I cannot but regret that this thought has laid hold of your mind. It goes far more deeply into the center of Christianity than mere human notions of measured punishment. The immortality of the soul lies at the root, and with it, responsibility, repentance, and atonement; all of which are wholly gone in this human scheme. The character and evil of sin, and divine judgment, are equally involved; and wherever it acquires power over the mind, the whole state of the soul is changed and loses reality and integrity before God. It is not merely a question of comparatively obscure passages in the Revelation, but of our nature, and the whole nature of our relations with God. If the soul be immortal its state in judgment continues; if not, we are only a superior kind of animal, more intelligent perhaps, but morally the same, and our responsibility, as such, gone. If temporary punishment is adequate, Christ had to bear no more. I say this not to prove anything, though for one who possesses the truth in his conscience it proves a great deal; but to show you what is involved. If a man was to prove to me that a doctrine involved unholiness, I should know without more it was false; as was said to me yesterday I am free to sin-that must be false interpretation.
But I will first show you how false your presentation of things is, as to " all live unto him." There is no implication. The doctrine to which it is an answer denies the immortality of the soul and holds consequently that as the soul is not immortal, death is ceasing to exist, as in the case of the beasts that perish. Now the passage quoted is a direct formal proof that death is no such thing, but that when dead, they are alive to God as before. It formally and explicitly denies their doctrine. But you say, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," implies everlasting punishment. It implies nothing about it, it states it; just as it states that the others go away into "everlasting life." Neither imply anything, they state the fact. If it had been said "everlasting fire," it might have been alleged truly or falsely, that though the fire was eternal, they were not. But they go into "everlasting punishment," which is not so, if they do not exist. There is no punishment if no one is there. Again, you say "the smoke of their torment" modifies. How does it modify it, if it is their torment, not the smoke of the fire? It is the smoke of what they are undergoing. If death is not ceasing to exist (and scripture is carefully certain as to this, killing the body is not killing the soul); if the duration of punishment is the same as of life, as of God, as of redemption, the case is clear statement, not implying. The truth of the ground taken by those who hold these doctrines is that we have existence as animals; all their arguments turn on this. If this be so, responsibility is gone. A dog and an elephant are not responsible, have not to repent, Christ has not to bear their sins. Give them eternal life! no gospel is needed for them. Christ has nothing to bear for them. They need no atonement. They do not hate God as man in the flesh does. If, as in your theory, men endure temporary punishment (a cruel system unworthy of God), then Christ had only that to bear for me. Sin has only that measure of evil. All the glory of His work, and my sense of sin, sinks down in proportion. Nor did I ever find one person who held these views, who had not at least mentally lost the atonement, nor can it be otherwise. For one who has only an animal soul cannot be responsible; be he saved or not, no atonement was needed. Christianity is gone in this system. If I have an immortal or undying soul and hate God, when judicially cast out (being such) my torment is infinite, as far as a creature can use the word. This I understand-feel in a measure- only not with finality of course present-but if it is only inflicted punishment for a term, without any object, but purely gratuitous, it seems an easy scheme to man, but it is God taking pleasure in useless punishment when they are going to end their existence after all. What "eternal" means is clear from scripture: "The things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen are eternal." It means what is the opposite to "for a time."
Isa. 66, as all these Old Testament passages, refers to the government of earth and what happens there. But it shows this much, that the fire and the worm do not destroy, the carcasses subsist without being consumed. Hence the Lord does not cite it, but uses it as the expression of enduring torment. He does not speak of carcasses, nor an "abhorring to flesh." It is not true to say it abstains from statements of duration of pain. Eternal punishment (κόλασις, torment) is expressly the contrary. So is "everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord." Your explanation of a continual stroke seems to me as unfounded as possible. The stroke was not removed; he was always under it; it was not instantaneous but continual. It is not only the beast and the false prophet and those who worship the beast's image who are cast into the lake of fire, but whosoever was not found "written in the book of life:" and it is a simply gratuitous assumption that there is a third death after it-not in the gospel, not given as a hope or as perspective deliverance, but invented to satisfy the thoughts of man, as possible as you say, but which denies the statements of scripture as to many, being spoken of when needed (they are "in danger [ἐνοχος] of eternal damnation"), which makes the threatenings of scripture a bugaboo to frighten people with what is not true. But when it says "their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," it is all groundless fear. It is not their worm very soon at all; for though the worm is not dead, they have ceased to exist; so that the terror for them is unfounded. And remark, that at the judgment of the great white throne, the intermediate state is closed, death and hades. The dead have been raised, and these (the wicked) cast into the lake of fire, where we have seen others tormented forever and ever, and of which it is said in general, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."
Responsibility, repentance, atonement disappear; and instead of the offspring of God, sons of Adam (" son of God") into whose nostrils God breathed the breath of life, turned to hate God and so, persevering in it, excluded from His presence, cast into outer darkness-privation of God now judicially, for whom by His inbreathed spirit of life he was made, you give me with no need of atonement for me, a set of animals punished for a time, with no possible purpose or possible fruit; and on the ground that you say ' may it not be possible? ' I say, impossible, if God's word be not a bugbear, and Christianity not true—if my responsibility, repentance, and atonement be true.
I reply to your letter; I do not argue out the question, because you have what has been written, to which you may add F. W. Grant's book "Life and Immortality;" but still more the word of God, but the word of God for conscience. I have always found it to be a question of the sense of sin, and so the need of atonement; what my sin has deserved from God. Your own letter proves this, for temporary punishment is adequate to it. I thank you for writing to me about it, and reply at once. My being in America of course delays my answer. I earnestly pray God your soul and conscience may get clear, may get that sense of sin which makes it impossible to accept these reasonings. It is a common thing now, but issues (though saints are deceived by it too) in infidelity.
Affectionately yours in the Lord.