EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT.
Matt. 25:46: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but
the righteous into life eternal.”
This text is very commonly urged as an objection against the view that
the destiny of the reprobate is an utter and eternal extinction of
being; and it is one which has great apparent force. But the secret of
this apparent strength lies in the fact that the term punishment is
almost invariably supposed to be confined to conscious suffering, and
that when any affliction is no longer taken cognizance of by the senses,
it ceases to be a punishment at all. But if it can be shown from sound
reason, and from the analogy of human penalties, that punishment is
estimated by the loss involved, and not merely by the amount of pain
inflicted, the objection vanishes at once, and will cease to hold back
many devout and holy minds from adopting the view we here advocate.
On the duration of the punishment brought to view in the text, we take
no issue. It is to be eternal; but what is to be its nature? The text
says, Everlasting punishment; popular orthodoxy says, Unending misery;
the Bible, we believe, says, Eternal death.
Is death punishment? If so, when a death is inflicted from which there
is to be no release, that punishment is eternal or everlasting. Then the
application of this scripture to the view we hold is very apparent. The
heathen, to reconcile themselves to what they supposed to be their
inevitable fate, used to argue that death was no evil. But when they
looked forward into the endless future of which that death deprived
them, they were obliged to reverse their former decision and acknowledge
that death was an _endless injury_.--_Cicero, Tusc. Disp._ i., 47.
Why is the sentence of death in our courts of justice reckoned as the
most severe and greatest punishment? It is not because the pain involved
is greater; for the scourge, the rack, the pillory, and many kinds of
minor punishment, inflict more pain upon the petty offender than
decapitation or hanging inflicts upon the murderer. But it is reckoned
the greatest because it is the most lasting; and its length is estimated
by the life the person would have enjoyed, if it had not been inflicted.
It has deprived him of every hour of that life he would have had but for
this punishment; and hence the punishment is considered as co-existent
with the period of his natural life.
Augustine says:--
“The laws do not estimate the punishment of a criminal by the brief
period during which he is being put to death, but by their removing him
forever from the company of living men.”--_De. civ. Dei, xxi._, 11.
The same reasoning applies to the future life as readily as to the
present. By the terrible infliction of the second death, the sinner is
deprived of all the bright and ceaseless years of everlasting life. The
loss of every moment, hour, and year, of this life, is a punishment;
and, as the life is eternal, the loss, or the punishment, is eternal
also. “There is here no straining of argument to make out a case. The
argument is one which man’s judgment has in every age approved as just.”
The original sustains the same idea. The word for punishment is
_kolasis_; and this is defined, “a curtailing, a pruning.” The idea of
cutting off is here prominent. The righteous go into everlasting life,
but the wicked, into an everlasting state in which they are curtailed or
cut off. Cut off from what? Not from happiness; for that is not the
subject of discourse; but from life, as expressly stated in reference to
the righteous. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And since the life given to
man through Christ, is eternal life, it follows that the loss of it
inflicted as a punishment, is eternal punishment.
The same objection is again stated in a little different form. As in the
ages before our existence we suffered no punishment, so, it is claimed
it will be no punishment to be reduced to that state again. To this, we
reply, that those who never had an existence cannot, of course, be
conceived of in relation to rewards and punishments at all. But when a
person has once seen the light of life, when he has lived long enough to
taste its sweets and appreciate its blessings, is it then no punishment
to be deprived of it? Says Luther Lee (Immortality of the Soul, p. 128),
“We maintain that the simple loss of existence cannot be a penalty or
punishment in the circumstances of the sinner after the general
resurrection.” And what are these circumstances? He comes up to the
beloved city, and sees the people of God in the everlasting kingdom. He
sees before them an eternity, not of life only, but of bliss and glory
indescribable, while before himself is only the blackness of darkness
forever. Then, says the Saviour, addressing a class of sinners, there
shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God. What is the cause of this
wailing? It is not that they have to choose between annihilation or
eternal torture. Had they this privilege, some might perhaps choose the
former; others would not. But the cause of their woe is not that they
are to receive a certain kind of punishment when they would prefer
another, but because they have lost the life and blessedness which they
now behold in possession of the righteous. The only conditions between
which they can draw their cheerless comparisons are, the blessed and
happy state of the righteous within the city of God, and their own
hapless lot outside of its walls. And we may well infer from the nature
of the case, as well as the Saviour’s language, that it is _because_
they find themselves thus thrust out, that they lift up their voices in
lamentation and woe. “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when
ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God, _and ye
yourselves thrust out_!”
The sinner then begins to see what he has lost; the sense of it, like a
barbed arrow, pierces his soul; and the thought that the glorious
inheritance before him might have been his but for his own self-willed
and perverse career, sets the keenest edge upon every pang of remorse.
And as he looks far away into eternity, to the utmost limit which the
mind’s eye can reach, and gets a glimpse of the inconceivable
blessedness and glory which he might have enjoyed but for his idol sin,
the hopeless thought that all is lost will be sufficient to rend the
hardest and most obdurate heart with unutterable agony. Say not then
that loss of existence under such circumstances is no penalty or
punishment.
But again: The Bible plainly teaches degrees of punishment; and how is
this compatible, it is asked, with the idea of a mere state of death to
which all alike will be reduced? Let us ask believers in eternal misery
how they will maintain degrees in _their_ system? They tell us the
intensity of the pain endured will be in each case proportioned to the
guilt of the sufferer. But how can this be? Are not the flames of hell
equally severe in all parts? and will they not equally affect _all_ the
immaterial souls cast therein? But God can interpose, it is answered, to
produce the effect desired. Very well, then, we reply, cannot he also
interpose, if necessary, according to our view, and graduate the pain
attendant upon the sinner’s being reduced to a state of death as the
climax of his penalty? So, then, our view is equal with the common one
in this respect, while it possesses a great advantage over it in
another; for, while that has to find its degrees of punishment in
intensity of pain alone, the duration in all cases being equal, ours may
have not only degrees in pain, but in duration also; for, while some may
perish in a short space of time, the weary sufferings of others may be
long drawn out. But yet we apprehend that the bodily suffering will be
but an unnoticed trifle compared with the mental agony, that keen
anguish which will rack their souls as they get a view of their
incomparable loss, each according to his capacity of appreciation. The
youth who had but little more than reached the years of accountability
and died, perhaps with just enough guilt upon him to debar him from
Heaven, being less able to comprehend his situation and his loss, will
of course feel it less. To him of older years, more capacity, and
consequently a deeper experience in sin, the burden of his fate will be
proportionately greater. While the man of giant intellect, and almost
boundless comprehension, who thereby possessed greater influence for
evil, and hence was the more guilty for devoting those powers to that
evil, being able to understand his situation fully, comprehend his fate
and realize his loss, will feel it most keenly of all. Into _his_ soul
indeed the iron will enter most intolerably deep. And thus, by an
established law of mind, the sufferings of each may be most accurately
adjusted to the magnitude of his guilt.
Then, says one, the sinner will long for death as a release from his
evils, and experience a sense of relief when all is over. No, friend,
not even this pitiful semblance of consolation is granted; for no such
sense of relief will ever come. The words of another will best
illustrate this point:--
“‘But the sense of relief when death comes at last.’ We hardly need to
reply: There can be no sense of relief. The light of life gone out, the
expired soul can never know that it has escaped from pain. The bold
transgressor may fix his thoughts upon it now, heedless of all that
intervenes; but he will forget to think of it then. To waken from a
troubled dream, and to know that it was only a dream, is an exceeding
joy; and with transport do the friends of one dying in delirium, note a
gleam of returning reason, ere he breathes his last. But the soul’s
death knows no waking; its maddening fever ends in no sweet moment of
rest. It can never feel that its woe is ended. The agony ends, not in a
happy consciousness that all is past, but in eternal night--in the
blackness of darkness forever!”--_Debt and Grace_, p. 424.