p. 26 | The Sinner's Wages by C. W. Stone

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 19, 1882

The Sinner's Wages.

By C. W. Stone

BY PROF. C. W. STONE.

Our next proposition is, that after the Judgment the wicked will be punished on this earth. Where should they be punished if not where they commit their crimes? If a man commits murder in Vermont he is not taken to New Hampshire to be hung; but he expiates his crimes within the same dominion in which it was committed. Will God take men to the moon to punish them? To what globe will they be taken? Where is located that burning lake of fire into which we have been taught our impenitent friends have gone? Ah! the Bible nowhere locates it, nor speaks of it—it does not yet exist.

There is no text which says that the wicked shall ever leave this world; but there is one that proves our proposition. "Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner." Prov. 11:31. The Universalist will say, that means in this life. I reply, it does not say so. It simply shows where, and not when, rewards and punishments shall be realized. Let us look at the idea that it is in this life that men receive punishment for their sins. We admit that men suffer much in consequence of sin; but between consequence and punishment there is a wide difference. An incendiary burns a poor man's house. The poor man suffers as a consequence. If the incendiary is not discovered he does not suffer; if he is, he suffers as a punishment. But to the point. Here is a poor invalid. He is a devoted Christian. He suffers from pain and poverty. Opposite lives his rich neighbor, a profane, selfish, ungodly man. He is surrounded with plenty, he has all that heart could wish. He takes his ease, and fares sumptuously every day. Now I ask, is this sinner receiving his punishment as he goes along? Truly Solomon declared what we have all seen illustrated, when he said, "There be just men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous." Eccl. 8:14. But Prov. 11:31 declares that both classes shall be rewarded in the earth. We have seen that it is not in this life; therefore it must be in the next.

This conclusion is in harmony with the words of Christ in John 5:28, 29. "For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." Thus the rewards of both classes are to be given after the resurrection. Peter states very plainly that the wicked shall be punished in the earth. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Pet. 3:7. That is to say, The same fire in which the wicked shall meet their punishment is to melt and purify the earth in the great day of the Lord; and he states that in that day "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Verse 8. When the elements of this old earth are thus melted, then will truly exist that lake of fire in which the impenitent will expiate their crimes, their violations of God's law.

In that fire the wicked will be utterly consumed, reduced to ashes. If a man be caught in a burning building, he is soon smothered in the flames, and burned to ashes with the falling timbers around him. These same bodies are coming up from the grave in the resurrection; the wicked, to the resurrection of damnation (John 5:29), whose fate it will be to suffer the second death. Therefore, when the wicked are found in the flames of that mighty conflagration, there is but one result to be looked for, namely, that they shall be burned up like the man in the burning building.

This conclusion is also plainly stated in the Bible. Jude says that the cities of "Sodom and Gomorrah ... are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." Verse 7. And Peter says that God turned "the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that should after live ungodly." 2 Pet. 2:6. Christ says that the wicked shall be punished in everlasting fire, or eternal fire, the words eternal and everlasting coming from the same Greek word. Matt. 25:41. From these texts we learn, 1. That the wicked are to be punished in fire like that which God rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah. 2. That they were made an ensample to them that should after live ungodly; that is, just as they were burned up, so will the ungodly finally be consumed. 3. That they were reduced to ashes. And we are driven to the conclusion that the wicked will be a process precisely similar be reduced to the same condition; and this is just what the prophet Malachi declared more than two thousand years ago: "For behold the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "And ye [the righteous] shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts." Mal. 4:1, 3.

Were I called upon to state in unequivocal terms the utter destruction of the wicked, and could I choose wisely from the strongest terms in the language, I do not suppose that I should be able in as few words to state the doctrine with any more force than it is given in the inspired language of Malachi. We notice that he compares the wicked in that day to stubble. Other Bible writers also compare them to the most combustible substances. Let us notice some of their statements.

"While they be folden together as thorns they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry." Read Nahum 1:1-10. That would be very strange language for the prophet to use if he intended to teach eternal misery.

John the Baptist compared the wicked to chaff, and said of Christ, "he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matt. 3:12. Chaff is easily burned. But some who seem unwilling to part with the doctrine of eternal torment, take refuge under the term unquenchable. Now it appears to me that it would make little difference what kind of fire one should put chaff into; the chaff would be burned up in any case. I think that the term unquenchable is used expressly to teach that the combined hosts of the wicked with the devil and his angels to aid them will be unable to quench, or put out, that fire; and thus the text warrants their utter destruction. The Saviour compares the wicked to tares. Matt. 13:38. He says as men burn these obnoxious weeds at harvest time, so shall the wicked be burned in the end of the world. See verse 30, 38-42. In John 15:6 he compares them to withered branches, which men gather, and cast into the fire, to burn them.

The psalmist compares them to the fat of lambs. "But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away." Ps. 37:20. The Jews could readily comprehend this illustration, for often did they see the fat of lambs consumed by the fires on the altar of burnt offerings. We all know how very certainly such a substance will burn if put into the fire. In just that manner shall the wicked burn. Fearful fate of the sinner! Who would not give all he possesses to be released from being burned at the stake, were this a punishment awaiting him tomorrow? And, yet, with the certainty of the Judgment before us, the longer inheritance the servants of God on one hand, and the wages of sin—to be burned alive on the other hand, the careless sinner continues to break God's law, and the lukewarm professor, with oars at rest, floats down the current that will soon dash him on the deadly rocks below. But to-day there is mercy. Christ loves you, he died for you, and he will gladly plead your cause with the Father. The Father loves you—"he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. He who has done this for us, will in no wise turn away those who come to him through faith in his Son.

These texts which speak of the burning up of the wicked do not, as some would argue, refer simply to the body, while the soul is to survive, and suffer eternally. In the first place the Bible nowhere teaches that there is an intelligent entity or an immortal soul, that survives the death of the body. Our text says, "The wages of sin is death." I read in Ezekiel 18:4, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." We learn from Isa. 10:18 that the wicked be destroyed, "both soul and body." God has never endowed us with sufficient vitality to endure his wrath as our opponents say the wicked are to do to all eternity, and yet does God propose to exercise that wrath so long. Thus he says: "For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit would fail before me, and the souls which I have made." Isa. 57:16. The simple fact is that men have gotten up a theory of punishment which nobody can stand, or, more properly, a punishment which would require a continuous miracle, to enable the wicked to endure it, for endure it they must eternally. This text promptly forbids the entertainment of an idea so dishonoring to a holy God.

The destiny of the wicked is that they shall be brought to nothing, so far as existence as intelligent beings is concerned. Jeremiah says, "O Lord, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing." Jer. 10:24. But the fury of his anger is to be poured out upon the wicked. Isaiah says of the wicked, "They shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee; they that war against thee shall be as nothing and as a thing of nought." Isa. 41:11, 12. "Shalt not find them." If they were to exist forever in plain sight of the righteous, as we have been taught, it would not be difficult to find them. But, "they shall be as though they had not been." Obad. 16. God's anger will cease in their death. "For yet a very little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction." Isa. 10:25. "For yet a little while and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be." Ps. 37:10. No place even for the eternal misery of the wicked.

After that great burning day in which the wicked are to be destroyed, the earth having been melted in the fervent heat, shall come forth a "new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. 3:13. Rev. 20:14, 15; 21:1. This new earth shall be the abode and heritage of the redeemed, and Christ, their King, shall dwell with them. Rev. 21:2-5. "The meek shall inherit the earth." Ps. 37:11; Matt. 5:5.

Then, when the cursings of the wicked shall have been hushed for eternity in the second death, —then, when not a discordant note shall mar the grand symphony—then shall saints and angels and all creation raise a song of universal joy and adoration to the great God and to the Redeemer of men. John in holy vision heard the notes of that great anthem. "And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." Rev. 5:13.

Would you join in that happy chorus? "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Repent toward God, for you have sinned against him; then look to Jesus—"look and live."