I turn now to the reverse side of Christ's teaching concerning the
future. And let us not seek to hide from ourselves the fact that there
_is_ a reverse side. For, ignore it as we may, the fact remains: those
same holy lips which spoke of a place, "where neither moth nor rust doth
consume," spoke likewise of another place, "where their worm dieth not,
and the fire is not quenched."
In considering this solemn matter we must learn to keep wholly separate
from it a number of difficult questions which have really nothing to do
with it--with which, indeed, we have nothing to do--and the introduction
of which can only lead to mischievous confusion and error. What is to
become of the countless multitudes in heathen lands who die without
having so much as heard of Christ? How will God deal with those even in
our own Christian land to whom, at least as it seems to us, this life
has brought no adequate opportunity of salvation? What will happen in
that dim twilight land betwixt death and judgment which men call "the
intermediate state"? Will they be few or many who at last will be for
ever outcasts from the presence of God? These are questions men will
persist in asking, but the answer to which no man knows. Strictly
speaking, they are matters with which we have nothing to do, which we
must be content to leave with God, confident that the Judge of all the
earth will do right, even though He does not show us how. What we have
to do with, what does concern us, is the warning of Jesus, emphatic and
reiterated, that sin will be visited with punishment, that retribution,
just, awful, inexorable, will fall on all them that love and work
iniquity.
"But why," it may be asked, "why dwell upon these things? Is there not
something coarse and vulgar in this appeal to men's fears? And, after
all, to what purpose is it? If men are not won by the love of God, of
what avail is it to speak to them of His wrath?" But fear is as real an
element in human nature as love, and when our aim is by all means to
save men, it is surely legitimate to make our appeal to the whole man,
to lay our fingers on every note--the lower notes no less than the
higher--in the wide gamut of human life. The preacher of the gospel,
moreover, is left without choice in the matter. It is no part of his
business to ask what is the use of this or of that in the message given
to him to deliver; it is for him to declare "the whole counsel of God,"
to keep back nothing that has been revealed. And the really decisive
consideration is this--that this is a matter on which Christ Himself has
spoken, and spoken with unmistakable clearness and emphasis. Shall,
then, the ambassador hesitate when the will of the King is made known?
More often--five times more often, it is said[61]--than Jesus spoke of
future blessedness did He speak of future retribution. The New Testament
is a very tender book; but it is also a very stern book, and its
sternest words are words of Jesus. "For the sins of the miserable, the
forlorn, the friendless, He has pity and compassion; but for the sins of
the well-taught, the high-placed, the rich, the self-indulgent, for
obstinate and malignant sin, the sin of those who hate, and deceive, and
corrupt, and betray, His wrath is terrible, its expression is
unrestrained."[62] "Jesu, Thou art all compassion," we sometimes sing;
but is it really so? St. Paul writes of "the meekness and gentleness of
Christ"; and for many of the chapters of Christ's life that is the right
headline; but there are other chapters which by no possible manipulation
can be brought under that heading, and they also are part of the story.
It was Jesus who said that in the day of judgment it should be more
tolerable for even Tyre and Sidon than for Bethsaida and Chorazin; it
was Jesus who uttered that terrible twenty-third chapter of St.
Matthew's Gospel, with its seven times repeated "Woe unto you, scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites!" it was Jesus who spoke of the shut door and
the outer darkness, of the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not
quenched, of the sin which hath never forgiveness, neither in this
world, nor in that which is to come, and of that day when He who wept
over Jerusalem and prayed for His murderers and died for the world will
say unto them on His left hand, "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the
eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels." These are
_His_ words, and it is because they are His they make us tremble. He
_is_ "gentle Jesus, meek and mild"; that is why His sternness is so
terrible.
These things are not said in order to defend any particular theory of
future punishment--on that dread subject, indeed, the present writer has
no "theory" to defend; he frankly confesses himself an agnostic--but
rather to claim for the solemn fact of retribution a place in our minds
akin to that which it held in the teaching of our Lord. We need have no
further concern than to be loyal to Him. Does, then, such loyalty admit
of a belief in universal salvation? Is it open to us to assert that in
Christ the whole race is predestined to "glory, honour, and
immortality"? The "larger hope" of the universalist--
"that good shall fall
At last--far off--at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring"--
is, indeed, one to which no Christian heart can be a stranger; yearnings
such as these spring up within us unbidden and uncondemned. But when it
is definitely and positively asserted that "God has destined all men to
eternal glory, irrespective of their faith and conduct," "that no
antagonism to the Divine authority, no insensibility to the Divine love,
can prevent the eternal decree from being accomplished," we shall do
well to pause, and pause again. The old doctrine of an assured salvation
for an elect few we reject without hesitation. But, as Dr. Dale has
pointed out,[63] the difference between the old doctrine and the new is
merely an arithmetical, not a moral difference: where the old put
"some," the new puts "all"; and the moral objections which are valid
against the one are not less valid against the other also. I dare not
say to myself, and therefore I dare not say to others, that, let a man
live as he may, it yet shall be well with him in the end. The facts of
experience are against it; the words of Christ are against it. "The very
conception of human freedom involves the possibility of its permanent
misuse, of what our Lord Himself calls 'eternal sin.'" If a man can go
on successfully resisting Divine grace in this life, what reason have we
for supposing that it would suddenly become irresistible in another
life? Build what we may on the unrevealed mercies of the future for them
that live and die in the darkness of ignorance, let us build nothing for
ourselves who are shutting our eyes and closing our hearts to the Divine
light and love which are already ours.
* * * * *
"Behold, then, the goodness and severity of God;" and may His goodness
lead us to repentance, that His severity we may never know. This is,
indeed, His will for every one of us: He has "appointed us not unto
wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ." If we are lost we are suicides.