Facts and
Theories as to a Future State
CHAPTER
XXXVI
"EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT" IN MATT.
XXV
IT is not needful to our present purpose to establish the
particular application of what has been strangely called by some the "parable"
of the sheep and the goats. It is indeed no parable, but a very simple
statement of the separation of the living upon the earth when the Lord comes to
it sets up His throne there, which separation is compared a shepherd separating
his sheep from the goats. It is therefore a part of that premillennial judgment
of the quick already spoken of, and which precedes by more than a thousand
years the judgment of the dead before the great white throne. With this it has
been identified in the popular view, simply because the Lords coming
having been considered to be at the end of the world,* distinction between the
two was not possible.
* The expression in Matt. xiii, xxiv., as before
noticed, is not this, but is "the completion" (or consummation) "of
the age."
But the result has been a disastrous one. For the judgment in
the one case being evidently a discriminative one it was, of course, considered
that the risen saints were to be picked out from sinners by the trial of their
works; and then the natural suggestion followed, that all must wait till the
day of judgment, to know what was to be their everlasting condition. I do not
need again to enter into this, but I shall briefly state the distinction which
the passages themselves show as obtaining between them.
1. The judgment
in Matthew is evidently (and stated to be) when the Lord comes, a coming
connected with various features of the previous part of the prophecy, which
make indisputable its character. That in Rev. xx. 11-15 takes place when
instead of His coming to earth the earth and the heavens flee away.
2. In
Matthew there is no resurrection, and the judgment is of the living "nations,"
not of the dead; while the contrary is true of that in Revelation.
3. In
Matthew they are judged according to their behaviour to some whom the King
styles His "brethren" In Revelation they judged in general "according to their
works."
These are distinctions which are simple enough and broad enough
between the two scenes to prevent their being confounded. There is, however, a
point of resemblance, and it is on this account that I have left the, passage
in Matthew to the present time, that, instead of being slain by the sword as
those are who follow the beast, they on the left hand receive a judicial
sentence, and are sent to the lake of fire as are those in the Apocalyptic
vision; but, as it would seem before the millennium, as the beast and the false
prophet are. I do not say positively that they go directly into it, but so it
would seem. It is certain that they are appointed to "everlasting punishment"
in "everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
Men have
come in with their explanations again here, and to these we must turn. They
have to do chiefly, as our argument has, with the expressions "everlasting
punishment," and "everlasting fire."
With regard to "everlasting
punishment," the objections to the ordinary sense are various, some based upon
the word for everlasting, some upon that for punishment, some upon
considerations apart from the meaning of either word, while some combine
several of these objections together. We must first, in the natural order, look
at the word "punishment," for which several other renderings are suggested -
"cutting off," "restraint," but especially "correction," the word, as it is
stated by Mr. Jukes for example, being "always used for a corrective
discipline, which is for the improvement of him who suffers it."*
*Restitution, p. 129.
The word for "punishment" here is
kolasis, and is given by Liddell and Scott as meaning "a pruning": hence
a checking, punishing, chastisement, correction, punishment." The verb
kolazo, from which it is derived, means "strictly to curtail, dock,
prime, but usually to keep within bounds; hold in check, bridle, check, then to
chastise, correct, punish." The words derived from this show a similar meaning.
Thus we find, "chastisement, punishment"; "a place of chastisement, prison," or
2," an instrument of correction or torture"; "a chastiser, punisher." is the
word used for punish, Acts iv. 21, finding nothing how they might punish them,"
and again 2 Pet. II. 9," to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be
punished" is only found in the passage before us, and in 1 John iv. 18: "fear
hath torment."
All is against the rendering of "cutting off," which is
adopted by Ellis and Read,* Blain, Storrs, Hastings, § Morris,
and even on the orthodox side by Landis.# Blain adopts Ellis and Reads
rendering, "And these will go to the cutting off that takes place at the age"!
Morris says that it refers to the "cutting off" of false Christians from the
flock of Christ, and from every pretence to the kingdom.¶ And even as to I
John iv. 18, he says that its being represented by "torment" "is not
justifiable; for the word relates to the children of God, who are not yet
made perfect in an experimental knowledge of the love of God. They
are not tormented; but they are cut off from much experimental blessedness,
which properly pertains to them." But this is poor and foolish reasoning. The
words are "fear - i. e., dread of God - hath torment," and so it has whether in
saint or sinner. "Cutting off" (as he would have it here also) it never is,
being never simply that, as the dictionaries show, and as even Mr. Hudson, who
has no prejudice certainly against the word, admits. He says, "This (meaning of
excision - cutting off) seems to be supported by the cognate word,
and by the original sense of pruning. But in pruning the tree is
not cut off - only the branches. And though, by the laws of
language, the word might easily have acquired this sense, we find no proof
that it has done so."** This argument is thus fairly given up.
*Bible versus Tradition. Death not Life, p. 79. Six Sermons, p. 59.
§Paulitie Theology, p. 59. #Immortality of the Soul, p. 480. ¶What is
Man i pp. 100, 101. **Debt and Grace, pp. 189, 190.
The rendering
by "restraint," Mr. Hudson says, "is favoured by the use of the present tense
in 2 Pet. ii. 9 (comp. ver. 4; Jude 6; and perhaps Acts. iv. 21), and by a
remark of Schleusner. It is favoured by the tenor of various passages, which
represents the wicked as the troublers of the righteous, to be effectually
restrained by Gods final judgments. But," he adds, "this idea
is not prominent in Matt. xxv., and such a rendering would be hardly tenable."
He gives the following texts: Psa. xxxvii.; lxxiii.; xcii.;
Isa. lxvi. 24; Dan. xii. 2, 3; Matt. xiii. 40-43,; 2 Thess. i. 6-10; 2 Pet. ii.
4-12; Jude 5-7, 13.
The word certainly would not serve the cause of
annihilationism, nor even of restorationism, if the "restraint" is to be
"everlasting" This meaning, however, connects with that which
restorationists would give, according to the passage which Mr. Hudson quotes
from Eustathius, "Kolasis is properly a certain kind of punishment; that is, a
certain chastising and restraining of the disposition, but not vindictive
punishment."
It is on the ground that the word expresses, not
vindictive, but corrective suffering, that Mr. Jukes and Dr. Farrar take their
stand. The latter affirms that "kolasis is a word which in its sole proper
meaning has reference to the correction and bettering of him that endures
it. "* Mr. Jukes adds, that "those who hold the common view are obliged
to confess this," and supports this by an appeal to Archbishop Trenchs
"Synonyms of the New Testament," who distinguishing between the two words
kolasis and timoria, says, "In timoria, according to its classical use, the
vindictive character of the punishment is the prominent thought; it is the
Latin ultio; punishment as satisfying the inflicters sense of
outraged justice, as defending his own honour and that of the violated law. . .
in kolasis on the other hand, is more the notion of punishment as it has
reference to the correction and bettering of him that endures it." As to which
he refers to Philo, Plato, and Clement of Alexandria, and adds, "And this is
Aristotles distinction."
*Eternal Hope, p. 200.
It is true
that the Archbishop resists the restorationist application of this. He says:
"It would be a very serious error however to attempt to refer this distinction
in its entireness to the words as employed in the New Testament." Mr.
Jukes comment upon this is, "that is, it would be a serious error to give
the word its proper sense." Why should it be a serious error," asks Dr.
Farrar, "to refrain from reading into a word a sense which it does not
possess?"
Archbishop Trench has, however, produced witnesses for this
latter assertion,* which those who take him thus to task prefer to disregard.
Indeed it cannot be shown that what Dr. Farrar considers "the sole proper
meaning" of the word is ever the meaning of it, either in the Septuagint or the
Apocryphal writings, in which we have certainly better authority for the
meaning of words in the New Testament than can possibly be found in Plato or
Aristotle.
*"In proof that kolasis had acquired in Hellenistic Greek this
severe sense, and was used simply as punishment or torment, with no necessary
underthought of the bettering through it of him who endured it, we have only to
refer to such passages as the following: Josephus, Ant. xv. 2. 2; Philo, De
Agricul. 9; .Mart. Polycar. 2; 2 Macc. iv. 88; Wisd. of Sol. xix. 4" (Syn. of
New Test. vii.).
It occurs six times in the Septuagint of Ezekiel:
twenty-one times in the Apocryphal books. "So iniquity shall not be your ruin"
(Ezek. xviii. 30) is translated "your punishment." In a passage in 1 Esdras, we
find the disobedient enjoined to be punished whether by death or other
inffliction, "penalty of money, or imprisonment": where for "infliction" the
word is actually the very word said to be opposed so entirely in meaning to
kolasis, - "punished by timoria"! and where death, the alternative of fine and
imprisonment, is certainly not a "corrective discipline." In the book of Wisdom
the word is applied to the punishment of the Egyptians, and in the 2 Macc. also
to death.
Prof. Bartlett, in his Life and Death Eternal, has a
long note on the "meaning of kolasis," in which he brings forward a number of
other instances, citing among the rest Plutarch, the (spurious) second epistle
of Clement, and the Martyrium Polycarpi. The list of passages from the
Septuagint and Apocrypha is as follows: Ezek. xiv. 3, 4, 7; xviii. 30; xliii.
12; xliv. 12; 1 Esdras viii. 24; Wisd. iii. 4; xi. 5, 9, 14, 17; xii 15, 27;
xiv. 10; xvi. 1,2, 9,24; xviii. 11, 22; xix. 4; 1 Macc. vii. 7; 2 Macc. iv. 38;
vi. 14; 3 Macc. i. 3; vi. 3.
Dr. Farrar can scarcely be acquitted then,
either of superficial acquaintance with the subject upon which he speaks, or of
wilfully shutting his eyes to the facts before him, some of which are cited in
Dr. Trenchs book. Even in the New Testament, where out of four passages
one is that in dispute, the evidence is certainly against him. "Fear hath
kolasin," can hardly refer to "corrective discipline"; and the "punishment" of
the wicked in the day of judgment which Peter speaks of, we have, as we
believe, more right to claim than he.
The word means then practically
in the Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament, "punishment" simply, and the
mode of punishment it does not express. Fine, imprisonment, death may come
under the term; in the epistle of John (as well as in other passages outside of
Scripture) it can scarcely imply other than suffering in some form. Here it is
" everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," and that we have
seen is torment: "they shall be tormented day and night forever and ever."
But arguments pursue us still; for to yield here would be to give up
all. These turn mainly upon the term for "everlasting," and they are of so very
similar nature, that we think we shall omit nothing if we allow Mr. Minton to
be their expositor.
He objects that "everlasting punishment" -
"is
an expression taken out of a most difficult parable, and which occurs nowhere
else in the whole Bible. The moral of the parable is plain enough. But in that
aspect it has no bearing whatever on the question. It is only in its
prophetical aspect that we are now concerned with it, and in that aspect it is
beset with difficulties."*
*Way Everlasting, p. 41, etc.
This is
the cry habitually raised. But why should prophetical questions be a
difficulty, when in point of fact people of all kinds of prophetical belief see
none, and agree perfectly in their interpretation? As to being a "parable," one
verse and a half introduces and dismisses all that is in it of this character
There is a simple comparison of the separation the Lord makes in that day
between the righteous and the. wicked to a shepherd dividing his sheep from the
goats, then immediately the righteous are called "sheep," and the wicked "
goats"; after which, instead of the figure being kept up, it is immediately
dismissed, and this language never returned to; and the details are quite
inconsistent with the figure being kept up.
Mr. Minton goes on: -
"Whether the event it refers to will take place at the beginning, or at the
end, of the millennium; whether the sheep and the goats represent
nations or individuals, and in either case what nations or
individuals, - whether Jew or Gentile, Christian or heathen, true and false
professors in the church; and lastly, who are Christs
brethren, apparently distinguished both from the sheep and the
goats ; all these questions are hotly disputed."
No doubt; but, as I
have said, it has little to do with the matter. The parabolic nature of the
passage has been most unwarrantably pressed, and as a consequence a veil of
mystery has been thrown over what is very simple in character. What may fairly
be questioned, as for instance who the "brethren" of the King may be, need
raise no question touching our present subject. The everlasting punishment into
which the wicked are sent away is defined as plainly as can be to be
"everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." It may be doubtful
who are those punished, and when they are; the punishment itself is not
doubtful.*
*I do not mean that to myself these questions of who or when are
doubtful. I have no question that they are the "nations" evangelized by the
"everlasting gospel "(Rev. xiv. 6, 7) during the interval that elapses between
the taking away of the saints to heaven, and their appearing in glory with the
Lord. The interval is of seven years at least, the last week of Daniels
seventy, and the time of preparation of the earth for its blessing, as the
present period is that of the gathering for heaven. The "brethren" are, I
believe, the publishers of this gospel, and Jews. But all this it would take
many pages to establish from Scripture, and is quite unnecessary to the
argument.
"And yet it is out of such a parable as this, that a term is
chosen to be unquestionably the main pillar of so stupendous an edifice as the
theory of endless misery, and to be the name by which it is universally known.
The name may well express the doctrine, and thus here come into common
use for it, without offence to those who claim that they hold eternal
punishment as much as we do. If the term is itself so offensive, it surely must
be because felt to be in opposition really to their views. Why urge the
"difficulties" of the passage, if not so? But because it gives a name to the
doctrine, it is not, therefore, necessary to the doctrine, which has been
already abundantly proved, apart from this.
Mr. Minton next comes to
the argument as to "everlasting," which, although in fact already met, we shall
allow him to state in his own way: -
"There is at once the first crack in
your infallible proof. Everlasting " - he adduces - "the everlasting
hills," and Aarons "everlasting" priesthood. everlasting does
not necessarily mean endless. Why are you so sure that it does so
in the passage before us? Your answer is ready: because the same word, though
rendered differently in our translation, is in the same verse applied to the
life of the righteous, which we know to be endless. This is without doubt the
Sebastopol of your position. Thousands of persons who are wholly unable to
follow anything like an argument, can feel the full force of this fact. When
they once know that the word is the same in each clause of the sentence, they
are perfectly confident that it must bear the same meaning in each.
"But why are you so sure that it means endless in either case? That
eternal life means endless life elsewhere cannot prove it. We know that the
expression is used in at least two different senses namely, as a present
possession, and as an object of hope. . . . Why may there not be some third
aspect in which eternal life' can be presented differing from, however
closely connected with the other two?"
Mr. Minton surely confounds
things here. A thing may be seen in many aspects, and yet after all be but the
same thing. "Eternal life" is always "eternal life," in whatever aspect seen,
as a house is not a tree, whether seen from the north or from the south. Thus
there is no warrant for his suggestion.
"Now here it becomes necessary
to ascertain the precise meaning of the word aionios, rendered
eternal or everlasting. And happily there is no
difficulty either in its etymology or its usage. It is simply the adjective of
the word aion, an age or period. It means, therefore, belonging to, or
lasting throughout, some age or period. What that period is, in any specified
instance, can only be known from the nature of the case, from the context, or
from collateral evidence."
Here Mr. Minton ignores the later use of
aion for eternity, which, we have seen, some of the stoutest advocates
of limited periods have to admit, and makes the matter simple by denying all
that does not consist with his theory. Aionios is never in the New
Testament, when used in a time sense, less than "everlasting." It may be
limited by the nature of what it qualifies, as "everlasting" itself is; but
that does not make the meaning more doubtful in the one case than in the other.
"Sometimes it is left quite indefinite, as in the everlasting
hills. Sometimes it is unmistakably precise, as in everlasting
consolation and good hope ; "where the assurance is, that the consolation
provided will never fail us, but will last throughout the whole period of our
earthly life, that is, as long as we require it."
Which last would show
that instead of being "unmistakably precise" according to Mr. Minton, its
meaning has in this case to be determined by collateral evidence, and is not
precise at all. The truth is, however, it is precise, and instead of being
bounded by a lifetime, the consoling thing, the consolation, lasts forever in
the strictest sense. If the future state did not fulfil it, it would be truly
bounded by a lifetime, but that would make it only the hypocrites hope
that perishes. And so in the next example he produces.
"So also St.
Paul says, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, literally
to the age, elsewhere translated forever. The
aion there is the period of his own life, and, if the saying was to be
rendered idiomatically, it should have been translated. as long as I
live. "
I should think if Paul ate no meat for the period of his
life, he would eat none literally forever; and the argument is but a plausible
deception. If the apostle were going to eat meat in eternity, it would have
force. Perhaps Mr. Minton thinks he is, but he should show us why he thinks so.
"The question therefore stands thus: Is there any aion, except
an endless one, to which the eternal life in Matt. xxv. 46, can refer? And if
so, is there any reason to believe that it does refer to such aion
there? Turn to Luke xx. 35, They which shall be accounted worthy to
obtain that world (aion) and the resurrection from the dead. You and I
believe that the age there spoken of is the millennial age. . . then why might
not the obtaining of the blessedness connected with that age, by
resurrection in the case of the dead, or by change in the case of the living,
be called æonial life, which we render eternal
life, deriving our word eternal from the Latin ætas, or
age? And would there not be a peculiar propriety in this, if, at the same time
that those who are counted worthy enter into the life of that age, the members
of that visible church, then living on the earth, who are counted unworthy,
incur destruction from the presence of the Lord, and are gathered in bundles to
be burnt?"
Let Mr. Minton produce a passage in which
"æonial" means "millennial" plainly, and he will be entitled to be
listened to. This he cannot do, and if he could he would, we may be sure. Even
then, how could "æonial life mean sometimes "everlasting," sometimes
"millennial" life? Again, what is the meaning of "millennial" life? It cannot
be life simply entered into at the millennium, but life belonging to it. Does
the believers life belong to the millennium? In no sense whatever. It is
not the "life of that age" into which believers enter; whatever special reign
they may have during that time, their life belongs to eternity in the strictest
sense.
I agree with Mr. Minton that the judgment here spoken of
precedes the millennium, and that it is a judgment of individuals To me these
are both as clear as need be, and therefore I need not bring forward his proofs
for them. The argument he founds on this is none the less worthless. But he
comes now to the question in answer to the postmillennialist who he thinks will
not be moved by his prophetic expositions. He will allow "eternal" to mean
endless, for the sake of argument.
"And suppose it does, how much
nearer would the passage be to proving the doctrine of endless misery ? Not a
particle."
But why then so much pains to prove that it means "millennial"?
Why, the protest against a term for the doctrine taken from so "difficult a
parable"? Is Mr. Minton fighting for the sake of fighting, to show us his power
as a combatant, or for the truth? Why contest points which as far as the
doctrine in question is concerned, have "not a particle" of importance?
"In order to make it prove that, they would have to prove that the word
"eternal" cannot be applied to anything which is accomplished once for all, but
the effects of which are eternal; that for anything to be eternal, it must be
in eternal process of accomplishment. This is your assumption throughout.
Others have asserted it more confidently. But what then are we to make of
eternal judgment? Will God be eternally judging the wicked, as well
as eternally punishing them? Will not the judgment take place once for all? In
what sense can it be called eternal, except that its effects are eternal - that
is, if the word be used in its most extended meaning - in other words, that it
will be final and irreversible? And what are we to make of the eternal
redemption, which Christ is spoken of as having wrought out for
us? It is distinctly declared to have been accomplished once for all: it
will not be a continual process lasting through eternity. It is called eternal,
because its effects will be eternal And why should not punishment be called
eternal on the same principle? If eternal judgment is not eternal judging, nor
eternal redemption eternal redeeming, why should eternal punishment be eternal
punishing"?
Now the words are, "these shall go away into everlasting
punishment," and this is explained to be "everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels." It is singular how the force of these expressions is
felt, almost admitted, and then denied. First, the complaint is, that a phrase
is taken out of a most difficult parable; then everlasting is not everlasting
but millennial; then if it is everlasting it is perfectly correct annihilation
doctrine: the effect of the punishment is eternal, and punishment is not
"punishing." Now even as to the last it is really the literal force of the
word,* which, moreover, always implies suffering in some form. Fine,
imprisonment, death are that, and the passage in the first epistle of John,
already quoted, cannot be rendered otherwise than by some word near akin to
"torment." It is not a word that will possibly allow the thought of the
sufferer passing away from under it, while yet it endures. The punishment
cannot continue when there is no longer a person to be punished. Annihilation
cannot be eternal punishment. This is why Mr. Minton is so anxious to have it
"millennial," as we have seen. He is uneasy under the very idea of its being
eternal. Why will we call it so, quoting the words of a very difficult parable?
Then he turns round and says, let it be eternal, it is all right, and we all
believe in it alike. It must be seriously doubted if we do.
*Kolasis not
kolasma.
But "eternal redemption" is not an eternal process, and
"eternal judgment" is not; why should eternal punishment be? As for eternal
judgment, of course "sentence" (krima) is not always being passed; but the
person is always under it, or it would not be eternal. And similarly as to
redemption, the person is always enjoying it. If the punishment then be
inflicted suffering (and that is the very idea of punishment), the person
cannot cease to be and the suffering go on. Let Mr. Minton find the passage in
which kolasis does not imply suffering of some sort, and then he will
have some argument; but then it will be easy to prove that every beast that
dies (and multitudes die in severest pain) suffers eternal punishment as truly
as a man. And he cannot deny it. A beasts loss may be, of course, as much
less than a mans as a man is more than a beast. But eternal punishment is
as real in the one case as in the other.
It will not do then to talk as
Mr. Minton does of the effect being eternal. The effect and what produces the
effect, are very different things. In "eternal redemption" the redeemed are not
merely eternally enjoying the blessedness into which they are brought as the
effect of redemption, but the redemption also itself. And this is, if you like
to say so, one of the effects; but the redemption itself is possessed and
enjoyed forever. It is in vain to plead that the punishment is endured forever,
when there is no longer any being to endure it.
As to the "everlasting
fire," Mr. Minton as usual refers to Sodom and Gomorrah, but adds nothing fresh
to the argument.
We have seen what this "everlasting fire" is, and what its
effect. It would be but the mere lengthening unnecessarily of a sufficiently
protracted argument to take this up again. We have still to consider some
things connected with this doctrine in Scripture, and it is time to turn to
these.
Go To Chapter Thirty-Seven
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