THE FATE OF THE IMPENITENT WICKED
By George B. Thompson
Can the Story of Endless Misery Be True? — Can the God of Love Be a Demon of Tyranny? — The Final End of the Lost
"Then shall He say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." Matt. 25: 41, 46. IN the words "everlasting punishment," those who believe in the eternal pain and suffering of the damned claim to find proof of that doctrine. Here, they say, is evidence that through numberless millions of ages, the lost will be pierced with the remorseless tooth of conscience, and tormented in the perpetual fire of God's vengeance, miraculously preserved to endure the tortures of the avenging flames. The horrors of this orthodox belief have been expressed by the poet in the following language: "Infinite years in torment shall I spend,
And never, never have an end.
Ah! Must I live in torturing despair
As many years as atoms in the air?
When these are past, as many millions more
As grains of sand that bound the ebbing shore?
When these run out, as many more behind
As leaf of forest shaken by the wind?
When these are spent, as many more to flow
As blades of grass on hills and dales that grow?
When these run out, as many on the march
As starry lamps that gild the spangled arch?
When these are gone, as many millions more
As every moment in the ages before?
When all these doleful years are spent in pain,
And multiplied by myriads yet again,
I must in that fierce gulf in misery lie,
And madly writhe to all eternity." A million years for every mote that dances in the sunbeam, a million years for every grain of sand, a million years for every11leaf of the forest and for every blade of grass, a million years for every star in the firmament, a million years for every tick of the watch since time began its flight, then this infinite multiplicand multiplied by a myriad! Then when all these years of torture are past, an eternity of unspeakable suffering still stretches before lost souls in which to curse and blaspheme God! Talk about a gloomy doctrine! Behold it here! This is indeed a terrible dogma to teach, built upon the adjective "everlasting." But you say the above is only poetry. Very true, but the words of the poet are true, provided man by nature has an immortal, indestructible soul, and the lost are conscious in death, and enter on their reward in the lake of fire when this life ends. There is no language available which could adequately describe such a monstrous belief. It clothes the God of love with the most awful attributes. The teaching of the text under consideration leads to no such shocking conclusion. We read of "eternal judgment" (Heb. 6: 2) and "eternal redemption" (Heb. 9: 12). "Eternal judgment" is not an everlasting judging, but the eternal effect of a judgment. "Eternal redemption" is not everlasting redeeming, but an eternal effect of an act of redemption. Likewise with "everlasting punishment." It is not everlasting punishing, but the eternal effect of an act of punishment. The question is made quite clear when, instead of taking for granted some tenet of modern belief, handed down to us from the remote past, we look into the Bible, and find out what it really teaches on the subject. So we inquire, What is the punishment of the wicked? The righteous receive eternal life. The wicked receive everlasting punishment. Is their portion life also? — No, indeed. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 6: 23. The punishment for sin, then, is death, not life in misery. Hence when those on the "left hand," who have refused the "gift of God," or eternal life, receive the reward for their deeds, they will go away into eternal death,—a death from which there will be no deliverance through a resurrection. All, both righteous and wicked, die the first death. The wicked will die the second death. They will be dead forever, while the righteous will live forever. This is the teaching of the Scriptures throughout. Our hope of life is not in inherent immortality, but in Christ, who came that we might have life abundantly. John 10: 10. In Him is our hope. By faith in the Son of God, who died that we might have life, we can lay hold upon this inestimable gift, and live with the pure and holy through eternal ages.