Everlasting Punishment by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 15, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 19.

Everlasting Punishment.

By Editor

THE following we clip from an exchange. It was not intended for us, but for some correspondent of the paper in which it appeared. But as we do firmly believe in the resurrection of the wicked we will show our opinion:—

"Will some brother who believes in the resurrection of wicked persons from the dead please answer this: If there can be no punishment without consciousness, how can there be everlasting punishment without everlasting consciousness? 'These shall go away into everlasting punishment,' etc.

This question appears to be based on the presumption that there may be punishment without consciousness. We think it would be difficult to prove that this is the case. To test the querist's position we will suppose a case. The law of the State declares that the murderer shall be punished with death by hanging. Now a man commits murder, and to avoid the disgrace of an execution he commits suicide. This seems to finally dispose of the case. But no; a counselor suggests that the law must have its due; that consciousness is not necessary to punishment; and therefore the law will be honored and satisfied by hanging the dead man! It would doubtless take a long time to convince a court or a community that there would be any justice or good sense in such a proceeding. "But why not?" the proposer argues, "you call hanging the extreme penalty of the law. If you hang the living man he will be conscious of the pain only an instant; the effect is practically the same whether he is hanged alive or dead."

But the fallacy of that position is so evident that no one would consent to waste his time in arguing it down.

But now arises another theorist. He says that the object of the law was the death of the criminal, and it makes no matter by what means his death is brought about; that he is already dead, and, therefore the law has had its due—the penalty has virtually been suffered. But this is another fallacy. The law prescribes by whom and by what means the penalty of death shall be inflicted; and death self-inflicted, or inflicted by some other person than the officer appointed, or by some other means than those named in the law, is not the penalty of the law at all. If it were, then every criminal hanged by a mob would suffer the penalty of the law, which would make the hanging by the mob a legal proceeding, which is an absurdity.

By these illustrations we learn: (1) That there can be no punishment without consciousness on the part of the subject thereof. (2) That in the infliction of the death penalty, even of eternal death, it is impossible that consciousness should eternally continue. (3) That the mere fact that a man is dead is no evidence that the extreme penalty of the law has been inflicted upon him.

The people of the generations past, with few exceptions, are now dead. This includes all classes, the just and the unjust. Now they who deny that the unjust will be raised from the dead, affirm that the very fact that they are dead proves that they have suffered the penalty of the law. We say it is no proof at all. The affirmation is contrary to reason and to the principles of justice, and to the most explicit statements of the Scriptures. 1. It is contrary to reason and to justice, for, if they have suffered the penalty of the law in suffering natural death, then the righteous (who have died in like manner, and in many cases under more distressing circumstances than the wicked) have also suffered the penalty of the law. And if so, they were never forgiven their sins; for it is only mockery to tell a man that he is pardoned, and then inflict upon him the penalty of the law just as it is inflicted upon the impenitent or unpardoned. We bring this indictment against the non-resurrection theory, that it admits of no pardon of sin.

2. It is contrary to the explicit declarations of the Scriptures, for they say that the unjust are reserved to the day of judgment to be punished; that there will be a resurrection of the just and the unjust; that one class will come forth to the resurrection of life, and the other to the resurrection of damnation; that the day of judgment and of the perdition of ungodly men is in "the day of the Lord," which is yet future.

The truth is, that all classes and all ages, without any distinction, die the present or natural death, not as the penalty of their personal sins, but, solely because they inherited a mortal, perishable nature from Adam. All his posterity suffer death with him, because he was shut out from the tree of life, and they also with him. And the gospel system does not present as the object of our probation the present life and the present or natural death, but eternal life and the second death.

We may speak further on this question hereafter.