Eternal Life in Torment Impossible by O. F. FRANK

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 21, 1915

Eternal Life in Torment Impossible

By O. F. FRANK

O. F. FRANK

The Lord means just what he says when he declares that “the wages of sin is death.” “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” and, having sinned, they must either pay the penalty or have a substitute pay it. God will not declare a penalty for a certain thing and then never enforce it. He does not speak his word to break it. And if the wages of sin, or the penalty for sin, is eternal life in torment, then no one could ever finish paying the debt. He would always, as long as eternity lasts, be paying the debt, but he could never get it paid, if the wages of sin is eternal life in torment.

Then, if the sinner had no substitute, he could never be saved; and if he did have a substitute, even this could not save him. For in the former case he would always be paying his penalty and never getting it paid, and in the latter case his substitute would always be paying the sinner’s penalty but never could he finish the payment, if the wages of sin is eternal life in torment. Thus the penalty never being fully paid, but the sinner or the substitute being always in process of payment, always in the act of paying, it would be impossible for the sinner to be saved if he should undertake to pay his own debt, or for either to be saved if a substitute should undertake to pay it for him. For in the latter case, after the substitute had burned for a time in the lake of fire for the sinner’s sin, the time would come for the sinner to die; and because his penalty would not be fully paid, he could not be taken to heaven, for the Lord will not take a man to heaven without first having satisfaction made for the sins he has committed. Satisfaction not being fully made, and because it never could be, the Lord would then, in justice, have to cast the sinner into the lake of fire to make him help his substitute pay his penalty for sin; and this penalty could never be paid, the burning forever as the wage for sin could never be performed and finished, if the wages of sin is eternal life in torment.

If the wages of sin is eternal life in torment, then our Saviour Jesus Christ, our substitute, is burning yet; and what is more, he will never get through. All our sins were to be laid on him. He was to bear all our iniquities, and take all our punishment. Isa. 53:6-10; 2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 4:25; 8:3. The evil one, in attempting to make us believe that the wages of sin is eternal life in torment, has tried to make us believe that which would make the damnation of the whole human race necessary, and also the damnation of the Saviour sure, when he became our substitute to save us.

But thanks be to God, the wages of sin is not eternal life in torment, but death. And Christ has fully paid the penalty for our sins, and we may be fully saved. And because Christ himself never sinned, after having paid our penalty for sin it was by the justice of God that he was raised from the dead. It has also pleased our merciful Heavenly Father to give unto his Son our Saviour eternal life and all the riches of his glory; and what is more, this same Heavenly Father has also given unto those who will accept the sacrifice of his Son and take his life for their model, the privilege of being joint heirs with him forever. But every sinner that will not accept the provisions made for his pardon, will finally die a real death and be no more.

Sin itself will finally be no more. God will have a universe that is perfectly clean of everything that is bad, and then all God’s creatures will be in perfect accord with his righteous will. “And every created thing which is in the heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things that are in them, heard I saying, Unto him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb, be the blessing, and the honor, and the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever.” Rev. 5:13, A. R. V.

Lake Charles, La.