SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
Secret Service
Theologian
HUMAN
DESTINY
ANNIHILATION
THE natural immortality of man, we are told, is a theory
of heathen philosophers, engrafted upon Christianity in post-apostolic days.
Man is a dying creature, destined by the operation of natural laws to pass out
of existence unless he receive eternal life in Christ. It is admitted, however,
that the lost shall be raised from the dead by Divine power in order that in
the body they may be judged and punished for their sins. In other words,
creatures who are doomed by the law of their nature to decay and pass out of
being altogether, are not only kept in existence, but recalled to active life
in resurrection, solely in order that increased capacities for enduring torment
may be added to the horrors of their doom. Not even the coarse hell of
medieaval ignorance is more revolting, more incredible than this ; and yet
these views are held and taught on the plea that God is a God of love!
But
Scripture plainly teaches that the destruction of the wicked - whatever
destruction means - is the result, not of natural law, but of Divine judgment.
When we read that "the wages of sin is death," we are to understand extinction
of being. Now we know as a matter of experience and of fact that death often
entails much antecedent suffering; but on the same ground we know also that
this is purely accidental. Death does not necessarily involve any suffering
whatever. If human law sentences a criminal to imprisonment, it consigns him to
misery in many forms; but if it decrees his death, it scrupulously guards him
from every kind of suffering save the necessary rigour of confinement. Nor is
it that he is dismissed to receive his punishment from God. Our English law at
least is not so cruel. The conventional language of the death sentence
concludes with a prayer for Divine mercy on the condemned, and a minister of
religion is appointed to attend him in his cell and on the scaffold. The last
words that fall upon his ears are words that tell of pardon and a life beyond
the grave. If capital punishment were abolished the public would probably
insist on the free use of the lash for grave and brutal crimes ; but how
degraded would be the community which would decree a criminal's death, and yet
torture him up to the very hour of his execution !
(Footnote - Some of the
Italian tyrants in the Middle Ages did this very thing; and a reverend opponent
of eternal punishment has had the temerity to compare God to such a monster, if
there be an endless hell. If the author were not given up to a reprobate mind,
he would have seen as he wrote the blasphemy that a thirty days hell followed
by extinction would more fully satisfy the analogy. His argument is against any
hell whatever.)
Now let us test the argument in the light of the
inevitable admissions. If what we call death were the end of the sinner, all
would be plain. But it is admitted that the lost dead are to be raised for
judgment, and in their bodies subjected to punitive suffering for their sins;
and that this suffering, though limited in duration, shall yet be terrible. Is
not this open to every objection on the ground of reason and sentiment which is
urged against the "orthodox faith"? If there be some awful necessity,
unexplained to us, why the sinner should continue to exist, we can understand
that there may be a like necessity for future punishment; but if there be no
such necessity, what is it but torturing helpless, hopeless victims who might
at once be put out of misery, for extinction is their doom? The author already
quoted as the champion of conditional immortality is far too keen a reasoner to
overlook this difficulty. He has met it boldly by disclaiming the belief that
ages of suffering are to precede that destruction," thus parting company with
Scripture altogether. In his view the sufferings of the lost in the final state
will be merely such as shall necessarily accompany their "death "; and we must
read this statement in the light of the undoubted fact that no subject whatever
is involved in death when inflicted without cruelty. Is there then to be no
suffering for sin? In reply the author will tell us that "the spirit may suffer
in Hades for the sins of a lifetime." But what then becomes of the statement
that at death the man is no more? If "the spirit" carries with it the moral
guilt of life's sins and a capacity of suffering for those sins, his is the
personality, this is "the man." Moreover, according to this theory, the amount
of a sinner's punishment depends, not on the character of his sin, but on the
epoch at which he lived on earth. In the antediluvian sinner it is measured by
thousands of years : whereas for the awful Christ-rejecter of the last days it
will be briefer than for all the rest; because Hades is to be cast into the
lake of fire, and the lake of fire is absolute extinction of being.
But the
suffering in Hades precedes the judgment. What room is there then for judgment
at all? The object of the day of judgment is to fix the guilt and apportion the
punishment of each, and it becomes but an idle pageant if all alike are to be
hurried to a swift and common doom. To answer that its purpose will be to
separate the redeemed from the impenitent is to ignore some of the plainest
teaching of Scripture. That division will be manifested in and by the
resurrection, for the redeemed shall be raised in "the image of the heavenly,"
and such are not to come into the judgment. And what possible purpose can there
be in this view for the resurrection of the lost? We are asked to believe that
God not only maintains them in existence by miraculous interference, but that
He puts forth His mighty power to raise them from the dead, solely and
altogether for a magnificent display of wrath in annihilating them.
But
apart from the essential incredibility of such a theory, we must reject it as
opposed to the plain testimony of Scripture. We turn, therefore, to seek the
explanation from another writer, whose published sermons on this subject are
held in high repute by all believers in conditional immortality. He will tell
us that the doom of the impenitent "will not be a simple act of annihilation,
but a process of destruction. The fire of God's wrath will not consume them at
once, but they will be tormented in it day and night for the ages of ages that
they have yet to live." "Many or few stripes will be inflicted, according to
each one's deserts, while in every case it will end in the final loss of life
as the necessary consequence of not being in Christ." In terms at least this is
consistent with the language of Scripture, and therefore it claims
consideration.
Does not this suggest the inquiry how suicide is to be
prevented in the lake of fire? God must put forth His miraculous power to keep
in being the victims of His wrath, until the last of the "many or few stripes"
which each one deserves shall have been inflicted! Disguise it as we may, the
fact is obvious that in this theory the annihilation of the lost is God's act
of mercy to close their suffering. It is impious to suppose that their release
could be delayed wantonly and cruelly. The delay, therefore, must be due to the
righteous necessity of exacting the full meed of punishment the sin of each
deserves. Why then should a God "Who is willing that all men should be saved,"
not let the damned pass from the scene of torment to some place of rest,
instead of putting forth His power to annihilate them?
Further, if
annihilation be the penalty of sin, then, as already shown, Christ has not
borne that penalty. If it be a term of suffering, from which annihilation gives
release, redemption is seriously depreciated. This view is beset by
difficulties akin to those which led us to abandon. the "wider hope," and in
addition to these it presents a difficulty of another and far graver kind. As
the writer last quoted puts it, the punishment "will be inflicted according to
each one's deserts," the annihilation will be "the necessary consequence of not
being in Christ." We are thus asked to believe in a God who puts forth His
power solely to keep His creatures in existence until "the uttermost farthing"
of penalty has been exacted, and who then, when every question of righteous
claim is settled, and love might pity and save, turns away to leave them to
their fate. And this, too, on the plea that God is a God of love!
Either
there exists a righteous necessity to punish sin, or there does not. If there
be no such necessity, then all punitive suffering is inflicted wantonly and
cruelly. If, on the other hand, sin must be punished, how and when is that
punishment to cease? The hell of the Bible is consistent with Divine love, but
the hell of the annihilationist is more horrible even than the conventional
hell of popular theology. Is such a hell to make men righteous and holy - this
awful pit of shrieking, cursing men, made desperate by despair, and maddened by
the knowledge that if God would only let them alone their torment would cease
for ever? These sins of the lake of fire, are they to go unpunished? Does the
quality of guilt depend on the atmosphere of earth, and not on the unchanging
laws of God?
The only difference between the hell of the annihilationist
and the coarse hell of medieval theologians consists in the duration of the
sinner's misery. And yet, while we are told that reason and conscience and
natural affection, and our apprehension of the character of God, revolt against
the belief in eternal punishment, we are to be satisfied with belief in ages of
torment for the sinner, albeit the only possible explanation of hell,
consistently with Divine love, is no longer applicable. If there be some
necessity of which we know nothing, why fallen beings should continue to exist,
then we can understand the Devil's presence in Eden and the fact of an eternal
hell; but if the theories of conditional immortality be accepted, the
continuance of evil in this world is no longer an intellectual difficulty only,
but a moral difficulty of the gravest kind, and hell stands out as a hideous
exhibition of wanton and remorseless wrath.
What then is the cost at which
the theories of the annihilationist may be accepted as an article of the
Christian faith? First, we must assume that death is extinction of being, which
the Scripture unequivocally teaches it is not. Next, we must believe that God's
first solemn warning against sin was an idle threat, which He had no intention
of fulfilling; and that the truest word spoken to Adam was that which, for six
thousand years, men have called "the Devil's lie," " Ye shall not surely die."
More than this, we must recognise that the death of Christ was the destruction
of His humanity, and His resurrection a piece of transcendental jugglery to
conceal the Devil's triumph and deceive the saints of God, who for eighteen
centuries have believed that the Blessed One Who wept at the grave of Lazarus,
and sat travel-soiled and weary at Sychar's well, was upon the Father's throne
as MAN, whereas His manhood perished upon Calvary, and He is no longer Man but
only God. And all this mingled folly and error must be accepted, forsooth, to
screen the reputation of Almighty God, now endangered by our belief in hell in
the midst of nineteenth-century enlightenment!
Chapter Nine
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