NOTES OF THE DISCUSSION IN KANSAS.-EIGHTH SESSION by Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 22, 1877

NOTES OF THE DISCUSSION IN KANSAS.—EIGHTH SESSION.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

In my direct argument for the annihilation of the wicked, I maintained and proved the following plain proposition. This evidently discommoded my opponent very much, as he expected me to consume my time in contending over the meaning of the words death, perish, &c. The following propositions I regard as conclusive upon this question, and entirely unanswerable:—

1. God has appointed a great day of Judgment to take place at the end of the world, in which all will be judged. Upon this point a long list of scriptures could be given. I simply used the following: Acts 17:31; John 12:48; 2 Pet. 3:7; Rev. 20:11–13. These scriptures are very positive; and the doctrine is reasonable. That God should bring a man into judgment is consistent. That this judgment should take place at the close of the world’s history is also reasonable, and this is what the Bible says. So plain and scriptural was this proposition, that the Elder had to admit it, and did.

2. The Scriptures teach that the wicked will be reserved to this day of Judgment to be punished; i. e., they will not receive the punishment for their sins till this day of Judgment. This again is reasonable. Why should God send a man to hell for four thousand years, and then bring him out and judge him to see whether he ought to go there? No man can harmonize this with reason. The Bible squarely contradicts it. This we very plainly showed by the following scriptures: 2 Pet. 2:9; 3:7; Rev. 11:15–18; Matt. 8:29; 25:41; Job 21:23–32; Matt. 10:15; 11:22; Rev. 20:11–15. Whoever reads these scriptures will see that they settle this point beyond controversy. Eld. Shick was also compelled to admit this proposition.

3. My third proposition was that the wicked will receive their punishment on this earth, at the day of Judgment. Here, again, we are glad to be in harmony with the plainest reason. This earth has beheld the crimes and corruptions of the wicked, and here is the very place where they should receive their punishment for the same. If a man murders in New York, we do not send him to Michigan to be hung. Why, then, should God send the wicked off from this earth to be punished? Why not punish them here? This is just what the Bible says he will do, as we will show.

But who can find, who can locate the orthodox hell? Is it in the sun? Is it in the moon? Where is the Bible for it? Is it among the stars? Show us the text. Indeed, we challenge our brother to show that the wicked will ever leave this earth, that they will ever exist in any other place than upon this earth. This point I urged very strongly, but he never met it, for it cannot be met. There is not an intimation in all the word of God that the wicked man will ever exist any where except upon this earth, while on the other hand it is directly declared many times, and always and everywhere assumed, that the wicked will be punished upon this earth at the day of Judgment.

God made this earth for man and placed him here, but his sin brought the curse upon it, and most of the race have been rebels against God. In the end, this earth is to be purified from sin and from the curse, then is to come forth a new earth as beautiful as was Eden. But this purification of the old earth is to be effected by fire. 2 Pet. 3:5–13. This whole earth shall melt, the mountains will be dissolved, the rocks will run down like wax, and this solid globe become a ball of liquid fire. This will be the lake of fire. Rev. 20:14, 15. In this lake of fire the wicked will be utterly burned up. From this fire comes forth the new earth all beautiful and pure. For direct proof upon all these points, see Prov. 11:31; Rev. 14:10, 11; hell is where there is day and night. Rev. 20:4–10; 2 Pet. 3:5–13; Mal. 4:1–3; Nahum 1:5–10; 2 Thess. 1:7–9; 2:8; Rev. 20:12–15; 21:1.

4. My fourth proposition was that from this lake of fire comes forth the new earth where the righteous are to dwell eternally. This being so, of course the lake of fire itself, the place of punishment for the wicked, must cease to be. If this be so, then of course the torment of the wicked must also end with it. This proposition is very easily proved. Indeed, it was so plain that my opponent was compelled to admit it. Read the following scriptures: Acts 3:21; 2 Pet. 3:10–13; Rev. 21:1–5; Matt. 5:5; 25:34; Dan. 7:26; Ps. 37. These scriptures assert in the most positive manner that this earth shall become the saints’ inheritance, and that the

very place where the wicked are punished shall itself cease to be. Ps. 37:10. That my opponent did not know what to do with these propositions he showed very plainly by consuming almost his entire time, first in reading a long extract from Josephus, which was nothing to the point; and secondly, in reading over and reviewing one of my books, which was not in the question; and thirdly, in a grand, eloquent exhortation, all of which was as much on one side as the other.

After proving this proposition, I showed that the wicked were compared to the most destructible elements, and that it was everywhere stated in every conceivable way that they should be destroyed. Thus in Psalms 37:20, it says they “shall be consumed like the fat of lambs.” Nahum 1:10 says they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry. Matt. 3:12. They are to be burned up like chaff. John 15:6. They are to be burned like dry branches; Heb. 6:8, to be burned like thorns and briars, &c., &c. Upon this point scores of passages could be quoted. But what has Eld. Shick to sustain his eternal torment theory? It is abhorrent to all our sense of justice, and the reason with which God has endowed us. But has he any Bible for it? Only a half dozen passages which are easily explained in harmony with the utter destruction of the wicked. Here they are:—

Psalms 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into hell.” This we believe. Not a word here as to how long they shall suffer there.

Dan. 12:2: “Awake to everlasting contempt.” Yes, the wicked after they are destroyed will be held in eternal contempt by the righteous.

Isa. 33:14: “Who shall dwell with everlasting burnings?” This is the same as Matt. 25:41. “Depart into everlasting fire,” or which is the same thing, eternal fire. The wicked then are to be burned with eternal fire. All right; and so Sodom was burned with eternal fire, Jude 7; and yet it was reduced to ashes, 2 Pet. 2:6, and the fire went out thousands of years ago. How then was it eternal fire? Simply in the sense that the effects of the fire were eternal. The city was burned down never to be rebuilt; so the wicked will be burned up, never to live again. The effects of the fire is eternal. We find the word “eternal” frequently used in this manner. Paul, in speaking of the Judgment, calls it “eternal judgment.” Heb. 6:2. Will the Judgment be eternally going on and never end? No, it will not, but the effects, the decisions of the Judgment will be eternal.

Matt. 25:46, says the righteous shall go into eternal life, and the wicked into eternal punishment. All right. This we firmly believe. The wicked have just the opposite of the righteous. What do the righteous have? Eternal what? Eternal life. Very well; what is the opposite of life? It is death. The wicked, then, have eternal death. Death is a punishment; eternal death is eternal punishment, an irreparable one, an irrecoverable loss. Paul says, 2 Thess. 1:9, that this eternal punishment is destruction.

But the wicked are to be burned with unquenchable fire. Yes, and Jerusalem was burned with unquenchable fire, and it went out hundreds of years ago. Jer. 17:27.

But the smoke is ascending up forever and ever. Rev. 11. Yes, and so the Hebrew servant was to serve his master forever. Ex. 21:5, 6; but this was only during his lifetime. And Jonah was in the whale’s belly forever, and yet he got out in three days. Jonah 2:6. The Aaronic priesthood was to be forever; the sacrifices were to be offered forever; the Jewish feasts were to be kept forever, and yet they all ended eighteen hundred years ago.

Here, then, are all the texts relied upon by my opponent, and they can be answered in five minutes. But the great effort of my opponent was to show that death does not mean death; that to die means to live; that perish does not mean perish, it means to be preserved; that destruction don’t mean destruction at all; that to burn up don’t mean really to burn; but that all these words meant just the opposite of what they said. This was the real drift of all his argument. For instance, on the word death, he turned to Col. 3:3, where Paul says, “Ye are dead,” but, lo! says Eld. Shick, they are alive all the time. Hence, to be dead means to be alive after all. And then on the word destroy he said, Hosea 13:9, says, “Thou hast destroyed thyself,” and yet they are walking around alive. Hence, to be destroyed does not mean anything. And then he went on till he figured away hell, and figured away the fire, and figured away the torment, and figured away death and destruction, and figured away Heaven, the throne of God, and the whole Bible. He only needed to go one step further to figure away God himself. What a terrible position! It is a long stride toward Universalism.

Now let us try his reasoning. In Acts 19:19, we read that the converted heathen brought a great number of their books and burned them. Now an ignorant soul might be simple enough to think that they had fire there, and those books were literally burned up; but a little theological wisdom would soon show him the folly of this. With the aid of Bro. Shick’s logic, he can readily turn to Luke 24:32, where the disciples declared that their “hearts burned within” them. Was there any fire in their hearts? Oh! not at all. Then it must be seen that to burn don’t mean that they had fire and really burned the books up. It simply means that those books had a peculiar feeling in some manner, that is all. Then in Luke 7:12–15, we read that a dead man was carried out of the gates of the city. He was the only son of his mother. Now, poor ignorant people might be silly enough to think that that man was not alive, was really dead; but, pshaw! what a blunder! Bro. Shick with his theological wisdom can easily show him that that is not at all the case. Death means, he says, simply a state of separation. Some of the Colossian brethren were dead, and yet alive all the time. Col. 3:3. Now that case of the dead man was simply this,—the young man was running from his mother,—separated from her. Christ met him and took him back to his mother, and thus raised him from the dead. How simple!

So on the word destroy. Jesus says that the flood destroyed all the people in the days of Noah. At first we might think that they died, but a second thought shows that that is not necessarily so, because God says, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself,” and yet they were all alive. Probably those antediluvians simply had a heavy shower, which made it so muddy that it separated them from the ark, or something like that. This is the gist of all that theological dust which was attempted to be raised over this question on the meaning of words. It is simply an effort to cover the plainest declaration of the word of God.

Every word in the first place has its plain literal meaning, and it must always be taken in this sense, unless the connection compels us to give it a secondary meaning. Because we can find an instance where it is used in a secondary sense, is it just to argue from this that it always means that and nothing else? If this be true, then there is no such thing as literal fire, literal burning, literal death, literal destruction, &c.

What we have seen a thousand times with our own eyes, then, is all a delusion. But who is prepared to swallow such an absurdity? Now in the case of the wicked, when the Bible says, as it does in hundreds of cases, that the wicked shall die, shall perish, shall be destroyed, burned up, &c., we know that this is to be done literally, and why? Because it is never explained any other way, and because the wicked are said to be corruptible, and are compared to the most perishable materials, as we have seen, such as hay, wood, and stubble.

I brought out a large amount of proof upon this subject; but as it is a familiar one, I omit it here.

D. M. CANRIGHT.

(To be Continued.)