The whole question is this: Is eternal punishment in the Bible? Whether it is a blot on the name of God or not, if it is in the Bible, it is there to be believed–if the Bible is accepted as God’s revelation. If the doctrine is a stain on His reputation, and if it is found in the Bible, then let the Bible be discarded as blasphemy, and let the world be purified from its baleful presence.
But what character does this world ascribe to its Creator? To say that eternal punishment is a blot on His name is to assume that in this world His reputation is at variance with such a doctrine. Is it so that among men the wide world over, God is famous for His goodness, grace, kindness, tenderness, compassion, and love? Is His name dearer to men than any other, and is it pronounced by every lip with all the holy reverence and warmth of affection which one would expect to hear from a creature concerning his beneficent Creator?
What name has He in this world on which this hell-doctrine casts such aspersions? Have I been dreaming when I thought I heard the murmurings, the mutterings of discontent, and the blasphemies which rise on every hand, filling the ear of heaven? Has the corruption, the violence, the cruelty, the deceit, of which I have thought myself the witness, been but a horrible nightmare, a sort of delirium tremens, the result of a heated feverish imagination, to which I alone am subject?
“An aspersion upon His character” indeed! A nice character the world gives Him! Who of all the sons of men does not think that, if he had the power, he would be able to do a great deal better for himself than God is doing? Who would give himself over into the hand of God that He might do with him just as it pleases Him? Is not the thought of the Creator more a terror to the creature than anything else? Isn’t the state of the world, as it is, a greater blot on the name of the Creator than anything else? Here He is rebelled against and dishonored, and has borne with it for almost six thousand years. And how do we know it will not go on like this forever? We are told it is improving and that man is working out his own salvation. I fail to see the improvement, even in a purely moral sense.
We are told that this doctrine makes God to appear cruel and vindictive, and therefore men turn with loathing from the gospel. But as far as my knowledge of man goes, such a Being would be very much after man’s own heart, and would be very popular. I do not believe that any human being was ever influenced in his rejection of the gospel by the notion of eternal torment. I have often heard men speak of their coming to Christ, and of the power which led them to Him. Almost invariably it was the terror of wrath which first woke them up from the deadly stupor which held their souls captive.
There are two things which are always present to a soul when he turns to Christ. The blessed Lord in Luke 15 presents the return of the prodigal as the result of two great principles at work in his soul: his own perishing condition, and the grace of the heart of the father. Take away the notion of eternal punishment from the gospel and you take away the sense of the necessity of salvation out of the soul of the hearer. If there is such a thing as annihilation, the terror of endless torment is gone; and since the natural man has no desire for such a place as heaven, he has no need of salvation.
Again, if there is opportunity for salvation in the world to come, he will leave it off till then. Why should he miss the present enjoyment of the world and the gratification of his fleshly desires? Who can’t recognize in these substitutes for the truth of God the lie of the old serpent, who said to our first parents in the garden, “Thou shalt not surely die”?
The fact is, men know enough about what is involved in being followers of Christ to convince them that they could not pursue the pleasures they delight in if they believed the gospel; there is also the shame of the cross; and thirdly, there is the pride of heart that forbids the sinner to take his place as a good-for-nothing creature and submit himself to the grace of God. Men are snared by their lusts, hindered by their guilty pride and innate hatred of all that is of God, and ashamed to submit, in the face of the world, to the lowly Saviour of the lost. All these things unite to keep man away from God–but not the doctrine of eternal punishment, which has in most cases a large part in convincing the soul to turn to the Lord.
We are told that the doctrine of eternal punishment presents God in the character of a cruel, merciless, and vindictive Being, who cares nothing for the welfare of His creatures. Yet it was the One who was on earth the witness of the grace and love of God to man who was the first to testify fully and clearly the endless duration of the suffering of the lost.
In the Old Testament, wrath was largely presented as governmental, and the Spirit of God did not usually carry it beyond the death of the body; but in the testimony by Christ, infinite and eternal things are brought to light: the heart of Deity, the heart of man, the lake of fire, the glory of God. In the light which radiates from the Son of God everything is revealed. This is why we have eternal torment brought prominently before the souls of men. Everything is out, and there is nothing more to be revealed. In the Old Testament, we had neither the love of God nor the judgment of the impenitent as we have them in the New.
Did Jesus present God as cruel and vindictive? It is in Him God has come to light: “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” It is by Him we know that God is love. Yet it is He who speaks of the undying worm and the quenchless fire. And it is against God manifest in the flesh that the men of this world have to stand up to do battle for the character of their Creator! Are we to take our ideas of God from the philosophers of the world and reject the revelation God has given of Himself by His Son? Both He and His apostles taught the doctrine of everlasting punishment.
In the Bible, the doctrine is very plainly taught. I defy any of those men who deny it to put such a doctrine before us in other and plainer words than it is put before us in the Scriptures. Let them try it by Greek, English, or any other language they choose. No words could be stronger, clearer, or more explicit than the words used by the Holy Spirit when describing the eternal consequences of rejecting Christ.
But if this doctrine presents God as a vengeful and vindictive Being, what must the characteristics be of those who have imbibed it, and have been therefore morally formed by it? What unmerciful man-haters they must be! But have we found them so? Have they not rather been characterized by love, even to their enemies, by doing good to them that hated them and praying for those who despitefully used them and persecuted them?
And has it not been where the Bible was hated, and hidden away from the people, and unread by the priests, that hatred, cruelty, violence, and murder have luxuriated? Love to God and to His people, and desire for the salvation of sinner, have marked those born of God, yet the eternal punishment of the wicked has been a prominent article in their faith.
It may be that some have failed clearly to apprehend the manner in which this truth is set before us in the Word, and have allowed their natural minds a license to revel in a region which they no sooner entered than they lost their way. But that does not alter the fact that the doctrine is there, and that they saw it there, and that their anxiety for the deliverance of others from such a judgment, as well as their gratitude for their own deliverance, was boundless.
According to these non-eternity-of-punishment advocates it was a demon, and not God, who was worshipped by such men as Luther, Rutherford, Bunyan, McCheyne, and Spurgeon; but from which of the demons did these men of God get their meekness and gentleness, the breadth and depth of affection for the souls of their fellowmen? From what cruel and vindictive being did they derive the holy zeal that lifted them above all that was of mere human nature, and led them to such lives of self-sacrifice, and inspired them to supplications for the blessing of their persecutors?
It was from the lips of Jesus they gathered that which made them what they were, and what He told them as to the doom of the wicked was received by them with the same simple faith as was that which He said regarding the blessing of the believer.