"Everlasting Punishment"
By Arthur L. Manous
"AND these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal." Matt. 25: 46. By many this text is largely relied upon for the heathen doctrine of eternal conscious misery; but we think that on the contrary, it teaches that "God is love," and that the wicked will be punished by an everlasting, once-for-all deprivation of, a cutting off from, life. And so some translate the Greek as follows: "And these shall go forth to the aionion cutting-off; but the righteous to aionion life."—Emphatic Diaglott, new version. "And these shall go away into a cutting-off age-lasting: and the just ones into life age-lasting."—Emphatic Diaglott, interlinear translation. "The common version, and many modern ones, render kolasin aionion, everlasting punishment, conveying the idea, as generally interpreted, of torment. Kolasin in its various forms only occurs in three other places in the New Testament,—Acts 4:21; 2 Peter 2:19; 1 John 4:18. It is derived from kolazoo, which signifies (1) To cut off; as lopping off branches of trees, to prune; (2) To restrain, to repress. The Greeks write, 'The charioteer [kolazei] restrains his fiery steeds.' (3) To chastise, to punish. To cut off an individual from life, or society, or even to restrain, is esteemed as punishment; hence has arisen this third metaphorical use of the word. The primary signification has been adopted, because it agrees better with the second member of the sentence, thus preserving the force and beauty of the antithesis. The righteous go to life, the wicked to the cutting-off from life, or death. See 2 Thess. 1:9."—Note on Matt. 25: 46, in the Emphatic Diaglott. About 1790 one Mr. Samuel Bourn wrote upon this subject as follows: "There are many passages of Scripture in which the ultimate punishment to which wicked men shall be adjudged is defined, in the most precise and intelligible terms, to be an everlasting destruction from the power of God, which is equally able to destroy as to preserve. So when our Saviour is fortifying the minds of His disciples against the power of men, by an awe of the far greater power of God, and the punishment of His justice, He expresseth Himself thus: 'Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do; fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.' Here He plainly proposes the destruction of the soul (not its endless pain and misery) as the ultimate object of the divine displeasure, and the greatest object of our fear. And when He says, 'These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal,' it appears evident that by that eternal punishment which is set in opposition to eternal life, is not meant any kind of life, however miserable, but the same which the apostle expresses by 'everlasting destruction from the presence and power of the Lord.' The very term, death, is most frequently made use of to signify the end of wicked men in another world, or the final effect of divine justice in their punishment. 'The wages of sin [seith the apostle] is death; but eternal life is the gift of God, through Christ Jesus our Lord.'"—Quoted in "Buck's Theological Dictionary," art. "Destructionist." ARTHUR L. MANOUS.
Cartersville, Ga.