p. 548 | THE FATE OF THE WICKED

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 10, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 35.

THE FATE OF THE WICKED.

THE following is taken from a sermon by Rev. F. O. Holman, the pastor of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church, Minneapolis, Minn., preached in his church, from Rom. 6:23, April 24, 1892, and reported in the Minneapolis Tribune of the next day. It contains thoughts worthy of consideration because scriptural. Space will not permit us to give it all. After stating that he fully accepted the teachings of Christ, that the New Testament did teach future retribution, but did not teach future probation, he continued as follows:—

3. The New Testament teaches that retribution is meted in absolute justice according to the deeds done in the body; that punishment shall be in direct proportion and relation to sin; that some "shall be beaten with many stripes," according to the iniquity of the offense and the light against which it is committed. God will in absolute justice weigh out, in absolutely equitable scales, a penalty for sin which shall be in absolute equity, according to transgression. I think there is no divergence of opinion among thinking men as to that proposition.

FINAL, HOPELESS, AND REMEDELESS.

4. The New Testament teaches that this post-mortem retribution is final, hopeless, and remedeless. I have searched my Bible with tears and with prayers to find if I might possibly escape from that conclusion, and I have found it not. Upon any

careful exegesis of the New Testament statements on this topic, I see no escape from the unwelcome conclusion that the New Testament teaches that the doom of the incorrigible sinner is final, hopeless, and without remedy. Universalism is a pleasing dream in its form of restorationalism as it is held in this day. If it were true, it would relieve us of many a perplexing problem in theology. . . . But I am here this morning to say that, as for me, with the light I have been able to gain upon reading the Scriptures, both in the English and in the original, I have been unable to find any escape from the conclusion just stated. Standing then in the presence of these, which to me at least seem to be demonstrable positions from the New Testament scriptures, we face with throbbing heart and with thrilling interest the last question, What is the nature of this ultimate disaster which is to overtake the incorrigibly sinful soul? The great mass of the Christian church, at least of the Protestant Christian church, has for the last few centuries believed that the nature of this ultimate disaster was conscious, hopeless, unceasing anguish. If Jesus teaches that, I will bow my head in the darkness and submit, knowing that my Lord can teach no error. But does He teach it? This leads me to my last proposition in this connection:—

5. The nature of this retribution seems to be the more or less gradual extinction of personality by the inexorable proof of retributive forces inherent in sin itself. As viewed from one standpoint, this is the doctrine of conditional immortality. As viewed from another standpoint, it is the doctrine of the self-elimination of sin and the sinner. That is to say, immortality, according to this view, does not inhere by nature in fallen man, but he is put into this world in order that he may win it or achieve it through the free gift of God in Jesus Christ. Or, looked at from the other standpoint, man is such that sin works out in him ultimate degradation, deterioration, and final

OBLITERATION FROM THE UNIVERSE OF GOD.

Now, this view, held in the one form or the other, according to the standpoint from which you view it, seems to be taught in the New Testament scriptures, and I ask your patience for a few moments while I attempt to state to you some of my reasons for this conclusion. And you will immediately understand that I am not attempting this morning an exegetical defense of this doctrine, but am rather stating in general terms the results of my own personal studies in the matter.

First, then, the doctrine of natural immortality is an extra-Biblical and purely speculative dogma, imported from Platonic philosophy and having no solid exegetical basis. If you will turn to the account of the fall of man, you will find that when man had sinned, partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the Lord said, "He has now become as one of us; lest he put forth his hand and take of the tree of life and live forever, therefore God drove them out of the Garden of Eden and set flaming cherubims to guard the way to the tree of life," lest man should take of it and eat thereof and live forever. And if you turn to the book of Revelation, in which the inspired seer catches a glimpse of the future of the righteous, we read "that he showed unto me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, and in the midst of it and on either side of it was the tree of life," the tree from which man was expelled in the Garden of Eden. And, so far as I know, the Scriptures give no hint that man ever had access to that tree of life elsewhere. Again, we read in the first Epistle of Timothy concerning Jesus, "Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality." And again, we read in the fifth chapter of the Gospel of John these pregnant words by Jesus: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word and believes in Him that sent me, has everlasting life and comes not into judgment, but has passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For, as the Father has life in himself, so gave he also to the Son"—and to nobody else so far as we ever heard—"to have life in himself." I say, then, in the first place the doctrine of natural immortality is an extra-Biblical and purely speculative dogma.

Second, in the New Testament the antithesis between the righteous and the wicked is

AN ANTITHESIS OF LIFE AND DEATH.

Death is represented as the universal racial result of sin. Life is represented as the free gift of God to all who will accept it in Jesus Christ. "The wages of sin," says Paul, "is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life." Now, "lust when it is conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." "And this is the record," says John, in his first epistle, "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son hath not life," "but the wrath of God abideth upon him." Or, rather, that last sentence belongs in another place and is almost exactly the same quotation, "He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." I say, then, the New Testament antithesis is not between the gladness of the blest and the pain of the woe, but between the life of the righteous and the death of the wicked.

Third, this view best and most naturally interprets the symbolism of the New Testament scriptures and especially of our Lord Jesus Christ on this subject. John, speaking of the coming Jesus, says, "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Jesus, speaking of the parables of the tares and the wheat, says, "Let them both grow together until the harvest, then gather the wheat into my barns and bind up the tares in bundles to burn them." Speaking again to his disciples, he says: "He that abideth in me and I in him, bringeth forth much fruit; but if a man abideth not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned." The symbolism all through here is not the symbolism of endless conscious suffering, but the symbolism of the utter destruction of that which has proved itself worthless in the economy of God.

THE SAME TERRIBLE SYMBOLISM

is found in the New Testament word for the ultimate destruction of the wicked. You all know that there are four words translated "hell" in the old version of the Scriptures, and I suppose you all know that there is only one of those words which should properly be translated hell. The Revised Version in the New Testament takes the word "hades," which was frequently translated hell, simply brings it into the text, transfers it to the English text. The only word which it translates "hell" is "gehenna." What is that word?—It is a word which means the place or the valley of Hinnom. The place or the valley of Hinnom was a very deep ravine just outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was the place in which Solomon set up the image of Moloch and caused the children to pass through the fire to him; hence it became accursed in Jewish history and was finally used as the city dump in Jerusalem. It was the place to which all the garbage and offal and refuse of the city were carried to be dumped and burned; and the fires were going there night and day for the destruction of this garbage and offal and the dead bodies of criminals of certain sorts, which were there deposited. Now, this is the word which Jesus uses to express the destruction of the wicked. In other words, in any natural interpretation of the symbol, hell is the moral garbage pile of the universe, it is the great dump of the city of God, to which all the offal and refuse and all the failures and garbage in all God's moral universe shall be cast out to be destroyed, because it is worthless. I say this view best expresses or interprets the New Testament symbolism of this topic.

Fourth, this view gives clear and unmistakable emphasis to the scriptural utterances as to the destructive and deadly nature of sin. No theology can survive the strain of careful thought which does not hold in firm grasp the destructive, disastrous, deadly nature of sin. It is taught in the utterances of human consciousness; it is taught in the retributions of natural law; it is taught on every page of the holy word. No theology can survive the strain of time which loosely holds to the deadly nature of sin, and you will permit me to say that a vast amount of loose and careless thinking among people at large results from failure to closely grasp this awful fact of sin in the universe of God. I hope to have something more to say concerning that phase of this subject this evening.

Fifth, this view indicates the goodness of God in that when the sinner, in the exercise of his freedom, has become hopelessly and helplessly degraded and miserable,

GOD IN HIS PITY

allows him to sink into oblivion and death. The great difficulty with the traditional view so long held on this topic by multitudes of good people, has been the question which inevitably offers itself.—Of what use that God should maintain in his universe vast numbers of people who have proved failures, whose existence is no pleasure to themselves or to others, and serves no necessary purpose in his universe? What can be the purpose of a good God in maintaining such people in conscious, eternal existence, forever and ever? That I say has been the difficulty with the multitudes of pious people in accepting the traditional view on this subject. Now, I say the view under discussion vindicates the goodness of God in that, when a man, in the exercise of his power of freedom and by reason of his willful sinfulness, has proved himself a failure in the universe of God, has made shipwreck of his life, has so marred and defaced and ruined his own soul that return to righteousness is impossible, and that existence for him must henceforth be a torture, God, in the exercise of an infinite pity, allows the man to drift out into oblivion and unconsciousness. Your modern physician will scarcely allow man to suffer the most trivial surgical operation without the application of an anesthetic. But, according to the theory which is held by many people (I will not even say the traditional theory, lest I should offend), according to the theory that is held by many people, God proposes to keep in eternal consciousness multitudes of people to whom he denies even the poor comfort of an anesthetic at last. There is a difficulty in that view, a great difficulty, and the view under consideration relieves it and vindicates the goodness of God.

Sixth, this view harmonizes with the operation of God in the natural world; it is the application of the law of the "survival of the fittest," in the spiritual realm. We know that in this world, in the struggle for existence, the strong survive, and the weak and diseased go down in the struggle. We know that in this world only those individuals and species, in the long run, persist which are in harmony with their environment and with the law of their being. We know that in this world the vicious and diseased ultimately cease to become self-propagating, and the species or the family dies out. That is the law in the development of organic life so far as we are able to trace it by personal observation. It would seem when we come to the shadowy limit of our vision and cannot see beyond that, in the absence of teaching to the contrary, we might assume that the law would persist in the realm that is unknown to us, and that in the spiritual as well as in the natural the law of

THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

prevails, and that only those who are in harmony with their environment shall persist, and that those who are not in harmony with their environment shall cease to be. I say this doctrine is in harmony with the operation of God in the natural world.

Seventh and finally, this view makes it possible to look forward to a perfected universe as the result of the progress of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. That the Scriptures do point forward to such a perfected universe seems to me to be clear. We are told that there shall come a time when he shall have put all things under his feet, and that the "the last enemy," also (which is death), shall be put under his feet, that God may be all and in all. 1 Cor. 15: 24-28.

Now it has always been a difficulty in theological thinking to reconcile that promise and expectation with the idea of the eternal persistence of a vast prison house of lost and mad and blaspheming souls. There can never be a perfect universe as long as there exists in it one blaspheming wretch who will not bow the knee to God. You may isolate such cases if you please, and you may build a wall around them as high as heaven and so deep as hell if you please, but so long as there exists in the universe of God one spot where God's will is not law, and God's love is not recognized, and God's peace does not abide, so long you can never have a perfect universe. And yet the world dreams of the time when God shall have produced a perfected universe. Philosophers, poets, prophets, and sages, have all dreamed of that far-off, defined event, toward which the whole creation moves, when in the length and breadth of God's dominion all shall be peace, all shall be harmony, all shall be holiness, all shall be perfect surrender to God. Now, according to the view here stated, it is possible to look forward to such a consummation, a time when in all God's realms there be peace.

WHENEVER A LOST SINNER

who has proved utterly incorrigible, who has made total shipwreck of life, who has drifted so far in sin that he has become inseparable from his sin, shall, by the operation of inexorable retributive forces, become extinct, and there shall be in God's universe none but holy souls hymning forever the praises of Him who loved them and washed them in his own blood and made them kings and priests unto God forever and ever.

I have stated to you this morning what seems to me to be the New Testament teaching on this all-important theme. Life is no joke; sin is an awful reality; freedom is a sublime gift which brings with it possible perils of terrible extent. The great problem which faces every man when he comes into the world is, What is my life for? what does it mean? how shall I guide it? whither shall it tend? Life according to this conception of the Holy Scriptures, is a thing of infinite significance. Man is born not immortal but with a possibility of immortality. Man is born with the high potentiality of becoming a son of God. He may by sin and selfishness thrust this splendid possibility from him. He may turn from the shining crown of immortal life which God offers him and wallow in the mire of his own passion and revel in the filth of his own appetite, degrade himself until he becometh like a brute beast and

PERISH IN HIS DEGRADATION;

or he may, by turning to the life and accepting the Christ and walking in holiness and aspiring after the truth,—he may through the gracious gift of God in Jesus Christ our Lord, become a partaker of immortality, he may be crowned with the life everlasting, he may lay hold on the eternities, he may take his place among those who, . . . overcoming, have right to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the river.

I do not ask you, my friends, to think as I think. I have stated to you my convictions in this matter because I thought you had a right to know them. I invite you to the study of God's own word. I especially invite you to the infinitely pregnant words of the Lord Jesus Christ. But above all things I invite and urge upon every man and every woman that you live not carelessly, idly, as though it were a little thing to live and a little thing to die, but that you live seriously, thoughtfully, that you recognize the tremendous issues that hang upon the present hour, that you reach out with strong desire to lay hold upon all that God offers you in Jesus Christ our Lord, and that so living, so striving, so praying, so hoping, you may be saved from ever experiencing, or perchance from ever knowing, what is the disaster which overtakes the incorrigibly selfish and the incorrigibly sinful. God is love. I believe it—I know it. His prophets have declared it, his poets have sung it, his Christ has written it in letters of blood on Calvary's cross. God is love, and since God is love he will do the very best for every man that a God of love can possibly do. But human freedom is an awful thing, human sin is a real and deadly thing, and God has written it in his book, that "the soul that sinneth shall die." May he deliver you and me from the eternal death, for his dear name's sake. Amen.