EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT IS EVERLASTING DESTRUCTION.
By WM. PENNIMAN
PRESIDENT ASA MAHAN says: "Admissions in favor of truth from the ranks of its enemies constitute the highest kind of evidence." Dr. Lyman Abbott is quoted as saying ("Man's Nature and Destiny," by U. Smith, p. 413):— If I believe in the doom of incorrigible sin, and also in the undimmed glory of a perfected kingdom, I must believe in the annihilation of the incorrigibly wicked. Fire in the Bible is generally an emblem of destruction, not of torment. The chaff, the tares, the fruitless tree, are not to be tortured, but to be destroyed. The hell fire spoken of in the New Testament is the fire of gehenna, kept burning outside the walls of Jerusalem to destroy the offal of the city. Here was the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is unquenched; emblems of destruction, not of torment. I find nothing in the New Testament to warrant the terrible opinion that God sustains the life of His creatures throughout eternity, only that they may continue in sin and misery. That immortality is the gift of God through our Lord Jesus Christ; that man is mortal, and must put on immortality; that only he can put it on who becomes, through Christ, a partaker of the divine nature, and so an inheritor of Him "who only hath immortality;" that eternal life is life eternal, and eternal death is death eternal, and everlasting destruction is destruction without remedy,—this is the most natural, as it is the simplest reading of the New Testament. This should not be called a concession, as it admits the whole thing most clearly and forcibly, and, coming from such a source, it should weigh with those who are so-called orthodox. If the reader would see a long list of the names of eminent men who rejected the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, and that of endless suffering, he will please read "Man's Nature and Destiny," pp. 413-420. Albert Barnes, the noted commentator, known as a man of thought, and of sincere piety, said:— I confess, when I look on a world of sin and woe, filled with hosts to suffer forever—when I look upon friends, and upon a whole human race, all involved in this sin and danger, and when I see the great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and when I feel that God only can save them, and yet He does not do it—I am struck dumb—it is all dark, dark, to my soul, and I can not disguise it.—Practical Sermons, p. 125. Prof. Moses Stuart, well known for his critical scholarship and Christian character (speaking of the social sympathies of some men), said:— Can heaven itself be a place of happiness for them while they are conscious that a husband or a wife, a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister, is plunged into a lake of fire, from which there is no escape? Perhaps some one will say that the thoughts of Mr. Barnes, and especially what Professor Stuart has said, are positions Universalists might use. Be this as it may, it shows what a difficult matter it is for deep thinkers and Christian men to indorse or believe the doctrine of "endless torment" in a "lake of fire from which there is no escape." Thank the Lord, one can escape or avoid it by never getting into it, and we should thank the Lord again that He is so merciful as to end the life of the sinner, so there is an escape in that way. As to the thought that the punishment of the wicked (tho a near and dear relative) will mar the happiness of the righteous in heaven, there will be nothing of the kind; neither will there be in the "new earth;" for we read (Isa. 11: 9), "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain." Heaven is a place of happiness and not of misery. The noted divine Saurin, speaking of the dreadful dogma of endless torment, says:— I sink, I sink under the awful responsibility of my subject; I find in the thought a mortal poison which diffuseth itself into every period of my life, rendering society irksome, nourishment insipid, pleasure disgustful, and life a cruel bitter. I cease to wonder that the fear of hell hath made some mad and others melancholy. We have never yet heard or read of any who have become mad or melancholy when meditating upon the much more merciful doctrine that God totally destroys the wicked. Henry Ward Beecher, in a sermon on future punishment, Sunday, October 16, 1870, said:— It goes to my heart to say these things. This is not the side that I seem to myself, called to preach, yet it is there and if I am faithful to my whole duty I must preach it. A surgeon does things that are most uncongenial to himself, so sometimes I do, with tears and with sorrow. It makes me sick. . . . The eternity of future punishment is the point where most all agonizing doubts and struggles of Christian theologians have arisen, and of what are called the insolvable mysteries of divine government. It seems to me that if the doctrine of the eternity of punishment were removed, nine out of ten would disappear of themselves; for I believe they result simply from that one term, "suffering eternity." The preceding words, of Mr. Barnes, Stuart, Saurin, and Beecher, are from a work entitled "Doctrine of Endless Punishment," by Thos. B. Thayer. The thoughts of Mr. Beecher are truthful and forcible, with one exception. "Suffering eternity" is not there, as we have shown in the explanation of the texts alleged to prove it. Let us "look for that blessed hope" (Titus 2: 13) in "our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel" (2 Tim. 1: 10). WM. PENNIMAN.