GOD IS LOVE

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 30, 1930

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 57, No. 38.

A subterranean cavern where the wicked are tossed about in great billows of flame, roasted and toasted, scorched and sizzled, tortured and tormented, not for one year, not for ten years, not for ten million years, but for eternity,—such was the disconcerting picture that was used with telling effect upon our forefathers by the preachers of yesterday. In mountainous waves of liquid fire, men, women, and little children mingle shrieks of anguish with curses of despair, while the devil, in fiendish glee and with pitchfork in hand, superintends the work of torture,—such was the blood-curdling picture that was painted by priest and prelate. The fire is so hot, according to one preacher, that a soul suddenly taken from hell and plunged into the hottest fire ever built in this world, would freeze to death!

While the wicked in the lake of fire are writhing in pain, begging for mercy, and blaspheming the name of God, the righteous, in perfect peace and serene blessedness, look upon the dreadful scene and listen to the unanswered pleas for a drop of cooling water. In order that the righteous might learn to enjoy the picture of anguish, they were taught to sing—to sing, mind you—such a song as this:

“Eternal plagues, and heavy chains, tormenting racks and fiery coals, And darts t’ inflict immortal pains, dyed in the blood of damned souls.”

“There Satan, the first sinner, lies, and roars, and bites his iron bands; In vain the rebel strives to rise, crushed with the weight of both Thine hands.”

“There guilty ghosts of Adam’s race shriek out, and howl beneath Thy rod; Once they could scorn a Saviour’s grace, but they incensed a dreadful God.”

GOD IS LOVE

I deny that this is the religion of the Bible. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. To perish does not mean to live on in endless anguish. “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” exclaimed the God of infinite love.” (Ezekiel 33:11.) “Death” is not life in conscious misery. It is not life at all,—it is death. Then why will men distort the meaning of the Bible, misrepresent the character of God, and cast dishonor upon the name of God, in order to sustain a pagan philosophy that is repulsive even to finite man? It seems incredible that men could read John 3:16 and then teach such hideous nonsense.

Let me say to you, on the authority of the word of God, that hell, in the sense of a burning place of torment, does not exist. There will some day be a destruction of the wicked. There is a Bible “hell.” In that fire the wicked will be “burned up,” turned to “ashes,” “consumed,” “destroyed,” and will “perish.” But that fire is not now burning. Let me read from the writings of the apostle Peter: “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” 2 Peter 2:9. “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 Peter 3:7.

SIN WILL BE PUNISHED

If the unjust are “reserved” unto the day of judgment “to be punished,” then they are not now receiving their punishment. Moreover, when punishment is finally meted out upon the wicked, it will not be the brutal and unmitigated horrors inflicted by a Moloch of remorseless cruelty. The punishment for sin is death. Unless words are meaningless, death means death. And the end of sin is death. Let me read it to you. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 6:23.

The belief in the everlasting, conscious “punishing” of the wicked is twin sister to the belief in the immortality of the soul. This teaching, though graced with a thousand-year exaltation in the church of the Middle Ages, is absolutely foreign to the Scriptures. From Plato and not from Paul, the doctrine originated. Let me briefly state five propositions that will show the inconsistency of this theological falsehood.

1. It is written that God “only hath immortality.” Only once in the Bible is the word “immortal” found, and there it is applied to the “King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.” 1 Timothy 1:17. Only six times is the word “immortality” found in the Scriptures, and not once is it applied to the soul of man.

2. It is written that man is “mortal.” No one can honestly read the record of creation and the fall and then continue to teach that man has an immortal soul. There is a source of such a doctrine, but it is in the devil’s deceptive words, “Ye shall not surely die.” Every pagan religion, every antichristian creed, has taught the theological lie that originated with the father of lies. God said, Thou shalt surely die. Do you believe it?

3. It is written that at the second coming of Christ, at the last trump, at “the voice of the Archangel,” the “dead in Christ” are raised to immortality. Then it is that the righteous “put on” immortality. Then it is that man is “clothed” with his heavenly garments. To say that the righteous are already clothed with immortality, and then to preach a future resurrection to immortality, is to make mockery and absurdity of the truth of the Bible.

4. It is written that Jesus is coming again to “receive” His people unto Himself. If they are already with Him in heaven, then why talk of His coming to take them to heaven? A man once said to me: “The righteous are not yet in heaven; they are in Paradise.” But Paradise is heaven itself. The throne of God, the tree of life, the river of life, are in Paradise. If you do not believe that, read Revelation 2:7; 22:1, 2. Elijah was taken up “into heaven.” Moses was raised,—his body was raised,—and he was taken to heaven. They are there as types of those who will be resurrected and translated at the coming of Christ. But “David is not ascended into the heavens” (Acts 2:34), nor are other good people ascended into the heavens. They are “asleep,” and are awaiting the call of the Life-giver.

5. It is written that the judgment must take place before the Lord Jesus comes to reward “every man according as his work shall be.” If men are at death sent to the mansions of heaven or to the racks in hell, then the judgment takes place at death. It is sheer nonsense to hold such a belief and then claim to accept the Bible teaching of the judgment.

WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES

The Bible truth is this: At the first resurrection, the “dead in Christ,” who are “asleep,” and waiting in the “grave,” hear the voice of the Son of God and come forth clad in glory and immortality. They are taken to the mansions of that summer land above, there to live and reign “with Christ a thousand years.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13-17; John 14: 1-3; Job 14:14; 17:13; Revelation 20:4.)

The wicked do not come out of their graves at the first resurrection. They live “not again” until the thousand years are finished. (Revelation 20:5.) They come forth at the second resurrection, which takes place at the close of the thousand years. All the wicked of all ages are gathered together in that great day of executive judgment. They see the glory of the New Jerusalem, which has come down from God out of heaven. They behold the joy of the redeemed; and they go up to take the city. Then something happens. “They went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” Revelation 20:9.

Right here in this earth the wicked are recompensed. “Behold, the righteous shall

be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.” Proverbs 11:31. Billows of fire sweep over the earth, the wicked are burned up, root and branch, they are “consumed,” “destroyed,” turned to “ashes,” and after the purifying fires have done their work, a “new earth” emerges and becomes the eternal home of the redeemed. The meek inherit the earth; the wicked perish and are as if they had never existed. “Yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the earth.” Psalm 37:10, 11.

MISCONSTRUCTION IMPOSSIBLE

Not “asbestos,” but “chaff,” “oil,” “stubble,” “fat of rams,”—such are the materials used in picturing the destruction of the wicked. In Malachi the fourth chapter are words that are too plain to be misconstrued. “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 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.” Verses 1-3.

But those puzzling expressions, “everlasting fire,” “forever and ever,” “unquenchable fire”—“explain them please,” I can hear some one say. The Bible always explains itself. The Bible would not speak about “the second death,” of the wicked being burned up root and branch, of being turned to “ashes,” and then leave us in confusion over the words “eternal fire.” Let me read you two verses: “Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” Jude 7. “Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.” 2 Peter 2:6.

Those wicked cities of the plain are given as an example of the destruction that awaits the ungodly. They are suffering the vengeance of “eternal fire,” and yet they are turned to “ashes.” The everlasting fire is a destroying fire that burns until the wicked are utterly “consumed.” And this is in harmony with the use of the Hebrew word olam and its Greek equivalent aion, which are used throughout the Bible with reference to an indefinite time. Among the things in connection with which olam is used, Archdeacon Farrar enumerates the following: “The Passover sprinkling, the Aaronic priesthood, the inheritance of Caleb, Solomon’s Temple, and the smoke of Edom. To take but one or two books, combinations of olam (which is rendered by aion four hundred and thirty-nine times in the Septuagint) occur in Exodus at least twelve times out of fourteen, of things which have passed away; in Leviticus, twenty-four times, always of things which have come to an end; in Numbers, ten times; in Deuteronomy, about ten times out of twelve; and so on throughout the Old Testament.”

And so with the Greek word aion, and its derivative aionios, in the New Testament. Archdeacon Farrar says: “The word by itself—whether adjective or substantive—never means endless. . . . Josephus shows that aionios did not necessarily mean endless. He applies the epithet to the period between the giving of the law and his own writing; and to the imprisonment of the tyrant John by the Romans; and to Herod’s Temple, which was already destroyed when he wrote. . . . If we had so much as once been told in the Bible that Gehenna, or that punishment, is ateleutetos, or aperantos, or aidios, or adialeiptos, or that life in such punishment should be aphthartos, there would have been no dispute as to the literal meaning of such words.”

The righteous in heaven are not going to be troubled with the idea that any of their relatives are suffering untold agonies in a ceaseless torment.

A STRIKING SYMBOL

Gehenna, or the Valley of Hinnom, is in reality a striking symbol of complete destruction and not of never-ending punishment. What the worm did not devour, in this place of destruction, the fire consumed. It is a symbol of inescapable punishment, of complete destruction. In the New Testament, Gehenna is alluded to by Jesus seven times in Matthew, three times in Mark, once in Luke. In not one of these passages is it called endless. The expression “unquenchable fire” used in the books of Matthew and Luke, is a forceful description of the completeness with which the “chaff” is burned up. In the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet had said, “Then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.” Jeremiah 17:27. No one would say that the temple and palaces of Jerusalem are still burning, yet they were burned with “unquenchable fire.” They were destroyed.

GOD LOVES THE SINNER

What wonderful harmony there is in Bible truth! Some day there will be a clean universe. No little corner will there be where sin is perpetuated, where rebellion, deceit, selfishness, lust, and hate are immortalized. No, thank God, only in Christ Jesus is there life eternal and immortality. The wages of sin is death and destruction, but the gift of God—do you hear those words, “the gift of God”?—is eternal life, through Jesus Christ.

What wonderful love there is in Bible truth! God loves the sinner, but He cannot perpetuate evil. He has done all that infinite love could do.—He has given His Son to the death of the cross that whosoever will may have eternal life. Then, in infinite mercy, He blots out of existence those who choose the way of evil. God will never destroy anything that is worth saving; but all the refuse, all that is vile, all that is unclean, all that is unlovely, will “perish” in a torrent of flame. That fire will not be quenched until all is consumed. It burns as long as there is anything of chaff to burn upon. “The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” 2 Peter 3:10. But, according to His promise, we may “look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.” Verse 13.

We may have a place in that land of wondrous beauty if we will. God wants us to be there, to live in His presence. God wants no one to perish. But He cannot save anyone against his will. And God will not save a sinner in his sin. Not one stain of sin will mar the beauty of the eternal home of the redeemed. There will be no plague spot, no pesthouse for sin. If we are there, we must break with sin, we must be freed from the dominion of sin, we must be cleansed from the stain of sin. We must be “without spot, and blameless” when Jesus comes. Do you really want to be there? If so, remember Jesus died that you might live. He wants to save you.