THE WAGES OF SIN.
“One question more than others all,
From thoughtful minds implores reply;
It is as breathed from star and pall,
What fate awaits us when we die?”--_Alger._
We have now examined the teaching of the Bible relative to man, in his
creation, in his life, in his death, and in the intermediate state to
his resurrection; and we have found its uniform and explicit testimony
to be that he has no inherent, inalienable principle in his nature which
is exempt from death; but that the only avenue to life beyond the grave
is through the resurrection. We have found also that such a resurrection
to a second life is decreed for all the race; and now the more momentous
question, what the issue of that existence is to be, presents itself for
solution.
Natural, or temporal, death, we die in Adam. This death visits all alike
irrespective of character. The sincerest saint falls under its power, as
inevitably as the most reckless sinner. This cannot be our final end;
for it would not be in accordance with justice that our ultimate fate
should hinge on a transaction, like the sin of Adam, for which we are
not responsible. Every person must be the arbiter of his own destiny. To
secure this, the redemption which intervenes through Christ, provides
for all a release from the death entailed upon us by the Adamic
transgression, in order that every person’s individual acts may
constitute the record which shall determine his destiny beyond the
grave. What is that destiny to be?
Our inquiry respects, not the future of the righteous, concerning which
there is no material controversy, but that of the sinner. Is his fate an
eternity of life in a devouring fire which is forever unable to devour
him? an eternal approach of death which never really arrives?
Blinded by the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, two opposite
conclusions are reached by those who connect this doctrine with two
different classes of Scripture declarations. For one class, reading that
the punishment of the sinner is to be eternal, and holding that man has
an inherent immortality which can never be alienated, at once come to
the terrible conclusion of an eternity of conscious suffering, an
eternal hell as taught by Augustine. Another, connecting it with the
declarations that God’s anger shall not always burn against the wicked,
but that a time comes when every intelligence in the universe, in the
plenitude of joy, is heard ascribing honor, and blessing, and praise to
God, speedily reaches the conclusion of universal restoration as taught
by Origen. And if the doctrine of the immortality of the soul be a
scriptural doctrine, then the Scriptures are found supporting these two
diametrically opposite conclusions.
We have seen that the Scriptures do not teach any such inherent
immortality as is claimed for man; this, therefore, cannot fetter us in
our investigation of this question. God can continue the existence of
the wicked to all eternity after the resurrection, if he so chooses; but
if so, the doctrine must rest on explicit statements of the Scriptures
to that effect. Paul says plainly that the wages of sin is death; Rom.
6:23; and as we do not receive wages for the work of another, this must
be a declaration of what will result to every individual for a course of
sin; and before this can be made to mean eternal life in misery, the
present constitution of language must be destroyed, and new definitions
be given to established terms. We hold this declaration of Paul’s, on
which we take our stand, to be the true ground between the errors above
mentioned, and one which not only harmonizes all the Bible on this
question, but which has abundance of positive testimony in its favor.
1. The future punishment, threatened to the wicked, is to be eternal in
its duration. The establishment of this proposition, of course
overthrows the universal restoration of Origen; and the nature of this
punishment, involving a state of death, overthrows alike the restoration
view of Origen, and the eternal hell of Augustine.
One “Thus saith the Lord,” is sufficient for the establishment of any
doctrine. One such we offer in support of the proposition now before us.
Speaking of the reprobate, Christ says, “And these shall go away into
everlasting punishment,” and immediately adds concerning the righteous,
“but the righteous, into life eternal.” Here the same Greek word,
_aionios_, is used to express the duration of these opposite states. If,
as must be admitted, the word expresses unending duration in the case of
the righteous, it must mean the same in that of the wicked.
To the same end we might refer to the words of Christ on two other
occasions: John 3:36; Matt. 26:24. In the first of these passages he
says: “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life;” that is,
eternal life. But if, after a certain period of suffering, such persons
are released from that state by a restoration to God’s favor, this
declaration could not be true. In the second, he speaks of some of whom
he says that it would be good for them if they had not been born. And
this utterly precludes the idea that they should ever be released to
enter the bliss of Heaven; for the first moment of such release would
make amends for all past suffering; and throughout eternity they would
praise God that they had been born.
The punishment of the wicked, alike with the reward of the righteous, is
therefore to be eternal. Two unending conditions are held out to men,
and between the two, they have the privilege in this life of choosing.
2. In what will the eternal state of the wicked consist? Before
presenting an argument to show that it is death in the literal sense, it
may be necessary to notice the few passages of Scripture which are put
forth as evidence that it is eternal misery.
1. Daniel 12:2: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth
shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt.” The shame spoken of in this text is coupled by the objector
with the contempt, and claimed to be like that, everlasting; and if the
shame, which is an emotion to be exercised by the individuals
themselves, is to be eternal, they must be awakened to everlasting life
and consciousness.
The fact that they are raised to shame proves indeed that they have a
veritable resurrection to life and consciousness, and that this is no
figure of speech which is applied to them. But the reader will notice
that the shame is not said, like the contempt, to be everlasting.
Contempt is not an emotion which they feel; they are not raised to the
contempt of themselves; but it is an emotion felt by others toward them;
and this does not imply the consciousness of those against whom it is
directed; inasmuch as contempt may be felt for them as well after they
have passed from the stage of consciousness as before. The Syriac
sustains this idea. It reads, “Some to shame and the eternal contempt of
their companions.” And thus it will be. Shame for their wickedness and
corruption will burn into their very souls, so long as they have
conscious being. And when they pass away, consumed for their iniquities,
their loathsome characters and their guilty deeds, excite only contempt
on the part of the righteous, unmodified and unabated, so long as they
hold them in remembrance at all. The text, therefore, furnishes no proof
of the eternal suffering of the wicked.
2. Matt. 25:41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels.” What is here said to be
everlasting? Wicked men? No. The devil? No. His angels? No. But only the
fire. And how can the application of this term to the fire prove the
indestructibility and eternal life of those who are cast therein? It may
be answered, What propriety could there be in keeping up the fire
everlastingly, if its victims were not to be eternally the objects of
its power? And we reply, This word is sometimes used to denote the
results and not the continuance of the process. Everlasting fire may not
be fire which is everlastingly burning, but fire which produces results
which are everlasting in their nature. The victims cast therein will be
consumed, and if from that destruction they are never to be released, if
that fiery work is never to be undone, it is to them an everlasting
fire. This will appear more fully when we come to speak of the “eternal
fire” through which God’s vengeance was visited on the wicked cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah.
There are several passages of scripture in which the same word,
_aionios_, is unquestionably used in this sense. In Heb. 5:9, we read of
“eternal salvation;” that is, a salvation which is eternal or
everlasting in its results, not one which is forever going on, but never
accomplished. In Heb. 6:2, Paul speaks of “eternal judgment;” not
judgment which is eternally going forward, but one which, having once
passed upon all men, Acts 17:31, is irreversible in its decisions, and
eternal in its effects. In Heb. 9:12, he speaks in the same way of
“eternal redemption,” not a redemption through which we are eternally
approaching a redeemed state which we never reach, but a redemption
which releases us for all eternity from the power of sin and death. It
would be just as proper to speak of the saints as always redeeming, but
never redeemed, as to to speak of the sinner as always consuming but
never consumed, or always dying but never dead. This fire is prepared
for the devil and his angels, and will be shared by all of the human
race who choose to follow the devil in his accursed rebellion against
the government of Heaven. It will be to them an everlasting fire; for
once having plunged into its fiery vortex, there is no life, beyond.
Other texts noticed in succeeding chapters.