BY THE REV. D. BEATON, WICK.
I.
THERE is scarcely any subject to which the thoughts of serious-minded persons can be directed, which is so solemn and so awesome, as the doctrine of eternal punishment. The very thought that sentient beings are capable of existing through the immeasurable years of eternity, and enduring the just consequences of their sins, is overwhelming. In recent times a world-wide propaganda has been set in motion with the purpose of giving ‘deliverance to the minds of men from what has been unhesitatingly termed a “barbaric dogma.” One of the great aims of the emissaries of Millenial Dawnism, whose literature is scattered broadcast throughout our cities, towns, and villages, is to teach that there is no such doctrine taught in the Bible. And in this cruel work Pastor Russell has an able coadjutor in Mrs. White, the prophetess and high priestess of the Seventh Day Adventists, whose book, “The Great Controversy,” has had a very wide circulation, and which is to be found in homes whose inmates never dream that they have wasted money on a book that has a vast amount of unscriptural and pernicious teaching. Mrs. White does not go about the bush in the matter. “The theory of eternal punishment,” she says, “is one of the false doctrines that constitute the wine of the abominations of Babylon,” and those who believe in the doctrine “are deluded by the sophistry of Satan.” Pastor Russell also denies this doctrine, and, as a consequence, both he and Mrs. White hold the doctrine of annihilationism.
In discussing this momentous and solemn subject, we do so from a sense of duty owing to the active propaganda that is made throughout the land, alike in the press, by literature and from the platform. It is not our purpose, in the meantime, to advance the argument that this doctrine is consistent with God’s justice, love, and purpose in creation. That has been done admirably in Goulburn’s Everlasting Punishment. Neither do we intend to discuss the Old Testament teaching on the subject—though what it has to say will have a bearing on our subject—especially its doctrine of Sheol, which is sometimes translated in our English version as grave, and sometimes as hell. Perhaps the most satisfactory discussion of the signification of this term and its New Testament equivalent, Hades, is to be found in Dr. Shedd’s Doctrine of Endless Punishment, which will be laid under contribution in dealing with the teaching of the New Testament on endless punishment. In a matter of this kind there are a few points that must be insisted on at the outset. (1) The only knowledge we have of heaven and hell is derived from Scripture. If this be so we are as much bound to accept its teaching on the one as on the other. As far as we are aware there has never been any attempt on the part of those who accept the Scriptures to tone down the meaning of eternal as applied to life. We willingly and gladly give it its full significance. Why not do the same with everlasting when applied to everlasting punishment? (2) We are specially to be on our guard against our feeling acting as arbitrator in this solemn matter. Careful and honest examination will reveal to us that most of the opposition to this doctrine is traceable to our feelings which influence our judgment, and which then sets out on a mission to get some arguments that will soothe the feelings. We are here dealing with a matter that supremely concerns the administration of justice, and in this sphere feeling may be a meddlesome intruder if not worse. If feelings were to rule in the administration of justice most of His Majesty’s Judges might resign. (3) It is to be borne in mind that in considering this subject, and passing an adverse verdict, we are not in a position to do so because we are prejudiced parties. The opinion of a criminal about the law that dooms him to penal servitude for life may be eloquently and strongly enough expressed, but it will not turn the scales of justice, in the hand of a righteous judge, by one hair’s breadth.
It may be necessary, at this point, to briefly explain some of the technical terms which will appear in the course of this article for the benefit of our readers. As was to be expected, different views have been held by different parties on the fate of the finally impenitent. (1) There is the doctrine of Conditional Immortality or Annihilationism. According to this view man was not created immortal, he becomes immortal only when he believes in Christ. Those who die Christless are raised for judgment—for even Annihilationists cannot get rid of the Judgment—and then cease to exist; they are annihilated. This is the doctrine, in one form or another, which is advocated by the Millennial Dawnists, and Seventh Day Adventists. (2) Restorationism or the Larger Hope. According to this view sinners will have another chance after death. It is also advocated by Pastor Russell, and in some of the writings of Dean Farrar. Tennyson, in some of his poems, also sets forth this view, which has given him the title of the Poet of the Larger Hope. (3) Universalism. The advocates of this view hold that all mankind are to be saved. The aim we have in view is not to bring forward arguments to confute these different views, but to present the teaching of the New Testament; and if it teaches, as we believe it does, that there is endless punishment for the wicked, then there is no standing for Conditional Immortality, Restorationism, or Universalism.
No one who reads the New Testament with any care can help realizing that its utterances on this subject are among the most solemn we have in the Bible. Here, if anywhere, we might have expected that the Old Testament utterances would have been presented in a milder form, but instead of that, alike in the words of the Lord Jesus and His disciples, we have the truth presented to us in as solemn a form as words can convey. The plan to be followed in these articles is to show:—(1) That the New Testament teaches that there is a place of punishment; (2) that this punishment is everlasting, without end; and (3) to show that the expressions in the New Testament, which the opponents of this doctrine bring forward in defence of their own position, do not in any way conflict with the teaching on the above doctrine.
HADES.
The first point to be dealt with in proving that the New Testament teaches that there is a place of punishment is to get the meaning of Hades, which is so often translated hell in our version. On turning to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, we find the Hebrew word Sheol, which occurs 65 times, is rendered by Hades with four exceptions; twice it is translated thanatos (death); twice it has no equivalent. In the New Testament Hades is translated hell ten times—Matt. xi. 23, xvi. 18; Luke ix. 15, xvi. 23; Acts ii. 27, 31; Rev. i. 18, vi. 8, xx. 13, xx. 14. Before proceeding further it is necessary to emphasise the fact that Hades is much more than the grave. For Pastor Russell to tell us that “every educated minister now knows that the Hebrew word translated ‘hell’ in the Old Testament Scriptures, means the tomb—the state of death—the only hell that was known for four thousand years,” is quite in keeping with his usual bold assertions, and says very little for the kind of education that the educated minister possesses. (1) Let us now turn to Luke xvi. 22, where it is written:—“The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell (hades) he lifted up his eyes being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom, and he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.” The whole scene pictured to us in this parable leaves an ineradicable impression upon the mind of a state of utter hopelessness and suffering. To tell us the language is symbolical does not get rid of the difficulty it is intended to meet.
(2) In Matt. xi. 23, Luke x. 15, it is written: “Thou, Capernaum, which are exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell (hades).” To tell us that all this threat implies is that Capernaum will be brought down to the place where all living must come is surely the very essence of absurdity. There was something more terrible in the threat than that, and no attempted explanation to rob Hades of its meaning can rob this threat of its significance.
(3) In Matt. xvi. 18, Christ gave the promise to His church that “the gates of hell (hades) shall not prevail against it.” If Hades is simply the grave, the abode of the dead, the good and the bad, then it would not represent Satan’s kingdom.
(4) Hades is represented as the prison of Satan and the wicked. In the vision vouchsafed to John, the Lord said to him, “I have the keys of hell (hades) and death” (Rev. i. 18). These texts are sufficient to prove that Hades, while in some instances it means the grave, signifies in the majority of places where it occurs a place—or at least a condition—of suffering.
GEHENNA.
Another word translated hell in our version must now be considered. Gehenna is translated “hell” nine times, and “hell-fire” three times. The word literally means Valley of Hinnom, and the origin of the name is to be found in the following passages of Scripture. In connection with King Ahaz, we are told that “he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen” (2 Chron. xxviii. 3). Manasseh also “caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom” (2 Chron. xxxiii. 6). When Josiah ascended the throne, however, he “defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech” (2 Kings xxiii. 10). The horrors of the place were deeply imprinted on the popular mind, and the valley of the son of Hinnom, owing to its barbaric religious rites, came to be known as Tophet—the abomination, the place to be spat upon. After King Josiah’s day, the valley became the receptacle for the city’s refuse. Fires were kept continually burning to consume the refuse, and worms fed upon the garbage where the fire was not burning. It is significant that, with the exception of James iii. 6, the word Gehenna was used only by the Lord Jesus, who also spoke of a fire that is not quenched and a worm that died not. In regard to the meaning of the two terms, Dr. Shedd says that on the day of judgment at the command of the Son of God, Hades, the state for the wicked, surrenders its inhabitants that they may be re-embodied and receive the final sentence, and then becomes Gehenna, the final state for them. Hell without the body (hades) becomes hell with the body (gehenna).
OTHER NEW TESTAMENT EXPRESSIONS FOR HELL.
The Apostle Peter in his Second Epistle uses a verb tartaroō, which signifies to cast into tartaros—”God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell” (tartarōsas). Tartaros is the Greek form of the Latin, Tartarus, and was the term used by the heathen to indicate the place of punishment, for even they believed that there was such a place. Another expression, used five times in the book of Revelation, is “lake of fire” (Rev. xix. 20; xx. 10, 14, 15; xxi. 8). The last-quoted passage of scripture throws light on the meaning of the expression, “the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.” Another word used in the book of Revelation, bottomless pit (Greek abussos), is also to be noted. It occurs in two other places in the New Testament—(1) Luke viii. 31, where it signifies the deep waters of the Sea of Galilee; (2) Romans x. 7, “or who shall descend into the deep (abussos),” where it refers to our Lord’s resurrection from among the dead. In the book of Revelation it would appear that it is not the same as the “lake of fire,” for in Rev. xx. 3, Satan is cast into the bottomless pit and a seal set upon him, so that he might not deceive the nations till the thousand years were fulfilled; but, at verse 10, we read that Satan who had been loosed out of his prison was cast into the “lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” The “bottomless pit” has been defined by one as the place where evil spirits are confined, and from whence they may, when allowed by God, return to earth to deceive the nations (Rev. xx. 8).
We have now passed in review the expressions used in the New Testament which bear on a place of punishment, and they are sufficiently conclusive to prove the fact that there is such a place. The next question to be discussed, and which will be dealt with in a future article, is the duration of this punishment—Is it temporary or is it endless?