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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 46

IV.—Does the Bible Teach this Doctrine?

IV.—Does the Bible Teach this Doctrine?

If it does, there is at once an end to all argument on the matter. Every text bearing upon the subject must be carefully examined to ascertain this point. The Revised version will be here always used.

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St. Matthew iii., 12: "The chaff He shall burn up with unquenchable fire." Here, the allusion is to the burning-up of the chaff of a threshing floor. The flame of such a fire is fierce, unquenchable, while it lasts; but it is soon exhausted. The analogy would seem to be that the punishment of the wicked will be severe but not necessarily everlasting. The chaff is utterly consumed, and the text might be held to teach annihilation of the wicked after punishment. It is not well to give the especial meaning of endlessness to one word when all else is figurative; and when such meaning is contrary to the action described. The fire of the threshing floor is extinguished; it is not endless.

St. Matthew, v., 22: "Shall be in danger of the hell of fire;" or, more literally, "The Gehennah of fire."* Our Lord is here speaking of the three Jewish sentences—that of the Judgment; that of the Council; the Casting into Gehennah of the body of the criminal. This Gehennah was in the Vale of Hinnom; a fire there burned up the city refuse.

St. Matthew, v., 29: "Into hell" (Gehennah). The meaning would be, in the minds of those who heard Jesus, that such an one would be utterly condemned. The nature of the condemnation which God would inflict, and its duration, are not spoken of.

St. Matthew, vii., 19: "Cast into the fire." All that is said here is the evil tree shall be burned; the evil doer condemned.

St. Matthew, viii., 12: "Cast into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." The severity of the punishment is here spoken of, but not the duration.

St. Matthew, x., 28: "Fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Gehennah). These words might be used as if teaching annihilation, but not endlessness of the punishment.

St. Matthew, xii., 31-32: Sin against the Holy Spirit "Shall not be forgiven, neither in this world (or age) nor in that which is to come." The Jews spoke of the dispensation of the Christ as that which was to come. Our Lord most certainly will condemn this sin, whatever it may be, in the Day of Judgment. But He does not say what that condemnation will be, nor of what length. The corresponding passage, St. Mark, iii., 29, runs, "Hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin." The literal rendering is, "Has not forgiveness for the age," &c. The literal meaning of αιωνιoν (aionion) is eternal, age-long. The argument from this use of this word will be particularly noticed at the end of these texts from St. Matthew.

St. Matthew, xiii., 42: "And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." The tares are burned-up and exist no more. Here, annihilation might be taught, but not any endlessness of the fire.

St. Matthew, xiii., 50: As at 42 v.

St. Matthew, xviii., 8: "Into the eternal fire" αιωνιoν (aionion).

* As the Revisors have kept the word Hades (St. Luke, xvi., 23), so should they Gehennah.

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St. Matthew, xviii., 9: "Into the hell of fire" (the Gehennah of fire). This passage is figurative; for how can anyone be halt in heaven, where all is perfect? If figurative words are used when heaven is spoken of, why are the latter words to be taken literally, and be said to teach an endlessness of punishment? As before, the severity, but not the duration of the punishment, is enforced.

St. Matthew, xxii., 13: "The outer darkness." No duration is given. As before, here is the severity of the punishment, not its duration.

St. Matthew, xxiii., 33: "The judgment of hell" (Gk., the Gehennah), escape, it is here said, the severest sentence of the Judge; as above, chap, v., 22.

St. Matthew, xxv., 30: The same as chap, xxii., 13 v.

St. Matthew, xxv., 41: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." 46 v.: "And these shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life." As this passage is the one chiefly insisted upon by those who hold the endlessness of punishment after death, it must be very carefully considered. The argument is, "the life" called "eternal" is confessedly endless; the punishment, called also "eternal," must be also endless.

1. The word eternal is αιωνως (aionios), and is formed from the word αιων (aion), meaning age; and the literal meaning of the adjective is lasting for an age, for a definite period, not everlasting. Other Greek words could have been used which have not any uncertainty of meaning, as that used Hebrews, vii., 16—"After the power of an endless life" ακαταλντoν (akatalutou).*

2. The word αιων (aion) is used of our Lord's kingdom: St. Luke, i., 33, "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever" эις τoνς ΑιωνΑς (eis tous aionas), "and of His kingdom there shall be no end" oνκ эoται τэλoς (ouk estai telos). But St. Paul writes, 1 Corinthians xv., 24: "Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up The Kingdom to God, even The Father." Verse 28: "Then shall The Son also Himself be subjected to Him, that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all." If then the words, thus used of our Lord's Kingdom, must here mean only that The Kingdom shall last in all its completeness, until the end of the ages, and not that The Kingdom is everlasting, why may not the same phrase have a like limited meaning, when it is used of sins' punishment?

3. In v. 46, the word for punishment is κoλαoιν (kolasin), and the proper meaning of this word is pruning, chastising for improvement. Justin Martyr, writing of Gehennah, says: "Gehennah is the place where the wicked shall be chastised," using the verb corresponding to κoλαoις. Apol. I., p. 66 B. Bishop Lincoln, p. 103.

* The following will show how much more frequently aion, and its derivations, are used than other words, which could have been used. The list is believed to be approximately correct:—Aion, used 122 places; Aidios, Romans i., 20: Jude, 6; Eis to dienekes, Hebrews x., 12,14 Akatalutos, Hebrews vii., 16; Aperantos, 1 Timothy i., 4; Aparabatos, Hebrews vii., 24; Asbestos, St. Matthew iii. 12: St. Luke iii, 17: St. Mark ix., 43,44, 46, 48.

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4. In v. 82, the word used is "kids"; and in v. 33 "kidlings"; words expressing affection, and not abhorrence.

5. Once only, Hebrews x., 29, the word τιμωρια (tiraoria) is used. This word can only mean vengeance, and yet then may be even in a κoλασις (kolasis), a τιμωρια (timoria), a just punishment for evil done, and therefore a τιμωρια (timoria), which yet shall be for the chastisement and reformation of the offender.

6. Our Lord's words are, v. 34, "Come ye blessed of my Father;" but v. 41, "Depart from Me ye cursed"—not cursed of my Father, as before. The Life depends upon God's blessing, but the Judgment depends upon the judgment of the Lord Jesus. In St. John, v., 22, He saith: "For neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath given all judgment unto the Son." May not then every sentence end when the Kingdom of the Judge shall end. The judgment, which is for ever, as is the Kingdom,—εις τoνς αιωνας των αιωνων—(eis tous aionas ton aionon), lasting the full length of the Kingdom, but then ceasing?

St. Mark ix., 45 to end. Much of this passage has been noticed above. The following words are new:—"Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." This passage is confessedly figurative, and why should any particular phrase be accepted literally? It would seem that here, as in St. Matthew iii., 12, the intensity of the fire is intended; that the worm, whatever that may be, will not die during anything of the punishment. What is told, v. 49, tends to this conclusion, that the punishment is not everlasting, "Every one shall be salted with fire." Even without the commonly found words, which are omitted in the Revised Version, "every sacrifice shall be salted with salt," the reference is to the salted sacrifices of the Law. But all the salted sacrifices were Peace-offerings, which were accepted of God; not Sin-offerings, which were utterly consumed, as accursed. Salt was not used with the Sin-offering.

St. Matthew, xxvi., 24: "Good were it for that man if he had not been born." His punishment would be of such severity that it would have been better for him never to have lived. If Judas ever reached heaven, could he ever forget the past? Memory will not be extinguished of that which has been done rightfully, why of evil done.

St. Luke, xvi., 23. The parable is clearly figurative, for the rich man, before the Resurrection, speaks as if his soul were clothed with a body. His brethren also are alive. The gulf was then fixed, but there is nothing said of the permanence of the gulf after the Resurrection.

2. St. Peter, ii., 9: "Under punishment," κoλαζoμενoνς (kolazomenous); literally under chastisement. See above on St. Matthew xxv. If the literal meaning of the word is used here, St. Peter shows that the condition of the wrong doer is not fixed at the time of his death.

Revelations, ending chapters. It is said that these chapters indicate a finality. There is judgment and nothing more. "The wicked judged are to retain their filthiness and unrighteousness"—Revelations xxii., 11. And this is their very punishment. They will now learn the evil of sin, and be forced to hate what once page 8 they loved. But there is nothing to set aside any teaching from the rest of the Bible. If there be any possibility of an ending to sin taught there, here is nothing against such teaching.

The above noticed passages are those chiefly advanced by those who hold that the punishment for sin is everlasting. Other passages must now be examined, which show, as it would appear, that this punishment is not everlasting.

Romans v. St. Paul here teaches a very opposite doctrine, if his careful, and frequently repeated, words are to be taken literally, and not explained according to a preformed conclusion. It should be remembered that from our Lord's words, St. John xvi., 12-16, we should expect to find a fuller exhibition of God's grace in the Epistles than in the Gospels. And, also, in such an enquiry it is far better, safer, to rest on a general meaning, gained from a whole passage, than on isolated texts.

1. The Apostle distinctly states that grace will overcome sin: Romans v., 20. But it is impossible to understand how there will be this overcoming, if many be lost. In each age of the world the believers have been few, the unbelievers many. Sin seems to have abounded over grace alway as yet, and it always will so abound if all these unbelievers are for ever lost.

2. In the 15th verse the words: "The many died" mean confessedly that all have died, but why shall not the same words have exactly the same force in the corresponding half of the sentence?

In the 18th verse: "All men" of the first half of the verse is equivalent also to "all men" in the second half.

In the 19th verse: "The many" and "the many" are of equal value.

Yet those who hold that sins' punishment is everlasting make the first words to mean all, without any restriction; but the second words to mean not all, but those only who accept a profferred life.

1 Corinthians xv., 24-26: St. Paul here teaches that every enemy shall be "abolished."

Phillippians ii., 9-10: St. Paul teaches that God hath highly exalted Jesus, that every tongue should "confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father." The confession would seem to be that of praise in all; not of praise in some, and of fearful reverence in others. See St. Gregory's teachings above II. 3.

Colossians i., 20: St. Paul shows that God would "through Him reconcile all things to himself"—"whether things upon the earth."

St. Luke xii., 47-48: Our Lord here speaks of a gradation in this punishment, contrasting the few and many stripes. So St. Matthew xi., 20-25. But there could not be this contrast if the light and heavy punishment were both everlasting. The weight is not so much the penalty, but that it shall be for ever.