"All have _sinned_."--Rom. 3:23.
"Every transgression and disobedience received a _just_ recompense
of reward."--Heb. 2:2.
"A _just_ God."--Is. 45:21.
"It shall be _more tolerable_ for the land of Sodom in the day of
judgement, than for thee."--Matt. 11:24.
Reader, what you and I need to know concerning God's plan with the
sinner, the lost, is not what some people think, nor what some teach,
nor what some desire; but what God teaches. God is _just_. Fasten that
in your mind; never lose sight of it. Over and over again is this fact
impressed in the Scriptures. Yet lurking in the minds of multitudes is
a vague suspicion or dread that God will be unjust in sending some to
Hell, and that He will be unjust in the way He will punish. Many who
are thus disturbed lose sight of the fact that God is just; that
whatever God does in regard to the lost, one thing is certain,--_He
will do no injustice_. With my loved ones, with your loved ones, with
the most obscure, worthless creature, with the most refined, delicate
nature, with the most cruel, debased creature that ever lived, God
will do no wrong. Many have turned away to infidelity, not on account
of the Bible's complete teaching as to future punishment, but because
they have taken some one passage of Scripture and warped it or gotten
from it a distorted idea of the Bible's teachings as to Hell; or they
have taken some preacher's views as to the Bible's teachings on the
subject. For example, here is a boy fifteen years of age, whose mother
died when he was an infant, whose father is a drunkard and gambler and
infidel, who has given the boy but little moral training; and here is
a man seventy years of age who had a noble father and mother, who gave
their boy every advantage, the best of training, under the best of
influences; yet he when a boy turned away from all these influences
and spent his life in sin and debauchery, and in leading others into
sin. These two, the unfortunate boy and the old hardened sinner, die.
With many the idea is that God consigns them to a common punishment in
Hell. But, reader, remember that _God is just_; and if that is
justice, what would injustice be? They were different in light and in
opportunity and in sins, and yet punished alike? _The Bible does not
teach it._
But let us go back and consider this question of sin. "All have
sinned." That includes you, reader. "To him that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not, to him it is sin."--James 4:17. All have done this,
have failed to live up to the light they have had; hence, "All have
sinned." Two questions arise: first, ought sin to be punished? Second,
ought all sin to be punished, or only the coarser, grosser, more
offensive sins? As to the first, ought sin to be punished? There is a
strong drift toward the teaching that sin ought to be punished only
for the purpose of reforming the sinner. Intelligent men endorse this
teaching without realizing that it is spiritual anarchy and absolutely
horrible and detestable. A woman and four little children are
murdered in cold blood by three robbers for the purpose of robbing the
home. When the three are arrested, the first is found to be thoroughly
penitent, thoroughly reformed, broken-hearted, over his horrible
crime. If sin should be punished only to reform the sinner, this man
should not be punished at all, though he murdered five people in cold
blood; for he is already reformed. The second is such a hardened
criminal that he never can be reformed, and the more he is punished
the more hardened he will become. Then if sin is punished only to
reform the sinner, he should not be punished at all, though guilty of
the murder of five people in cold blood. The third is tender-hearted
and easily influenced, and by sending him to prison for thirty days,
he will be thoroughly reformed, though guilty of five cold-blooded
murders. On this principle of punishing sin only to reform the sinner,
all a sinner would have to do to make sure of Heaven would be to
become such a hardened sinner that he could never be reformed, and
then he would go to Heaven without any punishment at all.
People need to call a halt and realize that sin ought to be punished
because it is right to punish it, because it is just. But this means
the punishment of all sins, the sins of the refined as surely as the
sins of the debased, the smaller sins as surely as the greater sins.
Hence the teaching of God's word, Rom. 1:18, "The wrath of God[1] is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of
men," But we need to keep in mind that it is discriminating wrath, and
God's word makes this plain, Heb. 2:2, "Every transgression and
disobedience received a _just recompense of reward_." "A just
God."--Is. 45:21.
[1] Many sneer at a "God of wrath" and say they believe in a "God of
all love." God is love, but He is just as surely a God of wrath; and
were He not a God of wrath, He would not be God, but a fiend. He who
loves purity and chastity and has no wrath against impurity and
unchastity, but loves them, too, is a moral leper. He who loves the
defence of the poor and the helpless, but has no wrath against the
cold-blooded murderer, the one crushing the defenceless, but loves
him, too, is a fiend. Character, from God to Devil, can only be
told by what one loves and what one hates.
Notice how clearly the Saviour teaches this same great truth, Matt.
11:20-24, "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his
mighty works were done, because they repented not. Woe unto thee,
Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been
done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in you, they would have
repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, _It
shall be more tolerable_ for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgement
than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt
be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done
in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
But I say unto you that _it shall be more tolerable_ for the land of
Sodom in the day of judgement, than for thee." Notice, "more
tolerable," difference in punishment.
The same teaching Jesus gives in Mark 12:40. "These shall receive
_greater condemnation_" Jesus revealed to Pilate God's judgment of a
difference in sin, John 19:11, "He that delivered me unto thee hath
the _greater sin_."
And Paul teaches the same, Gal. 6:7, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap," the reaping according to the sowing.
Let the reader notice the clear teaching: the punishment of sin will
be graded, first, according to light and opportunity. A writer, a
great scientist, held that heredity and environment largely determine
one's destiny. That is what Jesus taught. The people of Sodom were
more wicked than those of Capernaum; but heredity and environment were
against them. The people of Capernaum had not sinned so terribly as
the people of Sodom, but they had more light and opportunity; they had
better heredity, better environment; Jesus says that therefore the
people of Capernaum shall be punished more severely than the people of
Sodom. And that is right; that is just.
Those to whom Jesus spoke were born under better conditions than those
of Sodom; they grew up under more favorable surroundings; hence, they
were more responsible; hence, they are to receive greater punishment
at the judgment. Apply to your own case, reader: for every added ray
of light, for every added opportunity, there will be that much added
punishment for your sins. And that is just; that is right. The
opportunities that wealth brings, the light that education and culture
bring, will but add to the punishment at the judgment. The most highly
educated, the most refined, the most wealthy, those who have lived
under the most favorable influences, will suffer most at the judgment.
But punishment will be further graded by the number of the
sins,--"_Every_ transgression received a just recompense." Hence, the
more one sins, the greater the punishment. If one knew that he was
going to Hell, corrupt human nature would say, "Sin and enjoy while
you live," but reason and Scripture would say, "Stop! add no more to
the degree of Hell."
Punishment for sin will be further graded by the character of the sin.
"He that betrayed me to thee hath the greater sin." While a small sin
is just as surely sin as a great sin, yet God recognizes degrees in
sin, and as a consequence, there are degrees in the punishment of sin.
Following from degrees in the punishment of sin comes inevitably the
fact that no wrong will be done any one at the judgment; that no one
will be treated wrong in Hell. _He who fears only injustice and wrong,
has nothing to fear from the judgment or in Hell._
Two reflections for the reader:--If you have heretofore rebelled
against the idea of future punishment, what can you say when now you
see that God will make all just allowance for surroundings and
conditions, and will take into consideration the number and kinds of
sins? God has a right to have laws; His laws are right; a law without
a penalty amounts to no law; the penalty, God assures us, will be
absolutely just. _What can you say when you stand before such a judge
and receive such a sentence?_
The other reflection for the reader: Let not this teaching of the
Bible lead you into thinking that Hell, then, will not be so terrible
after all, and that you need not fear it. Instead of letting it allay
all dread of the future, it is enough to make the blood run cold
through your veins; for those who will have the most terrible
suffering will be the most enlightened, the most cultured.
Another thought: not some far distant, cold, harsh, unsympathetic God
will be the judge at the Judgment Day, but the Lord Jesus, "touched
with the feeling of our infirmities," will be the one who will judge
you and condemn you and give you your just degree of punishment in
Hell. Hear Him: John 5:22, "Neither doth the Father judge any man, but
he hath given all judgement to the Son." Peter reveals the same fact,
Acts 10:42, "He commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify
that this is he who hath been ordained of God to be the judge of
living and dead." Remember, that he whom the world praises as so good,
so just, so discriminating, so loving, so tender, will be the judge at
the Great Day, who will pronounce each sentence. Oh, reader, the very
fact that the Lord Jesus will be the judge is absolute proof that no
one will be treated wrong, that no one will be punished unjustly in
Hell; and the bare possibility that He may pronounce your eternal doom
is enough to cause you to turn to-day. "Turn ye, turn ye, for why will
ye die?"
_FOR FURTHER STUDY_: The fear of Abraham is the fear of the human
race, Gen. 18:25, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" As
soon as God revealed to Abraham that he was going to deal with Sodom
and Gomorrah because of their sin, Abraham at once suspects that God
may do wrong in punishing sin. It has been so down the ages, that we
suspect that God will do wrong in punishing sin. Great denominations
have been formed to keep God from doing wrong in punishing sin. Men
have proven untrue to their denominations and turned traitors to God's
word, because they have, Abraham-like, suspected God of wrongdoing in
the punishment of sin. It is not that the proof is not ample that the
Bible is God's word, _but the hatred of the human heart for the Bible
teaching about Hell_, that has brought in so much of modern religious
vagaries and New Theology and Higher Criticism. As Abraham presses his
plea for God to do right, God by degrees reveals Himself as a God who
will do right. It must have been a marvellous revelation to Abraham.
And so God's plan for the punishment of sin will be to the honest
seeker for truth when he perceives the real teaching of God's word. As
God's doing right with Sodom and Gomorrah went far beyond where
Abraham's sense of right halted; so God's doing right with sinners in
Hell will go far beyond what we would ask.
But there are other objectors to Hell. They began by pressing the
teaching of God's mercy without any reference to His justice; and in
order to get rid of the teaching as to Hell, which they thought
unjust, they rejected the Scriptures as God's word; and finally ended
in rejecting the teaching that "Christ died for our sins" (1 Cor.
15:3); that He "his own self bare our sins in his own body upon the
tree" (1 Peter 2:24). As a result of their fighting against God's
punishing sin, they have become so blinded as to right principle, and
so morally corrupt, as to be supported in pulpits, college
professorships and seminary professorships by the hard-earned money of
earnest believers in God's word, while they are undermining the faith
of the children of their supporters.
The Heaven that such men teach is the Hell of the Bible. Rejecting
complete redemption through Christ dying for our sins as our
substitute, they teach salvation by character, or that one's destiny
beyond the grave will be according to the way he has lived here. That
is their Heaven, but that is the Bible's Hell, exactly, absolutely.
Infidelity, Judaism, Christian Science, Universalism, Unitarianism,
Higher Criticism, New Theology and all who reject Christ dying for our
sins, as our substitute, as our complete Redeemer, because of their
hatred of God's punishing sinners in Hell, have made their Heaven to
be the result of their life here on earth; and as a consequence, have
made their Heaven the Bible's Hell; for Hell will be exactly the
result of the life here on earth; and, as a result, they have in
theory, and, alas! will have in fact, the Bible's Hell which they
label Heaven, without any real Heaven at all. As an example, consider
Mr. R. G. Ingersoll's words, "I believe in the gospel of justice, that
we must reap what we sow (Bible's Hell without any Heaven). I do not
believe in forgiveness (Bible's Hell without any Heaven). If I rob
Smith and God forgives me, how does that help Smith? If I cover some
poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime and she withers away
like a blighted flower and afterward I get forgiveness, how does that
help her? If there is another world, we have got to settle (admitting
that we do not settle in this life), and for every crime you commit
here (hence, the more the crimes, the more you must suffer, exactly
the Bible's teaching), you must answer to yourself and to the one you
injure. And if you have ever clothed another as with a garment of
pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you had not done that
thing." "No forgiveness; eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice,
that is what I believe in." Any Christian would be willing to take Mr.
Ingersoll's place, or the place of any one else, in Hell, if God
varies one pang from what Mr. Ingersoll himself calls for. But it is
the Bible's Hell, pure and simple, without any Heaven.
But the objector who rejects the teaching of Hell, and also Christ
dying for our sins as our substitute, may say that he does not agree
with Mr. Ingersoll, as to no forgiveness; that he believes in
forgiveness. To reject Christ's dying for our sins as our substitute,
as our Redeemer from all iniquity, and yet, in order to avoid
believing in Hell, to profess to believe in the forgiveness of sins,
makes one far worse than Mr. Ingersoll, a spiritual anarchist. Mr.
Ingersoll at least believed in law, but to believe in forgiveness,
without substitution, without redemption through Christ, means to down
with law and to become an anarchist in principle. As to the justice of
substitution, the reader is referred to Chapter III.
Concerning the objection to the Bible's teaching of eternal punishment
in Hell, a mistranslation has misled many, and before the correct
translation, as given by the Revised Version, all objections fall to
the ground. The old version of Rev. 22:11 reads, "He that is unjust
let him be unjust still"; but the Revised Version gives what the
Greek says, "He that is unrighteous let him _do unrighteousness
still_!" And that inevitably means eternal punishment. It is God's
last sentence on the sinner. The objector may say that it is horrible
to let men sin beyond the grave, in Hell. Not one particle more
horrible is it than to let them sin in this life and continue in sin
in this life. A reflection for the unsaved reader: what will your
moral character be one thousand years after you die, with no holy
Spirit, no Bible, no Christians, no churches, to restrain you?
Again, this passage, Rev. 22:11 (R. V.), can have no meaning if the
wicked are to be blotted out, cease to exist.
Another objection that is pressed, is that the Bible teaches a Hell of
literal fire, and is therefore wrong. The denominations that reject
the Bible's teachings as to Hell, without exception, try to force on
the Bible language the meaning of literal fire. Yet they do not try to
force on the language of the Bible concerning Hell, that it means
literal worm when it says "to be cast into Hell where their worm dieth
not and the fire is not quenched." They do not try to force the
literal meaning on language when Jesus said, "I am the door"; "I am
the vine"; or the Scriptures state, "That rock was Christ." One thing
is true, that, the language being figurative, the reality must be
terrible.
Men sneer at the thought of becoming Christians from fear of Hell.
Such men are not honest with God, and are simply trying to browbeat
God on the subject of Hell. Proof: the same men will flee to safety
from fear of smallpox, from fear of yellow fever, etc. Shall men be
looked upon as sensible when they flee to safety for their bodies, and
be scorned for fleeing to safety for their souls?
People are ever asking, "Will the heathen be lost without the gospel?"
Let God's word answer, Rom. 2:12, 14, "As many as have sinned without
the law shall also perish without the law"; "For when Gentiles that
have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these not having
the law are the law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the
law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness
therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else
excusing themselves." But the objector says, "Will God condemn a man
when he has no light?" There never lived such a man. Listen to God:
John 1:19, "That was the true light that lighteth every man coming
into the world." Again, Rom. 1:20, "The invisible things of him since
the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through
the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; so
that they are without excuse." But the objection is raised that they
have never heard of Christ, and that it is wrong for people to be
lost, condemned, who never heard of Christ. They are not condemned for
not believing in Christ when they have never heard of Him; they are
condemned for their sins, for doing what, from their light, they knew
was wrong. It is not the lack of the remedy that kills, but the
disease. They have not as much light as others, and their punishment
will be accordingly. The man who dies in his sins in a Christian land
will be punished far, far more than the one who dies a heathen. Their
punishments will be almost as far apart as the east is from the west.
The Scripture, "There is no difference," Rom. 3:22, has often been
pressed to mean that all sinners are alike before God, or will suffer
alike in Hell. By close attention to the passage the reader will see
that the expression "there is no difference" has reference to what
goes before, for it is connected by the word "for," pointing back to
what had just been said, that there is a "righteousness of God through
faith in Jesus Christ unto all that have faith: _for_ there is no
difference," that all that have faith are equally certain of
salvation, "for there is no difference." To join the expression,
"there is no difference," with what follows makes it clearly
contradict our Saviour, who said plainly that there is a
difference,--"He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater
sin,"--there is a difference in sin, says the Saviour.
The teaching of James 2:10, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law
and yet offend in one point is guilty of all," must not be made to
contradict the plain teaching of the Saviour that there is a
difference in sinners, and different degrees in their punishment. The
meaning is that the law is a unit, and that he that offends in one
point has broken the law as a whole. A chain of ten links is as surely
broken when one link is broken as when all ten links are broken.
In accord with this are the words of the great American scholar,
theologian, teacher, preacher, Jno. A. Broadus: "Especially notice
Luke 12:47 f. (R. V.), 'And that servant which knew his lord's will,
and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten
with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of
stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes.' This teaching has been in
many cases grievously overlooked. Taking images literally, men have
found that the 'Gehenna of fire' (Matt. 5:22) will be the same place
and the same degree of punishment for all. But the above passage and
many others show that there will be differences. The degrees of
punishment must be as remote as the east is from the west. All
inherited proclivities, 'taints of blood,' all differences of
environment, every privilege and every disadvantage, will be taken
into account. It is the Divine Judge that will apportion punishment,
with perfect knowledge and perfect justice and perfect goodness. This
great fact, that there will be _degrees_ in future punishment--as well
as future rewards--ought to be more prominent in religious
instruction. It gives some relief in contemplating the awful fate of
those who perish. It might save many from going away into
Universalism; and others from dreaming of a 'second probation' in
eternity (comp. on 12:32); and yet others from unjustly assailing and
rejecting, to their own ruin, the gospel of salvation."
On the other hand, many a sermon on Hell (and there are too few on the
subject), it could possibly be said the average sermon on the subject,
is a slander on a just and holy God. The sermon is drawn largely from
Dante's Inferno or the distorted imagination of the preacher, with no
reference to the fact that God will punish sinners differently
according to their light and their sins, but only justly.
The trouble is not with the Bible teaching as to Hell, but with
modern inadequate conceptions of the evil and guilt of sin, and with
many, the almost lost sense of justice, and of "stern moral
indignation against wrong." (Broadus.)