Eld. R. F. Cottrell’s Twelfth Reply,
By R. F. Cottrell
Dear Brother,—The sense in which I admit of eternal punishment, is easily understood. It is not in the sense of the eternity of the pain, but the eternity of its consequences. Paul calls the last judgment the “eternal judgment,” Heb. vi, 2; not because God will be eternally judging men, and they never be judged. The time will come when mankind will have been judged; so the time will come when the wicked will have been punished. The judgment and the punishment will be final, irreversible and eternal in their consequences. I by no means admit, however, that aion, translated everlasting, eternal, ever, ages, &c., always signifies endless duration. Paul speaks of the end of the aion. Heb. ix, 26. Period of duration, time, age, lifetime, &c., are given as definitions of aion. When speaking of a mortal being, these definitions expressing limited duration may be applied; but when it refers to the age of an immortal being, it is proper to apply those definitions which express endless duration. Death is a terrible punishment. It cuts off the person from all the enjoyments of life; and unless life and consciousness be restored, he is cut off from them forever. You may persuade the man doomed to be hung, or beheaded, or crushed to atoms in an instant beneath one ponderous blow, that, his neck being dislocated, or his head crushed in a moment, he would scarcely be sensible of the slightest pain. And you may try to comfort him with the thought that “punishment ends with consciousness,” and that “when torment ceases, punishment ends;” yet you cannot by any sophistry convince him that death is no punishment at all. He will choose life with much pain, rather than be cut off from life and joy forever. But let him be assured that he will be restored to life, and he will prefer unconsciousness for a time, to severe suffering. I have nothing to object to your definition of death in its primary sense; neither do I deny that life and death, as well as other words, are used in a figurative sense. But it is for you to show that in those passages which speak of death as the punishment of sin, it is so used. It will not do to say, Death is sometimes used in a figurative sense; therefore it has no literal meaning, at least in those passages in which a literal interpretation would contradict the popular creed. Come to the passages, and give some other reason that they are figurative than that the words are sometimes used in a figurative sense. God threatened death to Adam as the punishment of sin. In pursuance of this threatening, after he had sinned he pronounced this penalty against him: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Nothing further was threatened, or even intimated. Is this figurative death? And would not this have been the end of our race, but for Christ and the resurrection? I repeat it, nothing further was threatened. Did God keep secret the most terrible part of the penalty of sin?—even everlasting pains after death? Tell it not in Gath! Let not this news reach the skeptic’s ear. The figurative use of words is founded upon the literal. The sinner is dead in trespasses and sins, because he is in a state that ends in death. “The end of these things is death.” Rom. vi, 21. We say of the convicted murderer, he is a dead man; because we are certain that death will be his portion. In pronouncing his sentence, the judge will not say, You are guilty of murder. For this offense you are doomed to be a murderer? No; death will be his doom. But in case the murderer is pardoned, he “has passed out of death into life.” Is future punishment a death that men can pass out of, after they are really in it? Christ and his apostles do not disagree in their testimony. There is no necessity of preferring one inspired testimony above another. The “everlasting punishment” of which Jesus speaks, is the “everlasting destruction” of the apostle. It is true, destruction may be used figuratively; but you can produce no evidence that it is so used in the text, “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” It is not banished from his presence, but destroyed. You have utterly failed to prove the immortality of the soul in the former part of our discussion. Not one text says it, directly or indirectly. So there is no necessity of understanding this destruction to be figurative. But, on the other hand, there is an absolute necessity of understanding it in the literal sense. Its harmony with other scriptures demands it. Mal. iv, 1. “All the proud, yea, all that do wickedly, shall be stubble.” All includes the whole. Stubble is readily consumed by fire. “And the day that cometh shall burn them up.” It is themselves, and not some appendage, that is to be burned up, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Should one say of a tree, “It is burned up, so as to leave neither root nor branch,” we would understand it was wholly consumed—nothing left. No language could be stronger to prove that the wicked will be wholly and literally consumed. Psa. xxxvii, 20. “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.” Those who had seen the fat of lambs consumed on the altar of burnt-offerings, could understand this text. There is only one way to understand it; the comparison as the fat of lambs, makes it literal. In explaining the parable of the tares of the field Jesus said, “The tares are the children of the wicked one. . . . The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels. As, therefore, the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of Man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Matt. xiii, 24–43. These testimonies show that the wicked will be personally and literally destroyed. As I said, there is no necessity of understanding the everlasting destruction with which the wicked are to be punished, in a figurative sense; but there is a necessity of understanding it literally. No text teaches that man has an immortal part, which the fire of God cannot consume. But the wicked are compared to stubble, fat, tares, chaff, &c., the most combustible things, and we are positively taught that as these things are totally burned up in the fire, so the wicked themselves shall be. This will be the decision of the eternal judgment, and this will be their everlasting punishment. You say truly, that apollumi, or its equivalent, “is translated by the terms destroy, perish, lose, &c.,” and I heartily endorse your remark, that “in every instance their meaning is determined by the context, or by the nature of the things to which it is applied.” The lost sheep of the house of Israel were living men, who like lost sheep were in danger of perishing. Hence the language is figurative. They were not absolutely destroyed, but were in danger of being destroyed. It was possible they might be brought back to the fold, and their lives be saved. Hence the Saviour came to seek and save them. But this is not the case with those who are doomed to perish or be destroyed at the last judgment. Now apply your invariable rule of interpretation to 2 Thess. i, 9. There is nothing in the context to show that olethros, destruction, is used in a figurative sense. There is nothing in the nature of “mortal man” to forbid its literal interpretation. Please come to the point, and not talk around it. Proceed to the proof that in this instance the language is figurative. And when you have proved that the death and destruction threatened as the future punishment of the wicked is figurative, you will have proved that there is no real future punishment—nothing more than the wicked are suffering or enjoying in this life, while they are “dead in trespasses and sins;” and hence there is no use of a future judgment. You further say of apollumi, “Indeed I do not recollect a passage in which it has the meaning you give it, when it refers to man’s moral condition.” (The italics are mine.) Very well; I do not. But the sinner’s moral condition and his punishment are distinctly two things. It is his moral condition that makes his punishment necessary. It is because his moral condition exposes him to literal death, that he, in a figure, is said to be dead. Do not confound sin and its punishment. If you do, you will not be able to prove any future retribution at all. Will the decision of the judgment be, You have sinned, therefore you shall be a sinner? The very act of sin makes man a sinner. It is the necessary effect of his own act, and not a punishment from God. From what you say in your closing paragraph, I think you will be able to understand how there can be degrees in future punishment; especially if you bear in mind that the ultimate punishment of sin is not a natural effect, like the physical penalty for the violation of physical law, but something which God in just retribution inflicts for the violation of moral law. But if you are further troubled on this point, I will ask you to explain the different degrees in eternal torture, as you are on the affirmative. Your answer to this perhaps will give me the clue. “God is angry with the wicked every day.” Psa. vii, 11. He cannot cease to be angry with them while they are sinning and he inflicting punishment. But when sinners are destroyed, he ceases to be angry with them. “For yet a little while, and the indignation shall cease, and mine anger in their destruction.” Isa. x, 25. When sin and sinners cease to be, God will be angry no more.
Truly yours,
R. F. COTTRELL.