Having, in our last paper, endeavored to clear away any difficulty arising from the misuse of the precious doctrine of election, and to show the reader, “whosoever” he be, that there is no hindrance whatever to his full and hearty acceptance of God’s free gift, even the gift of His only begotten Son; it now only remains for us to consider the result, in every case, of this acceptance, as set forth in the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Here, then, we have the result, in the case of every one who simply believes in Jesus. He shall never perish, but shall possess everlasting life. But who can attempt to unfold all that is included in this word, “perish?” “What mortal tongue can set forth the horrors of the lake that burneth with lire and brimstone, “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched?” We believe, assuredly, that none but the One who used the word, in speaking to Nicodemus, can fully expound it to anyone, but still we feel called upon, as the conductors of “Things New and Old,” to bear our decided and unequivocal testimony to the solemn truth of Eternal Punishment. We have, occasionally, referred to this subject in our “Correspondence;” but we believe it demands from us a formal notice; and, inasmuch as the word “perish” occurs in the passage winch has, for some months, been occupying our thoughts, we cannot do better than call the reader’s attention to it.
It is a serious and melancholy fact that the enemy of souls and of the truth of God is leading thousands, both in Europe and America, to call in question the momentous fact of the everlasting punishment of the wicked. This he does on various grounds, and by various arguments, adapted to the habits of thought, and moral condition, and intellectual stand-point of individuals. Some he seeks to persuade that God is too kind to send any one to a place of torment. It is contrary to His benevolent mind and His beneficent nature to inflict pain on any of His creatures.
Now, to all who stand, or affect to stand, upon this ground of argument, we would suggest the important inquiry, “What is to be done with the sins of those who die impenitent and unbelieving?” Whatever force there may be in the idea that God is too kind to send sinners to hell, there is equal force in the idea that He is too holy to let sin into heaven. He is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on iniquity.” (Hab. 1:1313Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he? (Habakkuk 1:13).) God and evil cannot dwell together. This is plain. How, then, is the case to be met? If God cannot let sin into heaven, what is to be done with the sinner who dies in his sins? He must perish. But what does this mean? Does it mean annihilation, that is, the utter extinction or blotting out of the very existence of body and soul? Nay, reader, this cannot be. Many would like this, no doubt. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” would alas! suit many thousands of the sons and daughters of pleasure who think only of the present moment, and who roll sin as a sweet morsel under their tongue. There are millions, on the surface of the globe, who are bartering their eternal happiness for a few hours of guilty pleasure, and the crafty foe of mankind seeks to persuade such that there is no such place as hell, no such thing as the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; and, in order to obtain a footing for tins fatal suggestion, he bases it upon the plausible and imposing notion of the kindness of God.
Reader, do not believe the arch-deceiver. Remember, God is holy. He cannot let sin into His presence. If you die in your sins, you must perish, and this word “perish” involves, according to the clear testimony of holy scripture, eternal misery and torment in hell. Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith, in His solemn description of the judgment of the nations: “Then shall the king say also to them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt. 25:4141Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25:41).) And, while you hearken to these awfully solemn accents, remember that the word translated “everlasting” occurs seventy times in the New Testament, and is applied as follows: “everlasting fire” — “eternal life” — “everlasting punishment” — “ eternal damnation” — “everlasting habitations” — “the everlasting God” — “eternal weight of glory” — “everlasting destruction” — “everlasting consolation” — “eternal glory” — “eternal salvation” — “eternal judgment” —“eternal redemption” — “the eternal Spirit” — “eternal inheritance” — “everlasting kingdom” —“eternal fire.”
Now, we ask any candid, thoughtful person, upon what principle can a word be said to mean eternal, when applied to the Holy Ghost or to God, and only temporary, when applied to hell fire or the punishment of the wicked? If it means eternal, in the one case, why not also in the other? We have just glanced at a Greek Concordance, and we should like to ask, would it be right to mark off some half-dozen passages in which the word “· everlasting” occurs, and write opposite to each, these words, “everlasting here only means for a time?” The very thought is monstrous. It would be a daring and blasphemous insult offered to the Volume of Inspiration. No, reader, be assured of it, you cannot touch the word “everlasting” in one case, without touching it also in all the seventy cases in which it occurs. It is a dangerous thing to tamper with the word of the Living God. It is infinitely better to bow down under its holy authority. It is worse than useless to seek to avoid the plain meaning and solemn force of that word “perish” as applied to the immortal soul of man. It involves, beyond all question, the awful — the ineffably awful reality of burning forever in the flames of hell. This is what scripture means by “perishing.” The votary of pleasure, or the lover of money, may seek to forget this. They may seek to drown all thought of it in the glass or in the busy mart. The sentimentalist may rave about the divine benevolence; the skeptic may reason about the possibility of eternal fire; but we are intensely anxious that the reader should rise from the study of this paper with the firm and deeply wrought conclusion and hearty belief that the punishment of all who die in their sins will be eternal in hell, as surely as the blessedness of all who die in the faith of Christ will be eternal in the heavens. Were it not so, the Holy Ghost would, most assuredly, have used a different word when speaking of the former, from that winch He applies to the latter. This, we conceive, is beyond all question.
But there is another objection urged against the doctrine of eternal punishment. It is frequently said, “How can we suppose that God would inflict eternal punishment as a penalty for a few short years of sin?” We reply, it is beginning at the wrong end to argue in this way. It is not a question of time, as viewed from man’s stand-point, but of the gravity of sin in itself, as looked at from God’s stand-point. And how is this question to be solved? Only by looking at the cross. If you want to know what sin is in God’s sight, you must look at what it cost Him to put it away. It is by the standard of Christ’s infinite sacrifice, and by that alone, that you can rightly measure sin. Men may compare their few years with God’s eternity; they may compare their short span of life with that boundless eternity that stretches beyond; they may seek to put a few years of sin into one scale, and an eternity of woe and torment into the other, and thus attempt to reach a just conclusion: but it will never do to argue thus. The question is, did it require an infinite atonement to put away sin? If so, the punishment of sin must be eternal. If nothing short of an infinite sacrifice could deliver from the consequences of sin, those consequences must he eternal.
In a word, then, we must look at sin from God’s point of view, and measure it by His standard, else we shall never have a just sense of what it is or what it deserves. It is the height of folly for men to attempt to lay down a rule as to the amount or duration of the punishment due to sin. God alone can settle this. And, after all, what was it that produced all the misery and wretchedness, the sickness and sorrow, the death and desolation of well-nigh six thousand years? Just one act of disobedience — the eating of a little fruit. Can man explain this? Can human reason explain how one act produced such an overwhelming amount of misery? It cannot. Well, then, if it cannot do this, how can it be trusted when it attempts to decide the question as to what is due to sin? Woe be to all those who commit themselves to its guidance in this most momentous point!
All! reader, you must see that God alone can estimate sin and its just deserts, and He alone can tell us all about it. And has He not done so? Yes, verily, He has measured sin in the cross of His Son, and there, too, He has set forth, in the most impressive manner, what it deserves. What, think you, must that be that caused the bitter cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” If God forsook His only begotten Son, when He was made sin, must not sin deserve infinite and everlasting punishment? We believe the conclusion is unavoidable. We consider that the infinite nature of the atonement proves, unanswerably, the doctrine of eternal punishment. That peerless and precious sacrifice is at once the foundation of our eternal life, and of our deliverance from eternal death. It delivers from eternal wrath and introduces to eternal glory. It saves from the endless misery of hell, and procures for us the endless bliss, of heaven. Thus whatever side of the cross we look at, or from whatever side we view it, we see eternity stamped upon it. If we view it from the gloomy depths of hell, or from the sunny heights of heaven, we see it to be the same infinite, eternal, divine reality. It is by the cross we must measure both the blessedness of heaven and. the misery of hell. Those who put their trust in that blessed One who died on the cross, obtain everlasting life and felicity. Those who reject Him, must sink into endless perdition.
“We do not, by any means, pretend to handle this great question theologically, or to adduce all the arguments that might be advanced in defense of the doctrine of eternal punishment; but there is one further consideration which we must suggest to the reader, as tending to lead him to a. sound conclusion, and that is the immortality of the soul. “God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The fall of man in nowise touched the question of the soul’s immortality. If, therefore, the soul is immortal, annihilation is impossible. The soul must live forever. Overwhelming thought! Forever! Forever! Forever! The whole moral being sinks under the awful magnitude of the thought. It surpasses all conception and baffles all mental calculation. Human arithmetic can only deal with the finite. It has no figures by which to represent a never ending eternity. But the writer and the reader must live throughout eternity, either in that bright and blessed world above, or in that terrible place where hope can never come.
May God’s Spirit impress our hearts more and more with the solemnity of eternity and of immortal souls going down into hell. We are deplorably deficient in feeling as to these weighty realities. We are daily thrown in contact with people, we buy and sell and carry on intercourse in various ways with those who must live forever, and yet how rarely do we seek occasion to press upon them the awfulness of eternity and the appalling condition of all who die without a personal interest in the blood of Christ.
Reader, let us ask God to make us more earnest, more solemn, more faithful, more zealous in pleading with souls, in warning others to flee from the wrath to come. We want to live more in the light of eternity, and then we shall be better able to deal with others.
We shall, if tire Lord permit, devote our next paper to the consideration of “ everlasting life.”
(To be continued, if the Lord will.)