EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 27, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 13.

EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT.

What Is It?

ONE of the difficult texts of the Bible to those who believe in the justice and love of God is Matt. 25:46. It reads as follows: “And these [the wicked] shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.”

This punishment is believed by many to be everlasting misery, or torment and anguish without end. The arts of rhetoric and logic have been exhausted in attempting to picture before the sinner his fearful doom. He is told that an ant would, by carrying one grain of sand at a time, after millions of years be able to carry away a mountain, but this time would be as nothing to the time the sinner would spend in ceaseless anguish.

Others in the God-given justice of their souls have revolted against the idea of a God who could so punish poor mortals, placed here by no will of their own. Some who have thus revolted have become infidels, some Universalists. Others have rejected the inspiration of the Scriptures, and looked upon this teaching as an error. These have all accepted the assumed doctrine that the soul of man is immortal, and hence can not die. Others still, a smaller class, have been led to examine anew the nature of man and his relation to God, and have found great relief and blessing in the true doctrine of the Bible, which in brief is this:—

God is the Fountain of life; all life comes from Him. God’s life is inseparably connected with His character of righteousness. “In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof is no death.” If man had ever lived God’s righteousness, he would have forever received the eternal life of God, and would never have died. Man was not created immortal, but was a candidate for immortality. Not till the incorruptible character was reached could the physical man be made incorruptible, and character requires testing. Sin is the perversion of righteousness, the transmutation of life into death. It is, in other words, cutting off from life, the separation of the soul from God. As long as there is hope, as long as the creature can be used to the glory of the Creator and the good of the universe, God permits him to live. He does not cut him off from the great Fountain of life. He still pours it out, as He does the rain, upon the just and the unjust, that he may win the unjust to Himself and enable the righteous to live His life.

As to the condition of the race, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Life is continuance of being. Death is cessation of existence. The text above states the ultimate of these two conditions. Let us consider it a little.

1. The adjectives applied to punishment and life are the same in the original, and are thus translated in the Revised Version: “These shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life.” Both are eternal in their duration. The reasons for these results are thus stated by Paul: “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life thru Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom. 6:23.

2. It is evident that what is meant by death in one case is meant by eternal punishment in the other. Death is extinction of life. It does not mean living in a different condition. It does not mean life in misery. For unless the end is extinction of life, a wicked man has eternal life as truly as the righteous. The punishment is therefore death, the extinction of life.

3. Note also that it is punishment, not punishing. It is a completed work. If after a million of years the punishment were only begun, then the wicked could never receive his just sentence, the reward of his deeds, the wages of his sin. The punishment is completed; it is death.

4. It is also eternal. From that death—“the second death”—there is no resurrection. It is eternal in its duration, in its result.

5. This is the more clearly evident in the definition of the Greek word kolasis rendered “punishment.” Liddell and Scott say: “A pruning or checking the growth of trees.” Kolazo, the verb from which it is derived, is defined, “To curtail, dock, prune.” The primary idea of the word is therefore a cutting off. “These shall go away into everlasting cutting off.” From what are they cut off?—From the life of God. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” But when that time comes that man can not be won to righteousness, where he is wholly identified with sin, God leaves him; he is cut off from life forever.

6. This is also clearly stated in other scriptures. Of the wicked the Spirit says thru the psalmist: “They shall soon be cut down as the grass, and wither as the green herb.” “For evil-doers shall be cut off; but those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.” “They that be cursed of Him shall be cut off.” Ps. 37:2, 9, 10, 22. “Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction.” 2 Thess. 1:9, R.V.

God gives us our choice as to which it shall be. We may identify ourselves with sin, and let that sin cut us off forever from the great Fountain of life and righteousness and gladness, or we may receive God’s righteousness and eternal life thru Jesus Christ our Lord.