My dear Brother,
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 is 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, whenever it acquires power over the mind, the whole state of the soul is changed, which loses reality and integrity before God. It is not surely a question of comparing 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 good 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.” This must be false interpretation.
But I will first show you how false your presentation of things is. As to “all live unto Him” (Luke 20:38), 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, but states it; just as it states that the others go away into everlasting life. Neither implies 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 [in it]. 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 whole 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; they 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, on your theory, men endure temporary punishment (a cruel system, unworthy of God), then Christ had only that to bear formally. Sin has only that measure of evil. All the glory of His work, and my sense of sin, sink 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 is needed. Christianity is gone in this system. If I have an immortal or undying soul, and hate God, when judicially cast out (having such), my torment is infinite, as far as a creature can use the word. This I understand felt in a measure (only not with finality of divine present); but if it is only inflicted punishment for a term without any object but a purely gratuitous one, 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 eternal.” It means what is the opposite to “for a time.” Chapter 66 of Isaiah, as all these Old Testament passages, refers to the government of earth and what happens there. But it shows thus 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 “abhorring to flesh.” It is not true to say that 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 presumptive deliverance, but invented to satisfy the thoughts of men as possible, you say, but which denies the statement of scripture as to many, being spoken of where needed. They are in danger of eternal damnation (ἔνοχοι), which make 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 groundless fear! It is not “their worm” very soon at all; for though the worm is not dead, they have ceased to exist; so 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, and atonement disappear. 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 be true, and my responsibility, repentance, and atonement.
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. Grant's book, “Life and Immortality,” yet 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. 1 earnestly pray God your soul and conscience may get clear. 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. I have given my letter to one brother.
Affectionately yours in the Lord,
J. N. D.