p. 484 | Sin and Its Penalty by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 1, 1883

Sin and Its Penalty.

By Editor

(Concluded.)

BUT still another difficulty is presented to us by giving an extraordinary definition to death; it is said to mean eternal misery. But on examination of this, the difficulty is found entirely on the side of those who present it. If, however, the definition is correct, there is an insurmountable difficulty, involving the whole doctrine of the atonement, and making it utterly impossible for God to be just, and also the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

First, then, if the signification of death is "eternal misery," Christ never died at all; and then all the scriptures that say he died are untrue; and thus the atonement would be proved impossible, and further consideration of it would be useless. But admitting the Scripture testimony, that the wages of sin is death, and that Christ died for sin, and we have the scriptural view of the term death, utterly forbidding such an unnatural and forced construction of a plain declaration.

Secondly. If the correct definition of death is eternal misery, the relative terms, first and second, as applied to death before and after the resurrection, are used absurdly. For how can there be a first and second eternal misery? Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men. But the very fact that man may be resurrected, released from death, as the Scriptures teach, clearly proves that the Scripture use of the term death is entirely different from the "theological use," as given above.

And, thirdly, If death means eternal misery, then that is the penalty of the law; but Christ did not suffer it, and the redeemed will not suffer it, so it follows that justice is never vindicated by the infliction of the penalty, either upon them or a substitute; and thus justice is suspended, not satisfied; and Christ's death (if it could with any reason be called so) is not truly vicarious. As before considered, justice demands the infliction of the penalty of a just law; and as God is unchangeable and infinitely just, the penalty will surely be inflicted upon the transgressor or his substitute. But the above view makes it impossible. According to that, mercy does not harmonize with justice, but supersedes it, and God's justice is not manifest in justifying the believer. The sum of the matter is this: that if the penalty be eternal misery, then all that have sinned must suffer it, and be eternally miserable, or else the demands of the law are never honored. But the first would result in universal damnation, and the other would degrade the Government of God, and contradict both reason and the Scriptures.

This definition of death has been adopted of necessity to conform to the popular idea of the inherent immortality of man; yet it involves a contradiction in those who hold it. For it is claimed that the wicked are immortal and cannot cease to exist, and therefore the death threatened in the Scriptures is something besides cessation of existence; namely, misery. But immortality signifies exemption from death; and if the Scriptural meaning of death is misery, and the wicked are immortal, or exempt from death, they are, of course, exempt from misery! The advocates of this theory do not mean to be Universalists, but their position necessarily leads to that result.

It was well said by that great Christian philosopher, John Locke, that "it seems a strange way of understanding law, which requires the plainest and most direct terms, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery." Life and death are opposites; the first is promised to the justified, the second is threatened and inflicted upon the unjust. But life and misery are not opposites; misery is a condition of life. In everything but "theology" such a perversion of language would not be tolerated, as to make eternal misery and death, or even misery and death, synonymous. Were I to report that a man was dead because I knew him to be suffering in much misery, it would be looked upon as trifling—solemn mockery. With a cessation of life every condition of life must cease.

Before leaving the subject of the penalty for transgression we will compare with the announcement of the penalty to Adam, the explanation of it by the Lawgiver himself. When man was created and placed on probation, the Lord said to him that if he disobeyed the divine requirement or prohibition he should "surely die." To this all future declarations conformed. Indeed, if there is unity of design in the Scriptures they all must conform to this. Accordingly they say, as already quoted: "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." "The wages of sin is death." Said the Lord to Israel: "I have set before you life and death." The penalty for violation of the divine law is nothing less than "the death penalty." God is the author of life, and man is his creature. "All souls are mine," said the Creator; "as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Eze. 18:4. The right both to order and to dispose of life rests with him alone.

There is no surer method of settling the meaning of a penalty than to notice how the proper authority pronounces or executes the sentence upon a transgressor. Adam sinned; he was arraigned, and confessed his guilt. He could not hide it from his Maker. The Judge in this case was the author and giver of the law; it was he who first announced the penalty of death. The sentence or the punishment must be conformable to the penalty. Therefore the sentence will be an authoritative comment on, or explanation of, the penalty. The sentence was pronounced in these words: "Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 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." According to this sentence, when the Lord told the man he should surely die, he meant that he should be returned to his original element, the dust of the ground, out of which he was taken when he was made a man, a living soul. That is what we call literal, personal, or physical death. Nothing else could be implied, for the record speaks of nothing else as pertaining either to the penalty or the sentence. And who shall amend the word of the Lord, or question his decision, in a matter of his own law and of the life and death of his creatures?

On the subject of punishment we will examine but one text, as our limits do not admit of any extended argument on the point. This text is Matt. 25:46; and we notice this because it is supposed to conflict in direct terms with the view of the penalty given above. And this being one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, in which an objection is based, an exposition of this will show that the objection itself has no force.

The text reads: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into the eternal." The Revised Version says eternal punishment and eternal life. This is strictly according to the original, and no one will object to the rendering.

The whole objection is based upon a misapprehension of the term punishment. Many seem to think they have fully sustained the objection when once they have proved that the punishment of the wicked is as eternal as the life of the righteous. Thus Moses Stuart said: "If the Scriptures have not asserted the endless punishment of the wicked, neither have they asserted the endless happiness of the righteous, nor the endless glory and existence of the Godhead." We admit this, and then our argument has lost nothing, and the objection has gained nothing. The question is not one of the duration of punishment, but of the nature of it. Of this we say—

1. The word punishment is not a specific term. Men may be punished by fire, by imprisonment, or by death. The term includes all these, and it may refer to many other things, but it specifies neither of them.

2. This being so, there is only an implied, not a direct, antithesis between the words punishment and life. When we say a man will be punished, we do not thereby declare what shall be done with or to him. But if we say of two men that one shall be punished and the other shall be suffered to live, the unavoidable conclusion would be that the first would be punished with death, or not suffered to live.

3. If death be punishment, then eternal death, from which there will be no resurrection, is eternal punishment. And this is the destiny of the wicked. "The wages of sin is death." As there will be a resurrection of the unjust, and their punishment is after that, they will suffer a second death, after which there is no more resurrection. The second death is therefore an eternal death.

4. Eternal life and eternal death are complete contrasts. There would be no strong contrast between eternal death and a brief life, or between eternal life and a brief state of death. And there would be no contrast at all between eternal life and eternal imprisonment. The penalty or punishment being death, there is this complete contrast between eternal life and the eternal punishment. But it would not exist if the punishment were anything but death.

5. Paul, in 2 Thess. 1:9, has given a decisive comment on this text. He uses both the terms used by the Saviour, with another term which is specific and therefore explanatory. Of the disobedient he says: "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." The Revised Version reads thus: "Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might." Death and destruction are equivalents. Many times the Scriptures say of the wicked that they shall be destroyed. That destruction will be forever. They shall die, and never again awake. What a doom! And it may be averted by obedience to God through faith in his Son. But he who dies that death receives the just due of his own works. "The wages of sin is death." It is not the Lord's pleasure that any should be destroyed. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"

The force of the apostle's words in 2 Thess. 1:9 is sometimes lost by assuming that it means banished from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. But that could not be, for in the whole universe no one can get beyond his presence and power. See Ps. 129:7-12. The destruction of the wicked is by fire; and in Rev. 20:9, we learn that when the hosts of Satan compass the camp of the saints and the beloved city, "fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them." And thus will the word be literally fulfilled; from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of his power, even from Heaven shall the fire of destruction fall upon the ungodly. "This is the second death." It is their dying a second time. Truly an "everlasting punishment."

Much as we deplore the utter loss of so many of our race, as lovers of order and Government we acquiesce in the decisions of infinite justice. And we rejoice that justice has decreed the utter destruction of the incorrigibly rebellious, rather than that the universe of God should be the scene of eternal blasphemies and misery. Let creation be cleansed from sin, and all be love and peace.

We repeat a declaration before made, that circumstances make the death of the sinner an eternal death. The term die, or the penalty death, as stated to Adam, does not necessarily carry with it any idea of time or duration. To die is to lose life; death is the absence of life. We know of no one thing which more clearly shows the nature of the penalty of the law than the revealed truth that "Christ died for our sins."

EDITOR.