3259.— Punishment of the Wicked
How can I believe that the wicked will be wiped out of existence, so that he will not be any more, when Jesus Christ said, “Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you to their everlasting habitation’?” If the wicked are destroyed, what is the use of beating them with many stripes and some with few? Luke 12:47, 48. It seems to us that it is very easy to believe what God has so very clearly revealed in His Word. The “everlasting habitations” to which our querist refers do not mean the everlasting habitations of the wicked, but of the righteous. God would have man so use the things of this world—the mammon of unrighteousness—that he may lay up treasures on high and make friends of the angels of God; and as to being beaten with few or many stripes, we can not see how it is possible to make the text harmonize with the idea of the doctrine of eternal misery which our querist seems to hold; for if God plunges into eternal misery the man who has committed few sins as truly as the man who has sinned heartily for many years, are they not both beaten with many stripes? The Lord declares through His apostle that the end of the wicked is destruction, or perdition, which means utter destruction. Phil. 3:19. But in the execution of that sentence truly some will suffer far more than others, and that according to the sins which they have committed. Then, too, God has not promised that He will punish for sins committed while enduring the eternal fires of hell, but the punishment is for the sins done in the body; that is, while here on earth. Further, God has clearly declared over and over again that He will reward every man according to his deeds; but if it be true that the punishing of the wicked shall go on through all eternity, the sentence of God can never be carried out, for after ten thousand ages eternity is still before, and God has according to that theory pronounced a sentence that He Himself can not execute. How much better it is to believe the words of Holy Writ: “For evil-doers shall be cut off. . . . For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.” Ps. 37:9, 10. “But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of Jehovah shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; in smoke shall they consume away.” Verse 20. “As for transgressors, they shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.” Verse 38. They “shall be as tho they had not been.” Obadiah 16. “He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matt. 3:12. “Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction.” 2 Thess. 1:9.
Our querist takes altogether a wrong view of Mark 9:43-48. The undying worm does not represent the wicked, but the agency which punishes the wicked. The unquenchable fire does not represent the soul, but the agency which destroys the soul. Gehenna, the “hell” there spoken of, was a place just outside of Jerusalem, where was cast all manner of refuse, dead carcasses, offal of the city, and rubbish of all sorts. Upon these the worm constantly fed, always and forever devouring them. What the worms failed to devour constant fires burned up; but both worms and fire absolutely destroyed and devoured; and so these symbols are used as the effective agencies of God, and the utter destruction of those who reject the salvation which God offers.