The Fundamentals: Volume 9, Chapter 7: What Christ Teaches Concerning Future Retribution

8/20/2019 The Fundamentals: Volume 9, Chapter 7: What Christ Teaches Concerning Future Retribution

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CHAPTER VII

WHAT CHRIST TEACHES CONCERNING FUTURE

RETRIBUTION

BY REV. WM. C. PROCTER, F . PH.,

CROYDON, ENGLAND

There are four reasons for confining ou; consideration of

the subject of Future Retribtttion to the teaching of our Lord

Jesus Christ:

( 1)

It li,mits the range of our inqui ry to what is possible

in a brief essay .

There will be no occasion to examine the

56 passages in the authorized version of our Bible which con

tain the word He ll, ( most of which are the translations of

the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek .Hades, meaning the

grave and the unseen state , ) and we can concentrate our

attention on the ten passages in which our Lord uses the word

Gehenna'' ( which was the usua l appellation in His day for

the abode of the lost ) together with those other verses which

evidently refer to the future state of the wicked.

(2) It affords a sufficient rznsw e,r to the speculation of

those who don t know, to refer to the revelation of the 01te

who does know. Many other pas sages might be quoted from

the New Testament, written under the inspiration of the H oly

Spirit, who was promised by our Lord to I-Iis disciples to

guide them into all truth, and show them things to co1ne''

(John 16 :12, 13) ;

but, in taking the words of Christ Himself )

we shall find the greatest ground of common agreement in

these days of loose views of inspiration . Surely, He who is

The Truth would never misrepresent or exaggerate it on a

matter of such v.ital importance, and would neither encourage

popular errors nor excite needles s fears .

84


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1¥hat Christ Teaches Concerning Futu ·re Retribut


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86

The

Funda1nentals

fate of the wicked is not an arbi trary ( n1uch less a vindictive)

infliction, but the necessary consequence of their own

sins.

Taking the passages in their order, in

MATT.

S

:22; Chri st

speaks of causeless anger against, and contemptuous co1idem

na~ion of, others as placing us "in danger of the hell of fire, '

while in verses 29 and 30 He utters a similar warning concern

ing the sin of lust; and the se are in the Sermon on the Mount,

which is the most generally accepted part of His teaching In

chapter 8

:12

He speaks of unbeliev ing "ch ildren of the King

dom" being "cast forth into the outer darkness", and adds,

"There shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth "-ex pres

sions which are repea ted in chapters 22

:13

and 25 :30 In

chapter 10 :28 J esus said: "Fear Him which is able to destroy

both ~oul and body in hell"-a wholeson1e fear which is de

cidedly lacking in the present day, and which many people

regard as a remnant of superst ition quite un suited to this en

lightened age In our Lord 's own explanation of the parable

of the tares and wheat, He declared : "The Son of Man shall

send forth H is angels, and they shall gather out of His king

dom all things that cause stu mbling, and then1 that do iniquity ,

and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be

the weeping and gnashing of teeth . The angels shall come

forth, and sever the wicked from among the righteous, and

shall cast them into the fur nace of fire; there shall be the

weeping and gna shing of teeth " (chapter

13 :41,

42, 49, 50). In

chapter 23 :15 He speaks of the hypocritical Pharisees as "chil

dren of hell," showing that their condu ct had fitted them

for it, and that they would "go to the ir own place",

like

Judas

(whom He describes as "the son of perdition" in John

17:12),

while in verse 33 He asks: "How shall ye escape tht: judg

ment of hell?" The law of retribu tion can no more be re

pealed than that of gravitation; it is fixed and unalterable.

That hell has not been prepared for hum an beings, but that

they prepare them selves for it, is clear from the sentence


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What Clirist Teaclies Co ice Anirigutu1 e Retribution 87

which our Lord says that He will pronounc

1

e upon those on

His

left hand in

the

last

great

day

''Depart from Me,

y,e

curse d, into the eternal fire ,7-1hich is prepared for the devil

and l1is angels'' ( Chapter 25 : 41).

Turning to the Gospel

according

to MARK, we find our

Lo rd saying, in chapter 3 ;29: ''Whosoever shall blaspheme

agai ns,t the Hol y Spirit

h,ath ne, rer

f,orgiveness, but is guilty

of

an

1

eternal sin.'' Whatever view

may

be

tak .en ,of the

char

acte r

1

of blasphemy against the Holy

1

Gl1

ost,

th

1

e cause and con

sequence are here

closely

linked to

1

gether, ,

eterna 'l

s,i,n bringing

eternal retri 'butiott~ The words in

the 0

1

r'ig·inal

undoub ,tedly

i,ndicate ,a'n, invete·,at

1

e habit r,ath ,er than an isolated act, and

,;vould p1·ob,ably be better translated, '

1

' is h,eld .

under the power

1

of a,n et

1

ernal

sin.''

This

in

itself preclu ,des

t'he possibility of

forgiveness, because

it assumes

the

impossibilit.,y of·

repent-

•

ance; beside ,s, each re·petition involvin ,g a fresh , p

1

e,nalty,

the

P'Unishment is naturally unen

1

ding. · Similarl ,y, in John 8 :2.1, 24,

our Lor ,d's twi

1

c,e repeated declaration to th.ose Jews wh.ich

b

1

elieved not on Him, '

1

'Y e shal .l

d·ie in

yo,ur , s.ins'', indicates

tl1at unf orgiv

1

en sin

mu st

rest upon the soul

in c,o,ndemnation

and pol]uti

1

on;

for

dea t]1,,

so

far

f rom changing

men's char

acters, only fixes them ;, and hence Chris

1

t

speaks in ch,apter

S :29 of ''the resurrection of d,amnation''. Once more,. the

\vords

of

the

Asce11ded

and

Glorified

Saviour re,corded in

Rev.

21 :8

1nay be

quoted: "The fearful,

and

unbelieving, and the

abominab 'le, and murd

1

erers ,, and whoremongers, and sorcerers,

an

1

d i

1

dolaters, an d all liars, sha ll h,ave their part in the

l1ke

which

'burneth

with

fire

,and brimston

1

e; which is the second

death.'' ·

A careful stt t,dy of the Script ural uses of the words ''lif et' ·

and '''d

1

eath'' will clearly show that the root ideas are respec

tively

''union

1

and ''separation''. Physical life is union of .the

spirit with 'the body, spiritual life is the uni.on of the spirit

w·ith God, and everlasting life

is

thi s union

perfected

an

1

d con-


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88 The undamentals

summated to all eternity. Similarly, physical death is the

sepa ratio n of the spirit from the body, spiritual death is the

separation of the spirit from God, and eternal death is the

perpetuation of this separation. Hence, for all who have

not experienced a second birth, "the second death" becomes

inevitable; for he who is only born once dies twice, while

he ,vho is "born again" dies only once. As against the doc

trine of annihilation, Rev. 20 :14 may be quoted: "Death

and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second

death, even the lake of fire".

2. WH AT DID CHRIST TEACH AS TO THE CHARACTER OF

FUTURE RETR IBUT ION

We have already seen that He spoke

of it as full of sorrow and misery in His seven-fold repetition

of the striking expression: "There shall be the weeping and

gna shing of teeth" (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, SO; 22:13; 24:51;

25 :30; Luke

13

:28). In Mark 9 :43-48, our Lord twice

speaks of "the fire that never shall be quenched", and thrice

adds, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not

quenched''.

f

course He was using the common Jewish

metaphors for Gehenna, taken from the perpetual fires that

burned in the valley of Hinnom to destroy the refuse, and the

worms that fed upon the unburied corpses that were

cast

there; but, as we have already seen, He would never have

encouraged a popular delusion. Our Lord twice spoke of

fruitless prof essors being "cas t into the fire" (Matt. 7 :19;

John

I

5:6) ; twice of "the furnace of fire" (Matt.

13

:42,

SO);

twice of the "he ll of fire" (Matt. 5 :22; 18 :9) ; and twice of

"etern al fire" (Matt. 18 :8 ; 25 :41) .

Granted that "the undying worn1 and unquenchable fire"

are metaphorical, yet these striking figures of speech must stand

for startling facts, they must be symbolical of a terrible reality.

We need no ·more regard them materially than we do the

golden streets and pearly gates of heaven; but, if the latter

are emhlematic of the indescribable splendors of heaven, the


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What Christ Teaches Concerning Future Retribution

BS

former must be symbolical of the unutterable sufferings oi

hell. One can no more presume to dogmatize on the one than

the other, but it requires no vivid stretch of the imagination

to conceive an accusing conscience acting like the undying

worm, and insatiable desires like the unquenchable fire. In

our Lord's parable of the rich 1nan and Lazarus, the former i

repre sented as being in torments and in anguish even in

''Hades, and, that memory survives the present life and ac

companies us beyond the grave, is clear from Abraham's

words to him: Son, remember (Luke 16 23-25 ). Could

any materia l torments be worse than the 1noral torture of an

acutely sharpened conscience , in which me1nory becomes re

morse as it dwells upon misspent time and misused talents,

upon omitted duties and co111n1ittedsins, upon opportunities

lost both of doing and of getting good, upon privileges neg

lected and warning rejected? It is bad enough here, wh~re

memory is so defective, and conscience may be so easily

drugged; but what mu st it be hereaft er, when no expedients

will avail to bani sh recollection and drow n remorse? The

poet Sta rkey stimulate s our imagi nation in the awful lines:

''All that hath been that ought not to have been,

That might have been so different; that now

Cannot but be irrevocably past. Thy gangrened heart,

Stripped of its self-worn mask, and spread at last

Bare, in its horrible anato my,

Before thine own excruciated ga ze ;

while Cecil puts the matter in a nutshe11 when he writes:

Hell is the tru th seen too late.

Again, what material pain could equal the moral torment

- of intensifi'°ed lusts and passion s finding 110 means of gratifi ..

cation, insatiable desires that can have no provision for their

indulgence, or i indulged, all the pleasure gone while the

power remains? Surely, such expressions as the undying

worm and the unquenchable fire represent, not pious fictions,


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The Funda mentals

but plain facts; and we may be sure that the reality will

exceed, not fall short of, the figures employed, as in the

case of the blessedne ss of the redeen1ed. The woes thus

pronounced

are

more terri Lle than

the

thunders of Sinai, and

the doom denounced more awful than that of Sodom; but we

should never forget that these terrible expressions

fell

from

the lips of Eternal Love, and came from a hea r t overflowing

with tender compassion for the souls of men.

3.

WHAT DID CHRIST TEACH AS TO THE CONTINUITY OF

FUTURE RETRIBUTION?

I s there any solid basis in His re

corded word s for the doctrine of eternal hope,

or

the shadow

of a foundation for the idea that all men will be eventually

saved? Much has been made of the fact that the Greek

,vord

aionios ( used

by

our

Lord in

Matt. 18 :8 and 25

:41,

46, and t rans lat ed everlasting in the Authorized, and eter

nal in the Revised,

Version)

literally means

age-long ;

but

an examination of the 25 plac es in which it is used in the

New ..estan1ent reveals the fact that it is twice used of the

Gospel, once of the Gospel covenant, once of the consolation

broug ht to us

by

the Gospel, twice of God's own Being, four

times of the

f

utuFe of the wicked, and fifteen times of the

present and

future lif e of

the

bel iever . No one think s of

limiting its duration in the first four cases and in the last,

yvhy

then do so in the other one? The

dile1nma

become

acute in considering the word of our Lord recorded in l\1att.

25 :46, where precisely the same word _s used concerning the

duration of the reward of the righteous and the retribution of

the wicked, for only by violent perversion and distortion can

the same word in the same sentence possess a different sig

nification. Again, it is somethn es ur ged that, as salt has a

purifying power,

the

words, everyone shall be salted with

fire,''

in Mark 9: 49, have this significance in the case of future

punishment; but the context clearly shows ·that its preserving

power is alluded to , for the passage speaks of the undying·


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The undamentals

against his will. Surely eternal sin can only be followed

by

eternal retribution; for,

if

a man deliberately chooses to

be

ruled

by

sin, he must inevitably be ruined by it. One never

hears of the

doctrine of final restoration being applied t~

tbe

devil and his angels, but why not? If the answer is, Because

they cannot and will not repent, the same is surely true of

ma,ny human beings.

Not only is there no vestige of foundation in our Lord 's

words for the doctrine of univer salism, there is also no shadow

of a suggestion of any restoration of the wicked hereafter.

So far from this being the case, the parable of the rich

1nan and Laz aru s rings the death knell

of

any such hope.

Abraham is there represented as saying to Dives: ''Between

us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would

pass from hence to you may not be able , and that none may

cross over from thence to

us (Luke 16 :26).

That

fixed

gulf is surely

a

yawning chasm too deep to be filled up, and

too wide to be bridged over; and the awful description of

hdl

by the poet Milton, in ''Paradise

Lost ,

remains sadly

true:

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dw ell ; hope never comes

That

comes to all, but torture without en d.

4. WHAT DID CHRIST TEACH AS TO THE CAUSES OF FUTURE

RETRIBUTION? A careful study of our Lord's words show

that there are two pri mary causes, namely, deliberate unbelief

and wilful rejection of Him; and surely the se are but different

aspects of the same sin. In Matt. 8 :12, it was the contrast

between the faith of the Gentile centurion and the unbelief

of the Jewish nation which drew from His lips the solemn

words: ''The children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into

outer darkness; while, in chapter 23 the awful denunciation

in verse 33 is followed by the sad lamentation: How oft en

would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen


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What Clirist Teaclies C01zce .1ii1igFutiere

Retributioii 93

gathereth ·her chickens under her wings, and ye would n.otJ•

( verse 37). Similarly, in Mark 3 :29, R.

V.,

the

''eternal

sin;,

spo~en of can ,onl.y b·e

that

1

of continued

reje-ction of the

off

er·s of ln

1

ercy ,; and in. John 8 :24, Otlr Lord plainl.y de

ctar1S : ·

'I :f

ye

be·lieve.

n

1

ot th.at .I a.m He,

ye

shal.J die

in your

s

1

ins.'' ' FinalJy., in Ma .rk 16 :16, we fin,d ·the w

1

ord s :

'''He

that

believeth and

is 'baptized sl1all be saved; but

he

tha .t disbe·

lieveth shall be condemned. A caref l1·1 consider ·ation of

these

passag es, and

esp ecially o·f

the

last,

will

help to

remove

one great difficulty with regard to the whole subject, namely,

the future state of

those

who have never had the Gospel

so plain.1y

presente d

to

them as to enable them to

deliberat ·ely

accept or reject Christ, t,o willi11gly

be lieve

tl1e good news or

,\~ilfully disb,elieve

it.

- Another

difficulty

is

1·e1nove.d

when

we r

1

ealize that

ot1r

Lot··d t.aught that tl1ere ,v

1

ould be diffe1,.

1

nt deg1·e1s in

he,11

•

as in heaven .

Tl1us,

in M.att. 11 :20-24 I-Ie taught

tl1at it

wo·uld be ''more tole rab

1

le in the d.ay o,f· judgment'' f or Tyr ie

and .Sido n than for Chorazi n and Bethsaida, and fo r Sodom

than for Cape1~na1m; and in 11ark 12 :40 He speal{s of

'' greater

dan1nation. It

is

clear that future retri bution will

be propor tio11ed to

the amount

of gt.tilt

committed

and. of

grac ·e r·ejected. ( See also Luke · 12·:47, 48; J ohn 19:11.)

We l1ave so fa r exan1ined, as thoroughly as pos

1

sible within

tl1is limi ted sp.ace,

all the

record ·ed words of

1

0Ur

1

Lor ·d which

bear on th .is

important sub_ject. It

only remains,

in

1

COn

clusion, very br iefly to point out tl1at the

whole

drift of

Christ :s

tea.c/ii,ig

,co,11firms

W

1

hat

we

lea1 11

f 1~

om

thies,e

isolated

pass~ges, and that

f ii

titre retribution is not me·rely an in?.ci-

de1:tal bi.tt a fu1idamental

part

o·f the Gospel message. It is

tl1e

da ·rk backgroun ,d

on

wh ich

its loving invitations

and tender

expostulatio ns are ·presented, a11d the G,ospe1 message lo,ses

much of its force when the doctrine is left out. Bttt, worst

of all, the earnest exhort ations to immediate

repenta11ce

a11d

..


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94

The Fiendamentals

faith lose their urgency

i

the ultin1ate result will be the

same if those duties are postponed beyond the present life. Is

it seriously contended that Judas will eventually be as John,

Nero as Paul, Ananias and Sapphira as Priscilla and

Aqui la?

Finally, the doctrines of hea.ven and hell seem to stand or

fall

together for both rest upon the same Divine revelation,

both are described metaphorically, and both have the same

word ~verlasting applied to their duration. If the threat en-

ings of God's Word are unreliable, so may the promises be; if

the denunciation s have no real 1neaning, what becomes of the

invitation s ? Ru skin well terms the denial of hell ' the most

dangerous, becau se the n1ost attractive, fonn of modern in-

fidelity. But is it so modern? Is it not an echo of the devil' s

insinuating doubt: Yea, hath God said ? followed by his

insistent denial,

Y e

shall not sure ly die, which led to the

fall of man? Let us, therefore, believe God's truth, rather

than the devil's lie; let us accept Divine revelation, rath er

than human speculation; and let us heed what Christ so

plainly taught, with0ut mitigating, modifyingt or minimizing

His solemn warnings.

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The Fundamentals: Volume 9, Chapter 7: What Christ Teaches Concerning Future Retribution