A "DANGEROUS HERESY." by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 18, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 42.

A "DANGEROUS HERESY."

By Editor

SAYS a writer in one of our exchanges:

"The annihilation of the wicked, is one of the most dangerous heresies of the last days. The advocates of the annihilation theory will admit the eternal existence of the righteous, but stoutly deny the other. The same word is used to express the eternal existence of the wicked, as in the following. 'These shall go away into eternal [R. V.] punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.' Matt. 25:46."

No, friend; you are mistaken. Nowhere is the word "eternal" used "to express the eternal existence of the wicked;" but to express the character of their punishment, a completed thing. What that punishment (not punishing) is, let the Bible itself speak: "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power." 2 Thess. 1:9. The American Revised Version reads: "Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might." Again: "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Rom. 6:23. What is the punishment—the wages?—Death, destruction. Of what are these the opposite?—Life. What kind of life is it?—Eternal life, it will never end. What kind of punishment, of destruction, of death, is it?—Eternal, everlasting. It will never cease to be death; it is not existence, nor can it ever be.

As proof of the eternal existence of the wicked, this writer quotes Jude 7: "Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

Who is suffering the vengeance of eternal fire?—"Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them." For what are these cities set forth?—"As an example." Where are these cities now?—Burned up. Read Genesis 19. The Dead Sea now covers the plain where they stood. Read 2 Peter 2:4-6 as the divine parallel, the inspired commentary on the meaning of Jude: "God . . . turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should live ungodly."

The vengeance of eternal fire was death, extinction of being, and so long as the wicked are in that condition (and that will be forever) they are under that vengeance, the death is eternal.

And so all scriptures, perverted as they have been by error, can be explained in perfect harmony with the words "the wages of sin is death."

Nay, the Bible does not teach the ever-burning hell. The doctrine is horrible and revolting. It never converted a soul. It never won a soul to God. It has driven some into Universalism, some into Catholicism, some into infidelity. The idea that the just, the infinite, the omnipotent God should take a creature perverted, and cause him to suffer endless years for the deeds done in the few years of earth-life of sin!! We would not believe it of the Czar of Russia nor the Sultan of Turkey. We can not believe it of our God. If men had not read into the Bible these pagan ideas of the immortal soul, they would never charge God with such horrible cruelty. "A God, right and just is He." (Send four cents to this office and obtain the tract "Tormented Forever and Ever.") Sometime God will have a clean universe, in which is neither sin nor sinners, nor death. Rev. 21:1-5. It is God's love, not hate, which wins the soul to God and righteousness.