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"EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT"
(Matt.25: 46)
"AND these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal."
This passage is commonly wrested in the attempt to prove the dreadful doctrine of eternal torments. It is said that if it be admitted that the life is everlasting so also must the punishment be, since the same adjective (in the original) is used to define it. Let us consider the scriptural doctrine of Life, Death, and Punishment; and the meaning of the words, Everlasting and Torment.
LIFE AND
PUNISHMENT
These two words Christ here places in contrast: "eternal life" for the just," everlasting punishment" for the unjust. Life is not for the wicked, and, since they will not live for ever, they will not and cannot endure eternal torments. "Life," or "eternal life" is frequently promised to the righteous, but never to the wicked: "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life" (John 5: 40); "1 give unto them (my sheep) eternal life" (John 10: 28). Many other similar passages might be quoted. It is "life", and not merely happiness superadded to life, that constitutes the reward of the faithful. And it is "death", and not life in everlasting torments, that constitutes the punishment of the wicked. Life signifies conscious existence, and death non-existence and unconsciousness.
Death is the result of sin: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin" (Rom. 5: 12); "The wages of sin is death"' (6 : 23). In passing sentence of death upon that "or man", Adam, the Lord God said, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen. 3: 19); which is what we see to this day. God's remedy is visible in Christ bodily raised from the dead and glorified. But there is no eternal life for the wicked, and consequently no "everlasting punishment" in the sense of "eternal torments.” But, it is naturally replied, there are the very words, "everlasting punishment,” what are we I make of them? The answer is, we must understand them in harmony with Christ's other sayings, and those of the Scriptures in general. The “punishment" of which he here speaks is naturally that of which he elsewhere speaks when referring to the same crisis of his coming again to judgment. And of course the whole Bible is in harmony with his speech when rightly understood. Consider then the....
PUNISHMENT OF
THE WICKED
Christ says, in John 5: 29, that at his coming again 1 judgment the dead shall "come forth, they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation" (judgement,R.V.), And the angel Gabriel, foretelling the same crisis, says to the prophet Daniel: "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt"(12: 2). Thus, both Christ and the angel place "life" in contrast with "damnation" (judgment) and "contempt." But the particular nature of the punishment is here indicated by the original word. The phrase, "in everlasting punishment," much better rendered in the R.V. "into eternal punishment," is in the Greek "eis kolasin aionion What is kolasis?
In the New
Testament it is only found twice; here, and in I John 4 :
18, "fear hath torment." The parent verb, kolazo,
is likewise only found twice in the New
Testament, thus: The rulers of the temple found nothing "how they might punish
Peter and John" for healing a lame man in the name of Christ
(Acts 4: 21). "The Lord knoweth how to...
reserve the unjust
unto the day of judgment to be punished" (2 Pet. 2: 9).The
punishment of the apostles at the hands of the
wicked was stripes, imprisonment, and death, as we know. It was tormenting enough while it, lasted, and so will be
the punishment of the wicked in the day of judgment. But there is a
peculiar fitness about the word kolasts in
this place. It means, as Liddell and Scott
inform us, a pruning,as of trees; "hence a
checking, punishment, chastisement," the verb kolazo
meaning "strictly to curtail, dock, prune", as trees;
“then, to chastise, punish."
Now the
punishment of the wicked, according to Christ and all the Scriptures, is just
that. "God shall take away his part from
the tree of life"(Rev. 22: 19, R.V.). The fruitful branches of "the
true vine" are indeed pruned or purged that they may "bring
forth-more fruit"; but Christ says, "If a man abide not in me,
he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and
cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15: 6), And when
they are "burned," they are "ashes" (Mal. 4 : 3), and
not "immortal souls" in endless torment. Thus "evil doers shall
be cut off: but those that wait upon the Lord,
they shall inherit the earth" (Psa. 37 : 9).
"Yet a little while, and the
wicked shall
not be" (v. 10). He "shall be punished with everlasting
destruction from the presence
of the Lord"
(2 Thess. I : 9, 10);
"Like the beasts that perish" (Psa. 49:20);
"Like sheep" (v. 14).
EVERLASTING: From these passages it is evident that there is nothing "everlasting" about the wicked! Yet people say, "There is the word in the Bible in Matt. 25: 46. " Yes, but it ought to be "eternal," as it is now put in the R.V., for it is the same Greek adjective as is rendered "eternal" with reference to "life". But is not "eternal" the same as "everlasting"? No, although it is frequently so understood. Even the word "everlasting" in the Bible is used with a double meaning-limited time and unlimited time. Thus, "the everlasting God" (Rom. 16: 26); "an everlasting priesthood" (Exod. 40:15). But the Aaronic priesthood was "changed" (Heb. 7: 12). The "old covenant "decayed, waxed old, and has long "vanished away" (ch. 8: 13). Aionios, rendered everlasting, is from aion, an age, a word quite indefinite as to duration of time. God's aion is without beginning or end.His kingdom upon earth and the life related to it has beginning, but no end.
A man’s lifetime is his aion or age, whether it be long or short. Aionis frequently translated "world" in the New Testament, both with reference to "this world" and "the world to come." In the R.V. in many places, as Matt. 13: 39; 24: 3; Mark 10: 30, etc., a marginal note gives "age" for "world". In Deut. 33: 15, 27 we have the same Hebrew word olam (Greek,aion) rendered, first, "lasting," and then "everlasting," because the translators would not make "the lasting hills" co-eternal with "the everlasting arms" of God. The R.V. without offence calls the hills "everlasting" as well; but we do not therefore suppose them literally so to be. "Everlasting" (aionios) therefore does not define the duration of the "punishment", but rather its relation to that "age" or aion. In many places aionios cannot mean "endless."
As to the
objection that if the "punishment" be not endless, neither is the "life,"
Farrar well said, "Our sure and certain hope of everlasting happiness rests
on no such miserable foundation as the disputed meaning of a Greek adjective,
which is used over and over again of things transitory. If we need texts on
which to rest it we may find plenty, such as Luke 20: 36;Hos.
13: 14; Rev. 21: 4; Isa. -25: 8; 1 Cor. 15, etc." This is true, and the Lord Jesus
himself is the example of the redeemed. "Death hath no more dominion over
him" (
TORMENT: Let it not be supposed that we deny the "torment" of the wicked (Rev. 14:11; 18: 7, 10, 15). Far from it. There will be conscious suffering, mental and physical, of a very terrible kind; but it will END in "the second death". "There shall be no more curse" (Rev. 22: 3), no more pain (21 : 4). In Rev. 18 the sufferings of the apostles at the hands of the wicked are setout as the measure of the sufferings of the wicked in retribution; but the apostles will rise to life eternal, while the wicked will vanish in "the second death". "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth" among the unprofitable servants cast into "outer darkness" (Matt. 25: 30). "'Many stripes" or "few stripes" will be proportioned to degrees of wickedness. As to Judas, Christ said, "It had been good for that man if he had not been born" (Matt. 26: 24). Many will realise the dreadfulness of "everlasting punishment" when Christ says to them, "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity" (Luke 13: 27). And he added, when speaking of this day of judgment, "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abrahamand Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out."