This is the heading of an article which appeared in one of the popular magazines. The writer of the paper dwelt at considerable length on the fact that the mention of hell, or future punishment, had almost dropped out from the preaching in nearly all the pulpits throughout Christendom; eternal punishment had, he said, almost universally disappeared from the vast majority of the sermons now to be heard in our churches.
It is unnecessary here to enter further into the particular views of the writer of this article regarding eternal punishment; but the fact that it is seldom heard of, and indeed boldly denied, is plain to every thoughtful person. How are we to account for this fact? Is it not mainly because preachers like to please their hearers, and they know that warnings of judgment to come are an unpleasant sound in the ears of men bent on making life as pleasant as they can.
Another cause is doubtless to be found in the growing infidelity and unsettling of the authority of the Word of God in the minds of a vast number in the theological schools and institutions which profess to train men for what is called the Christian ministry. Satan’s aim is to lull people to sleep with the delusion that all will come right in the next world, or that they will attain happiness after some temporary retribution, or perhaps that they will be annihilated and cease to exist. How could a God of love, they say, punish any one eternally? And so the enemy of souls whispers into the ear,
“Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
Now all these false doctrines strike at the root and foundation of true Christianity. Man estimates sin according to the poor false estimate of fallen man; he does not view sin as it really is in God’s sight. In like manner he estimates God’s justice and holiness according to the puny standard of his own reason, and his estimate is therefore shallow and altogether short of the mark.
The soul taught by the Word of God sees in the cross of Christ the true measure of sin as God sees it, on the one hand, and of God’s infinite and perfect righteousness and holiness on the other. Listen to Jesus saying in the garden of Gethsemane,
“O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me,” as He anticipates the awful cup of God’s judgment against sin, the extent of which He alone knew. On the cross He says, as the victim, the holy sufferer,
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me,” when He was bearing sin. And why was He forsaken? The answer is given a little lower down in the Psalm,
“But Thou are holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.”
God’s infinite holiness and righteousness demanded that He should hide His face from the One who became, in divine love, the Sin-bearer in that awful hour when judgment was being meted out against sin according to the righteousness and holiness of an infinitely holy Being. None but an infinite Being—Jesus, the Son of God—could exhaust the judgment of God draining the cup of His indignation against sin, and then say, “It is finished.” No mere man could ever exhaust the judgment of a holy God, or say, “It is finished;” the punishment of the lost must therefore be eternal according to the measure of God’s holy indignation against sin.
It has been truly said that there never was anything like the cross in the history of eternity—never could be or will be: it stands alone. There all man’s sinfulness and hatred against God was brought to a climax and fully demonstrated; and there, too, God’s perfect righteousness, holiness, majesty, and truth in His judgment of sin in the person of the Substitute, as well as His perfect love to the sinner, in making even sin’s worst act the occasion of blessing and salvation, was perfectly and fully manifested.
In the cross was demonstrated before the whole universe the solemn fact that God could not possibly tolerate sin, when Jesus, the Son of man, gave Himself up in perfect love and devotedness, for the glory of God and the sinners’ salvation. Therefore the cross is eternal in its issues, by that work “eternal forgiveness” of sin is secured, “eternal redemption” is accomplished, a sacrifice of eternal value has been offered through the “eternal Spirit,” an “eternal inheritance” has been promised, “eternal life” is the possession of all believers, and we are passing on to “eternal glory.”
But if the results of the cross are eternal in blessing to the saved, they are none the less eternal in judgment to the lost. Thus we read of “eternal fire,” “eternal destruction,” “eternal judgment.” And as it is the very same word for “eternal,” in the language in which the Scriptures were written, which describes the blessings of the saved and the judgment of the lost, as well as the “eternal God,” “eternal Spirit,” etc., it must, therefore, mean “eternal” in the most unlimited sense.
Man possesses an immortal, a never-dying spirit. When God created mere animals, He said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creatures,” etc.; but not so when man was created; then He said,
These things could not be said of any mere animal which dies and perishes. Man has spirit, soul, and body: his body may die and go to decay, but his spirit lives eternally. The body is mortal, that is subject to death; the spirit is never said to be so in Scripture.
The annihilationist idea that the unsaved cease to exist when they die, or possibly after some temporary punishment, is totally contrary to Scripture, for death never means ceasing to exist; if it did the saved would cease to exist, and even Christ Himself. The “second death” is not ceasing to exist. Revelation 20:1414And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. (Revelation 20:14) expressly says that it is the “lake of fire.”
How intensely solemn these questions are, and if we remember that the eternal destiny of the soul is settled here in this world, how anxious it would make us for the salvation of others. Everything around us in this world is passing and fading “the things which are seen are temporal;” in contrast with this, those things which belong to the next world are undying and unfading “the things which are not seen are eternal.”
What a debt of gratitude the believer owes to Him who has saved him from eternal wrath and for eternal glory.