sow is not made alive
except it die. Compare John 12:24. In like manner, the death of the soul, or
spiritual death, is only a change in the relations of the soul, and its mode of
existence, and not the annihilation of its substance. In spiritual death, the
soul is separated from God; as in physical death, the soul is separated from the
body. The union of the soul with God is spiritual life; its separation from God
is spiritual death. He who has the Son has [spiritual] life, and he who has not
the Son has not [spiritual] life [1 John 5:12].

2. Second, the spiritually dead are described in Scripture as conscious. Genesis
2:7 compared with Genesis 3:8 In the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die.
Adam and Eve hid themselves. After their fall they were spiritually dead, and
filled with shame and terror before God. The dead in trespasses and sins walk
according to the course of this world [Ephesians 2:1-2]. She who lives in
pleasure is dead while she lives [1 Timothy 5:6]. You being dead in your sins
has He forgiven [Colossians 2:13]. You live, and are dead [Revelation 3:1].
Spiritual death is the same as the second death and the second death hurts
[Revelation 2:11]; and its smoke of torment ascends forever and ever [Revelation
19:3].

3. Third, the extinction of consciousness is not of the nature of punishment.
The essence of punishment is suffering, and suffering is consciousness. In order
to be punished, the person must be conscious of a certain pain, must feel that
he deserves it, and know that it is inflicted because he does. All three of
these elements are required in a case of punishment. To reduce a man to
unconsciousness would make his punishment an impossibility. If God by a positive
act extinguishes, at death, the remorse of a hardened villain, by extinguishing
his self-consciousness, it is a strange use of language to denominate this a
punishment.

Still another proof that the extinction of consciousness is not of the nature of
punishment is the fact, that a holy and innocent being might be deprived of
consciousness by his Creator, but could not be punished by him. God is not
obliged, by His justice, to perpetuate a conscious existence which He originated
ex nihilo. For wise ends, He might suffer an unfallen angel not only to lose
consciousness, but to lapse into his original nonentity. But He could not, in
justice, inflict retributive suffering upon him.

4. Fourth, the extinction either of being, or of consciousness, admits of no
degrees of punishment. All transgressors are punished exactly alike. This
contradicts Luke 12:47-48; Romans 2:12.

5. Fifth, according to this theory, brutes are punished. In losing consciousness
at death, the animal like the man incurs an everlasting loss. The
Annihilationist contends that the substance of punishment is in the result, and
not in its being felt or experienced. If a transgressor is put out of conscious
existence, the result is an everlasting loss to him, though he does not know it.
But the same thing is true of a brute. And if the former is punished, the latter
is also.

6. Sixth, the advocate of Conditional Immortality, in teaching that the
extinction of consciousness is the eternal death of Scripture, implies that the
continuance of consciousness is the eternal life. But mere consciousness is not
happiness. Judas was conscious, certainly, when he hung himself, even if he is
not now. But he was not happy.

7. Seventh, the extinction of consciousness is not regarded by sinful men as an
evil, but a good. They substitute the doctrine of the eternal sleep of the soul,
for that of its eternal punishment. This shows that the two things are not
equivalents. When Mirabeau lay dying, he cried passionately for opium, that he
might never awake. The guilty and remorseful have, in all ages, deemed the
extinction of consciousness after death to be a blessing; but the advocate of
Conditional Immortality explains it to be a curse. "Sight and hearing, and all
Earthly good, without justice and virtue," says Plato [Laws II. 661], "are the
greatest of evils, if life be immortal; but not so great, if the bad man lives a
very short time."

8. Eighth, the fact that the soul depends for its immortality and consciousness
upon the upholding power of its Maker does not prove either that it is to be
annihilated, or to lose consciousness. Matter also depends for its existence and
operations upon the Creator. Both matter and mind can be annihilated by the same
Being who created them from nothing. Whether He will cease to uphold any
particular work of His hand, can be known only by revelation. In the material
world, we see no evidence of such an intention. We are told that the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, but not that they shall be annihilated. And,
certainly, all that God has said in Revelation in regard to creation,
redemption, and perdition, implies and teaches that he intends to uphold, and
not to annihilate the human spirit; to perpetuate, and not extinguish its
self-consciousness. The form of Universalism which is the most respectable, and
therefore the most dangerous, is that which concedes the force of the Biblical
and rational arguments respecting the guilt of sin, and its intrinsic desert of
everlasting punishment, but contends that redemption from it through the
vicarious atonement of Christ is extended into the next world. The advocates of
this view assert, that between death and the final judgment the application of
Christ’s work is going on; that the Holy Spirit is regenerating sinners in the
intermediate state, and they are believing and repenting as in this life. This
makes the day of judgment, instead of the day of death, the dividing line
between "time" and "eternity"; between o aiwn outoV, and aiwn o mellwn. And this
makes the intermediate state a third aeon by itself, lying between "time" and
"eternity"; between this world, and the world to come. That the "intermediate
state" is not a third aeon, but a part of the second endless aeon, is proved by
the following considerations:

1. First, by the fact that in Scripture the disembodied state is not called
"intermediate." This is an ecclesiastical term which came in with the doctrine
of purgatory, and along with the exaggeration of the difference between Paradise
and Heaven, and between Hades and Gehenna.

2. Second, by the fact that in Scripture death is represented as the deciding
epoch in a man’s existence It is the boundary between the two Biblical aeons, or
worlds. Until a man dies, he is in "this world" (o nun aiwn); after death, he is
in "the future world" (aiwn o mellwn). The common understanding of the teaching
of Scripture is, that men are in "time," so long as they live, but when they
die, they enter "eternity." It is appointed unto men once to die, but after that
the judgment [Hebrews 9:27]. 33[In Hebrews 9:27, krisiV is anarthrous: after
death comes judgment. The writer does not say that the judgment immediately
succeeds the death of the body, but that a judgment does]. This teaches that
prior to death, man’s destiny is not decided, he being not yet sentenced; but
after death, his destiny is settled. When he dies, the "private judgment," that
is, the immediate personal consciousness either of penitence or impenitence,
occurs. Every human spirit, in that supreme moment when it returns to God who
gave it, knows by direct self-consciousness whether it is a child or an enemy of
God, in temper and disposition; whether it is humble and contrite, or proud,
hard, and impenitent; whether it welcomes or rejects the Divine mercy in Christ.
The article of death is an event in human existence which strips off all
disguises, and shows the person what he really is, in moral character. He knows
as he is known, and in this flashing light passes a sentence upon himself that
is accurate. This "private judgment" at death, is reaffirmed in the "general
judgment" of the last day.

Accordingly, our Lord teaches distinctly that death is a finality for the
impenitent sinner. Twice in succession, he says with awful emphasis to the
Pharisees: If you believe not that I Am He, you shall die in your sins [John
8:21, John 8:24]. This implies, that to "die in sin," is to be hopelessly lost.
Again, he says: Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while you have
the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he who walks in darkness knows not
where he goes. While you have light, believe in the light, that you may be the
children of light [John 12:35-36]. According to these words of the Redeemer, the
light of the gospel is not accessible in the darkness of death. The night comes,
when no man can work [John 9:4]. The night of death puts a stop to the work of
salvation that is appointed to be done in the daytime of this life. Paul teaches
the same truth, in 1 Thessalonians 5:5-7 You are all the children of light, and
the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let
us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and he sober. For those who sleep,
sleep in the night; and those who are drunk, are drunk in the night. God said
unto him, You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose
shall those things be which you have provided? So is he who lays up treasure for
himself, and is not rich towards God [Luke 12:20-21]. With these New Testament
teachings, agrees the frequent affirmation of the Old Testament, that after
death nothing can be done in the way of securing salvation. In death there is no
remembrance of you: in the grave who shall give you thanks? [Psalms 6:5]. Will
you show wonders to the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise you? Shall your
loving kindness be declared in the grave? [Psalms 88:10-11]. The dead praise not
the Lord, nor any that go down into silence [Psalms 115:17]. To him who is
joined to all the living, there is hope: for the living know that they shall
die; but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward
[Ecclesiastes 9:4-6]. These passages do not teach the utter unconsciousness of
the soul after death. In flat contradiction to that long list already cited
which asserts the contrary, but that there is no alteration of character in the
next life. "In death, there is no [happy] remembrance of God" [if there has been
none in life]. "The dead shall not arise, and praise God" [in the next world, if
they have not done so in this world]. "Shall God declare his loving kindness [to
one] in the grave" [if he has not declared it to him when upon earth]? The
parable of Dives proves that death is the turning point in human existence, and
fixes the everlasting state of the person. Dives asks that his brethren may be
warned before they die and enter Hades; because after death and the entrance
into Hades, there is an impassable gulf between misery and happiness, sin and
holiness. This shows that the so-called "intermediate" state is not intermediate
in respect to the essential elements of Heaven and Hell, but is a part of the
final and endless state of the soul. It is "intermediate," only in reference to
the secondary matter of the presence or absence of the body. The asserted
extension of redemption into the endless aeon, or age, is contradicted by
Scripture. Salvation from sin is represented as confined to the limited aeon.
One of the most important passages bearing upon this point is 1 Corinthians
15:24-28. Then comes the end, when Christ shall have delivered up the Kingdom to
God, even the Father, when He shall have put down all [opposing] rule, and all
[opposing] authority and power. For He must reign, till He has put all enemies
under His feet. Paul here states the fact, disclosed to him by revelation from
God, that the redemption of sinners will not go on forever, but will cease at a
certain point of time. The Mediator will carry on his work of saving sinful men,
until He has gathered in His church, and completed the work according to the
original plan and covenant between Himself and His Father, and then will
surrender His mediatorial commission and office (basileian). There will then no
longer be any mediation going on between sinners and God. The church will be
forever united to their Divine Head in Heaven, and the wicked will be shut up in
the outer darkness. That Christ’s mediatorial work does not secure the salvation
of all men during the appointed period in which it is carried on, is proved by
the fact that when the end comes some men are described as the enemies of
Christ, and as being put under his feet [1 Corinthians 15:21, 1 Corinthians
15:25]. All of Christ’s redeemed stand before His throne [Revelation 14:3;
Revelation 19:4-7; Revelation 21:3]. They are in the mansions which He has
prepared for them [John 14:2-3]. The reason assigned for Christ’s surrender of
His mediatorial commission is, that God may be all in all [1 Corinthians 15:28]
not, that God even the Father may be all in all [1 Corinthians 15:24]. It is the
Trinity that is to be supreme. To Christ, as an incarnate Trinitarian person,
and an anointed mediator, all power is [temporarily] given in Heaven and upon
Earth [MAT 28:29], for the purpose of saving sinners. As such, He accepts and
holds a secondary position of condescension and humiliation, when compared with
His original unincarnate position. In this reference, He receives a commandment
[John 10:18], and a Kingdom [1 Corinthians 15:24]. In this reference, as
believers are Christ’s, so Christ is God’s [1 Corinthians 3:23]; and as the head
of the woman is the man, so the head of Christ is God [1 Corinthians 11:3]. But
when Christ has finished His work of mediating between the triune God and sinful
men, and of saving sinners, this condition of subjection to an office and a
commission ceases. The dominion (basileian) over Heaven and Earth, temporarily
delegated to a single Trinitarian person incarnate, for purposes of redemption
and salvation, now returns to the Eternal Three whence it came, and to Whom it
originally belongs. The Son of God, His humanity exalted and glorified, and His
Divine-human person united forever to His church as their Head, no longer
prosecutes that work of redemption which He carried forward through certain ages
of time, but, with the Father and Spirit, Three in One, reigns over the entire
universe--over the holy who stand before the throne, and over the wicked who are
under his feet, and in the bottomless pit. The confinement of the work of
redemption to the limited aeon, which terminates practically for each individual
at the death of the body, is taught in many other passages of Scripture. My
spirit shall not always [R.V. for ever] strive with man, for that he also is
[sinful] flesh; yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years [Genesis 6:3].
This teaches that the converting operation of the Divine Spirit in the sinner’s
heart, is limited to the 120 years which was then the average length of human
life. O that they were wise, that they would consider their latter end
[Deuteronomy 32:29]. Teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom [Psalms 90:12]. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with
your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the
grave where you are going [Ecclesiastes 9:10]. Seek the Lord while He may be
found; call upon Him while He is near [Isaiah 55:6]. Take heed to yourselves
lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with overindulgence, and
drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares: for
as a snare shall it come on all those who dwell on the face of the Earth [Luke
21:34-35]. Watch, therefore, for you know not what hour your Lord comes. The
Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looks not for Him, and shall
cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with unbelievers: there shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth" [Matthew 24:42, Matthew 24:50]. If you had known,
even you, at least in this your day, the things which belong unto your peace!
but now they are hid from your eyes [Luke 19:42]. Strive to enter in at the
strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be
able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and has shut the door, and
you begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying Lord, Lord, open
unto us, He shall answer, and say unto you, I know you not from where you come
[Luke 13:24-25]. We beseech you that you receive not the grace of God in vain.
For He says, I have heard you in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation
have I helped you: behold now is the accepted time; behold now is the day of
salvation [2 Corinthians 6:2]. Today if you will hear His voice, harden not your
hearts [Hebrews 3:7]. The argument in Hebrews 3:7-19 is to the effect, that as
God swore that those Israelites who did not believe and obey His servant Moses
during the forty years of wandering in the desert should not enter the Earthly
Canaan, so those who do not while it is called, Today–that is, while they are
here in time--believe and obey His Son Jesus Christ, shall not enter the
Heavenly Canaan. Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of
unbelief. But exhort one another daily, while it is called, Today [Hebrews
3:12-13]. God limited a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a
time [of impenitence], Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts
[Hebrews 4:7]. Hebrews 10:26 speaks of a time when there remains no more
sacrifice for sins, but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation
which shall devour the adversaries of God. Behold I come quickly; and My reward
is with Me, to give to every man according as his work shall be. He who is
unjust, let him be unjust still; and he who is filthy, let him be filthy still;
and he who is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he who is holy, let him
be holy still [Revelation 22:11-12].

If sinners are redeemed beyond the grave, man must be informed of the fact by
God Himself. There is no other way of finding it out. He has not been so
informed, but, if language has any meaning, has been informed of the contrary.
Bishop Butler [Analogy, Pt. I. Ch. ii] states the case with his usual
conciseness and clearness. "Reason did, as it well might, conclude that it
should finally be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked; but it could
not he determined upon any principles of reason whether human creatures might
not have been appointed to pass through other states of life and being, before
that distributive justice should finally and effectually take place. Revelation
teaches us that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the
execution of this justice; that it shall no longer be delayed, but the mystery
of God, the great mystery of His suffering vice and confusion to prevail, shall
then be finished; and He will take to Him His great power, and will reign, by
rendering to every one according to his works." The asserted extension of
redemption into the period between death and the resurrection cannot be placed
upon the ground of right and justice; and the only other ground possible, that
of the Divine promise so to extend it, is wanting. Our Lord teaches that men
prior to His coming into the world are condemned already [John 3:16]. His advent
to save them supposes that they are already lost; and they are lost by sin; and
sin is man’s free self determination. 34[The strange position has recently been
taken, that the rejection of Christ is the only sin that brings eternal death.
"No one," says Dorner [Christian Doctrine, IV., 167], "will be damned merely on
account of the common sin and guilt. But every one is definitely brought to
[guilty] personal decision only through the gospel." Says a writer in the
Andover Review [Dec., 1885, p. 574]: "No one can be lost without the knowledge
of Christ."

[This implies that man’s sin against the moral law is not sufficient to condemn
him to eternal death. He must sin against the gospel before he can be so
condemned. Neither original sin nor actual transgression, neither evil
inclination nor outward crime, both of which are sins against the law, expose a
man to Hell.

[This is an entirely new position, not to be found in the past history of
eschatology, and invented, apparently, to furnish a basis for the doctrine of a
future offer of redemption. The objections to it are the following:

[1. It contradicts the whole tenor of scripture. Christ teaches that He came to
call actual and guilty sinners to repentance [Luke 5:32]; that He came to seek
and save that which was really and truly lost [Luke 19:10]; that He did not come
into the world to condemn the world (because it was already condemned), but to
save the world [John 3:17-18]. Paul affirms that the whole world, prior to
redemption, and irrespective of it, are guilty before God [Romans 3:19]. John
asserts that the whole world, Gentile and Jewish, unevangelized and evangelized,
lies in wickedness [1 John 5:19]. To quote all the passages in which the Bible
teaches that men are exposed to eternal death on account of their transgression
of the law of God, would be to quote a large part of the Bible. The rejection of
the gospel adds a new sin, and a very aggravating one, to the already existing
sin against the divine law [John 15:22], but it is not the primary and original
ground of condemnation. Men are punished, first of all, because they have sinned
and come short of the glory of God [Romans 3:23].

[2. Second, unless man has already sinned against the law, he cannot sin against
the gospel. If he has not previously committed a damning sin, for which Christ
has atoned, he cannot reject Christ’s atonement any more than an innocent angel
can. The rejection of salvation is meaningless, if no damnation has been
incurred. If there is no disease, there can be no cure, nor rejection of a cure.

[3. Third, if no human soul is in danger of perdition until it has rejected
Christ, then, if Christ had never been offered to man, no man would be lost. For
if He were not offered He could not be rejected. In this case, it would have
been infinitely better for mankind had Christ never come into the world on an
errand of salvation. Had He remained unincarnate, as He had been from eternity,
no one could have refused belief in Him, and, as unbelief is the only damning
sin, no one could have been damned.

[4. Fourth, if "no man can be lost without the knowledge of Christ," then none
of the past heathen world who died without this knowledge incurred perdition for
the "deed done in the body," and none of the existing heathen world who are
destitute of this knowledge are liable to perdition from this cause. In this
case, it is a matter of rejoicing that the past generations of pagans never
heard of the Redeemer, and it should be an earnest endeavor of the Church to
prevent all of the present generation of pagans from hearing of Him.

[Dorner’s theory, that "no one will be damned merely on account of the common
sin and guilt," is full of inconsistency and self-contradiction. First, he holds
that man is in a state of "sin and guilt," but it is a species of sin and guilt
that does not deserve endless punishment, and is not in danger of it. Second, he
holds that man needs "salvation" from such an unendangered state. Third, he
holds that God is bound in justice to provide "salvation" from such an
unendangered state. "The gospel," he says [IV., 167], "repentance and
forgiveness of sins, is to be preached to all nations. This cannot refer merely
to nations as unities, but must refer also to every individual; for otherwise
the universality of the gracious purpose would not be sincerely meant; and if
God refused what is indispensable to salvation to the individual, condemnation
would be impossible. "Fourth, he holds that God exhibits mercy, when he does
what he is obligated to do.

[To all this self-stultifying soteriology, the principle enunciated by Paul
[Romans 11:6] is a conclusive reply: If by grace, then it is no more of works:
otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more
grace: otherwise work is no more work. If man’s "common sin and guilt" is not
damning, then it is no longer sin and guilt: otherwise sin and guilt are no more
sin and guilt. If Christ’s salvation is not from eternal death and Hell, then it
is no longer salvation: otherwise salvation is no longer salvation. And if God’s
mercy is justly due to man, then it is no longer mercy: otherwise mercy is no
longer mercy.

[Julius Muller, though holding (upon the ground of Matthew 12:32) "the glorious
hope that in the world to come, in far distant aeons, some who here harden their
hearts against God’s revelation, and can expect only a verdict of condemnation
in the day of judgment, shall find forgiveness and salvation" [Sin, II., 429],
denies and combats Dorner’s position that sin against the gospel is the only
damning sin [Sin, II., 400]. For a very able argument in proof that both evil
inclination and outward transgression are damning, see [Sin, I., 198-214].
Consequently, man the sinner has no claim upon God for redemption. Forgiveness
is undeserved, whether offered here or hereafter. The exercise of mercy is
optional with God. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy [Romans 9:15]. It
follows from this, that the length of time during which the offer of mercy is
made to transgressors is likewise optional with God. It may he long or short,
according to the Divine will. Should God say to a sinner: "I will pardon your
sin today, if you will penitently confess it, but not tomorrow," this sinner
could not complain of injustice, but would owe gratitude for the mercy thus
extended for a limited time. It cannot be said, that unless God offers to pardon
man forever and ever, He is not a merciful Being. Neither can this be said, if
He confines redemption to this life, and does not redeem sinners in the
intermediate state *[Compare the Author’s Sermons to the Natural man. Sermon
XVIII].

It is here that the logical inconsistency of such theologians as Müller and
Dorner appears. Lessing the first of German critics, makes the following remark
respecting the German mind: "We Germans suffer from no lack of systematic books.
No nation in the world surpasses us in the faculty of deducing from a couple of
definitions whatever conclusions we please, in most fair and logical order."
[Preface to the Laocoon]. The truth of this remark is illustrated by some of the
systems of theology and philosophy constructed in Germany. The reasoning is
close, consecutive, and true, in some sections, but loose, inconsequent, and
false, as a whole. The mind of the thinker when moving in the limited sphere,
moves logically; but moving in the universe, and attempting to construct a
philosophy or theology of the Infinite, fails utterly. Many of the trains of
reasoning in Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre are profound, closely reasoned, and
correct, but the system as a whole has fatal defects. No one will deny the rigor
of Hegel’s logical processes, in segments, but the total circle of his thinking
is pantheistic, and full of inconsistency.

Lessing’s remark applies to that type of Universalism of which Müller and Dorner
are the best representatives, and the ablest advocates. In the first place, upon
"a couple" of obscure and dubious scripture texts, they rear the whole great
fabric of a future redemption, in direct contradiction to some scores of
perfectly plain texts that teach the confinement of redemption to this life.
And, second, after laying down a theory of sin which represents it as pure
self-determination and guilt, sin is then discussed as an evil that is entitled
to the offer of a pardon, and a remedy. Müller and Dorner, both alike, explain
sin as originating in the free and guilty agency of the finite will, and as
requiring an atonement in order to its remission *[The merit of Müller, in
particular, in respect to a profound and true view of sin is very great. No
theological treatise of this century has more value than his work on Sin]. And
yet both alike, when they come to eschatology, assume tacitly, but do not
formally assert, that the Divine Perfection requires that the offer of
forgiveness he made, sooner or later, to every sinner; that there will be a
defect in the benevolence, and a blemish in the character, of the Supreme Being,
if He does not tender a pardon to every transgressor of His law. Their
eschatology thus contradicts their hamartiology [doctrine of sin]. The extension
of the work of redemption into the future world is made to rest very much, for
its support, upon the cases of the heathen and of infants [emphasis added -
aal]. Respecting the former, it is certain that the heathen are voluntary
transgressors of the moral law, and therefore have no claim upon the Divine
mercy. Scripture teaches that they perish because of their sin, and impenitence
in sin. It is wicked to sin, and still more wicked not to repent of it. The
heathen are chargeable with both. Paul describes them as those who knowing the
judgment of God, that those who commit such things are worthy of death, not only
do the same, but have pleasure in those who do them [Romans 1:32]. The Gentiles
walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of
the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over
to inciting lustful desires to work all uncleanness with greediness [Ephesians
4:17]. There is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned
without [written] law shall also perish without [written] law [Romans 2:11]. The
Gentiles show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience
bearing witness, and their thoughts accusing, in the day when God shall judge
the secrets of men by Jesus Christ [Romans 2:14-15]. Remember that you being in
time past Gentiles, were at that time without hope, and without God in the world
[Ephesians 2:11-12]. Murderers, whoremongers, and idolaters, shall have their
part in the lake of fire and brimstone: which is the second death [Revelation
21:8] 35[For a powerful description of heathen depravity, see that of
Thucydides, written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond. "The plague
introduced other and worse forms of lawlessness at Athens. Men who had hitherto
concealed their indulgence in pleasure now grew bolder. For seeing the sudden
change--how the rich died in a moment, and those who had nothing immediately
inherited their property--they reflected that life and riches were alike
transitory, and resolved to enjoy themselves while they could, and think only of
pleasure. Who would be willing to sacrifice himself to the law of honor, when he
knew not whether he should ever live to be held in honor? The pleasure of the
moment, and any sort of thing which conduced to it, took the place of honor and
expediency. No fear of God or law of man delivered a criminal. Those who saw all
perishing alike thought that the worship or neglect of the gods made no
difference. For offenses against human law no punishment was to be feared; no
one would live long enough to be called to account. Already a far heavier
sentence had been passed and was hanging over a man’s head; before that fell why
should he not take a little pleasure?" [Jowett’s Thucydides, B. II., 53]. "When
troubles had once begun in the cities men carried the revolutionary spirit
further and further, and determined to outdo the record of all who had preceded
them, by the ingenuity of their enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges.
The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed
by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage;
prudent delay was the excuse of a coward; moderation was the disguise of unmanly
weakness; to know everything was to do nothing. Frantic energy was the true
quality of a man. He who succeeded in a plot was deemed knowing, but a still
greater master in craft was he who detected one. In a word, he who could
outstrip another in a bad action was applauded, and so was he who encouraged to
evil one who had no idea of it" [Jowett’s Thucydides, B. III., 82]. For a
similar description of man acting from selfishness, see the "Plebeian’s speech"
in Machiavelli’s History of Florence, B. III., ch. iii]. Jesus Christ said from
Heaven to Saul of Tarsus, that He had appointed him to be a minister and witness
to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and
from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and
inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith [Acts 26:16-18]. There is,
consequently, no ground for asserting that justice and equity require that the
pardon of sins be tendered to the heathen in the next life.

[The rest of the paragraphs of this chapter are totally unbiblical–aal]

It does not follow, however, that because God is not obliged to offer pardon to
the unevangelized heathen, either here or hereafter, therefore no unevangelized
heathen are pardoned. The electing mercy of God reaches to the heathen. It is
not the doctrine of the Church, that the entire mass of pagans, without
exception, have gone down to endless impenitence and death. That some
unevangelized men are saved, in the present life, by an extraordinary exercise
of redeeming grace in Christ, has been the hope and belief of Christendom. It
was the hope and belief of the elder Calvinists, as it is of the later 36[The
following extract from Witsius [Apostles’ Creed, Dissertation II] exhibits the
hopeful view which the elder Calvinism took of the possible extent to which
God’s decree of election reaches: "Doctrines may be said to be necessary, either
to salvation, or to religion, or to the church. A doctrine, without the
knowledge and belief of which God does not save persons who have come to years
of moral consciousness, is necessary to salvation; a doctrine, without the
profession and practice of which no one can be considered religious, is
necessary to religion; and a doctrine, without which no one is admitted to the
communion of the visible church, is necessary to the church. There may be
articles without which persons ought not to be admitted to the fellowship of the
church, that should not, for that reason, be regarded as absolutely essential
either to religion or to salvation. Although we might not dare to pronounce a
sentence of condemnation against a particular man, we ought not, in defiance of
order and discretion, to receive him forthwith into the bosom of our church,
whatever sentiments he might hold, and to whatever sect he might belong. And
with respect to religion, what falls within the sphere of duty is manifest. But
how far it may please a gracious God, or how far it may be possible for him in
consistency with His perfections and character, to extend His forbearance to
anyone, and save his soul, notwithstanding his errors and sins; or, in short,
what are the lowest attainments without which no man is saved--who can tell? For
this distinction in doctrines, I am indebted to the celebrated Hornbeck
[Socinianismi Confutatio, Tom. I., p. 209].

[Again, the knowledge of those doctrines which are necessary to salvation admits
of various degrees. It is in different measures of clearness, abundance, and
efficacy, that divine revelation, the means of grace, and the communications of
the Spirit are enjoyed; and a corresponding diversity takes place in the degrees
of knowledge which the saints attain. In some it is clear, distinct, steady, and
accompanied with a very firm and decided assent; in others it is more confused,
more implicit and latent, subject to occasional wavering, and attended with an
assent that is yielded with difficulty. The command of God, indeed, lays an
indispensable obligation upon all men to make every possible effort to attain a
most clear, distinct, and assured knowledge of divine truth. It cannot, however,
be questioned, that the Deity, in his unbounded goodness, receives many to the
abodes of bliss whose knowledge even of the principal articles is very
indistinct, and such as they are hardly capable of expressing in their own
words. The smallest measure of the requisite knowledge appears to be this,
namely, that when an article of faith is explained, the mind so far at least
apprehends it, as to recognize and embrace it as true.

[Furthermore, times must be distinguished. It admits of no doubt that under the
bright dispensation of the Gospel, a more extensive and explicit knowledge is
necessary to salvation than was required under the Old Testament economy; for it
is reasonable that both knowledge, and the necessity of knowledge, should
increase in proportion to the measure of revelation afforded. Under the Old
dispensation, nay, during the time of our Savior’s abode on the Earth, it was
possible for a man to be a true believer, and in a state of grace, who was
ignorant of the sufferings, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, and who
even presumed to object to the testimony of Christ Himself respecting these
momentous topics, as is clear from the instance of Peter [Matthew 16:21-23]; or,
who, though he believed in general in the Messiah, yet knew not that Jesus is
the Christ, as appears from the history of Cornelius the centurion [Acts
10:2-4]. No one, however, I suppose, would now acknowledge any person [in
Christendom] as a true believer, who should discover ignorance of these truths
respecting the Lord Jesus; and still less a person who should contradict them
when represented to him. On this subject the remark of Thomas Aquinas [Secunda
Secundae, i. 7] deserves to be quoted: ’The articles of faith,’ says he, ’have
increased with the lapse of time, not indeed with respect to the faith itself,
but with respect to explicit and express profession. The same things which are
believed explicitly, and under a greater number of articles by the saints in
latter days, were all believed implicitly, and under a smaller number by the
fathers in ancient times]. The Second Helvetic Confession [I. 7], after the
remark that the ordinary mode of salvation is by the instrumentality of the
written word, adds: "Agnoscimus, interim, deum illuminare posse homines etiam
sine externo ministerio, quo et quando velit: id quod ejus potentiae est." The
Westminster Confession [X. 3], after saying that "elect infants dying in infancy
are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where
and how he pleases," adds, "so also are all other elect persons [regenerated and
saved by Christ through the Spirit] who are incapable of being outwardly called
by the ministry of the word." This is commonly understood to refer not merely,
or mainly, to idiots and insane persons, but to such of the pagan world as God
pleases to regenerate without the use of the written revelation. One of the
sternest Calvinists of the 16th century, Zanchius, whose treatise on
predestination was translated by Toplady, after remarking that many nations have
never had the privilege of hearing the word, says [Ch. IV] that "it is not
indeed improbable that some individuals in these unenlightened countries may
belong to the secret election of grace, and the habit of faith may be wrought in
them." By the term "habit" (habitus), the elder theologians meant an inward
disposition of the heart. The "habit of faith" involves penitence for sin, and
the longing for its forgiveness and removal. The "habit of faith" is the broken
and contrite heart, which expresses itself in the prayer, "God be merciful to me
a sinner." It is certain that the Holy Spirit can produce, if He please, such a
disposition and frame of mind in a pagan, without employing, as He commonly
does, the written word [This sentence blatantly denies Romans 10:13-17 aal]. The
case of the blind man, in John 9:36-38, is an example of the "habit of faith,"
though produced in this instance through the instrumentality of the written law.
Jesus said unto him, Do you believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who
is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him, You have both
seen Him, and it is He Who talks with you. And he said, Lord I believe. And he
worshipped Him." Here was sorrow for sin, and a desire for redemption from it,
wrought in the heart by the Divine Spirit, prior to the actual knowledge of
Christ as the Savior of sinners. The cases of the centurion Cornelius, and the
Ethiopian eunuch, are also examples of the "habit of faith." These men, under
the teaching of the Spirit, were conscious of sin, and were anxiously inquiring
if, and how, it could be forgiven. That there is a class of persons in
unevangelized heathendom who are the subjects of gracious influences of this
kind, is implied in Paul’s affirmation, that they are not all Israel, who are of
Israel [Romans 9:6]; and that those who are of faith, the same are the children
of Abraham [Galatians 3:7]. It is taught also in Matthew 8:11; Luke 13:30 Many
shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob, in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the Kingdom [those who
have had the written word] shall be cast out. And, behold, there are last who
shall be first, and there are first who shall be last. This affirmation of
Christ was called out by the "habit of faith," or disposition to believe, in
that Gentile centurion, respecting whom He said, I have not found so great
faith, no, not in Israel [Matthew 8:5-10] 37["It is a very significant fact that
the subject of the book of Ruth is a heathen woman; she is, indeed, the third
heathen woman in the genealogy of David and Christ, being preceded by the
Canaanitess Tamar [Genesis 38:1-30] and the Canannitess Rahab. Ruth is the most
noble of all--a consecrated blossom of paganism, turning with a longing desire
to the light and salvation of Israel. The fact that these three females are
brought forward and engrafted on the chosen line or family, conveys a very
expressive lesson to the Israelites, abases their national pride, and bears
testimony (by being both a fulfillment and a type) to all that had been promised
to Abraham respecting his seed, namely, that in him should all families of the
Earth be blessed [Genesis 12:3]. Of those who are blessed in the seed of
Abraham, Naomi represents the people of God who are to proceed from the ancient
people of the covenant, and Ruth represents those proceeding from the heathen
world" (Kurtz’s Sacred History, § 66)]. The true reason for hoping that an
unevangelized heathen is saved is not that he was virtuous, but that he was
penitent. A penitent man is necessarily virtuous; but a virtuous man is not
necessarily penitent. Sorrow for sin produces morality; but morality does not
produce sorrow for sin. A great error is committed at this point. The Senecas,
the Antonines, the Plutarchs, and such like, have been singled out as the
hopeful examples in paganism. It is not for man to decide what was the real
state of the heart; but the writings of these men do not reveal the sense of
sin; do not express penitence; do not show a craving for redemption. There is
too much egotism, self-consciousness, and self-righteousness in them. The man,
judged by his books, is moral, but proud. He is virtuous, but plumes himself
upon it. This is not a hopeful characteristic, when we are asking what are the
prospects of a human soul, before the bar of God. To this man will I look, says
the Lord, even to him who is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at My
word [ISA 66:2]. Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven [Matthew 5:3]. This line of remark holds good in Christendom, as well as
in Heathendom. There is a class of men in modern society marked by morality, and
lofty self-respect, but by no consciousness of sin, and no confession of it. And
judged by New Testament principles, no class of mankind is farther off from the
Kingdom of Heaven. There is no class that scorns the publican’s cry, and spurns
the atoning blood, with such decision and energy as they. To them, the words of
Christ, in a similar case, apply: The publicans and the harlots go into the
Kingdom of Heaven before you [MAR 21:31]. The Magdalen is nearer the Divine Pity
than the Pharisee. And upon the same principle, those benighted children of
ignorance and barbarism who feel their sin and degradation, and are ready to
listen with docility to the missionary when he comes with the tidings of the
Infinite Compassion, are nearer to Heaven, than the children of a gilded and
heartless civilization, who have no moral unrest, and turn a deaf ear to all the
overtures of mercy *[The passage, In every nation, he that feareth God and
worketh righteousness is accepted with Him [Acts 10:35], is often explained as
teaching that there are in every nation some who live virtuous and exemplary
lives, and upon this ground obtain the rewards and blessedness of the future.
This would be salvation by works, which is impossible, according to Paul. It is
with reference to such an interpretation of this text, that the Westminster
Confession [X.4] asserts, that "men not professing the Christian religion cannot
be saved in any way whatever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives
according to the light of nature, and the law of that religion which they do
profess" 38[The Thirty-nine Articles agree with the Westminster Confession in
asserting that no man, either in Christendom or heathendom, can be saved by his
morality and virtue. "They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, that
every man shall be saved by the law or sect which he professes, so that he be
diligent to frame his life according to the law, and the light of nature. For
Holy Scripture does set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men
must be saved" (Article XVIII)]. In the passage above cited, the phrase "fearer
of God," and "worker of righteousness," is employed technically, by Peter, to
denote a man inquiring after the way of salvation--somewhat as it was among the
Jews, to signify a proselyte of the gate [Guericke’s Church History, p. 29].
This is evident from the fact, that to this devout Cornelius who feared God with
all his house [Acts 10:2], the Apostle preached Christ as the Savior of sinners,
through whose name, whoever believes in Him shall receive remission of sins,"
and that Cornelius believed, and was baptized [Acts 10:36-38]. He would not have
done this, if he had expected that his "fearing God" and "working
righteousness"--in other words, his morality and virtue--would save him]. This
extraordinary work of the Holy Spirit is mentioned by the Redeemer, to
illustrate the sovereignty of God in the exercise of mercy, not to guide his
church in their evangelistic labor. His command is, to preach the gospel to
every creature. The extraordinary and "strange" work of God is not a thing for
man to expect, and rely upon, either in the kingdom of nature, or of grace. It
is His ordinary and established method which is to direct him. The law of
missionary effort is, that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of
God [Romans 11:17].

Two errors, therefore, are to be avoided: First, that all men are saved;
secondly that only a few men are saved. Some fifty years ago, Schleiermacher
surprised all Lutheran Germany with a defense of the Calvinistic doctrine of
election; but the surprise was diminished, when it appeared that he held that
God has elected, and will save, every human creature without exception. This
cannot be squared with Scripture. On the other hand, some Calvinists have
represented the number of the reprobated as greater than that of the elect, or
equal to it. They found this upon the words of Christ, Many are called, but few
are chosen. But this describes the situation at the time when our Lord spoke,
and not the final result of His redemptive work. Christ Himself, in the days of
His flesh, called many, but few responded to the call from His gracious lips.
Our Lord’s own preaching was not as successful as that of His apostles, and of
many of His ministers. This was a part of His humiliation, and sorrow. But when
Christ shall have seen of the travail of His soul, and been satisfied with what
He has seen; when the whole course of the gospel shall be complete, and shall be
surveyed from beginning to end; it will be found that God’s elect, or church, is
a great multitude which no man can number, out of all nations, and kindreds, and
peoples, and tongues, and that their voice is as the voice of many waters, and
as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Hallelujah, for the Lord God
omnipotent reigns [Revelation 7:9; Revelation 19:6]. The circle of God’s
election is a great circle of the Heavens, and not that of a treadmill.

Respecting the more difficult case of infants–the Scriptures do not discriminate
and except them as a class from the mass of mankind, but involve them in the
common sin and condemnation. Suffer little children to come unto Me [their
Redeemer] [Luke 18:16]. The promise [of salvation] is unto you, and to your
children [Acts 2:39]. The fall in Adam explains their case. Adopting the
Augustino-Calvinistic statement of this fall, it can then be said that infants,
like all others of the human family, freely and responsibly "sinned in Adam, and
fell with him, in his first transgression" [Westminster Shorter Catechism, 16].
This is no more impossible, and no more of a mystery, in the case of infants,
than of adults. If it be conceded that the whole race apostatized in Adam,
infants are righteously exposed to the punishment of sin, and have no claim upon
the Divine mercy. The sin which brings condemnation upon them is original sin,
and not actual transgressions. But original sin is the sinful inclination of the
will. An infant has a rational soul; this soul has a will; this will is wrongly
inclined; and wrong inclination is self-determined and punishable. If sinful
inclination in an adult needs to be expiated by the atoning blood of Christ, so
does sinful inclination in an infant. Infants, consequently, sustain the very
same relation to the mercy of God in Christ that the remainder of the human race
do. They need the Divine clemency, like the rest of mankind. The "salvation" of
infants supposes their prior damnation. Whoever asserts that an infant is
"saved" by implication concedes that it is "lost." The salvation of an infant,
like that of an adult, involves the remission and removal of sin, and depends
upon the unmerited and optional grace of God. This being so, it cannot be said,
that God would treat an infant unjustly, if He did not offer him salvation in
the intermediate state. And upon the supposition, now common in the evangelical
churches, that all infants dying in infancy, being elect, are "regenerated and
saved by Christ through the Spirit, Who works when, and where, and how He
pleases" [Westminster Confession, X. 3], there is no need of any such offer.
39[Toplady, one of the highest Calvinists of the Church of England, remarks as
follows, respecting the salvation of all infants dying in infancy: "The rubric
of the Church of England (declares that ’it is certain by God’s word that
children which are baptized, dying, before they commit actual sin, are
undoubtedly saved.’ I believe firmly the same. Nay, I believe more. I am
convinced that the souls of all departed infants whatever, whether baptized or
unbaptized, are with God in glory. And I think my belief warranted by an
authority which cannot err--Matthew 18:14" [A blatant perversion of Matthew
18:14 - aal] (Church of England Vindicated)].


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  CHAPTER 6: 03A RATIONAL ARGUMENT FOR DOCTRINE OF ETERN. PUN.
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THE RATIONAL ARGUMENT FOR THE DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT The chief
objections to the doctrine of Endless Punishment are not Biblical, but
speculative. The great majority of students and exegetes find the tenet in the
Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Davidson, the most learned of English rationalistic
critics, explicitly acknowledges that,

. . . if a specific sense be attached to words, never-ending misery is
enunciated in the Bible. On the presumption that one doctrine is taught, it is
the eternity of Hell torments. Bad exegesis may attempt to banish it from the
New Testament Scriptures, but it is still there, and expositors who wish to get
rid of it, as Canon Farrar does, injure the cause they have in view by
misrepresentation. It must be allowed that the New Testament record not only
makes Christ assert everlasting punishment, but Paul and John. But the question
should be looked at from a larger platform than single texts--in the light of
God’s attributes, and the nature of the soul. The destination of man, and the
Creator’s infinite goodness, conflicting as they do with everlasting punishment,
remove it from the sphere of rational belief. If provision be not made in
revelation for a change of moral character after death, it is made in reason.
Philosophical considerations must not be set aside even by Scripture [Last
Things, pp. 133, 136, 151].

Consequently, after presenting the Biblical argument, for Endless Punishment, it
becomes necessary to present the rational argument for it. So long as the
controversy is carried on by an appeal to the Bible, the defender of endless
retribution has comparatively an easy task. But when the appeal is made to human
feeling and sentiment, or to human reasoning, the demonstration requires more
effort. And yet the doctrine is not only Biblical, but rational. It is
defensible on the basis of sound ethics and pure reason. Nothing is requisite
for its maintenance but the admission of three cardinal truths of theism,
namely, that there is a just God; that man has free will; and that sin is
voluntary action. If these are denied, there can be no defense of endless
punishment--or of any other doctrine, except atheism and its corollaries. The
Bible and all the creeds of Christendom affirm man’s free agency in sinning
against God. The transgression which is to receive the endless punishment is
voluntary. Sin, whether it be inward inclination or outward act, is unforced
human agency. This is the uniform premise of Christian theologians of all
schools. Endless punishment supposes the liberty of the human will, and is
impossible without it. Could a man prove that he is necessitated in his
murderous hate, and his murderous act, he would prove, in this very proof, that
he ought not to be punished for it, either in time or eternity. Could Satan
really convince himself that his moral character is not his own work, but that
of God, or of nature, his remorse would cease, and his punishment would end.
Self-determination runs parallel with Hell. 40[Many of the arguments constructed
against the doctrine of endless punishment proceed upon the supposition that
original sin, or man’s evil inclination, is the work of God--that because man is
born in sin [Psalms 51:5] he was created in sin. All the strength and
plausibility of John Foster’s celebrated letter lies in the assumption that the
moral corruption and impotence of the sinner, whereby it is impossible for him
to save hi mself from eternal death, is not self-originated and self-determined,
but infused by his Maker. "If," says he, "the very nature of man, as created by
the Sovereign Power, be in such desperate disorder that there is no possibility
of conversion and salvation except in instances where that Power interposes with
a special and redeeming efficiency, how can we conceive that the main proportion
of the race, thus morally impotent (that is, really and absolutely impotent)
will be eternally punished for the inevitable result of this moral impotence?"
If this assumption of concreated depravity and impotence is correct, Foster’s
objection to eternal retribution is conclusive and fatal].

Guilt, then, is what is punished, and not misfortune. Free and not forced agency
is what feels the stroke of justice. What, now, is this stroke? What do law and
justice do when they punish? Everything depends upon the right answer to this
question. The fallacies and errors of Universalism find their nest and
hiding-place at this point. The true definition of punishment detects and
excludes them. 41[For a discriminating and thorough statement of the aim of
punishment, and its distinction from chastisement, see Muller on Sin, I.,
244-251].

Punishment is neither chastisement nor calamity. Men suffer calamity, says
Christ, not because they or their parents have sinned, but that the works of God
should be made manifest in them [John 9:3]. Chastisement is inflicted in order
to develop a good, but imperfect character already formed. The Lord loves whom
He chastens, and what son is he whom the earthly father chastens not? [Hebrews
11:6-7]. Punishment, on the other hand, is retribution, and is not intended to
do the work of either calamity or chastisement, but a work of its own. And this
work is to vindicate law; to satisfy justice. Punishment, therefore, as
distinguished from chastisement, is wholly retrospective in its primary aim. It
looks back at what has been done in the past. Its first and great object is
requital. A man is hung for murder, principally and before all other reasons,
because he has voluntarily transgressed the law forbidding murder. He is not
hung from a prospective aim, such as his own moral improvement, or for the
purpose of deterring others from committing murder. The remark of the English
judge to the horse-thief, in the days when such theft was capitally punished,
"You are not hung because you have stolen a horse, but that horses may not be
stolen," has never been regarded as eminently judicial. It is true that personal
improvement may be one consequence of the infliction of penalty. But the
consequence must not be confounded with the purpose. Cum hoc non ergo propter
hoc. The criminal may come to see and confess that his crime deserves its
punishment, and in genuine unselfish penitence may take sides with the law,
approve its retribution, and go into the presence of the Final Judge, relying
upon that great atonement which satisfies eternal justice for sin; but even
this, the greatest personal benefit of all, is not what is aimed at in man’s
punishment of the crime of murder. For should there be no such personal benefit
as this attending the infliction of the human penalty, the one sufficient reason
for inflicting it still holds good, namely, the fact that the law has been
violated, and demands the death of the offender for this reason simply and only.
Kant says: The notion of ill-desert and punishableness, is necessarily implied
in the idea of voluntary transgression; and the idea of punishment excludes that
of happiness in all its forms. For though he who inflicts punishment may, it is
true, also have a benevolent purpose to produce by the punishment some good
effect upon the criminal, yet the punishment must be justified, first of all, as
pure and simple requital and retribution: that is, as a kind of suffering that
is demanded by the law without any reference to its prospective beneficial
consequences; so that even if no moral improvement and no personal advantage
should subsequently accrue to the criminal, he must acknowledge that justice has
been done to him, and that his experience is exactly conformed to his conduct.
In every instance of punishment, properly so called, justice is the very first
thing, and constitutes the essence of it. A benevolent purpose and a happy
effect, it is true, may be conjoined with punishment; but the criminal cannot
claim this as his due, and he has no right to reckon upon it. All that he
deserves is punishment, and this is all that he can expect from the law which he
has transgressed [Praktische Vernunft, 151. Ed. Rosenkranz].

These are the words of as penetrating and ethical a thinker as ever lived.

*Beccaria and Bentham are the principal modern advocates of the contrary theory,
viz.: that punishment is founded on utility and expediency. Beccaria’s position
is, that the standard of crime is the injury which it does to society. He refers
exclusively to the public good, and never appeals to the moral sentiment (Penny
Cyclopaedia, Art. Beccaria). Bentham takes the same view, connecting it with the
utilitarian ethics. From these writers, this theory has passed considerably into
modern jurisprudence. Austin, a popular writer on law, follows Bentham. The
theory which founds morality upon righteousness, and punishment upon justice, is
historical. Plato [Laws, X. 904, 905] held that punishment is righteous and
retributive. Cicero (De Legibus, I. 14 sq.) contends that true virtue has regard
to essential justice, not to utility. Grotius defines penalty as "the evil of
suffering which is inflicted on account of the evil of doing." The great English
jurists, Coke, Bacon, Selden, and Blackstone, explain punishment by crime, not
by expediency. Kant, Herbart, Stahl, Hartenstein, Rothe, and Woolsey, define
punishment as requital for the satisfaction of law and justice (Woolsey’s
Political Science, Pt. II. Ch. viii).

Neither is it true, that the first and principal aim of punishment, in
distinction from chastisement, is the protection of society, and the public
good. This, like the personal benefit in the preceding case, is only secondary
and incidental. The public good is not a sufficient reason for putting a man to
death #[Hence, those who found punishment upon utility, and deny that it is
retributive, endeavor to abolish capital punishment. And if their theory of
penalty is true, they are right in their endeavor]; but the satisfaction of law
is. This view of penalty is most disastrous in its influence, as well as false
in its ethics. For if the good of the public is the true reason and object of
punishment, the amount of it may be fixed by the end in view. The criminal may
be made to suffer more than his crime deserves, if the public welfare, in
suppressing this particular kind of crime, requires it. His personal desert and
responsibility not being the one sufficient reason for his suffering, he may be
made to suffer as much as the public safety requires. It was this theory of
penalty that led to the multiplication of capital offenses. The prevention of
forgery, it was once claimed in England, required that the forger should forfeit
his life, and upon the principle that punishment is for the public protection,
and not for strict and exact justice, an offense against human property paid the
penalty by human life. Contrary to the Noachic statute, which punishes only
murder with death, this statute weighed out man’s life-blood against dollars and
cents. On this theory, the number of capital offenses became very numerous, and
the criminal code very bloody. So that, in the long run, nothing is kinder than
exact justice. It prevents extremes in either direction--either that of
indulgence, or that of cruelty. This theory breaks down, from whatever point it
be looked at. Suppose that there were but one person in the universe. If he
should transgress the law of God, then, upon the principle of expediency as the
ground of penalty, this solitary subject of moral government could not he
punished--that is, visited with a suffering that is purely retributive, and not
exemplary or corrective. His act has not injured the public, for there is no
public. There is no need of his suffering as an example to deter others, for
there are no others. But upon the principle of justice, in distinction from
expediency, this solitary subject of moral government could be punished. The
vicious ethics of this theory of penalty expresses itself in the demoralizing
maxim, "It is better that ten guilty men should escape than that one innocent
man should suffer." But this is no more true than the converse, "It is better
that ten innocent men should suffer than that one guilty man should escape." It
is a choice of equal evil and equal injustice. In either case alike, justice is
trampled down. In the first supposed case, there are eleven instances of
injustice and wrong; and in the last supposed case, there are likewise eleven
instances of injustice and wrong. Unpunished guilt is precisely the same species
of evil with punished innocence. To say, therefore, that it is better that ten
guilty persons should escape than that one innocent man should suffer, is to say
that it is better that there should he ten wrongs than one wrong against
justice. The maxim assumes that the punishment of the guilty is not of so much
consequence as the immunity of the innocent. But the truth is, that both are
equally required by justice. The theory that punishment is retributive honors
human nature, but the theory that it is merely expedient and useful degrades it.
If justice be the true ground of penalty, man is treated as a person; but if the
public good is the ground, he is treated as a chattel or a thing. When suffering
is judicially inflicted because of the intrinsic gravity and real demerit of
crime, man’s free will and responsibility are recognized and put in the
foreground; and these are his highest and distinguishing attributes. The
sufficient reason for his suffering is found wholly within his own person, in
the exercise of self-determination. He is not seized by the magistrate and made
to suffer for a reason extraneous to his own agency, and for the sake of
something lying wholly outside of himself--namely, the safety and happiness of
others--but because of his own act. He is not handled like a brute or an
inanimate thing that may be put to good use; but he is recognized as a free and
voluntary person, who is not punished because punishment is expedient and
useful, but because it is just and right; not because the public safety requires
it, but because he owes it. The dignity of the man himself, founded in his lofty
but hazardous endowment of free will, is acknowledged.

Supposing it, now, to be conceded, that future punishment is retributive in its
essential nature, it follows that it must be endless from the nature of the
case. For, suffering must continue as long as the reason for it continues. In
this respect, it is like law, which lasts as long as its reason lasts: ratione
cessante, cessat ipsa lex. Suffering that is educational and corrective may come
to an end, because moral infirmity, and not guilt, is the reason for its
infliction; and moral infirmity may cease to exist. But suffering that is penal
can never come to an end, because guilt is the reason for its infliction, and
guilt once incurred never ceases to be. The lapse of time does not convert guilt
into innocence, as it converts moral infirmity into moral strength; and
therefore no time can ever arrive when the guilt of the criminal will cease to
deserve and demand its retribution. The reason for retribution today is a reason
forever. Hence, when God disciplines and educates His children He causes only a
temporary suffering. In this case, He will not keep His anger forever [Psalms
103:9]. But when, as the Supreme Judge, He punishes rebellious and guilty
subjects of His government, He causes an endless suffering. In this case, their
worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched [Mark 9:48]. The real question,
therefore, is, whether God ever punishes. That He chastises, is not disputed.
But does He ever inflict a suffering that is not intended to reform the
transgressor, and does not reform him, but is intended simply and only to
vindicate law, and satisfy justice, by requiting him for his transgression?
Revelation teaches that He does. Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord
[Romans 12:19]. Retribution is here asserted to be a function of the Supreme
Being, and His alone. The creature has no right to punish, except as he is
authorized by the Infinite Ruler. The powers that be are ordained of God. The
ruler is the minister of God, an avenger to execute wrath upon those who do evil
[Romans 13:1; Romans 13:4]. The power which civil government has to punish
crime--the private person having no such power--is only a delegated right from
the Source of retribution. Natural religion, as well as revealed, teaches that
God inflicts upon the voluntary transgressor of law a suffering that is purely
vindictive of law. The pagan sages enunciate the doctrine, and it is mortised
into the moral constitution of man, as is proved by his universal fear of
retribution. The objection, that a suffering not intended to reform, but to
satisfy justice, is cruel and unworthy of God, is refuted by the question of
Paul: Is God unrighteous Who takes vengeance? God forbid: for how then shall God
judge the world? [Romans 3:5-6]. It is impossible either to found or administer
a government, in Heaven or on Earth, unless the power to punish crime is
conceded. The endlessness of future punishment, then, is implied in the
endlessness of guilt and condemnation. When a crime is condemned, it is absurd
to ask, "How long is it condemned?" The verdict "Guilty for ten days" was
Hibernian. Damnation means absolute and everlasting damnation. All suffering in
the next life, therefore, of which the sufficient and justifying reason is
guilt, must continue as long as the reason continues; and the reason is
everlasting. If it be righteous today, in God’s retributive justice, to smite
the transgressor because he violated the law yesterday, it is righteous to do
the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and so on ad infinitum; because the
state of the case ad infinitum remains unaltered. The guilt incurred yesterday
is a standing and endless fact. What, therefore, guilt legitimates this instant,
it legitimates every instant, and forever. The demand that penal suffering shall
stop when it has once begun, is as irrational as the demand that guilt shall
stop when it has once begun. The continuous nature of guilt necessitates the
endlessness of retribution. A man, for illustration, is guilty of profanity
today. God, we will suppose, immediately begins to cause him to suffer in his
mind, as the righteous requital for his transgression of the third commandment.
The transgressor immediately begins to feel remorse for his sin. Why, upon
principles of justice, should he feel remorse for his profanity today, and not
feel it tomorrow? Why should he feel it tomorrow, and not feel it a million
years hence? Why should he feel it a million years hence, and not feel it
forever? At what point should remorse stop? If we suppose the state of the case
to be unchanged; if we suppose no penitence for the profanity, and no
appropriation of the only atonement that cancels guilt; then the mental
suffering which the profanity deserves and experiences now, it always must
deserve and experience. The same reasoning will apply to whatever suffering
besides remorse enters into the sum-total of future punishment. 42[The intrinsic
endlessness of guilt is vividly enunciated by Carlyle. "From the purpose of
crime to the act of crime there is an abyss; wonderful to think of. The finger
lies on the pistol; but the man is not yet a murderer: nay, his whole nature
staggering at such a consummation, is there not a confused pause rather--one
last instant of possibility for him? Not yet a murderer; it is at the mercy of
light trifles whether the most fixed idea may not yet become unfixed. One slight
twitch of a muscle, the death-flash bursts; and he is it, and will for Eternity
be it; and Earth has become a penal Tartarus for him; his horizon girdled now
not with golden hope, but with red flames of remorse; voices from the depths of
Nature sounding, Wo, wo on him! Of such stuff are we all made; on such
powder-mines of bottomless guilt and criminality--’if God restrained not,’ as is
well said--does the purest of us walk? There are depths in man that go to the
length of lowest Hell, as there are heights that reach highest Heaven--for are
not both Heaven and Hell made out of him, made by him, everlasting miracle and
mystery as he is?" (French Revolution, Book I., Chap. iv). That such a view as
this could be adopted of the nature of man’s sin and guilt, and yet the
Christian doctrine of atonement and redemption be rejected, is one of the
contradictions in the history of human opinion].

Again, the endlessness of punishment follows from the indivisibility of guilt.
The nature of guilt is such that it cannot be divided up and distributed in
parts along a length of time, and be able to pay the penalty in parts, but is
concentrated whole and entire at each and every point of time. The guilt of the
sin of profanity does not rest upon the transgressor, one part of it at twelve
o’clock, and another part of it at half past twelve, and another part of it at
one o’clock, and so on. The whole infinite guilt of this act of sin against God
lies upon the sinner at each and every instant of time. He is no more guilty of
the supposed act, at half past twelve, than at twelve, and equally guilty at
both of these instants. Consequently, the whole infinite penalty can justly be
required at any and every moment of time. Yet the whole penalty cannot be paid
at any and every moment, by the suffering of that single moment. The
transgressor at any and every point in his endless existence is infinitely
guilty, and yet cannot cancel his guilt by what he endures at a particular
point. Too long a punishment of guilt is thus an impossibility. The suffering of
the criminal can never overtake the crime. 43["Those who are sent to Hell never
will have paid the whole debt which they owe to God, nor, indeed, a part which
bears any proportion to the whole. They never will have paid a part which bears
so great a proportion to the whole as one mite to ten thousand talents. Justice,
therefore, never can be actually satisfied in the sinner’s damnation, but it is
actually satisfied in Christ" (Edwards on the "Eternity of Hell Torments"). The
suffering of man is only relatively infinite; that of the God-man is absolutely
infinite. The first is the suffering of finite persons in an endless but not
strictly infinite time. The last is the suffering of a strictly infinite Person
in finite time. The element of infinity in the first case is relative; in the
second case is absolute]. And the only way in which justice can approximately
obtain its dues, is by a never ceasing infliction. We say approximately,
because, tested strictly, the endless suffering of a finite being is not
strictly infinite suffering; while the guilt of sin against God is strictly
infinite. There is, therefore, no over punishment in endless punishment *[It
must be remembered, that it is the degree, together with the endlessness of
suffering, that constitutes the justice of it. We can conceive of an endless
suffering that is marked by little intensity in the degree of it. Such,
according to Augustine, is the suffering of unbaptized infants (mitissima
omnium). It is negative banishment, not positive infliction. An evil that is
inflicted in a few hours may be greater than one inflicted in endless time. One
day of such torment as that of Satan would be a greater distress, than a slight
physical pain lasting forever. The infinite incarnate God suffered more agony in
Gethsemane, than the whole finite human race could suffer in endless duration
[emphasis added - aal]. Consequently, the uniformity in the endlessness must be
combined with a variety in the intensity of suffering, in order to adjust the
future punishment to the different grades of sin].

It will be objected that, though the guilt and damnation of a crime be endless,
it does not follow that the suffering inflicted on account of it must be endless
also, even though it be retributive and not reformatory in its intent. A human
judge pronounces a theft to be endlessly a theft, and a thief to be endlessly a
thief, but he does not sentence the thief to an endless suffering, though he
sentences him to a penal suffering. But this objection overlooks the fact that
human punishment is only approximate and imperfect, not absolute and perfect
like the Divine. It is not adjusted exactly and precisely to the whole guilt of
the offense, but is more or less modified, first, by not considering its
relation to God’s honor and majesty; secondly, by human ignorance of the inward
motives; and, thirdly, by social expediency. Earthly courts and judges look at
the transgression of law with reference only to man’s temporal relations, not
his eternal. They punish an offense as a crime against the State, not as a sin
against God. Neither do they look into the human heart, and estimate crime in
its absolute and intrinsic nature, as does the Searcher of Hearts and the
Omniscient Judge. *["Human laws," says Paley (Moral Philosophy, Bk. I. Ch.
iii.), "omit many duties, such as piety to God, bounty to the poor, forgiveness
of injuries, education of children, gratitude to benefactors. And they permit,
or, which is the same thing, suffer to go unpunished, many crimes, such as
luxury, prodigality, caprice in the disposition of property by will, disrespect
to parents, and a multitude of similar examples"]. A human tribunal punishes
mayhem, we will say, with six months’ imprisonment, because it does not take
into consideration either the malicious and wicked anger that prompted the
maiming, or the dishonor done to the Supreme Being by the transgression of His
commandment. But Christ, in the final court session, punishes this offense
endlessly, because His All-seeing view includes the sum-total of guilt in the
case: namely, the inward wrath, the outward act, and the relation of both to the
infinite perfection and adorable majesty of God. The human tribunal does not
punish the inward anger at all; the Divine tribunal punishes it with Hell fire:
For whoever shall say to his brother, You fool, is in danger of Hell fire
[Matthew 5:22]. The human tribunal punishes seduction with a pecuniary fine,
because it does not take cognizance of the selfish and heartless lust that
prompted it, or of the affront offered to that Immaculate Holiness which from
Sinai proclaimed, You shall not commit adultery [Exodus 20:14]. But the Divine
tribunal punishes seduction with an infinite suffering, because of its more
comprehensive and truthful view of the whole transaction. And, in addition to
all this imperfection in human punishment, the human tribunal may be influenced
by prejudice and selfishness. In the corrupted currents of this world, Offense’s
gilded hand may shove by justice; And oft ’tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above. There is no shuffling, there the action
lies In his true nature; and we ourselves compelled Even to the teeth and
forehead of our faults, To give in evidence.--Hamlet, III. iv.

Again, human punishment, unlike the Divine, is variable and inexact, because it
is to a considerable extent reformatory and protective. Human government is not
intended to do the work of the Supreme Ruler. The sentence of an earthly judge
is not a substitute for that of the last day. Consequently, human punishment
need not be marked, even if this were possible, with all that absoluteness and
exactness of justice which characterizes the Divine. Justice in the human sphere
may be relaxed by expediency. Human punishment may sometimes be more severe, and
sometimes less severe, than exact requital demands, but Divine punishment may
not be. The retributive element must, indeed, enter into human punishment; for
no man may be punished by a human tribunal unless he deserves punishment–unless
he is a criminal. But retribution is not the sole element when man punishes.
Man, while not overlooking the guilt in the case, has some reference to the
reformation of the offender, and still more to the protection of society. Here,
in time, the transgressor is capable of reformation, and society needs
protection. Hence civil expediency and social utility modify exact and strict
retribution. For the sake of reforming the criminal, the judge sometimes
inflicts a penalty that is less than the real guilt of the offense. For the sake
of shielding society, the court sometimes sentences the criminal to a suffering
greater than his crime deserves. Human tribunals, also, vary the punishment for
the same offense--sometimes punishing forgery capitally, and sometimes not;
sometimes sentencing those guilty of the same kind of theft to one year’s
imprisonment, and sometimes to two. But the Divine tribunal, in the last great
day, is invariably and exactly just, because it is neither reformatory, nor
protective. In eternity, the sinner is so hardened as to be incorrigible, and
Heaven is impregnable. Hell, therefore, is not a penitentiary. It is righteous
retribution, pure and simple, unmodified by considerations either of utility to
the criminal, or of safety to the universe. 44["Wrath will be executed in the
day of judgment without any merciful circumstances. The judgments which God
executes upon ungodly men in this world are attended with many merciful
circumstances. There is much patience and long-suffering, together with
judgment; judgments are joined with continuance of opportunity to seek mercy.
But in Hell there will be no more exercises of divine patience" [Edwards, Sermon
XII]. In the day of final account, penalty will not be unjustly mild for the
sake of the transgressor, nor unjustly severe for the sake of society. Christ
will not punish incorrigible men and demons (for the two receive the same
sentence, and go to the same place, Matthew 25:41), for the purpose of reforming
them, or of screening the righteous from the wicked, but of satisfying the
broken law. His punishment at that time will be nothing but just requital. The
Redeemer of men is also the Eternal Judge; the Lamb of God is also the Lion of
the tribe of Judah; and his righteous word to wicked and hardened Satan, to
wicked and hardened Judas, to wicked and hardened pope Alexander VI., will be:
Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. Depart from Me, you cursed, who work iniquity
[Romans 12:19; Matthew 25:41; Matthew 7:23]. The Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from Heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those
who know not God, and who obey not the gospel [2 Thessalonians 1:7-8]. The
wicked will receive their desert, and reap according as they have sown. The
suffering will be unerringly adjusted to the intrinsic guilt: no greater and no
less than the sin deserves. That servant who knew his lord’s will [clearly], and
did not according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he who
knew not [clearly], and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten
with few stripes. As many as have sinned without [written] law, shall also
perish without [written] law; and as many as have sinned under [written] law,
shall be judged by the [written] law [Luke 12:47-48; Romans 2:12].

It is because the human court, by reason of its ignorance both of the human
heart and the true nature of sin against a spiritual law and a holy God, cannot
do the perfect work of the Divine tribunal, that human laws and penalties are
only provisional, and not final. Earthly magistrates are permitted to modify and
relax penalty, and pass a sentence which, though adapted to man’s earthly
circumstances, is not absolute and perfect, and is finally to be revised and
made right by the omniscient accuracy of God. The human penalty that approaches
nearest to the Divine, is capital punishment. There is more of the purely
retributive element in this than in any other. The reformatory element is
wanting. And this punishment has a kind of endlessness. Death is a finality. It
forever separates the murderer from earthly society, even as future punishment
separates forever from the society of God and Heaven. The difference between
human and divine punishment is well stated by Paley: The proper end of human
punishment is not the [exact] satisfaction of justice, but the prevention of
crimes. By the satisfaction of justice, I mean the retribution of so much pain
for so much guilt; which is the dispensation we expect at the hand of God, and
which we are accustomed to consider as the order of things that perfect justice
requires. Crimes are not by any government punished in proportion to their
[exact] guilt, nor in all cases ought to be so, but in proportion to the
difficulty and the necessity of preventing them. The crime must be prevented by
some means or other; and consequently whatever means appear necessary to this
end, whether they be proportionable to the [exact] guilt of the criminal or not,
are adopted rightly. It is in pursuance of the same principle, which pervades
indeed the whole system of penal jurisprudence, that the facility with which any
species of crime is perpetrated has been generally deemed a reason for
aggravating the punishment. This severity would be absurd and unjust, if the
[exact] guilt of the offender was the immediate cause and measure of the
punishment. On the other hand, from the justice of God we are taught to look for
a gradation of punishment exactly proportioned to the guilt of the offender.
When, therefore, in assigning the degrees of human punishment we introduce
considerations distinct from that of guilt, and a proportion so varied by
external circumstances that equal crimes frequently undergo unequal punishments,
or the less crime the greater, it is natural to demand the reason why a
different measure of punishment should be expected from God; why that rule which
befits the absolute and perfect justice of the deity should not be the rule
which ought to be preserved and imitated by human laws. The solution of this
difficulty must be sought for, in those peculiar attributes of the Divine nature
which distinguish the dispensations of Supreme wisdom from the proceedings of
human judicature. A Being whose knowledge penetrates every concealment; from the
operation of whose will no act or flight can escape; and in whose hands
punishment is sure: such a Being may conduct the moral government of his
creation in the best and wisest manner, by pronouncing a law that every crime
shall finally receive a punishment proportioned to the guilt which it contains,
abstracted from any foreign consideration whatever, and may testify his veracity
to the spectators of his judgments, by carrying this law into strict execution.
But when the care of the public safety is intrusted to men whose authority over
their fellow creatures is limited by defects of power and knowledge; from whose
utmost vigilance and sagacity the greatest offenders often lie hid; whose wisest
precautions and speediest pursuit may be eluded by artifice or concealment; a
different necessity, a new rule of proceeding results from the very imperfection
of their faculties. In their hands, the uncertainty of punishment must be
compensated by the severity. The ease with which crimes are committed or
concealed, must be counteracted by additional penalties and increased terrors.
The very end for which human government is established requires that its
regulations be adapted to the suppression of crimes. This end, whatever it may
do in the plans of Infinite Wisdom, does not, in the designation of temporal
penalties, always coincide with the proportionate punishment of guilt [Moral
Philosophy, Book V. Ch. ix].

Blackstone, also [Com. Book IV., Ch. i], alludes to the same difference in the
following words: "The end, or final cause of human punishments, is not atonement
or expiation for the crime committed; for that must be left to the just
determination of the Supreme Being." The argument thus far goes to prove that
retribution in distinction from correction, or punishment in distinction from
chastisement, is endless from the nature of the case: that is, from the nature
of guilt. We pass, now, to prove that it is also rational and right.

1. Endless punishment is rational, in the first place, because it is supported
by the human conscience. The sinner’s own conscience will "bear witness" and
approve of the condemning sentence, in the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men by Jesus Christ [Romans 2:16]. Dives, in the parable, when reminded of
the justice of his suffering, is silent. Accordingly, all the evangelical creeds
say with the Westminster [Larger Catechism, 89] that "the wicked, upon clear
evidence and full conviction of their own consciences, shall have the just
sentence of condemnation pronounced against them." If in the great day there are
any innocent men who have no accusing consciences, they will escape Hell. We may
accommodate Paul’s words [Romans 13:3-4], and say: "The final judgment is not a
terror to good works, but to evil. Will you, then, not be afraid of the final
judgment? Keep the law of God perfectly, without a single slip or failure,
inwardly or outwardly, and you shall have praise of the same. But if you do that
which is evil, be afraid." But a sentence that is justified by the highest and
best part of the human constitution must be founded in reason, justice, and
truth. It is absurd to object to a judicial decision that is confirmed by the
man’s own immediate consciousness of its righteousness. For what, my small
philosopher, is Hell?

’Tis nothing but full knowledge of the truth, When truth, resisted long, is
sworn our foe: And calls eternity to do her right.--Young. The opponent of
endless retribution does not draw his arguments from the impartial conscience,
but from the bias of self-love and desire for happiness. His objections are not
ethical, but sentimental. They are not seen in the dry light of pure truth and
reason, but through the colored medium of self-indulgence and love of ease and
sin.

Again, a guilty conscience expects endless punishment. There is in it what the
Scripture denominates the fearful looking-for of judgment, and fiery
indignation, which shall devour the adversaries of God [Hebrews 10:27]. This is
the awful apprehension of an evil that is to last forever; otherwise, it would
not be so fearful. The knowledge that future suffering will one day cease would
immediately relieve the apprehension of the sinner. A guilty conscience is in
its very nature hopeless. Impenitent men, in their remorse, sorrow as those who
have no hope [1 Thessalonians 4:13]. Unconverted Gentiles have no hope, and are
without God in the world [Ephesians 2:12]. The hope of the wicked shall be as
the giving up of the spirit [Job 11:20]. The hypocrite’s hope shall perish [Job
8:13]. Consequently, the great and distinguishing element in Hell-torment is
despair, a feeling that is impossible in any man or fallen angel who knows that
he is finally to he happy forever. Despair results from the endlessness of
retribution. No endlessness, no despair

*"If," says Pearson (Creed, Art. V), "we should imagine any damned soul to have
received an express promise of God, that after ten thousand years he would
release him from those torments and make him everlastingly happy, and to have a
true faith in that promise and a firm hope of receiving eternal life, we could
not say that that man was in the same condition with the rest of the damned, or
that he felt all that Hell which they were sensible of, or all that pain which
was due unto his sins; because hope, and confidence, and relying upon God, would
not only mitigate all other pains, but wholly take away the bitter anguish of
despair." It is obvious, that if God makes any such promise in his word, either
expressly, or by implication, despair is not only impossible to the believer of
Scripture, but is a sin. No man should despair. And if God does not make any
such promise, but man makes it to his fellow sinner, in saying, as Satan did to
Eve, You shall not surely die," and the human promise is believed, the effect
will be the same. There will be no despair, until the reckless human falsehood
is corrected by the awful demonstration at death.

Natural religion, as well as revealed, teaches the despair of some men in the
future life. Plato [Gorgias 525], Pindar [Olympia II], Plutarch [De sera
vindicta], describe the punishment of the incorrigibly wicked as eternal and
hopeless. In Scripture, there is no such thing as eternal hope. Hope is a
characteristic of Earth and time only. Here, in this life, all men may hope for
forgiveness. Turn, you prisoners of hope [Zechariah 9:2]. Now is the accepted
time; now is the day of salvation [2 Corinthians 6:2]. But in the next world
there is no hope of any kind, because there is either fruition or despair. The
Christian’s hope is converted into its realization: For what a man sees, why
does he yet hope for it? [Romans 8:24]. And the impenitent sinner’s hope of
Heaven is converted into despair. Canon Farrar’s phrase "eternal hope" is
derived from Pandora’s box, not from the Bible. Dante’s legend over the portal
of Hell is the truth: "All hope abandon, you who enter here"

#The words of Paul, in 1 Corinthians 13:13, are sometimes cited to prove the
eternity of hope, because it abides. But in this passage, faith, hope, and love
are contrasted with the supernatural charismata of chapter 12. These latter are
transitory, but the former abide, because they are essential to the Christian
life here upon Earth. But in respect to the eternity of faith, Paul teaches that
it is converted into sight [2 Corinthians 5:7]; and that hope is converted into
fruition [Romans 8:24]. Love is greater than faith and hope, because it is not
changed into something else, but is eternal. That conscience supports endless
retribution, is also evinced by the universality and steadiness of the dread of
it. Mankind believes in Hell, as they believe in the Divine Existence, by reason
of their moral sense. Notwithstanding all the attack made upon the tenet in
every generation, by a fraction of every generation, men do not get rid of their
fear of future punishment. Skeptics themselves are sometimes distressed by it.
But a permanent and general fear among mankind cannot be produced by a mere
chimera, or a pure figment of the imagination. Men have no fear of Rhadamanthus,
nor can they be made to fear him, because they know that there is no such being.
An idol is nothing in the world [1 Corinthians 8:4]. But men have the fearful
looking-for of judgment from the lips of God, ever and always. If the Biblical
Hell were as much a nonentity as the heathen Atlantis, no one would waste his
time in endeavoring to prove its non-existence. What man would seriously
construct an argument to demonstrate that there is no such being as Jupiter,
Ammon, or such an animal as the centaur? The very denial of endless retribution
evinces by its spasmodic eagerness and effort to disprove the tenet, the
firmness with which it is entrenched in man’s moral constitution. If there
really were no Hell, absolute indifference toward the notion would long since
have been the mood of all mankind, and no arguments, either for or against it,
would be constructed. And finally, the demand, even here upon Earth, for the
punishment of the intensely and incorrigibly wicked, proves that retribution is
grounded in the human conscience. When abominable and satanic sin is temporarily
triumphant, as it sometimes has been in the history of the world, men cry out to
God for his vengeance to come down. "If there were no God, we should be
compelled to invent one," is now a familiar sentiment. "If there were no Hell,
we should be compelled to invent one," is equally true. When examples of great
depravity occur, man cries: How long, O Lord, how long? The non-infliction of
retribution upon hardened villainy and successful cruelty causes anguish in the
moral sense. For the expression of it, read the imprecatory psalms and Milton’s
sonnet on the Massacre in Piedmont.

2. In the second place, endless punishment is rational, because of the
endlessness of sin. If the preceding view of the relation of penalty to guilt be
correct, endless punishment is just, without bringing the sin of the future
world into the account. Man incurs everlasting punishment for the things done in
his body [2 Corinthians 5:10]. Christ sentences men to perdition, not for what
they are going to do in eternity, but for what they have already done in time.
It is not necessary that a man should commit all kinds of sin, or that he should
sin a very long time, in order to be a sinner. Whoever shall keep the whole law,
and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all [James 2:10]. One sin makes
guilt, and guilt makes Hell 45

O fearful thought! one act of sin Within itself contains The power of endless
hate of God, And everlasting pains. -- Fabers Hymn on Predestination. But while
this is so, it is a fact to be observed, that sin is actually being added to
sin, in the future life, and the amount of guilt is accumulating. The lost
spirit is treasuring up wrath [Romans 2:5]. Hence, there are degrees in the
intensity of endless suffering. The difference in the grade arises from the
greater resoluteness of the wicked self-determination, and the greater degree of
light that was enjoyed upon Earth. He who sins against the moral law as it is
drawn out in the Sermon on the Mount, sins more determinedly and desperately
than the pagan who sins against the light of nature. There are probably no men
in paganism who sin so willfully and devilishly as some men in Christendom.
Profanity, or the blaspheming of God, is a Christian and not a Heathen
characteristic

*[It is related by Dr. Scudder, that on his return from his mission in India,
after a long absence, he was standing on the deck of a steamer, with his son, a
youth, when he heard a person using loud and profane language. "See, friend,"
said the doctor, accosting the swearer, "this boy, my son, was born and brought
up in a heathen country, and a land of pagan idolatry; but in all his life he
never heard a man blaspheme his Maker until now"].

They are "Christian" peoples who force opium and rum on helpless pagans. These
degrees of sin call for degrees of suffering. And there are degrees in future
suffering, because it is infinite in duration only. In intensity, it is finite.
Consequently, the lost do not all suffer precisely alike, though all suffer the
same length of time. A thing may be infinite in one respect and finite in
others. A line may be infinite in length, and not in breadth and depth. A
surface may be infinite in length and breadth, and not in depth. And two persons
may suffer infinitely in the sense of endlessly, and yet one experience more
pain than the other. The endlessness of sin results, first, from the nature and
energy of sinful self-determination. Sin is the creature’s act solely. God does
not work in the human will when it wills antagonistically to Him. Consequently,
self-determination to evil is an extremely vehement activity of the will. There
is no will so willful as a wicked will. Sin is stubborn and obstinate in its
nature, because it is enmity and rebellion. Hence, wicked will intensifies
itself perpetually. Pride, left to itself, increases and never diminishes.
Enmity and hatred become more and more satanic. "Sin," says South, "is the only
perpetual motion which has yet been found out, and needs nothing but a beginning
to keep it incessantly going on." Upon this important point, Aristotle, in the
seventh book of his Ethics, reasons with great truth and impressiveness. He
distinguishes between akolasia and akrasia; between strong will to wickedness,
and weak self-indulgence. The former is viciousness from deliberation and
preference, and implies an intense determination to evil in the man. He goes
wrong, not so much from the pull of appetite and passion, as purposely,
knowingly, and energetically. He has great strength of will, and he puts it all
forth in resolute wickedness. The latter quality is more the absence than the
presence of will; it is the weakness and irresolution of a man who has no
powerful self-determination of any kind. The condition of the former of these
two men, Aristotle regarded as worse than that of the latter. He considered it
to be desperate and hopeless. The evil is incurable. Repentance and reformation
are impossible to this man; for the wickedness in this instance is not mere
appetite; it is a principle; it is cold-blooded and total depravity.

Another reason for the endlessness of sin is the bondage of the sinful will. In
the very act of transgressing the law of God, there is a reflex action of the
human will upon itself, whereby it becomes unable to perfectly keep that law.
Sin is the suicidal action of the human will. A man is not forced to kill
himself, but if he does, he cannot bring himself to life again. And a man is not
forced to sin, but if he does, he cannot of himself get back where he was before
sinning. He cannot get back to innocency, nor can he get back to holiness of
heart. The effect of vicious habit in diminishing a man’s ability to resist
temptation is proverbial. An old and hardened debauchee, like Tiberius or Louis
XV, just going into the presence of Infinite Purity, has not so much power of
active resistance against the sin that has now ruined him, as the youth has who
is just beginning to run that awful career. The truth and fact is, that sin, in
and by its own nature and operation, tends to destroy all virtuous force, all
holy energy, in any moral being. The excess of will to sin is the same thing as
defect of will to holiness. The human will cannot be forced and ruined from
without. But if we watch the influence of the will upon itself; the influence of
its own wrong decisions, and its own yielding to temptations; we shall find that
the voluntary faculty may be ruined from within--may surrender itself with such
an absorbing vehemence and totality to appetite, passion, and selfishness, that
it becomes unable to reverse itself and overcome its own inclination and
self--determination. And yet, from beginning to end, there is no compulsion in
this process. The transgressor follows himself alone. He has his own way, and
does as he likes. Neither God, nor the world, nor Satan, forces him either to
be, or to do, evil. Sin is the most spontaneous of self-motion. But self-motion
has consequences as much as any other motion. And moral bondage is one of them.
Whoever commits sin is the slave of sin, says Christ [John 8:34]. The
culmination of this bondage is seen in the next life. The sinful propensity,
being allowed to develop unresisted and unchecked, slowly but surely eats out
all virtuous force as rust eats out a steel spring, until in the awful end the
will becomes all habit, all lust, and all sin. Sin, when it is finished, brings
forth death [James 1:15]. In the final stage of this process, which commonly is
not reached until death, when the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it
[Ecclesiastes 12:7], the guilty free agent reaches that dreadful condition where
resistance to evil ceases altogether, and surrender to evil becomes demoniacal.
The cravings and hankerings of long-indulged and unresisted sin become organic,
and drag the man; and he goes after them as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a
fool to the correction of the stocks, till a dart strike through his liver
[Proverbs 7:22-23]. For though the will to resist sin may die out of a man, the
conscience to condemn it never can. This remains eternally. And when the process
is complete; when the responsible creature, in the abuse of free agency, has
perfected his moral ruin; when his will to good is all gone; there remain these
two in his immortal spirit: sin and conscience, brimstone and fire [Revelation
21:8].

Still another reason for the endlessness of sin, is the fact that rebellious
enmity toward law and its Source is not diminished, but increased, by the
righteous punishment experienced by the impenitent transgressor. Penal suffering
is beneficial only when it is humbly accepted, is acknowledged to be deserved,
and is penitently submitted to; when the transgressor says, Father, I have
sinned, and am no more worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your
hired servants [Luke 15:18-19]; when, with the penitent thief, he says, We are
in this condemnation justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds [Luke
23:41]. 46[St. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 7:11, describes the willingness of a true
penitent to suffer the punishment justly due to his transgression. "For behold
this very thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness [against
sin] it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves [apology], yea, what
indignation [at sin], yea, what fear [of sin], yea, what vehement desire [of
deliverance from sin], yea, what zeal [in resistance], yea, what revenge
[self-condemnation]." The "indignation" and "revenge" arise from the sense of
the intrinsic ill-desert and damnableness of sin.

[Though the primary reference of this description was to the sin of the
incestuous member of the Corinthian church, yet it had also a secondary
reference to the sin of the church itself [1 Corinthians 6:1-2]. The several
emotions mentioned by the apostle are elements in the godly sorrow which the
individual Christian experiences when he contemplates his own sin. He feels
moral indignation at his own wickedness, and acquiesces in the retribution which
it deserves]. But when in this life retribution is denied, and jeered at; and
when in the next life it is complained of, and resisted, and the arm of hate and
defiance is raised against the tribunal; penalty hardens and exasperates. This
is impenitence. Such is the temper of Satan; and such is the temper of all who
finally become his associates. This explains why there is no repentance in Hell,
and no meek submission to the Supreme Judge 47[Muller (Sin, I., 246) exposes the
error of supposing that punishment is remedial in its nature, and adapted to
produce penitence and reformation, in the following terms: " The distinctive
purpose of divine punishment cannot be the improvement of the person punished,
because this is the object of redemption. If punishment were the means
appropriate to this end, there would be no need for redemption; or rather, if
this object is attained by redemption, of what use is the severity of
punishment? Are we to suppose that when redemption proves ineffectual for the
improvement of man, punishment must be resorted to, to attain the object? It
would then follow that punishment is more effectual for man’s regeneration than
redemption. The conflict between the sphere of punishment and that of redemption
becomes all the more perplexing when we recollect that the main feature of
redemption is the doing away with punishment by the forgiveness of sins. If
punishment be remedial, is it a kindness to free man from it before it has
accomplished its work? And how is it possible that redemption, which is the
removal of punishment, should renovate, if punishment itself does so also?

[And yet the influence of punishment in preserving and reestablishing the power
of moral goodness in the sufferer must not he wholly denied. Punishment, on the
one hand, acts as a barrier against the desolating inroads of sin by reasserting
the fixed ordainments of the law ; and, on the other hand, it bears witness to
the sinner of the crushing power wherewith evil recoils upon himself, and makes
him tremble when he surrenders himself to it. In these two ways, it prepares man
for the work of redemption. But in its own distinctive nature, it is not adopted
or calculated to produce a true improvement, an inward renovation of the sinner.
On the contrary, the two spheres, that of redemption, which alone can accomplish
a true renewal, and that of punishment, mutually exclude one a nother. Whenever
a living participation in the blessings of redemption begins, punishment,
properly so called--dikh, ekdikhsiV, timwria--ceases; but, so long as man
continues to be the subject of God’s righteous punishment, he is excluded from
those blessings [John 3:36]."

[Twesten [Dogmatik, Th. II., § 39] argues in the same manner. "Punishment is not
a proper means of reformation; for true reformation can issue only from free
self-determination. It is voluntary in its nature. But a self-determination that
is brought about by the fear of pain would not be moral, and of the nature of
virtue. Any reformation effected from a selfish motive is not genuine
reformation. Furthermore, if true reformation could be produced by punishment,
why should not the legal and punitive method of the Old Testament have been the
only one? The old economy was full of threatenings and penalties, and of fearful
examples of their actual execution. Why did God send His Son, and make a new
covenant and economy of mercy? Of what use is redemption, or the remission of
punishment, if punishment is in itself healing and remedial? The Scriptures
never represent punishment as reformatory. The proper punishment of sin is death
[Romans 6:23]. As temporal death, which is the extreme penalty in human
legislation, is not intended to reform the criminal, and reinstate him in human
society, but forever cuts him off from it, so eternal death, in the Biblical
representation, is not intended to be a means of educating the sinner and
fitting him for the Kingdom of Heaven, but forever banishes and excludes him
from it."] This is the reason why Dives, the impenitent sensualist, is informed
that there is no possible passage from Hades to Paradise, by reason of the great
gulf fixed [Luke 16:26] between the two; and this is the reason why he asks that
Lazarus may be sent to warn his five brothers, lest they also come into this
place of torment [Luke 16:28], where the request for a drop of water, a
mitigation of punishment, is solemnly refused by the Eternal Arbiter. A state of
existence in which there is not the slightest relaxing of penal suffering is no
state of probation.

3. In the third place, endless punishment is rational, because sin is an
infinite evil; infinite not because committed by an infinite being, but against
one. 48[The doctrine that sin is an infinite evil and involves infinite guilt,
because of its objective reference to an infinite Being, is one of the
commonplaces of theology. Those who deny it, forget that the principle upon
which it rests is one of the commonplaces of jurisprudence. The principle is
this, namely, that crime depends upon the object against whom it is committed,
as well as upon the subject who commits it. The merely subjective reference of
an act is not sufficient to determine whether it is a crime. The act may have
been the voluntary act of a person, but unless it is also an offense against
another person, or persons, it is no crime. To strike is a voluntary act; but to
strike a post or stone is not a culpable act. Furthermore, not only crime, but
degrees of crime depend upon the objective reference of a personal act.
Estimated only by the subjective reference, there can be not only no
culpability, but no difference in culpability. Killing a dog is no worse than
killing a man, if merely the subject who kills, and not the object killed, is
considered. Both alike are voluntary acts, and of one and the same person. If,
therefore, the gravity of the act is to be measured solely by the nature of the
person committing it, and not by that of the thing against whom it is committed,
killing a dog is as heinous as killing a man.

[Now this principle of jurisprudence is carried into theology by the theologian.
The violation of the moral law is sin and guilt only when viewed objectively in
reference to God primarily and man secondarily. Viewed merely and wholly in
reference to the transgressor himself, it is not sin and guilt at all. It is sin
only as committed against God and mankind. Again, it is only the objective
reference that will yield degrees of sin. One and the same act may be
simultaneously an offense against an individual, a family, a state, and God.
Measured by the nature and qualities of the offender himself, it has no degrees.
But measured by the nature and qualities of these moral objects against whom it
is committed, it has degrees of turpitude. As the first three are only finite in
worth and dignity, the culpability is only certain degrees of the finite. As the
last is infinite in worth and dignity, the culpability is infinite also]. We
reason invariably upon this principle. To torture a dumb beast is a crime; to
torture a man is a greater crime. To steal from one’s own mother is more heinous
than to steal from a fellow citizen. The person who transgresses is the same in
each instance; but the different worth and dignity of the objects upon whom his
action terminates makes the difference in the gravity of the two offenses.
David’s adultery was a finite evil in reference to Uriah, but an infinite evil
in reference to God. Against You only have I sinned [Psalms 51:4], was the
feeling of the sinner in this case. Had the patriarch Joseph yielded, he would
have sinned against Pharaoh. But the greatness of the sin as related to the
fellow-creature is lost in its enormity as related to the Creator, and his only
question is: How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God [Genesis
39:9]? *[On this point, see Edwards On the Justice of God. Works, IV. 228-229].
The incarnation and vicarious satisfaction for sin by one of the persons of the
Godhead, demonstrates the infinity of the evil. It is incredible that the
Eternal Trinity should have submitted to such a stupendous self-sacrifice, to
remove a merely finite and temporal evil. The doctrine of Christ’s vicarious
atonement, logically, stands or falls with that of endless punishment.
Historically, it has stood or fallen with it. The incarnation of Almighty God,
in order to make the remission of sin possible, is one of the strongest
arguments for the eternity and infinity of penal suffering. The objection that
an offense committed in a finite time cannot be an infinite evil, and deserve an
infinite suffering, implies that crime must be measured by the time that was
consumed in its perpetration. But even in human punishment, no reference is had
to the length of time occupied in the commission of the offense. Murder is
committed in an instant, and theft sometimes requires hours. But the former is
the greater crime, and receives the greater punishment.

4. In the fourth place, that endless punishment is reasonable, is proved by the
preference of the wicked themselves. The unsubmissive, rebellious, defiant, and
impenitent spirit prefers Hell to Heaven. Milton correctly represents Satan as
saying: "All good to me becomes bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my
state"; and, also, as declaring that "it is better to reign in Hell than to
serve in Heaven." This agrees with the Scripture representation, that Judas went
to his own place [ACT 1:25]. The lost spirits are not forced into a sphere that
is unsuited to them. There is no other abode in the universe which they would
prefer to that to which they are assigned, because the only other abode is
Heaven. The meekness, lowliness, sweet submission to God, and love of Him, that
characterize Heaven, are more hateful to Lucifer and his angels, than even the
sufferings of Hell. The wicked would be no happier in Heaven than in Hell. The
burden and anguish of a guilty conscience, says South, is so insupportable, that
some "have done violence to their own lives, and so fled to Hell as a sanctuary,
and chose damnation as a release." This is illustrated by facts in human life.
The thoroughly vicious and ungodly man prefers the license and freedom to sin
which he finds in the haunts of vice, to the restraints and purity of Christian
society. There is hunger, disease, and wretchedness, in one circle; and there is
plenty, health, and happiness, in the other. But he prefers the former. He would
rather be in the gambling-house and brothel than in the Christian home. "Those
that, notwithstanding all gracious means, live continually in rebellion against
God; those that impenitently die in their sins; those that desire to live here
forever, that they might enjoy their sweet sins; those that are so hardened and
naturalized in their vices, that if they were revived and brought again into
this world of temptations, would certainly return to the pleasures of sin; is it
not right that their incorrigible obstinacy should be punished forever?" [Bates,
On Eternal Judgment, Ch. III].


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  CHAPTER 7: 03B RATIONAL ARGUMENT FOR DOCTRINE OF ETERN. PUN.
========================================================================

The finally lost are not to be conceived of as having faint desires and
aspirations for a holy and heavenly state, and as feebly but really inclined to
sorrow for their sin, but are kept in Hell contrary to their yearning and
petition. They are sometimes so described by the opponent of the doctrine, or at
least so thought of. There is not a single throb of godly sorrow, or a single
pulsation of holy desire, in the lost spirit. The temper toward God in the lost
is angry and defiant. They hate both Me and My father, says the Son of God,
without a cause [John 15:24-25]. Satan and his followers love darkness rather
than light, Hell rather than Heaven, because their deeds are evil [John 3:19].
Sin ultimately assumes a fiendish form, and degree. It is pure wickedness
without regret or sorrow, and with a delight in evil for evil’s sake. There are
some men who reach this state of depravity even before they die 49[That the
perdition of some men seems to be settled in this life, is taught by Paul in 1
Timothy 5:24. Some men’s sins are evident beforehand (prodhloi), going before
them to judgment]. They are seen in the callous and cruel voluptuaries portrayed
by Tacitus, and the Heaven-defying atheists described by Simon. They are also
depicted in Shakespeare’s Iago. The reader knows that Iago is past saving, and
deserves everlasting damnation. Impulsively, he cries out with Lodovico: "Where
is that viper? bring the villain forth." And then Othello’s calmer but deeper
feeling becomes his own: "I look down towards his feet--but that’s a fable: If
that you be’st a demon, I cannot kill you." The punishment is remitted to the
retribution of God

*[It ought to be noticed, that the hatred of Himself, and of His Father, which
Christ attributes to the world [John 15:18-19], and which is a distinguishing
element in impenitence, does not necessarily imply sensuality and vice. Sin may
be wholly intellectual--what Paul denominates spiritual wickedness (Ephesians
6:12). The most profound of Shakespearean critics calls attention to "the
passionless character of Iago. It is all will in intellect" [Coleridge’s Works,
IV. 180, Harper’s Ed.]. The carnal mind manifests itself in two ways. The proud
spirit of the moralist is one phase of it; the self-indulgent spirit of the
voluptuary is the other. The Pharisee represents the first; Dives the last. Both
alike confess no sin, and implore no forgiveness. In illustration of the former,
consider the temper of a certain class of intellectual men toward the cross of
Christ. They are perhaps austerely moral. By temperament, taste, study, and
occupation, they have even an antipathy to sensuality. They "scorn delights, and
live laborious days." But present for their acceptance those truths of the New
Testament which involve the broken and contrite heart, and their whole inward
being rises in vehement recoil. Of the effect of the doctrine of election,
Calvin remarks that "when the human mind hears of it, its irritation breaks all
restraint, and it discovers as serious and violent agitation as if alarmed by
the sound of a martial trumpet" [Institutes. III. xxii. 1]. So, too, when the
authoritative demand of Jesus Christ, to confess sin, and beg remission through
atoning blood, is made to David Hume, or David Strauss, or John Stuart Mill,
none of whom were sensualists, it wakens intense mental hostility. Now without
asserting which theory in religion is true, that of the New Testament, or that
of the skeptic, is it not clear, that if there be another life, and if the
teaching of the New Testament shall prove to be the absolute truth, the latter
person must be classed with the "haters of God"? Will not the temper of this
unsensual and intellectual man towards what is found, in the end, to be eternal
verity, be as thoroughly of the nature of enmity, as that of the most immoral
and hardened debauchee? 50[Muller alludes to unsensual and intellectual sin in
the following terms : "That which makes sin to be sin, and which is the evil of
evil, is the selfish isolation of the man which it involves. There are
cases--with some it is the rule of life--where a man keeps himself free from
wild ungovernable passions, and only seldom is guilty of overt acts which
conscience recognizes as sins; yet in his inmost heart ’the I, that gloomy
despot,’ rules supreme; he stands alone in the world, shut up within himself,
and in a chaos of selfish endeavors, preferences, antipathies--without any true
participation in the joys and sorrows of mankind--estranged from God. In such a
state, the principle of sin, though shut up within, rules with no less real
power than where its dominion is manifest in glaring wickedness and vice, and a
wild disorder of the outward life" [Sin, I., 136]. He also notices that mere
intellectuality is no certain preservative against sensuality and vice. "A
superficial observation of life has led to the conclusion that immorality
decreases in proportion as the growth of the intellectual nature increases, and
the ’children of this generation’ pride themselves in no small degree upon the
discovery that culture and not Christianity is the means of true freedom, and
the panacea for all the disorders of the world. But a single unbiased and
penetrating glance at life will suffice to dissipate these illusions. We
oftentimes find the deepest moral degradation and disorder in the very highest
stages of culture, a frivolity of mind resolving all relations of life into
rottenness, an utter insensibility to every impulse of holy love, and a cold,
calculating, self-conscious egotism, which puts from it the call to sacrifice
anyone of its own interests as something altogether absurd--the men with whom it
comes in contact being regarded merely as ciphers, by whose help its own
aggrandizement may be attained. Mental culture does not eradicate a single
tendency of moral depravity; it only veils and refines them all; and so far from
redeeming the man, if it be not sanctified by a higher principle, it really
confirms within him the dominion of sin" [Sin, I., 306, 307].

5. In the fifth place, that endless punishment is rational, is proved by the
history of morals. In the records of human civilization and morality, it is
found that that age which is most reckless of law, and most vicious in practice,
is the age that has the loosest conception of penalty, and is the most inimical
to the doctrine of endless retribution. A virtuous and religious generation
adopts sound ethics, and reverently believes that the Judge of all the Earth
will do right [Genesis 18:25]; that God will not call evil good, and good evil,
nor put darkness for light and light for darkness [ISA 5:20]; and that it is a
deadly error to assert with the sated and worn-out sensualist: All things come
alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and the wicked [Ecclesiastes
9:2]. The French people, at the close of the last century, were a very
demoralized and vicious generation, and there was a very general disbelief and
denial of the doctrines of the Divine existence, the immortality of the soul,
the freedom of the will, and future retribution. And upon a smaller scale, the
same fact is continually repeating itself. Any little circle of business men who
are known to deny future rewards and punishments are shunned by those who desire
safe investments. The recent uncommon energy of opposition to endless
punishment, which started about ten years ago in this country, synchronized with
great embezzlements and breaches of trust, uncommon corruption in mercantile and
political life, and great distrust between man and man. Luxury deadens the moral
sense, and luxurious populations do not have the fear of God before their eyes.
Hence luxurious ages, and luxurious men, refuse to obey Hell, and kick against
the goads. No theological tenet is more important than eternal retribution to
those modern nations which, like England, Germany, and the United States, are
growing, rapidly in riches, luxury, and earthly power. Without it, they, will
infallibly go down in that vortex of sensuality and wickedness that swallowed up
Babylon and Rome. The bestial and shameless vice of the dissolute rich, that has
recently been uncovered in the commercial metropolis of the world, is a powerful
argument for the necessity and reality of the lake which burns with fire and
brimstone [Revelation 21:8].

[The following two paragraphs are wishful thinking and certainly not
Biblical–see Matthew 7:13-14 –aal]. A single remark remains to be made
respecting the extent and scope of Hell. It is only a spot in the universe of
God. Compared with Heaven, Hell is narrow and limited. The kingdom of Satan is
insignificant in contrast with the Kingdom of Christ. In the immense range of
God’s dominion, good is the rule, and evil is the exception. Sin is a speck upon
the infinite azure of eternity; a spot on the sun. Hell is only a corner of the
universe. The Gothic etymon (Hohle, Hölle) denotes a covered-up hole. In
Scripture, Hell is a pit, a lake; not an ocean.. It is bottomless, but not
boundless. The Gnostic and Dualistic theories, which make God, and Satan, or the
Demiurge, nearly equal in power and dominion, find no support in Revelation. The
Bible teaches that there will always be some sin, and some death, in the
universe. Some angels and men will forever be the enemies of God. ["There is
this certainty," says Hooker [Polity, V., xlix], "that life and death divide
between them the whole body of mankind. What portion either of the two has, God
Himself knows; for us he has left no sufficient means to comprehend, and for
that cause has not given any leave to search in particular who are infallibly
the heirs of the Kingdom of God, and who are castaways. Howbeit, concerning the
state of all men with whom we live, we may till the world’s end always presume
that as far as in us there is power to discern what others are, and as far as
any duty of ours depends upon the notice of their condition in respect to God,
the safest axioms for charity to rest itself upon are these: ’He who believes,
already is the child of God; and he who believes not as yet, may become the
child of God.’ It becomes not us, during life, altogether to condemn any man,
seeing that for anything we know there is hope of every man’s forgiveness, the
possibility of whose repentance is not cut off by death. And therefore charity
which ’hopes all things,’ prays also for all men"]. But their number, compared
with that of unfallen angels and redeemed men, is small [SEE Matthew 7:13-14 --
aal]. They are not described in the glowing language and metaphors by which the
immensity of the holy and blessed is delineated. The chariots of God are twenty
thousand, and thousands of angels [Psalms 68:17]. The Lord came from Sinai, and
shined forth from mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of His saints
[Deuteronomy 22:2]. The Lord has prepared His throne in the Heavens, and His
Kingdom rules over all [Psalms 103:21]. Yours is the Kingdom, and the power, and
the glory [Matthew 6:13]. The Lord Christ must reign till He has put all enemies
under His feet [1 Corinthians 15:25]. St. John heard a voice from Heaven as the
voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder [Revelation 14:1]. The
New Jerusalem lies four square, the length is as large as the breadth; the gates
of it shall not be shut at all by day; the kings of the Earth do bring their
honor into it [Revelation 21:16, Revelation 21:24-25]. The number of the lost
spirits is never thus emphasized, and enlarged upon. The brief, stern statement
is, that the fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake that
burns with fire and brimstone [Revelation 21:8]. No metaphors and amplifications
are added, to make the impression of an immense multitude which no man can
number

*Calvin, explaining the elect seven thousand, in Romans 11:4, remarks, that
"though this stands for an indefinite number, it was the Lord’s design to
specify a great multitude. Since, then, the grace of God prevails so much in an
extreme state of things, let us not lightly give over to the Devil all those
whose piety does not openly appear to us." Zuingle thought that all who died in
early childhood are regenerated and saved. Edwards [Against Chauncy, Chap. XIV]
denies that it is an article of his faith, that "only a small part of the human
race will finally be saved." Hopkins [Future State, Section V] asserts that
"there is reason to believe that many more of mankind will be saved than lost;
yea, it may be many thousands to one." Hodge [Theology III. 879] says that "we
have reason to believe that the number of the finally lost, in comparison with
the whole number of the saved, will be very inconsiderable".

We have thus briefly presented the rational argument for the most severe and
unwelcome of all the tenets of the Christian religion. It must have a foothold
in the human reason, or it could not have maintained itself against all the
recoil and opposition which it elicits from the human heart. Founded in ethics,
in law, and in judicial reason, as well as unquestionably taught by the Author
of Christianity, it is no wonder that the doctrine of Eternal Retribution, in
spite of selfish prejudices and appeals to human sentiment, has always been a
belief of Christendom. From theology and philosophy it has passed into human
literature, and is wrought into its finest structures. It makes the solemn
substance of the Iliad and the Greek Drama. It pours a somber light into the
brightness and grace of the Aeneid. It is the theme of the Inferno, and is
presupposed by both of the other parts of the Divine Comedy. The epic of Milton
derives from it its awful grandeur. And the greatest of the Shakespearean
tragedies sound and stir the depths of the human soul, by their delineation of
guilt intrinsic and eternal. In this discussion, we have purposely brought into
view only the righteousness of Almighty God, as related to the voluntary and
responsible action of man. We have set holy justice and disobedient free-will
face to face, and drawn the conclusions. This is all that the defender of the
doctrine of retribution is strictly concerned with. If he can demonstrate that
the principles of eternal rectitude are not in the least degree infringed upon,
but are fully maintained, when sin is endlessly punished, he has done all that
his problem requires. Whatever is just is beyond all rational attack. But with
the Christian Gospel in his hands, the defender of the Divine justice finds it
difficult to be entirely reticent, and say not a word concerning the Divine
mercy. Over against God’s infinite antagonism and righteous severity toward
moral evil, there stands God’s infinite pity and desire to forgive. This is
realized, not by the high-handed and unprincipled method of pardoning without
legal satisfaction of any kind, but by the strange and stupendous method of
putting the Eternal Judge in the place of the human criminal; of substituting
God’s own satisfaction for that due from man. In this vicarious atonement for
sin, the Triune God relinquishes no claims of law, and waives no rights of
justice. The sinner’s Divine Substitute, in his hour of voluntary agony and
death, drinks the cup of punitive and inexorable justice to the dregs. Any man
who, in penitent faith, avails himself of this vicarious method of setting
himself right with the Eternal Nemesis, will find that it succeeds; but he who
rejects it, must through endless cycles grapple with the dread problem of human
guilt in his own person, and alone. The Christian Gospel--the universal offer of
pardon through the self-sacrifice of one of the Divine Persons–should silence
every objection to the doctrine of Endless Punishment. For as the case now
stands, there is no necessity, so far as the action of God is concerned, that a
single human being should ever be the subject of future punishment. The
necessity of Hell is founded in the action of the creature, not of the Creator.
Had there been no sin, there would have been no Hell; and sin is the product of
man’s free will. And after the entrance of sin, and the provision of redemption
from it, had there been universal repentance in this life, there would have been
no hell for man in the next life. The only necessitating reason, therefore, for
endless retribution, that now exists, is the sinner’s impenitence. Should every
human individual, before he dies, sorrow for sin, and humbly confess it, Hades
and Gehenna would disappear. For the Scriptures everywhere describe God as
naturally and spontaneously merciful, and declare that all the legal obstacles
to the exercise of this great attribute have been removed by the death of the
Son of God for the sins of the whole world [1 John 2:2]. In the very midst of
the holy revelations of Sinai, Jehovah proclaimed it to be his inherent and
intrinsic disposition to be merciful and gracious, long suffering, forgiving
iniquity and transgression [Exodus 34:6-7]. Nehemiah, after the exile, repeats
the doctrine of the Pentateuch: You are a God ready to pardon, gracious and
merciful, and of great kindness [Nehemiah 9:17]. The Psalmist declares that the
Lord is ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon Him
[Psalms 86:5]. The Bible, throughout, teaches that the Supreme Being is tenderly
sensitive to penitence, and is moved with compassion and paternal yearning
whenever He perceives any sincere spiritual grief. He notices and welcomes the
slightest indication of repentance. The eye of the Lord is upon those who fear
Him, upon those who hope in His mercy [Psalms 33:18]. The Heavenly Father sees
the prodigal when he is yet a great way off. He never breaks the bruised reed,
nor quenches the smoking flax [Matthew 12:20; Isaiah 42:3]. If there be in any
human creature the broken and contrite heart, the Divine Pity immediately speaks
the word of forgiveness and absolution. The humble confession of unworthiness
operates almost magically upon the Eternal. Incarnate Mercy said to the heathen
woman of Canaan who asked for only the dog’s crumbs, O woman, great is your
faith; be it unto you even as you wish [Matthew 15:28]. The Omnipotent is
overcome, whenever He sees lowly penitential sorrow. As the foolishness of God
is wiser than man [1 Corinthians 1:21], so the self-despairing helplessness of
man is stronger than God. When Jacob says to the Infinite One, I am not worthy
of the least of all Your mercies," yet wrestles with him until the breaking of
the day, he becomes Israel, and as a prince has power with God [Genesis 32:10,
Genesis 32:24, Genesis 32:28]. When Jehovah hears Ephraim bemoaning himself, and
saying, Turn me, and I shall be turned, He answers, Ephraim is My dear son. I
will surely have mercy upon him" [Jeremiah 31:18, Jeremiah 31:20].

Now the only obstruction, and it is a fatal one, to the exercise of this natural
and spontaneous mercy of God, is the sinner’s hardness of heart. The existing
necessity for Hell-punishment is not chargeable upon God. It is the proud and
obstinate man who makes Hell. It is his impenitence that feeds its perpetual
fires. For so long as the transgressor does not grieve for sin, and does not
even acknowledge it, it cannot be pardoned. Almightiness itself cannot forgive
impenitence, any more than it can make a square circle

*[Impenitence after sinning is a more determined form of sin, than sinning is in
and of itself. For it is a tacit defense and justification of sin. If after
transgression the person acknowledges that he has transgressed, and asks
forgiveness for so doing, he evinces that he does not excuse his act, or defend
it. On the contrary, he renounces his act, condemns it, and mourns over it. But
if after transgression the person makes no acknowledgment, and asks no
forgiveness, he is really repeating and intensifying his sin. He virtually
justifies himself in his act of rebellion against authority, and thus aggravates
the original fault. It is for this reason, that impenitence for sin is more
dreadful than sin itself. A penitent sinner can be forgiven; but an impenitent
sinner cannot be. The former God pities, and extends the offer of mercy to him.
To the latter God holds out no hope, because He cannot]. This is what gives to
human existence here upon Earth its dark outlook. Men are impenitent. They pay
no heed to the voice of conscience; know little of remorse, nothing of genuine
sorrow. They are stolid and lethargic in sin; or else angrily deny the fact.
They bend no knee in self-abasement before the All-Holy; they do not cry, "O
Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, grant me Your peace." Human
life is gloomy and despairing, not because there is no mercy in the sweet
Heavens, but because there is no relenting, no softening, in the human heart.
One is weary of hearing the incessant wail of the agnostic, and the cynic, over
the "mystery" of this existence; the monotonous moan of the pessimist, that life
is not worth living. One sincere confession of what the immediate consciousness
of every man will tell him is the absolute truth respecting his character and
conduct, when tried by a spiritual and perfect standard, would drive away this
false view of earthly existence as the miasmatic fog is blown by the winds. But
instead of confessing sin, and imploring its forgiveness, men stand complaining
of its punishment, or employing their ingenuity in endeavoring to prove that
there is none; and then wonder that the Heavens are black and thunderous over
their heads. Not by this method, will the sky be made clear and sunny. Whoever
will cast himself upon the Divine Compassion will find life to be worth living;
but he who quarrels with the Divine Justice will discover that he had better not
have been born.

What the human race needs is--to go to the Divine Confessional. The utterance of
the Prodigal should be that of every man: Father, I have sinned [Luke 15:21].
The utterance of the Psalmist should be that of every man: O You Who hear
prayer, unto You shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail against me: as for our
transgressions, You shall purge them away [Psalms 65:2-3]. So long as man
glosses over, or conceals, the cardinal fact in his history, he must live under
a cloud, and look with anxiety and fear into the deep darkness beyond. It is
useless to contend with the stubborn fact of moral evil by the ostrich-method of
ignoring, and denying. The sin is here, in self-consciousness, terrible and
real, the lancinating sting of pain and the deadly sting of death, in this
generation and in all generations. Kant, the ethical and the metaphysical, is
right when he affirms that the noumenon of sin is the dark ground under the
phenomenon of life. Confession, therefore, is the only way to light and mental
peace. The suppression of any fundamental form of human consciousness
necessarily results in unrest. Man’s words about himself must agree with his
true character and condition; otherwise he becomes insincere, miserable, and
false. The denial of moral evil is the secret of the discontent and melancholy
with which so much of modern letters is filled. Rousseau made a confession, but
not truthful, not humble; and hence it brought him no repose. Augustine made a
confession, genuine, simple, thoroughly accordant with the facts of human
nature; and the outpouring of his confidences into the ear of Eternal Purity and
Mercy brought the peace that passes all understanding, and the immortal life
that knows no melancholy, and no dissatisfaction. These historic persons are
types of the two classes into which all men fall--the penitent and the
impenitent. The king in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, writhing with selfish remorse but
destitute of unselfish sorrow, in his soliloquy exclaims:

Try what repentance can: what can it not? Yet what can it, when one cannot
repent? O wretched state! O bosom black as death! O limed soul; that struggling
to be free Art more engaged!

Bunyan’s man of Despair, in the iron cage, when assured by Christian that "the
Son of the Blessed is very pitiful," replies: "I have so hardened my heart, that
I cannot repent." In these powerful delineations, these profound psychologists
of sin bring to view a peril that environs free will. Pardon may be proffered by
God, but penitence may become impossible through the action, of man. "There are
some sins," says Augustine, "that follow of necessity, from fore-going sins that
occurred without necessity." The adoption of atheism is a sin without necessity.
It is the voluntary action of man. But the hardness of heart that results from
it, results of necessity. No man is forced to be an infidel; but if he is one,
he must be an impenitent man. A luxurious and skeptical age should remember
this. That man cannot repent, who drowns himself in pleasure, and never
seriously reflects upon his accountability to his Maker. That man cannot repent,
who expends the energy of his mind in the endeavor to prove that all human
action is irresponsible, and the threatenings of Revelation an idle tale. They
who have eyes full of adultery cannot cease from sin [2 Peter 2:14]. Absorption
in worldliness, and adoption of infidel opinions, make repentance an
impossibility. Sensuality and atheism harden the human heart, and render it
impervious to the Christian Religion.


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/shedd-william-gt-the-doctrine-of-endless-punishment/
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