SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
HUMAN DESTINY
"ETERNAL HOPE."
THERE is one volume which cannot be ignored in any inquiry
as to the future of the lost. It has made more stir in this controversy than
any other publication in recent years, both here and in America ; and according
to a high authority, it "may fairly be looked on as an epoch-making book, both
in the wide circulation it has attained, and the discussion of which it has
been the starting-point. Its title, and a glance at its contents, will lead the
inquirer to expect from its pages the light he is in search of. No sooner does
he enter on the study of it than he finds himself carried away by a rushing,
bubbling torrent of impassioned rhetoric, which leaves him at the last with a
bewildered, vague impression that heaven is the final goal of all the human
race, and that the conception of an endless hell is but a hateful dream.
But though this is undoubtedly the lesson which superficial readers have
generally extracted from the book, it is by no means the writer's own
conclusion. The following is his scheme:- "There are, in the main" (he tells
us), "three classes of men: there are the saints ; there are the reprobates;
and there is that vast intermediate class lying between yet shading off by
infinite gradations from these two extremes." Of the saints he declines to
speak. They are "few," he declares, "and mostly poor." He does not suggest the
possibility that he himself or those whom he addresses could be of the number,
and his description of them would preclude their venturing to claim so high a
place. "But" (he proceeds), "if they be unassailably secure, eternally happy,
what of the other extreme? what of the reprobates?" He indicates the slaves of
brutal vice, the most depraved of our criminals, as falling within the
category, and then proceeds:
"If you ask me whether I must not believe in
endless torments for these reprobates of earth, my answer is, Ay, for these,
and for thee, and for me, too, unless we learn with all our hearts to love
good, and not evil; but whether God for Christ's sake may not enable us to do
this even beyond the grave, if we have failed to do so in this life, I cannot
say." Other statements scattered through the volume throw further light on
this. "I cannot preach the certainty of universalism," he declares. "God has
given us no clear and decisive revelation on the final condition of those who
have died in sin." "My hope is that the vast majority, at any rate, of the
lost, may at length be found." It thus appears that this apostle of "the wider
hope," who seemed to us to exhaust the thunders of his rhetoric in denouncing
all who believe in an endless hell, himself believes in an endless hell. He
thus admits that the conception of "endless torments" is warranted by
Scripture, and therefore compatible with infinite love. In a word, the chief
difference in this respect between his own position and that of the so-called
orthodox, is a mere question either of statistics or of words. Both he and they
agree to believe in hell. Both he and they would admit that it is reserved for
reprobates. But while they would give the term a wider scope, he would limit it
to "a small but desperate minority." Might they not retort upon him that a
fuller and truer apprehension of the Gospel would teach him that, if indeed
there be hope beyond the grave, Divine love will most surely reach forth to the
very class which he has singled out as possible victims of the most hopeless
doom. The wretched offspring of depraved and vicious parents, this world has
been no better than a hell to them from cradled infancy. If there be
after-mercy for the pampered sinners of the synagogue, shall it be denied to
these poor outcasts of humanity?
But "the saints" are "few, and mostly
poor," and "the reprobates" are "a small and desperate minority." The "vast
intermediate class" remains; the class, in fact, to which we all belong. What
shall be said of these? There are thousands among us who, we know, cannot be
"saints "- for, as the writer tells us, there "is an Adam in them, and there is
a Christ "- but whose lives, though marred by blemishes and sins, are still set
heavenward. Though deeply conscious that they deserve only judgment, they have
learned to believe that Christ died for their sins, and that trusting in Him,
their portion shall be life, and not judgment. They believe that God justifies
"freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus," and that
being thus "justified by His blood," they "shall be saved from wrath through
Him." They regard these great doctrines of the Reformation as Divine truths;
and, living in the faith of Christ, they hope at death to pass into His
presence in blessedness and joy. If our author shares in this belief he
carefully conceals it. He admits, no doubt, that earth's sinners can have no
way to God's heaven, save through Christ's redemption. But, according to his
teaching, personal fitness for the scene does not depend on Christ at all, but
must be won either by a life of saintship, or, for the vast majority who never
could attain to saintship as here defined, and are "incapable of any other
redemption," by being purified in "that Gehenna of aeonian fire" beyond the
grave. And if we ask whether these are "endless torments," we are answered YES,
"unless we learn with all our hearts to love good and not evil." This is our
constant prayer and effort, but we know how utterly we fail of it; and in
terror we inquire "whether God for Christ's sake may not enable us to do this
even beyond the grave, if we have failed to do so in this life." The author's
answer is "I cannot say." "I CANNOT SAY!" We are to bury our dead in the sure
and certain expectation of "aeonian fire," but with a dim and distant hope that
in the "uncovenanted mercy" of God they shall reach heaven at last!
The
writer's argument is wrapped in clouds of words, and his statements sometimes
seem contradictory, but on close analysis his scheme stands out consistent and
clear. The future happiness of the "saints" is assured. They, however, are a
minority so insignificant that for our present purpose we may ignore them. The
rest of the departed (believers and unbelievers, regenerate and unregenerate
alike, for these are distinctions of which the writer takes no account) are
cast into Gehenna; but the torments of Gehenna are purgatorial, and sooner or
later "the vast majority" will pass to heaven purified in "aeonian fire." And
mark, the awful discipline is draconian. Its duration will be measured, not as
with us, by days or years, but by ages; and in the case of "a desperate
minority," "eternal hope" means a hope that will last eternally, only because
it will be eternally unsatisfied.
* This is not the only feature of the
writer's scheme which savours of Rome. He implicitly bases his statement on 2
Cor. iii. 6; but surely no one who is not too absorbed by the study of "the
broad unifying principles of Scripture" to give his attention to a particular
passage, can fail to see that the Apostle is there contrasting, not the letter
of Scripture with the spirit of it, but the old covenant with the new, law with
grace. The texts to which the writer refers in support of his position shall be
considered in the sequel. It is enough to say here that most of them have no
special bearing on the question in dispute (see p.169, and App. I.), and the
rest are of no account for the author's purpose, unless they be construed to
teach the universalism which he himself repudiates. As for his remarks on the
word (Greek), nothing further need be said than he himself has elsewhere said
in answer to his critics : "Some of the greatest masters of Greek, both in
classical times and among the fathers, saw quite clearly that though the word
might connote endlessness, by being attributively added to endless things, it
had in itself no such meaning."
And if any one object that any part of
this scheme is opposed to Scripture, he will be told it is in accordance with
"the broad unifying principles of Scripture," and that the letter of the
Scripture kills. That is to say, the effect of Holy Writ upon the minds of
common men, who accept its statements in their plain and simple meaning, is
absolutely mischievous and destructive. Surely we may well exclaim, Is this
what English theology is coming to?
Chapter
Three
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