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A lecture delivered in Massey Hall,
January 31, 1906
Introduction
The Lecture
The Origin of
Hell Torments
Gehenna
The rank
hell torment preaching during a revival meeting in Massey Hall, by THE
EVANGELIST, DR. TORREY, was the immediate cause of this lecture being given at
this time. Dr.
Torrey was first challenged to meet Mr. Williams in public discussion on the
question: "Do the Scriptures Teach the Doctrine of Unending Hell
Torment?"
Upon his refusal, arrangements were made for
the lecture. The audience consisted of about five thousand people, and
with the exception of a few interruptions during the first part of the lecture,
good attention was given, great interest manifested, and hearty acceptance, by
many, declared.
The chair was occupied
by Mr. E.H. Chart, of
In behalf of the
Christadelphians of Toronto I extend to one and all a sincere and hearty
welcome here tonight.
The assembling
together of this vast audience is a practical demonstration of your sympathy
with that bulwark of British institutions - freedom of speech, freedom of
thought, and, above all, an open Bible.
Much has been said in
this city during the past thirty days upon the doctrine of unending torment;
the Christadelphians believing that theory to be contrary to Christianity,
Science and Sense, and a gross libel upon the Bible, which they believe to be
wholly divinely inspired, challenged Dr. Torrey to a public debate with Mr.
Williams of Chicago, author, publisher and lecturer, to be held in this city,
the metropolis of Ontario, that the searchlights of Divine Truth might be
turned upon a question that has baffled so many and has been held up to the
dissecting eye of an inquiring public.
Dr. Torrey refused,
declaring that he had no time - no time, my friends, time to proclaim for four
weeks in your midst the terrible doctrine of hell torments, yet no time to
defend it.
If Dr. Torrey has no time, Mr. Williams has time, and has come from Chicago to
acquit God of the blasphemous charge that has been made against Him and His
Holy Word; and to demonstrate to you the scriptural teaching concerning the
destiny of the wicked and the state of the dead.
Beloved friends, we
have no outstretched hand for your money, but we have this favor to ask of you,
and that is, that you lay aside all prejudices and give the lecturer a fair and
impartial hearing.
Mr. Chart then read
the 14th Chap. of Job and called upon Mr. Williams to come forward and deliver
his lecture - "Hell Torments a Fallacy, a Failure and a Fraud."
Mr. Williams was
received with applause.
Esteemed
and Respected friends - Perhaps to many of you I may add, fellow countrymen,
for although a resident of the
It is the thought that
I am to address an audience of Britons tonight that gives me confidence that I
shall be allowed a fair hearing, or given, as President Roosevelt terms it,
"a square deal," at your hands.
To Britain, more than
to any other nation, we are indebted for the liberty of the Press and the
freedom of the Platform; and I must believe that this vast audience of
intelligent, educated people, will respect and honor the inestimable principles
which belong to every freeman as a legacy from the greatest nation upon the
face of the earth today.
Moreover, to
It is upon this book
we all depend for a knowledge of the truth upon the important subject we are to
consider tonight. No man, from the pope of Rome to a Dr. Torrey, can know
anything about the future punishment of the wicked apart from what is revealed
in the Bible; and the Bible is a book we all have in our possession, God, in
His providence, having given it to the world in almost every known language upon
the face of the earth, and to us in our own mother-tongue.
Now we open this book
Divine, and we read its first words:
"In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth." That is a simple declaration
of a fact. We behold the heavens above that declare the glory of God, and
the earth beneath shows forth His handiwork. But do we read, "In the beginning God created
hell?" We are clearly told of things that God did
create - the heaven and the earth, the firmament, the waters, the creatures of
the earth, the sea, and the sky; and we are told of the formation of man; but
we read not a word about the creation of hell. Why?
We have a right
to ask, Why?
Heaven is a created
thing, earth is a created thing, all the things and the creatures named are created
things; and if there is a hell it must be a created thing - where, I ask again,
is there a word in
the Scriptures about the creation of hell? It is supposed by a perverted Christianity that heaven was
intended to be the eternal abode of the righteous. If, as is supposed by
Dr. Torrey and his fellows and followers, hell was intended to be the eternal
abode of the wicked - of course I mean Dr. Torrey's hell - why was there not
the same reason for recording, "In the beginning God created hell" as
there was recording, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth?"
The Scriptures teach
the existence of a greater number of savages, heathen, and wicked people, than
of righteous ones, and the facts of history and of our own times make this
quite manifest. The population of Dr. Torrey's hell, therefore, must
always be far greater than the population of heaven; hell, therefore, should be
a much larger place than heaven. On this hypothesis, it surely deserved
mention among created things, if it ever was created; and in view of the
importance that Dr. Torrey and his fellow-advocates attach to it, and in view
of its alleged horror and its great danger to mankind, the fact that no mention
is made of its creation cannot be ignored upon the plea that it was too
insignificant to be a matter of record when a record was being made of all
created things.
Now, I am not going to
be technical, and limit my challenge to the fact that the creation of hell is
not mentioned in the account of creation, but if its creation can be found
further along in the Bible, I am willing to admit that there is some ground for
the theory. But where is it? I press the question, Where is there
any account in the Word of God of the creation of hell? Where?
I will show you
presently where the fable and the fraud originated, but now I am going to be
bold enough to pass from the negative side to the affirmative side of the
question, and to show that we can be sure and certain, beyond the shadow of a
doubt, that there was no hell created, that there was no hell in existence when
God created the heaven and the earth, the creatures of the earth, the sea and
the sky. I call God to witness against the horrible delusion; listen to
His words:
"And God saw
everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." - Gen. 1:31.
If there was such a
hell there as Dr. Torrey has been trying to frighten you with, do you think God
would have declared that "everything was very good?" Was Moses
inspired to tell the truth, the whole truth, and yet did his inspired pen write
that "everything was very good," when there was such a horrible place
of lurid flame inhabited by a monstrous devil and his victims waiting to engulf
earth's millions to roast them throughout the countless ages of eternity - could
I ask, "everything be very good" and yet such a hell form part of the
"everything?" Let God be true, though it make men liars.
Now as
to the origin of the blasphemous doctrine of hell torments, its revolting
horror, and its savage, insatiable vindictiveness are evidences that it never
originated in the mind of Him who is a God of love and justice - yes, and a God
of law and order. You may be sure that it forms no part of the plan of
Him who is order and harmony to absolute perfection. Can you see order,
can you see harmony, can you see sense, in a theory that sends Abel to heaven and Cain to hell, the one
to bask in bliss and the other to writhe in indescribable torture for six
thousand years, and that after that they, and all of their kind, are to be
brought to judgment? Judge millions who have for ages been tortured!! In the world! in the
name of common sense, I ask you, my friends, I plead with you to think, to
reflect, and as intelligent men and women, I ask you what in the name of common
sense are such poor creatures to be judged for? With such flagrant
confusion as this, with God so libeled and His book so slandered by the Dr.
Torreys of the pulpits, do you wonder that there are infidels?
If there were a God such as the popular
fiction pictures, do you think sensible people and people who have hearts of
love could devoutly worship him? They might cringe and crawl like the
slave under the whip of the slave driver, but worship and love would be
impossible, and, let me add, creatures upon whom the terrors of hell torments
would have any effect in the way of intimidating or frightening them, are those
whose existence is the result of that part of the curse which sin brought, in
the multiplication of "sorrow and conception;" and
these are so degenerate that they cannot look up into the heavens and behold
the face of Him who is the perfection of justice and love. To preserve
millions of such creatures in hell torment would be to add a thousand-fold to
the curse, and to perpetuate evil instead of accomplishing "the
restitution of all things spoken of by the prophets." The hell torments
fiction was not intended for decent, civilized, and educated people; it was
invented as a "pious fraud" to frighten creatures who could not
otherwise be kept from committing revolting crimes. Hence, as the famous
historian Gibbon says, "With the masses it was equally true, with the
philosophers it was equally false, and with the magistrates it was equally
necessary."
Plato, the Grecian author of the doctrine
of the immortality of the soul, declared it advisable to deceive the masses as
a means of checking their lustful passions, and the silver-tongued
So far as real
conversion is concerned, hell torments is a failure, and to use it as it is
used in so-called revivals is as much a "pious fraud" today as it was
in the days of Plato and other heathen, so-called philosophers.
Now I will read to you
what a Bishop Hopkins has said about hell torments, and leave you to judge
whether it was a compliment to the intelligence of
I am sure you cannot entertain the
shocking thought for a moment, and I cannot think that men of Dr. Torrey's
character can really believe it. But Bishop
Hopkins has not yet finished his flaming picture of hell torments.
Listen: "The smoke of their torment shall ascend up in the sight of the
blessed for ever and ever, and serve, as a most clear glass always before their
eyes, to give them a constant and most affecting view. *** This display of the
divine character" - "of the divine character;" O dear, is it not marvelous that God's
mercy can allow His character to be so shamefully defamed! - "This display of the
divine character and glory will be in favor of the redeemed, and most
entertaining, and GIVE THE HIGHEST PLEASURE TO THOSE WHO LOVE GOD,
AND RAISE THEIR HAPPINESS TO INEFFABLE HEIGHTS. Should this eternal
punishment cease, and this fire be extinguished, it would in a great measure
obscure the light of heaven and put an end to a great part of the happiness and
glory of the blessed." What do you think of that for a bishop?
Could the pen of man do more to blaspheme God, disgrace heaven, and outrage
reason?
I see from the
newspaper reports - and perhaps we can depend more upon the Toronto papers for
truthfulness than we can upon some of those of Chicago - your newspapers report
Dr. Torrey as having spoken of hell torments in all its various forms as a
place of literal fire, and as a condition of mental torture and an endless
gnawing of conscience. But if the wicked are to be in such a condition
endlessly, there must be a place in which the condition will subsist. So
that it would seem that Bishop Hopkins' hell is not too horrible for Dr.
Torrey, fearful and shocking as it is in the light of reason and Scripture.
Dr. Torrey says his
hell is the hospital for the wicked of this world. A hospital! Do you
send your unfortunate ones to hospitals to be tortured? Do they go there
to be tortured without hope? How quickly would your newspapers arouse the
wrath of the people were it to be discovered that even one afflicted inmate of
a hospital were subjected to unnecessary suffering under the surgeon's knife or
otherwise. A hospital, indeed! Do you not think that was a strange
comparison for Dr. Torrey to make?
But the doctor makes a
better comparison when he says that hell is the insane asylum of the
world. Yes, indeed, if there is such a place, a mad house it is, sure
enough. What else can it be? How long do you suppose a sane person
could exist in such a place before he would become a raving maniac?
During the great
Look at this
picture, by a "Rev. J. Furness." I quote from "The Bible
Vindicated," a compilation by the late Mr. Gunn, of Walkerton, Ont.:
"Listen to the tremendous, the horrible uproar of millions and millions of
tormented creatures, mad with the fury of hell. Oh, the screams of fear,
the groanings of horror, the yells of rage, the cries of pain, the shouts of
agony, the shrieks of despair, from millions on millions. There you hear them
roaring like lions, hissing like serpents, howling like dogs, and wailing like
dragons. There you hear the gnashing of teeth, and the fearful
blasphemies of the devils. Above all you hear the roarings of the
thunders of God's anger, which shake hell to its foundations. But there
is another sound. There is in hell a sound like that of many waters; it
is as if all the rivers and oceans in the world were pouring themselves with a
great splash down on the floor of hell. Is it, then, really the sound of
waters? It is. Are the rivers and oceans of earth pouring
themselves into hell? No. What is it, then? It is the sound of
oceans of tears running down from countless millions of eyes. They cry
forever and ever. They cry because the sulphurous smoke torments their
eyes. They cry because of darkness. They cry because they have
lost the beautiful heaven." - what do men "mad with the fury of
hell" know about "the beautiful heaven?" - "They cry
because the sharp fire burns them."
My dear friends, you
will recognize the fact that I am giving you these revolting pictures just as
they have been given to the world by the Dr. Torrey class. They are
written upon the pages of the books of popular churches, and until the books
are committed to the flames, and scandal is wiped completely out, and God's
justice vindicated and the Bible defended, the horrible doctrine must shroud
the pulpits in the blackness of the libel and of the shameful slander.
Suppose one of your citizens
had a dog that became vicious and bit his master's children and endangered the
safety of the neighbors. And suppose the owner of that dog discovered a
chemical which, when injected into the veins and arteries of the dog, would
make it impossible for him to die. Then suppose the owner kindled a fire
in his yard and put the dog into that fire, and then, with folded arms,
complacently looked on, beholding day after day, the writhings of the tortured
creature, and happily listened to his groans and moans and to its constant
howling. What would you think of such a man? How long could you
endure such a sight? What would you do with that suffering dog?
("Shoot him," cried a voice.) Yes, indeed, you would make haste
to put the creature out of existence; and now are we to believe that God is
more heartless than men? To
worship a god that will endlessly torture millions of creatures with no
possibility of remedy - if worship were possible in such a case - is to worship
a being a thousand times more cruel than the most cruel among men. I
may appear to be speaking irreverently, and I am, but not of God, glory be to
His name; but of an invention, the offspring of the savage heart of heathenism,
and for such a god I have no reverence, but the utmost contempt.
There may be a few
people in
But for an
enlightened, educated gentlemen, a D.D., to travel about teaching hell torment
to intelligent people is another matter. Let me again suppose.
Suppose there never was such a man and such a dog as I have supposed, and
suppose someone falsely reported
that one of your respectable citizens had so treated a dog, what would you do
with such a slanderer? ("Shut him up," came from the audience.)
Well, the God of the Bible is not a vindictive monster. He is a God of
love and justice, and every man that
preaches hell torment a thousand times more outrageously slanders Him than
would the falsifier we have supposed slander one of our fellow citizens.
Here is what one of our "Reverends" says - the "Rev." J.
Furness, in a further description of this heathen hell:
"The roof is red
hot, the walls are red, the floor is like a thick sheet of red hot iron.
See! On the middle of that floor stands a girl - she looks about sixteen
years old." Mark you, this youthful girl, only about sixteen years
old. She had not lived long enough to have committed a multitude of sins,
and was of such a tender age that we could hardly think she could have degraded
herself greatly, and if she had been a degenerate by inheritance, that would
surely be an extenuating circumstance. But even suppose she had lived three
score and ten, and had been a sinner during the years of her accountability,
you shall judge when I have read this extract whether the punishment is
consistent with the crime.
When I was young I
heard the eternity of hell torture illustrated by supposing one were to count every grain of sand upon the seashore; then
count over again, one grain at a time, then again, and even then there had not
been a beginning to count the number of ages during which the inhabitants of
hell are to be tortured. Remember, this illustration did not come
from a savage, either, but from a "clergyman,"
and now let me continue the story of the "Rev." J. Furness and his
red-hot furnace for tender girls sixteen years old: "Her feet are bare;
she has neither shoes nor stockings on her feet; her bare feet stand on the
red-hot burning floor. The door of this room has never been opened since
she first set foot on the red-hot floor. Now she sees that the door is
opening. She rushes forward. She has gone down on her knees on the
red-hot floor. Listen! She speaks. She says: 'I have been
standing with my bare feet on this red-hot floor for years. Day and night
my only standing place has been this red-hot floor. Sleep never came on
for a moment, that I might forget this horrible burning floor. Look, she
says, at my burnt and bleeding feet. Let me go off this burning floor for
one moment, only for one moment.'" My dear friends, I can hardly
read this; I could not if I did not know that it is a clerical fiction and a
palpable fraud. He continues: "Oh! that in this endless eternity of
years I might forget the pain only for one single moment! The devil answers her
question 'Do you ask for one moment to forget your pain? No! not
for one single moment during the never ending eternity of years you ever leave
this red-hot floor.'"
If there is a devil
that has charge of hell, whose business it is to so torture young girls and old
people, he must receive his authority and power from God; for He only is the
source of all power and authority. The very principle of hell torments
theorists is that the punishment is divine
retribution. The pagans did believe that Good and Evil were two
antagonistic gods, wrestling with each other for the prey; and therefore the
torture inflicted by the devil was in spite of the good imaginary god.
But the heathen theory, when transmitted into so-called Christianity,
represents the devil as God's agent to inflict the torture. Yes, and a
Dr. Benson, a Methodist commentator, says that "God is Himself in hell,
exercising all his divine attributes to make the pains of the damned cut
intolerably deep."
Now, I think it is time for us to leave this outrageous libel with
those who think they can believe the lie to be the truth, and it will be our
duty to examine the Scriptures as to what they really do teach.
The word
"hell" is in the Bible. What does it mean? Here I take
pleasure in complimenting Dr. Torrey. A very good little book of his (in
some respects) on how to read the Scriptures has been kindly loaned me. Therein
Dr. Torrey warns his readers against trusting dictionaries on the meaning of
Bible words; and he rightly says that the only safe way is to compare the use
of words in the Scriptures and thus the Bible will be its own interpreter.
Dr. Torrey has here struck a Christadelphian way of studying the Bible,
as their works will show. But if he had practiced in his study of
unending hell torment what he has preached in this advice, he would not have
left his
You are, no doubt,
aware that the Old Testament was nearly all written in Hebrew, and the New
Testament in Greek. The word translated "hell" in the Old
Testament is Sheol,
while in the New Testament there are two words for which the translation of the
authorized version have made the word "hell" do service, namely, Gehenna and Hades. By
following Dr. Torrey's advice, but not his example, by comparing the use of these
words we can arrive at their Scripture meaning, and there is no danger of the
Bible leading us into the belief of the pulpit theory of hell torments.
By the use of a good
concordance, one that gives the original words as well as those of the English
translation, it will be found that the
word sheol is not always translated by the word
"hell." In many cases it is rendered "grave;" and
this is one important fact which Dr. Torrey should have disclosed to his
It is clear that
relief from his sufferings was what the patriarch was praying for, but if Sheol
means Dr. Torrey's hell, then he was praying for torment incomparably worse
than that which called forth his prayer. The Bible is its own dictionary here, you see, because in this passage,
like many others, we are surrounded by facts which will allow only that Job was
praying to be hidden in the grave until Yahweh's wrath should be removed from a
sinful world, and his desire was to be remembered at the appointed time of the
resurrection of the dead, when, he says, in answering the question,
"If a man die, shall he live again?" (verse 14). - "Thou shalt
call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine
hands." That this was his hope, resurrection from Sheol,
or the grave, is further evident when he says: "I know that my redeemer
liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though
after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." -
Chap. 19:25-26. In sheol, the grave,
"worms destroy the body," and from this sheol,
or if translated as elsewhere, from this "hell," he hoped to be
redeemed in the appointed day of resurrection. Another case illustrative
of this Scripture meaning of the Hebrew word, Sheol, is that of Jacob, who
mourned the death of his beloved son, Joseph, "and when his sons and his
daughters rose up to comfort him" - I am quoting from Gen. 37:35 -
"he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the
grave - sheol - unto my son
mourning." Fancy Jacob declaring that he would go down to hell - the
kind of hell Dr. Torrey says is a place or a condition of endless torture.
In the forty-ninth
Psalm v. 20, it says of those who are in honor and understand not, that
"they are like the beasts that perish." Verse 14 says:
"Like sheep they are laid in the grave, death shall feed on
them." Death feeds upon those in sheol, because sheol
is the death state, and not a place where life is perpetuated for no other
purpose but to torture. With the popular view how strange it would sound
to say, "Like sheep they are laid in hell." Yet, even with a
proper understanding of the meaning of the word "hell," which we
presently explain, there would be no incongruity. It is the pagan fiction that has been so inexcusably associated with
the word that has caused the confusion. Where the translators of the authorized
version have employed "hell" for sheol, it is only the perverted mind
that reads into the passages the idea of endless torture; for instance, the
words of the Psalmist, "The wicked shall be turned into hell,
and all nations that forget God." - Psa. 9:17. Keep in view the proper
meaning of sheol, as shown in those passages where
it is rendered grave, and the thought is that all the wicked will finally end
in death, the grave - in oblivion - rather than that they will be the subjects
of preservation for fuel for endless flames. This aspect of the question
has been helped by the Revisors, who have in some cases transferred the word sheol
instead of translating it; and in some cases they have rendered it
"pit" - the "pit of corruption," which is the grave.
Let me give two more passages
from the Old Testament to show the true meaning of sheol,
the Old Testament "hell," and then we will go to the New
Testament. In Ezekiel 31:16 we read: "I made the nations to shake at
the sound of his fall (the Assyrian), when I cast him down to hell
with them that descend into the pit." To
go down to hell was to go with them that descend into the pit,
into death, into the grave. In the next chapter and the 27th verse this
is made quite clear, but notice verse 18, "unto the nether parts of the earth,"
"unto the pit." Verse 22, "his graves are about him;"
verse 23, "whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and so on in
verses 24, 25 and 26. Then in the 27th verse we read: "And they
shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are
gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords
under their heads." Are we
to suppose that warriors take their swords with them to the popular hell?
How absurd to apply the word to such a fiction, when the facts are
so clearly before us. For the "mighty" to go down to hell and
for their swords to be laid under their heads was for them to be buried, and,
according to the custom of those times, to have their swords placed in the tomb
with them. This "hell," this sheol, is the grave,
and not a seething caldron of endless torturing fire. The popular hells
is as foreign to the Old Testament as it is to reason and common sense.
God has given us reasoning faculties to use, and He condescends to say to us,
"Come, let us reason together; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall
be as white as snow." - Isa. 1:18. There are things that are
thinkable and there are things that are not thinkable; and the horrors of
"hell torment" are not really thinkable. They are blindly
imagined, and reason refuses to try to explain the vicious theory upon any
known or revealed principle of justice. The Old Testament leaves Dr.
Torrey and all those of his class without the shadow of an excuse for teaching
a doctrine which is an insult to reason, an outrage against justice, and a
slander upon the character of God.
About two hundred and
fifty years before Christ there was produced a Greek translation of the Old
Testament, known as the Septuagint. The word employed in this Greek translation
for the Hebrew word sheol is hades.
Therefore if we can find the proper meaning of hades,
we shall be still further helped to the understanding of sheol.
Let me give a simple illustration. In the Psalms we have those familiar
words of hope, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou
suffer thine HOLY ONE to see corruption." - Psa. 16:10. For the word
"hell" here we have in the Old Testament - the Hebrew - sheol.
Now the Apostle Peter quotes these words from the Psalm in the Greek tongue;
and for sheol he used the Greek word hades.
You will find this in Acts 2:31. Now it happens that the
authorized version translates this word hades by "grave"
in I Cor. 15:55. The Apostle Paul is here speaking of the resurrection,
putting, as it were, upon the tongues of those who will have triumphed over
death and the grave by a glorious resurrection, the exulting exclamation,
"O death, where is thy sting; O grave - hades
- where is thy victory?" This is again a case where the Bible is its
own dictionary, and where literal language is employed, it surrounds each case
with facts and truths which allow of only one meaning for the word - the true
meaning, with no possibility of reading the popular tradition into it.
Dr. Adam Clarke, the
great Methodist Commentator, whose scholarship no one will question, and in
some instances whose frankness conflicts with his creed, gives the following as
the meaning of the word hades:
"The original word hades, from a,
not, and iden, to see
- the invisible receptacle or mansion of the dead, answering to sheol
in Hebrew. The word hell, used in the
common translation, conveys now an improper meaning
of the original word, because hell is only used to signify the place of the
damned. But as the word hell comes from the
Anglo-Saxon helon, to cover,
or to hide, hence the tiling or slating of a house in some
parts of England (particularly Cornwall), heling to this day,
and the covers of books (in Lancashire), by the same name, so the literal
import of the word hades was formerly well expressed by it."
"The gates of hades," says Parkhurst, "may always be allusive to the form of the
Jewish sepulchres, which were large caves with a narrow mouth, or
entrance."
Now all this makes
clear what I promised I would show - that the word "hell," properly
understood, is a good English word for the Hebrew word sheol;
and hades, in the Greek, being the equivalent of sheol
in the Hebrew, "hell" is, of course, a word that properly stands for
hades - remember, I am not speaking of the traditional "hell," for it
is a gross perversion of the word to apply it to a place of fire and torture,
such as preached by Dr. Torrey. I am not forgetting the parable of Dives,
and I shall hope to have time yet, in one of my lectures, to show you the real
meaning of that parable.
Now, my friends, it so
happens that all this is further confirmed by the Revised Version, where the
Greek word hades has been transferred, the Revisors
seeming to have realized what Dr. Adam Clarke says, that to translate hades
by hell, with the modern sadly perverted view of hell would be
to perpetuate the false theory of hell torments. Dr. Torrey knew all
this, and it was his duty to tell the people the facts, and not play upon the
ignorance of "converts" to frighten them.
It so happens that I
can personally confirm this as the true meaning of the word hell. It is
possible, yea, probable, that there are some here tonight who can testify to
the truth of what I am about to say as to the use of the word
"hell." In the
Gehenna
is the other word for which "hell" in the New Testament is given
erroneously as a translation. This word is the Greek form of the name in
the Old Testament of The Valley of the Sons of Hinnom. It never is used
in the Scriptures for a region away from this earth. Let me read to you
from the Emphatic Diaglott, and Dr. Torrey and his hell torment advocates will
not dare to question the truth of this:
"Gehenna, the Greek word translated hell in the common version,
occurs twelve times. It is the Grecian mode of spelling the Hebrew words
which are translated, 'The
"Tophet"
means a drum, and its application to the
Hence our Lord says,
in Matt. 5:22, "But I say, unto you that whosoever is angry with his
brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall
say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever
shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of Gehenna
fire." Leaving his "converts" in ignorance of the fact
that the original word is Gehenna, and
emphasizing the word - a mistranslation - "hell," well knowing the
perverted idea of the people as to the meaning of "hell," it is easy
for Dr. Torrey to frighten rather than instruct his followers; but it is a
"pious fraud" nevertheless. This word Gehenna
occurs and is translated "hell" in twelve instances, but they are so
similar that an explanation of one or two will be an explanation of all of
them. The one already quoted refers to the three courts among the Jews -
the highest of which only had the authority to condemn a criminal to be cast
into Gehenna. To be "two-fold more the child of
Gehenna" Matt. 23:15 was to be that much more deserving of this worst of
condemnations and punishments known to the Jews. The word having such a
dread, it became a figure of the future and utter and final destruction of the
wicked.
In Matt. 5:29, and in
the corresponding passage in Mark 9:43-48, the Saviour says: "It is better
for thee to enter into life with one eye rather than
having two eyes to cast into Gehenna." You will notice that it is a
question of life, on the one hand, and Gehenna,
on the other, which means life or death, preservation in life external, or
destruction, death eternal, not eternal life in torture. Gehenna
never was a symbol of continued torture, but of sure and certain annihilation
of the being; yes,
of it Jesus says that "God will destroy both body and soul in
Gehenna." - Matt. 10:28. But, you will ask, what about the
"worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched?" In the
loathsome valley of Gehenna, the refuse and
carcasses thrown therein bred worms, and to prevent pestilence from unwholesome
vapors, fires were kept burning up the rubbish thrown therein. But who
with common sense would construe the words, "The worm dieth not,"
Mark 9:46 to mean the preservation of the victim upon which the worm
preys? Or who would conclude that because fire is "not
quenched" its victims are preserved instead of devoured? The fact
that the devouring worm dieth not is positive evidence that it will devour its
victim; and the fact that the fire is not quenched is proof that it will
destroy whatever it is burning.
Suppose this beautiful
hall were to take fire, and we had to rush out on the street; we meet the men
of the fire department coming in great haste, and we say, "It is of no use
trying to quench that fearful fire; it cannot be quenched." Would
that mean to you, to the firemen, or to any man of sense, that the building
would be always burning, but never burned? How absurd! A pagan
delusion of hell torments is responsible for such an absurdity. The
thought represented by the "worm that dieth not," and the "fire
that is not quenched" is expressed in the words, "Whose fan is in his
hand; and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather the wheat into the
garner; but the chaff he will burn
up with unquenchable fire." Chaff, is it possible that
the wicked in their punishment are compared to chaff? Do you think chaff,
"fat of lambs," "stubble," and such combustibles are
fitting symbols of indestructible beings always burning, and never
burned? Do you think chaff would suit Dr. Torrey as an illustration of
the preservation of millions in his "hell torments?"
Chaff! The bare idea of such a thing. Asbestos would be a much
better and more consistent illustration.
But you see, my
friends, the "chaff" is "burned
up" in this "unquenchable fire," and that is what
unquenchable fire always does - burn up, burn up, not
preserve. Taking Dr. Torrey's advice in allowing the Bible to be its own
dictionary, we read in Jer. 17:27, that God would "kindle a fire in the
gates of
Now I think I have
said enough on the three words, sheol, hades
and Gehenna; and now it is my duty to deal with that passage so
much harped upon: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but
the righteous into life eternal." - Matt. 25:46. Now here is a
passage that a scholar, if he has no respect for his scholarship or for the
true meaning of things, may misuse in frightening ignorant people; because the
words employed in the authorized version, with the meanings in the minds of
many people, seem, superficially viewed, to convey the idea of unending
punishment - "torture," rather, in the common mind. The same
word, the people are rightly told, in the Greek stands for the two words in the
passage, "everlasting" and "eternal." On this a
plausible argument is built to prove that the duration of the punishment of the
wicked is equal to that of the life of the righteous. But even this ought
to suggest the question, Do the wicked, as well as the righteous, go into
"everlasting life," the difference only being in the condition of
life? Would it not fairly seem that if the everlasting life is in
contrast with "eternal punishment," the latter must be eternal death,
and not eternal life in misery? Again let the Bible be its own
dictionary, and let the Apostle Paul tell us what the "eternal
punishment" is - "who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." - II
Thess. 1:9. "Everlasting
destruction" cannot mean everlasting preservation, can it, think
you? Their punishment is destruction from which there is no return to
life; and therefore it is a destruction that is complete and irrevocable.
But it was Dr.
Torrey's duty to tell the people that the word in the Greek for
"everlasting" is aeonian,
and scholars by the hundreds say that this word as to duration must be governed by the context,
endlessness not being an intrinsic meaning of the word. But again the
Bible is its own dictionary and does not leave us to depend upon scholastic
philology. The word in the noun form aeon, is rendered for
ever. In Ex. 21:6, we read of them boring the servant's ear
with an awl, and he
was to be the servant of the master for ever, that is,
for his age, or as long as he lived. Here, as in many other places, aeon
means age. In the adjective form, we
have it declared that the Aaronic priesthood - I refer to Num. 25:13, should be
an "everlasting priesthood." Yet
Paul says in Heb. 7:12, "For the priesthood being changed,
there is made of necessity a change also of the law," and the
"everlasting priesthood" of Aaron gave place to Him who was a priest
after the order of Melchisedec. The real meaning is, the priesthood of the age
- the Mosaic age.
So in the passage in dispute it is the "life of the age" - to come -
and the punishment of the age - that age during which "The Lord Jesus Christ
shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, taking vengeance on them
that know not God, and obey not the gospel; who shall be punished with
everlasting destruction," II Thess. 2:7-9 or the destruction of the
age. "The fire of the age," too, as in another place.
Now suppose we ask as
to the first clause of the verse. What is the "life of the
age?" What kind of life? not depending upon the word
"everlasting," or aeonian to determine the duration of the life,
except as we may be able to discover what kind of life is to be peculiar to
that age as the reward of the righteous. The Bible as its own dictionary
will help us again; for Paul says "this mortal shall put on
immortality." Therefore we now know that the righteous will have immortal
life as a reward. Will the wicked have immortality, think
you? If they are to endure hell torments endlessly they must be immortal;
and not only the soul, but as Paul is speaking of the resurrection, he must
refer to the immortalization of the body, when they triumphantly exclaim,
"O death, where is thy sting; O grave, where is thy victory?" - I
Cor. 15:55.
Now if the supposed immortal souls of the wicked are to re-enter
their resurrected bodies to be judged, yes, to be judged, after years of
torture; then if the body is to go to Dr. Torrey's endless hell torment, it
must be made immortal as well as the bodies of the righteous. So God,
according to this absurdity, will impart His own immortal nature to the wicked
in order to make them fireproof - asbestos, sure enough. Away with such perversion as the pulpits preach! To return to the
passage, the second clause would read, "These shall go away into the
punishment of the age." What is the punishment of that age?
Death, destruction, as we shall presently show.
Now I fear I have not
left sufficient time to do justice to the question as to what the literal
language of Scripture says on the punishment of the wicked. But to save
time, I will read a number of passages from my little book, "The Great Salvation," where I have them
collated, giving you chapter and verse. This will save the time of
turning over the Bible, as our time tonight is precious.
Rom. 6:23.
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift
of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." To suit Dr. Torrey's theory this
should read, the wages of sin is everlasting life in misery, but let God be
true, my friends.
Ez. 18:4.
"Behold all souls are mine, *** The soul that sinneth it
shall die," not, "it shall live in torment." I
am aware that some try to evade this by saying that it is "spiritual
death," but since the wicked are "spiritually dead" before the
punishment is inflicted, and this is the very reason why it is inflicted, how
absurd to talk of inflicting "spiritual death" upon those who are
already "spiritually dead?"
Prov. 16:25.
"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the
ways of death." The end is death,
not life in torture.
Psalm 37:10-20.
"For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be." - Mark that
friends.
Do you preserve that which is a nuisance
to you? Do
you think God will preserve endlessly millions of being who will curse and
blaspheme Him day after day throughout untold ages? While He permits evil
for a time, and allows man to exercise free volition, do you not think - does
not reason, does not Scripture tell you that He will reach a time when He will
not have a single enemy in existence? Will that not be a glorious finish
to the career of the race? Just wait, then, "a little while, and the
wicked shall not be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it
shall not be." There will be no room in God's creation for any wicked
when this time, this "little while," shall come. What a
glorious triumph over evil! Here is a God you can worship, love, and
adore. This verse should be changed to suit Dr. Torrey, and made to read,
"The wicked shall always be; yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place
(hell, it is claimed), and it shall always be." If the wicked
"shall not be," what will become of them? Listen, and see if
you can harmonize this with endless torture in hell: "But the enemies of the Lord
shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume;
INTO SMOKE SHALL THEY CONSUME away? Do you see endless torment in that, my friends? What
use have the advocates of that abominable doctrine for such clear declarations
of divine truth as these?
Mal. 4:1,3.
"For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud,
yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble; and
the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith
the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor
branch. *** And they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet."
Matt. 13:40.
"As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it
be in the end of this world." Every passage, you see, makes such
comparisons as are impossible to understand if endless hell torment is the fate
of the wicked. Just imagine one preaching this revolting doctrine, and in
support of it, quoting the Saviour's words we have just read. You would
consider him devoid of any appreciation of the fitness of things. But
again, here is the passage we have already alluded to when explaining the
meaning of "unquenchable fire."
Matt. 3:12.
"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and
gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire."
Job 20:5-8.
"The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite, but
for a moment. He shall perish for ever; they which have seen him shall
say, where is he? He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found,
yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night."
Psa. 37:38.
"But the transgressors shall be destroyed together; the end of the wicked
shall be cut off."
Psa. 145:20.
"The Lord preserveth all them that love him" - yes and all them that
hate him, too, if endless hell torment is true. But what saith the Lord?
- "but all the wicked will he destroy."
Now, dear friends, if
time allowed I could keep you for hours listening to scripture testimony of
this sort; but I must press on to a conclusion.
We began with this
Adamic world without a hell, without sin, sorrow or death; with every thing
"very good." Had man never sinned, he would not have been
consigned to return to dust, and there would never have been any use for the
grave. We have seen that "hell" in the scripture stands for the
grave, translated in the Old Testament from sheol which is
frequently rendered grave: and in the New Testament,
from hades, which also rightly signifies the grave, and is so
rendered in the passage, "O grave where is thy
victory?" Man would never have gone into sheol,
to hades, to the grave - this "hell" had he not
sinned and brought death upon himself. So now we may say the cause of
this "hell" is man himself; and therefore it was not created - not
among the created things, when, "In the beginning God created the heaven
and the earth."
Now as to the word
"hell" being made to stand for Gehenna, that is a
shameful misuse of the word; but supposing we allow its application, the
When this time comes,
the two "hells" will be gone and there will be no more hell than in
the beginning when "everything was very good." Now, friends,
let us follow Dr. Torrey's plan of God's dealings with mankind for a
moment. Even he must admit that God gave man a "very good"
start; but shortly, a few began to go to heaven, and many began to go to
hell. This goes on for, let us suppose, six thousand years, when the day
of judgment arrives, then the bodies of all in heaven and all in hell are to be
raised, and, of course, those in heaven are to be disturbed for a time, and
must forsake their blissful abode to re-enter their resurrected bodies in order
that they may be judged!! - we will leave Dr. Torrey to say what they are to be
judged for. Then the inhabitants of hell will be given a respite, and
leave their torment for a while to re-enter their resurrected bodies to be
judged!! - again we will leave Dr. Torrey to say what the wretches, poor
creatures, are to be judged for.
After
all this the "end of the world" comes, supposed to be the burning up
of the earth; and the good are to return, with their bodies this time, to the
eternal bliss of heaven; while the millions of bad ones are to return to
hell. Now where are we? A few, comparatively, in heaven, the earth
made a bonfire of, and untold millions groaning and moaning, writhing in
indescribable torture and destined to so remain; cursing God as long as eternal
ages roll. Do you not think Dr. Torrey, with all his fellow preachers
of hell torment, has landed us at the
end of the world's voyage in a state ten thousand times
worse than the first? In the beginning God had
not one enemy - no one was suffering; but upon this fearfully blasphemous
hypothesis, in the end He has millions upon millions of enemies who insult,
blaspheme and curse Him, and this to know no end. Now are you not ready
to relegate this damnable doctrine of endless hell torment to the blackness of
the savage heart of heathenism, and lift up your voices in a loud and ceaseless
protest against any and every pulpit that will teach it to the disgrace of
civilization, the outraging of reason, and the slander of the God of all power,
wisdom and goodness?
On the other hand, we
begin with "every thing very good." May we not, think you, expect
to finish with every thing at least as good as at the beginning? What
saith the Scriptures? "For he must reign till he hath put down all
enemies under his feet." I Cor. 15:25. He gave man a good
start; man threw his world out of equilibrium and almost every thing became
bad; but God seems to say, Do not fret. My plan is not frustrated.
I will permit you for a time to wander in this valley of the shadow of death
into which sin has led you. But, listen, listen to the voice of God.
Let His glorious words echo and re-echo, let them reverberate throughout
the ages and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Listen, "AS TRULY
AS I LIVE THE WHOLE EARTH SHALL BE FILLED WITH THE GLORY OF THE LORD"
(Num. 14:21). If Christ reigns till he hath put down all enemies; and if
he is to destroy the last enemy, will there be a single enemy in existence
after the last is destroyed? God began without an enemy, but there were
no redeemed ones of Adam's race to honor and praise His holy name, and to bask
in the bliss of a glorious immortality. God will finish His plan with not
a single enemy, and with an innumerable host of redeemed ones to bless and
praise and honor Him and adore His Son, their Redeemer. And now when this
triumphant, glorious, and unspeakable grand end is reached, man's habitation,
this fair earth of ours, that for ages has groaned under the load of sin,
sorrow and death, will have reached a time when majestically she shall revolve
upon her axis, bearing upon her throbbing bosom of love divine, a countless
host of redeemed and happy people who shall ascribe glory, honor, praise and
thanksgiving to him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb forever and
forever; Rev. 5:13 and now, "God shall be all in all." Man is
blessed, and God through Christ has gloriously triumphed, and the last state is
ten thousand times better than the first. May God speed the glorious
day. Loud applause.
(The applause was kept
up throughout the lecture and helped the speaker to realize that he had
sympathetic listeners, but we have omitted the record in this report, as
unnecessary.)