Is Sin Eternal?

ST. JOHN tells us that "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. The most comprehensive definition of law is "a rule of action." Sin, then, is not an entity or being, but the wrong action of the creatures of God's creation in their deviations and departures from the rule of right God has given for their instruction and government.

In human jurisprudence it is deemed essential for maintaining the dignity of law, that penalties should be affixed to those laws, such penalties to be inflicted upon the disobedient; thus, while the law is made a terror to the evil doer, it is the praise of them that do well.

In the divine economy the revealed law of God has its penalties, and said penalties will not fail of their execution upon the finally impenitent. "The wages of sin is death," "The soul that sinneth it shall die," are samples of Scripture statements of the ultimate doom of the ungodly.

As in human laws, so with the divine, there is time, place, and manner to be considered in the execution of penalties. Rev. H.O. Mackey, of Southampton, in his second sermon on future punishment, told us that "Both heaven and hell are in the soul." He cannot surely mean to be understood that both righteous and wicked are simply to "be left to themselves" with no local habitation; the one to be happy and the other to be miserable as the result of their own reflections. The abode of the righteous called "Heaven," and the kingdom of Heaven we would suppose to be a literal place. We cannot conceive of the existence of a being, although it may be immortal, without a place for such existence. As there is a place of future reward for the righteous, so there must be a place where the ungodly shall be punished. When the Bible tells us "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all, the nations that forget God," we are hardly prepared to say it means simply that they shall all "be left to themselves."

By the language of Scripture we conclude the wicked are not now being punished, but that punishment is to be executed upon them after the Judgment. The patriarch Job says, "Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens, that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath." Job 21:29, 30. From the words of the prophet Daniel we should conclude that this bringing forth to the day of wrath is at the resurrection: "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt." Dan. 12:2. Our Saviour said, "For the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." John 5:28, 29. St. Paul says, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 2 Cor. 5:10. St. Peter says, "The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:" 2 Pet. 2:9. In the prophetic vision of the Judgment, given to St. John, we read: "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell (the grave—margin) delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." Rev. 20:13-15.

If the wicked dead are raised with literal bodies before punishment is inflicted upon them, it would seem that the body is in some way to be a sharer in the punishment inflicted. If these literal resurrected beings are to be turned into hell, into the place of final punishment, it is important to inquire what and where is this place of punishment. Our Saviour calls it hell: "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:" Mark 9:43. If, as we admit, "right hand" and "right eye," in the text, mean those earthly things as dear to us as the right eye or the right hand, which must be sacrificed in obeying God, must we, therefore, call hell simply a figure? Shall we not rather seek its meaning by an understanding of the term used? The word used by our Saviour, and here rendered hell, is gehenna. It is the term employed by the writers of the New Testament to designate the place of future punishment of the wicked. What is the meaning of the word gehenna? Greenfield, in his lexicon, says of the term: "Gehenna.—The valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, once celebrated for the horrid worship of Moloch and afterward polluted with every species of filth, as well as the carcasses of animals and dead bodies of malefactors; to consume which, in order to avert the pestilence which such a mass of corruption would occasion, constant fires were kept burning."

Much of our Saviour's teaching was by object lessons. In the vale of Hinnom the consuming flames and devouring worms were accomplishing their work on the carcasses of criminals, and he takes occasion to point his disciples to the fate of the finally impenitent, where there will be no death of the worm, or quenching of the fire, as sometimes happened in the scene before them. There will be no arresting of God's judgement on the ungodly.

When our Saviour said the wicked should go into gehenna, it was not simply into this fire of human kindling, but into that which this represented. What else could it represent, but those fires in which the ungodly shall at last perish. These fires of gehenna were near Jerusalem, and, according to the testimony of St. John (Rev. 20), as he has a view of the ungodly after their resurrection, they came "around the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them." Is not this then the gehenna of punishment to which our Saviour refers?

As to the place of final punishment for the ungodly, Solomon says: "Behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth; much more, the wicked and the sinner." Prov. 11:31. Some quote this text to prove that all have their recompense for their good or evil deeds in this life, as they go along. Such claim that if a man is good he will have good things in this world, but if he does evil he will suffer for his evil deeds here, and in the end both classes will be saved. Solomon does not say that the righteous and wicked are recompensed in the earth, as though it were in the present state; but they SHALL BE recompensed—future.

The Psalmist had no idea of the ungodly receiving their recompense in this life when he penned the seventy-third psalm. He says, "Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men." Ps. 73:1-5. Though the sinful of the earth may have apparent peace and prosperity now, there is a certain doom which awaits them, of which we read in the same psalm: "As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image." verse 20.

So also in Ps. 37, we read: "Fret not thyself because of evil doers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity," verse 1. The present state is not the time of rewards and punishments; but when the Master returns it will be to recompense to all according to their deeds. He says, "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be." Rev. 22:12. "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." Matt. 16:27.

St. John, in the Revelation, has a view of Christ's coming, with its results: "And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." Rev. 19:19-21. In the above we learn that the nations are cut off at Christ's coming. We further see, as shown in the next chapter, that at the end of the thousand years the wicked rise from the dead, constituting the nations then found in the four quarters of the earth: "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." Rev. 20:7-9.

The mind of the inspired apostle is then again carried over the scene of the Judgment. This time he calls this place of punishment "the lake of fire," to which all are consigned who are not found written in the "book of life" (verses 14, 15), and all who are cast into this lake of fire die the "second death." Passing this scene of the final execution of the Judgment the next chapter opens with a view of the new earth, where there shall be no sorrow, sin, curse, or death. Taking the subject of these two chapters in connection, we learn that the fire and brimstone rained from heaven upon the resurrected ungodly nations of earth who come around the camp of the saints and the beloved city, at the end of the thousand years, constitute the lake of fire, the gehenna of Christ's discourses; and that this same fire in which the wicked meet their doom purifies the earth. This seems also to be the statement of St. Peter in his contrast of the earth, past and present, with the future new earth. Speaking of those who in the last days shall scoff at Christ's coming, he says they shall say, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Pet. 3:4-7.

As the people of the Noachian world were cut off from the earth by water, and as the atmospheric heavens and the earth at that time underwent a change, so the wicked of the earth are to be cut off by fire at the day of Judgment, when the "perdition of ungodly men" shall come, and our present earth and atmospheric heavens shall be changed. "The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Pet. 3:10-13.

The manner in which St. Peter has connected his subject shows conclusively that he is speaking of literal things. The earth before the flood with its inhabitants was literal. The present earth is a literal one, so will be the new one in which the righteous shall dwell when, as Solomon said, "they shall be recompensed." The waters that deluged the old world were literal, so the fire that renovates the earth and "devours" the ungodly will be. This is in perfect accord with St. Peter's use of the ensample of Sodom and Gomorrah. Literal fire came from heaven and consumed them on the very spot where they had sinned. So the ungodly in Noah's time met their fate on the same earth where they had sinned. Why should we not conclude with Solomon that the ungodly shall be recompensed on the very earth in which they have sinned and defamed their Maker?

The prophet Malachi makes a plain statement of the case when he says: "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. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts." Mal. 4:1-3.

In his sixth discourse on "Eternal Hope," Canon Wilberforce said of the inhabitants of the Noachian world and their fate: "If we follow out the mysterious hint given in the first four verses of the sixth chapter of Genesis, they were the worst of sinners, the perpetrators of an exceptional lawlessness, perhaps not known since the flood, perhaps to be known again before the second advent." So much for the people, but what became of them? He also says: "The flood was a signal evidence of His love; seeing man wandering farther and farther from him, in the days of Noah, increasing the separation, aggravating the lawlessness, this love sent the flood to arrest their wanderings from rectitude and to convey them to another sphere of education." It is true the Canon has asserted that God removed the antediluvians to another sphere of education, but where is it asserted in the Scriptures that they were removed for this purpose? Our Saviour said of them, they "knew not till the flood came and took them all away." Matt. 24:39. But he did not say, took them to another sphere of education. God had sent them a faithful warning through Noah. They scoffed at him, slighted his message, neglected a preparation for the flood, and they met the consequences, and "thus," said our Saviour, "shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed."

We see then that the time of the execution of penalties upon the wicked is at the end of the one thousand years, after their literal resurrection from the dead. The place of execution is on this earth as they are gathered around Jerusalem. The manner is after the ensample of Sodom and Gomorrah, "fire and brimstone" being rained from heaven upon them, and this fire thus brought upon them constitutes the "gehenna" or "lake of fire," and that this fire also renovates the earth and prepares it to be the blessed, eternal abode of the saints. Then is brought in that state of which the Lord said to Moses: "But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." Num. 14:21. A state of things which had not been brought about in the days of the prophet Habakkuk who spoke of it as an event still future: "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." Hab. 2:14. The prophet Jeremiah, in speaking of the final results of the new covenant of which Christ is minister, shows to what extent this shall be realized: "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Jer. 31:34.

It seems then that on this earth, at least, sin is to end with the purification of the earth, and that this purification is not the conversion of the ungodly, but their destruction.