Eternal Punishment (Hell)

Scripture Readings: Psalms 37 and 73 chapters:

Text: "Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life." Ezekiel 13:22.

In presenting this theme, the subject of hell and eternal sufferings of the lost, we can say with Paul "that we have not shunned to present unto you the whole counsel of God. The reason this subject is so important is because it involves the character of God, my Father, whose name is Love and which is my whole mission to reveal. Isaiah had a vision of God that humbled him and revealed to him his sinfulness, and that filled his soul with the cleansing fire of love. Then and then only was he ready to say to God: "Here am I, send me." You have heard me say that years ago a revelation came to me of God, as the most misunderstood Being in the universe; a God of infinite love, patience and desire to help and to save; and this revelation has led me into all the wonderful truths I have since preached.

We can conceive of a Father punishing his child to discipline and correct him, in order to prevent him from doing something that would cause him greater pain or loss or destruction, but the instant that man punishes his child when none of these desirable results can hope to be gained thereby the punishment becomes revenge and the man ceases to be a father and becomes a fiend. Even in our jurisprudence we are coming to see that all punishment that is not corrective of the punished, or protective of others, is utterly wrong, inhuman and evil. And yet men still teach this and profess to believe in the Bible and that God punishes through all eternity for the sins of time, and that He punishes after all just reason for punishment other than revenge is entirely past.

They profess to believe this and still have it in their creeds even though they do not actively preach it as they once did, which means that they have become more civilized than their god. Such teaching cannot beget love, for love is only born of love and God is love; Law is love and love fulfills it. The scriptures teach that God loves us when we are dead in trespasses and sins. It is His love and His goodness that lead us to repentance, and not His wrath.

A few years ago a learned doctor of divinity had a lengthy article in Scribner's Magazine defending this doctrine and the character of God in torturing eternally, and then he asked this question: "Would not such a hell be a blot on the universe of God?" "It must be admitted that it will; and the only answer is that it is a circumscribed place, only a corner in the universe of God."

The idea of the eternal conscious misery of the lost comes back to that other idea of the inherent deathlessness of all men, that God made man with a principle of life so persistent that they must live forever, either in joy or sorrow. If this were true, this fact either eventuates in universal salvation; or in the eternal misery of the unsaved. Now we know that this philosophy is not taught in scripture, neither is it like God, but there are millions of people think they have such a principle of life, such as living forever, at least they act like it for they do not believe much in church or theology but think if they have eternity to work in they will come out all right somehow, sometime.

"Hell", the three words are "Tartarus"; "Hades" and "Gehenna", and the reason for putting things in Gehenna it is a place for "chaff", "stubble" "refuse! Read Ezekiel 33:11, "As I live saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?"

I once heard a sermon, in a city wherein all the ministers were preaching on "The evidences of a future life." Not one of them gave God or Christ the glory of this hope or rested it on the Bible. They rested it on something they asserted was in man, and which they sought to prove was there by platonic philosophy. They sought to make men think it is a very easy matter to demonstrate the deathlessness of all men. Nothing is farther from the truth,

Read the story of the creation of man in Genesis, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. Then he placed man in the Garden of Eden, and said he had made man in His own image, but sin came in and man was driven from the Garden and the Tree of Life. God took this risk because he could make it work for good in carrying out his plan, but he did not risk eternal sin for that would be the eternal thwarting of His plan.

But says one, "Immortality" is taught all through the Bible. Not at all. It is mentioned in the Old Testament in Job 4: 17: "Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than His Maker?" The word "Immortal" is mentioned just once in the New Testament, I Timothy 1: 17: "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever:" The word "Immortality" is mentioned five times in the New Testament and every one a proof that we do not have it now.

"Who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see, to whom be honour and power everlasting." I Timothy 6: 15-16.

"But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." II Timothy 1:10

"Who will render to every man according to his deeds; to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil." Romans 2: 6-9.

"For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality; so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory." I Corinthians 15:53-4

Instead of the deathlessness of all men the Bible teaches the deathlessness only of the righteous. Of the wicked it says "the soul that sinneth it shall die." "The wages of sin is death". "Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." Notice it is sin that does this. In other words the Law is not arbitrary, it states principles of happiness and life, the transgression of which is misery and death. The only way God could make an immortal sinner would be by constantly supplying miraculously the life power he sinned away, in order to keep him alive to suffer more, but of the righteous Jesus said "He that hath the Son hath life." The evidence that we have eternal life is not of something in or of ourselves, but of God's Spirit: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Read the following refer- ences: Job 21:30; Proverbs 16:4; II Peter 2:9; Jude; Mathew 25; Hebrews 5:9 Hebrews 6:3 and 9: 12; Isaiah 33: 14 to 16. Our Father of infinite love does the best possible for us all, and the most loving thing He does is to exterminate evil in the end.

George E. Fifield