Hell Explained or

Bible Threatenings Explained

or, Passages of Scripture Sometimes Quoted to Prove Endless Punishment

Shown to Teach Consequences of Limited Duration.

by J. W. Hanson, D.D.

Reprinted and Electronically Reformatted by:

Gary Amirault

(This version has changed the Roman Numerals to modern English)

Tentmaker Ministries and Publications, Inc.

118 Walnut

Hermann, MO 65041

http://www.tentmaker.org

[email protected]

573-486-3825

The Jewish people, especially the leadership, after being God's covenant people for over a thousand years, did not recognize the Messiah their Bible predicted would come in their generation. Their traditions had made the "word of God of no effect in their lives." (Matt. 15:6-9) The Church has followed the same pattern. It has misrepresented God through the hideous teaching of Hell, a pagan tradition it borrowed and Christianized from heathens. Not only did Church leaders corrupt the minds of Christians with their traditions, they incorporated those demonic traditions into the very Bible itself. Discover how the the very image of God has been corrupted through the "traditions of men." Consider, if the eschatology, study of the end times, you have been taught makes you think you are living in the last days, why would the apostles, writing 2,000 years ago, say THEY were living in the ends of the world, the last days, even the final hour. (Heb. 1:2; 1 Cor. 10:11; 1 John 2:18)But if you believe YOU are living in the last days, then you will have to twist the Bible all sorts of ways to conform to the "traditions of men" you have been taught. This book goes a long way in unraveling a major tradition that has darkened the minds of God's people for a long time. Study it carefully and humbly. Gary Amirault, Tentmaker Ministries.

Index of Topics



Bible Threatenings Explained

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT OF HEATHEN ORIGIN

ADAM'S PUNISHMENT

TESTIMONY OF CRITICS

OLD TESTAMENT PUNISHMENTS

THE STRAIT GATE

THE BAD CAST AWAY

YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH

IMPOSSIBLE TO RENEW THEM

THE SIN UNTO DEATH

THE HYPOCRITE'S HOPE

AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY

THE WICKED DRIVEN AWAY

THE LIVING GOD FEARFUL

GOD LAUGHS AT MAN'S CALAMITY

YE SHALL NOT FIND ME

NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD

THE BARREN FIG TREE

GOD ANGRY EVERY DAY

THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY GHOST

THE WRATH OF GOD

THE WRATH TO COME

THE SPIRITS IN PRISON

"I PRAY NOT FOR THE WORLD."

THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY SAVED

WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES TO DESTRUCTION

NO MURDERER HATH ETERNAL LIFE

LET HIM BE ACCURSED

THE SECOND DEATH

THE FIRST RESURRECTION

LET HIM BE UNJUST STILL

ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION

SHALL NOT SEE LIFE

"AS THE TREE FALLS SO IT LIES."

THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST.

THE HARVEST PAST AND WE NOT SAVED

FIRE

"OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE."

he is a "refiner's fire."

god's judgments like fire

UNQUENCHABLE FIRE

FURNACE OF FIRE

ETERNAL FIRE

"WHEAT AND CHAFF," "AXE," ETC.

FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

JUDGMENT

it is a joyful occasion

it is in this world

iT is not hereafter

it is now

it is for every act and thought

JUDGMENT TO COME

THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST

THE day of JUDGMENT.

CHRIST, THE JUDGE OF THE WORLD

AFTER THIS THE JUDGMENT

GNASHING OF TEETH.

DAMNATION, ETC.

eating and drinking damnation

THE UNBELIEVER DAMNED

that they all might be damned.

the resurrection of damnation

THE CASE OF JUDAS

THE SON OF PERDITION, ETC.

THE GOSPEL HID

THE LOST SOUL

"ONE OF YOU IS A DEVIL."

BETTER NEVER BEEN BORN

HIS OWN PLACE

WAS JUDAS A SUICIDE?

ETERNAL, ETC.

LEXICOGRAPHY

"CLASSIC USAGE"

THE OLD TESTAMENT

the end of aionian things

everlasting contempt

everlasting burnings

JEWISH GREEK USAGE

THE NEW TESTAMENT

the noun

the adjective

the great proof text

the last days

an objection answered.

words denoting endlessness

all nations not gathered then

eternal judgment

everlasting chain

everlasting destruction

presence of the lord

banished from god's presence

smoke of torment for ever and ever

the christian fathers

the emperor justinian

unavoidable conclusion

HELL

sheol and hadees

only five old testament texts are claimed

sheol--hadees rendered hell

the lowest hell is on earth

important facts

the old testament repudiates the heathen doctrine

"orthodox" and heathen views identical

convincing testimonies

jewish and pagan opinions

hell in the new testament--hadees

meaning of hadees

opinions of scholars

heathen corruptions

thrust down to hadees

the gates of hadees

hadees is on earth

hadees destroyed

the rich man and lazarus

tartarus

the book of enoch

what did peter mean?

gehenna

opinions of scholars

jewish views of gehenna

important facts

danger of hell-fire

cast into hell-fire

destroy soul and body in hell

the damnation of hell

set on fire of hell

conclusion

Preface

When one who has been reared in the Evangelical Church is favorably impressed with the doctrine of Universal Salvation, it frequently happens that the many texts he has heard quoted against it, operate as stumbling blocks in his way. The author of this book believes that no text of Scripture, properly understood, in any manner traverses the grand central truth of the Gospel: God's triumph over all his foes, converting them to himself; and he has arranged these expositions in a brief and popular style for the purpose of showing that the Threatenings of the Bible are perfectly harmonious with the Promises of Scripture; in fact, that the threatenings are given in order that the promises of Universal Redemption may be fulfilled.



He agrees with the Canon Farrar of the Episcopal Church, who says: "If the decision be made to turn solely on the literal meaning of the scriptures, I have no hesitation whatever in declaring my strong conviction that the Universalist and Annihilist theories have far more evidence of this sort for them than the popular view. It seems to me that if many passages of Scripture be taken quite literally, universal restoration is unequivocally taught, * * * * * * * * but that endless torments are nowhere clearly taught--the passages which appear to teach that doctrine being either obviously figurative or historically misunderstood."



If these pages shall assist any mind to remove obstacles that prevent it from beholding God as the Savior of the world, its purpose will be fulfilled.

Bible Threatenings Explained.

When considering the threatenings of the Bible, it must never be forgotten that they are always to be interpreted and understood in harmony with the great principles declared in the Scriptures, and more especially with the revealed character of God, and his promises to man. They must be so explained as to harmonize with the rest of the book that contains them. For instance, we read that "God is a spirit," and yet the same book speaks of the eye, hand, arm and ear of God. As an infinite spirit can have no such organs, we must not say either (1) that God is not a spirit, or (2) that one part of the book contradicts another part. Such passages must be interpreted so as to agree with the great central fact that God is a spirit.



Now we read that "God is Love"--is a "Father." And at the same time we are told that he will cast the wicked into hell--into everlasting fire--will punish them forever, etc. On the same principle we must not (1) deny that God is Love and a merciful Father, nor (2) believe that the Bible contradicts itself; but we must believe that the threatenings harmonize with the promises, and that no penalty can be accepted as taught in the Bible, that would prove God not a father, or destitute of love towards each and all of his children. In other words, we must shed the light of infinite, boundless, unending love on all threatened penalties, and interpret them in perfect accord with the Divine character. Believing that God is love, we must not only be prejudiced against believing that endless or any other cruel punishment is threatened in the Bible, but we must, with all the resistance of which our moral natures are capable, refuse to credit any statement that represents God as permitting any penalty to befall the sinner which will not result in his final welfare. The love of God, the Divine Paternity, is an efficient guaranty against the possibility that unending agony can be experienced by any human creature. So that, if the letter of Scripture seemed to teach endless punishment--which it does not, when properly understood--the light of the great central fact of revelation-God's Love--would dispel all darkness from the declaration as soon as the light of that truth should fall upon it. In this frame of mind we should consider the threatenings of the Bible.

ENDLESS PUNISHMENT OF HEATHEN ORIGIN.



We should also bear another fact in mind. When the doctrine of endless punishment began to be taught in the Christian Church, it was not derived from the Scriptures, but from the heathen converts to Christianity, who accepted Christ, but who brought with them into their new church that doctrine which had for centuries been taught in heathen lands, but which neither Moses nor Christ accepted. And having received the idea from heathen tradition, it was natural that the early Christians should transfer it to the Bible, and seek to find it there.



That heathen invented this doctrine is undeniable.



Says Cicero" "It was on this account that the ancients invented those infernal punishments of the dead, to keep the wicked under some awe in this life, who without them, would have no dread of death itself."



Says Polbius, the Greek historian: "The multitude is ever fickle and capricious, full of lawless passions and irrational and violent resentments. There is no way left to keep them in order but by the terrors of future punishment, and all the pompous circumstances that attend such fiction! On which account the ancients acted, in my opinion, with great judgment and penetration, when they contrived to bring those notions of the gods and a future state into the popular belief."



Strabo, the Greek geographer and philosopher, says: "it is impossible to govern women and the gross body of the people, and to keep them pious, holy and virtuous, by the precepts of philosophy. This can only be done by the fear of the gods, which is raised and supported by ancient fictions and modern prodigies." And again he says: "The apparatus of the ancient mythologies was an engine which the legislators employed as bugbears to strike a terror into the childish imagination of the multitude."



This horrible heathen dogma sought entrance into the Christian church in vain for the first three centuries after Christ, and though here and there a heathenized Christian announced it, it did not become an accredited Christian doctrine till after more than five centuries. Dr. Edward Beecher candidly confesses that as late as three hundred years after Christ it had hardly obtained a foothold.



He says: "What, then, was the state of facts as to the leading theological schools of the Christian world in the age of Origen and some centuries after? It was, in brief, this: There were at least six theological schools in the church at large. Of these six schools, one, and only one, was decidedly and earnestly in favor of the doctrine of future eternal punishment. One was in favor of the annihilation of the wicked. Two were in favor of the doctrine of universal restoration on the principles of Origen, and two in favor of universal restoration on the principles of Theodore of Mopsuestia."



That is to say, here were four times as many Universalist theological schools, where clergymen were educated, as there were schools in which endless punishment was taught, even as late as A. D. 300. But from that time onward, as darkness increased, the heathen idea was more and more transferred to the sacred page, till it entirely overlaid and obscured the truth, and it was not until the light of the Reformation began to dawn that the profane inscriptions of heathen tradition were erased from the palimpsest of the Scriptures, so that the meaning of the inspired authors could be apprehended.



We propose in this volume to show that the texts quoted in behalf of the heathen error do not contain it; that none of the threatenings of the Bible teach endless punishment.



ADAM'S PUNISHMENT.



"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."--Gen. 2:16, 17.



The penalty that God intended to threaten to Adam would certainly be found at the very promulgation of the consequences of his sin. But it is nowhere intimated in the account of the first human transgression that he had incurred endless torment.



Adam was told: "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," or, as a literal translation would read, "Dying thou shalt die." Whatever death Adam died, it was in the day he sinned. What death did he die, in that day?



This threatened death is not (1) of the body, for physical dissolution was the natural result of physical organization, and the death threatened was to be "in the day he sinned." His body did not die in that day. (2) It was not eternal death for the same reason. He certainly went to no endless hell "in the day" of his transgression. It was (3) a moral, spiritual death, from which recovery is feasible. Paul describe it:



"Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart."--Eph. 4:18. "You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."--Eph.2:1



Jesus describes it in the parable of the Prodigal son: "It was meet that we should make merry and be glad; for this, thy brother, was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found."--Luke 15:32

So does Moses: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live."--Deut.30:15-19



Adam died this kind of death, and no other, "in the day" he sinned. This is apparent from the description of his fate subsequent to his transgression."



"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return."--Gen.3:17-19



If the reader will carefully consult the accounts of the sin and punishment of Cain, the Antediluvians, the Diluvians, Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the transgressors whose sins are recorded for four thousand years, he will find not a whisper, not a hint, that any but a limited and temporal penalty was received. This is agreed by all scholars.



TESTIMONY OF CRITICS.



Warburton: In the Jewish Republic, both the rewards and punishments promised by heaven were temporal only: such as health, long life, peace, plenty, and dominion, etc.; diseases, premature death, war, famine, want, subjections, and captivity, etc. And in no one place of the Mosaic Institutes is there the least mention, or intelligible hint, of the rewards and punishments of another life.--Div Leg. vol.3. Jahn: We have not authority, therefore, decidedly to say that any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue the good and avoid the evil, than those which were derived from the rewards and punishments of this life.--Archaeology, p.398. Milman: The lawgiver (Moses) maintains a profound silence on that fundamental article, if not of political, at least of religious legislation rewards and punishments in another life. He substituted temporal chastisements and temporal blessings. On the violation of the constitution followed inevitably blighted harvests, famine, pestilence, defeat, captivity; on its maintenance, abundance, health, fruitfulness, victory, independence. How wonderfully the event verified the prediction of the inspired legislator! How invariable apostasy led to adversity--repentance and reformation to prosperity!--Hist. Jews, vol.1. Dr. Campbell: It is plain that in the Old Testament the most profound silence is observed in regard to the state of the deceased, their joys and sorrows, happiness or misery.



The punishments, then threatened and received, are thus described:



OLD TESTAMENT PUNISHMENTS



"It shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. Cursed shall be the fruit of the body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do. The Lord shall smite thee with consumption, and with a fever, with blasting and mildew; etc. In the morning thou shalt say: Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say: Would God it were morning!"—Deut. 28:15-29, 67.



Abimilech's is a case in point: "Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren."--Judges 9:56.



So with Ahithophel, the suicide: "And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed,he put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sephulchre of his father."—2 Sam.17:23.



Is it asked how this suicide was punished? Paul answers:



"Some men's sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment."--1Tim. 5:24.



Hence Paul tells us that under the Law: "Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward."--Heb. 2:2



Now for four thousand years every wicked act was fully punished in this life. "Every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward."



Would God have an endless hell and keep it a secret from the world for four thousand years? Would he keep sinners for four thousand years from a hell he had made, and then use it as a prison for other sinners no worse? No; the silence of God for forty centuries is a demonstration that he had no such place reserved for any of his children; and if not thence under the severe dispensation of Moses, it is impossible that it should be found in the milder message of the Gospel of the grace of God.



Before proceeding to consider the chief supports of the doctrine of endless torment, we will give brief expositions of several passages that are usually quoted in its defense.



THE STRAIT GATE



"The Strait Gate" and the "Few saved" are thought by many to indicate the final salvation of only a portion of the human family.



The question was asked by some one (Luke 13:23 and Matt. 7:13, 14): "Lord, are there few that be saved? and he answered: "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open unto us, and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are; then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out."



No intelligent reader supposes this language literal--that there is a gate at which men knock, after death, for admission into heaven. The Kingdom of God is Christ's reign on earth, and its gate signifies entrance into it. "The Kingdom of God," "Kingdom of Heaven," etc., is always in this world.

And every careful reader will see that the language is entirely confined to the present.



"Lord, are there few that be 'saved'?" The literal rendering is: "Are those being saved few?" The question relates entirely to the number then accepting Christianity. But inasmuch as all partialist Christians believe that the great mass--all but a small minority of mankind--will be finally saved, it is very inconsistent for any one thus believing to apply this language to man's final condition. "Are there few that are now being saved?" is the literal rendering of the question From what? Not from endless torment, but from certain evil consequences in this world.



And the answer to Jesus shows that the application was confined to those to whom he was speaking.

"Lord" (they say) "we have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets."



The words apply entirely to those who had heard him speak in their streets, namely the Jews, whose advantages were about to be taken away, and given to the Gentiles, who were to enter the kingdom by faith, with faithful Abraham, while they were thrust out. The weeping and gnashing of teeth represents their chagrin and rage at their lot, despising the Gentiles as they did.



This same subject is thus treated in Matt. 7:13,14.



"Enter ye in at the strait gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because, strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."



As we just said, it is entirely inconsistent for any advocate of endless punishment to quote this language in support of that doctrine, inasmuch as all such believers now teach that the great majority of souls will be finally saved, while only the small minority will be forever lost. The Savior referred, by the Strait Gate, to the exacting nature of his religion. The road was narrow, and difficult to follow, and but few then followed it, while the many avoided it, and pursued the broad road of error and sin. The words have the same application today, well expressed by good Dr. Watts:



Broad is the road that leads to death,

And thousands walk together there,

But wisdom shows a narrow path,

With here and there a traveller.



The language teaches that only the few then walked in the narrow way marked out by Christ while the many chose the broader way of wrong.



If we refer the passage to the future world, we cannot escape the conclusion that heaven will only contain a few souls, while the great majority will be damned. It has no reference to the future world whatever, but denotes the few who in our Savior's day went right, while the great multitude went wrong. Dr. A. Clarke says: "Enter in through this strait gate--i.e., of doing to every one as you would he should do unto you; for this alone seems to be the strait gate."



The language in Luke has a more special application to the Jews than that in Matthew, which may be applied to every age since Christ, and to the present. It is as true now as at the time Jesus spoke, that the path of Christian goodness is a difficult one, followed by a comparative few, while the way of wickedness is broad and much traveled. But it will not always be so.



Whoever refers the language to the final condition of the human race must admit that only a few will ever be holy and happy, while the great multitude will be lost. It has no such application, but teaches that at the time Jesus spoke the many went wrong, while only the few chose the way of life.



THE BAD CAST AWAY



"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from the just; and shall cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.--Matt. 13:47-50.



The "furnace of fire" and "gnashing of teeth" will be fully explained, as also the "end of the world," or age (aion) in subsequent parts of this book. The material universe, this world (kosmos) is never spoken of as ending, but it is always the aion, or age, the end of which is announced. "The field is the world," kosmos, 5:38, but "the end of the world," when the harvest comes, 5:39, is aion. The age ends, but not the world.



The kingdom of heaven is Christ's rule among men, his church. It is a net which catches good and bad, and at the end of that age, so often referred to, when severe judgments were to come, the angels, or messengers to execute God's judgments, would separate Christians from others, and the bad were to suffer in the furnace of fire, the burning city, and perish in Gehenna.



Dr. Clark says: "It is very remarkable that not a single Christian perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, though there were many there when Cestius Gallus invaded the city; and had he persevered in the siege, he would have rendered himself master of it; but when he, unexpectedly and unaccountably, raised the siege, the Christians took that opportunity to escape."



This language has sole reference to the remarkable trials through which the early Christians were about to pass, when Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Christian religion was fairly established on the ruins of the Jewish church. The "furnace of fire," the "wailing and gnashing of teeth," were when the awful calamities of those fearful days, so fully described in Matt. 24, were visited upon the people of Judea. These expressions will be more fully explained hereafter.



YE SHALL ALL LIKEWISE PERISH.



"I tell you, nay; except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."--Luke 12:3.



Many readers of the Bible suppose that the word perish always relates to the immortal soul, and that it means to suffer torment without end. And this passage has been quoted blindly, ignorantly, thousands of times to denote the final loss of the soul. But it is only necessary to consult the immediate context to perceive that Jesus was referring to nothing of the sort. He asks:



"Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."



That is, perish in a manner similar to their death. "Except ye repent, ye shall all perish as they died." How was that? There were "some who told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices," and of a certain eighteen "upon whom the tower of Siloam fell, and slew them."

"Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay; but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish."



That is, be slain as they were. No better explanation of these words can be given than in the language of "orthodox" commentators.



Says Dr. Clarke: "ye shall all likewise perish. In a like way, in the same manner. This prediction of our lord was literally fulfilled. When the city was taken by the Romans, multitudes of the priests, etc., who were going on with their sacrifices, were slain, and their blood mingled with the blood of their victims; and multitudes were buried under the ruins of the walls, houses and temple."



Dr. Barnes (Presbyterian) observes: "You shall all be destroyed in a similar manner. * * This was remarkably fulfilled. Many of the jews were slain in the temple; many while offering sacrifice; thousands perished in a way very similar to the Galileans."



Whitby says: "I tell you, nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish, for the same cause, and many of you after the same manner."



IMPOSSIBLE TO RENEW THEM



"For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."--Heb 6:4-6.



Any reader of the New Testament ought to see that this language is not to be understood as literal, when he remembers that Peter himself "fell away," and was "renewed again unto repentance." What Paul says is that it is difficult, not impossible, to renew those who have once tasted the heavenly gift.



The word here has the same force as in Matt. 19:26, where it is said to be impossible for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In reply to the apostles' question, "who, then, can be saved?" Jesus said: "With men it is impossible, but with God everything is possible;" or, more exactly, "With men it is hard, but everything is easy with God."



Calmet says: "St. Paul by no means intended to exclude the baptism of tears and repentance, for the expiation of those sins which we commit after regeneration."



Rosenmuller, a celebrated German theologian, says: "Adunaton, in this place, does not mean absolutely impossible, but rather a thing so difficult that it may be nearly impossible; thus we are accustomed to say of very many things in common conversation."



Dr. Macknight observes: "The apostle does not mean that it is impossible for God to renew a second time, by repentance, an apostate; but that it is impossible for the ministers of Christ to convert a second time, to the faith of the Gospel, one who, after being made acquainted with all the proofs by which God has thought fit to establish Christ's mission, shall allow himself to think him an impostor, and renounce the gospel. The apostle, knowing this, was anxious to give the Hebrews just views of the ancient oracles, in the hope that it would prevent them from apostatizing.



THE SIN UNTO DEATH



"If a man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. All unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin unto death.--1 John 15:6, 17.



"The sin unto death" has often been supposed to be the "unpardonable sin," so called, as though any sin could be unpardonable by a God whose mercy is without limit and without end. The apostle was merely alluding to the various offences under the Jewish law, some of which were unto death, or capital offences, while others were less heinous. The latter were to be interceded for, but the former were to be regarded as beyond intercession. On this passage Bishop Horne correctly says:



"The Talmudical writers have distinguished the capital punishments of the Jews into lesser deaths and such as were more grievous; but there is no warrant in the Scriptures for these distinctions, neither are these writers agreed among themselves what particular punishments are to be referred to these two heads. A capital crime generally was termed a sin of death (Deut. 16:6); or a sin worthy of death (Deut. 21:22), which mode of expression is adopted, or rather imitated, by the apostle John, who distinguishes between a sin unto death, and a sin not unto death (1 John 5:16). Criminals, or those who were deemed worthy of capital punishment, were called sons or men of death (1 Sam. 15:32; 31:6; 2 Sam. 19:28, marginal reading), just as he who had incurred the punishment of scourging was designated a son of stripes (Deut.25:16; 1 Kings 14:6). A similar phraseology was adopted by Jesus Christ, when he said to the Jews: "Ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:21-24). Eleven different sorts of capital punishment are mentioned in the sacred writings."



THE HYPOCRITE'S HOPE.



"And the hypocrite's hope shall perish."--Job 8:13



Why this passage was ever quoted in support of endless punishment, we have no conjecture. There is nothing in it to indicate that it has the remotest reference to anything beyond this life. Its meaning is that the wicked shall be disappointed; that the will not realize what they desire. It is exactly equivalent to Prov. 5:28: "The expectation of the wicked shall perish."



AGREE WITH THINE ADVERSARY



"Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say unto you, thou shalt by no means come out thence till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."--Matt. 5:25, 26.



The adversary here is a legal one, the language refers to those who were opposed to the disciples in some way, as is evident from the references to a "judge", an "officer" and a "prison." If God were the adversary, as is sometimes claimed, and the prison is after death, then limited punishment is certainly taught, for when "the uttermost farthing" is paid, then deliverance from the prison follows. But it has no such reference. The language has a local reference to the times of the disciples, and relates entirely to legal opponents.



THE WICKED DRIVEN AWAY.



"The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death."--Prov. 14:32.

Solomon had not the most remote reference to post mortem suffering in this language. What he meant to say was that when the wicked is driven away to death in his wickedness, the righteous has hope.



He expresses the same idea when he says: "I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive."--Ecc. 4:2. When the wicked die in their wickedness, the righteous have hope even in their death, is what Solomon says in this language.



THE LIVING GOD FEARFUL.



"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."--Heb. 10:31



To fall into the hands of God, the living God, is as when (1 Sam. 5:6) "the hand of the Lord was heavy," and "the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines."



It denotes the judgments of God falling on the sinful. It is fearful to merit and receive those penalties. God has a merciful purpose in them, but they are often fearful to experience. We are always in God's hands, but we are said to "fall into" his hands when we suffer the consequences of sinfulness. It is a fearful thing to merit and receive the results of wickedness, even though a beneficent purpose moulds them, just as an amputation is a fearful process to undergo, though it may save life and restore health.



GOD LAUGHS AT MAN'S CALAMITY.



"I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproofs. I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh."--Prov. 1:24-26.



This language is sometimes wrongfully applied to God, who is represented as laughing at man's calamity, and mocking him when in future and final torment, whereas it is Wisdom that is personified as saying:



"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she uttereth her words, saying: How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof! Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have set at naught all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind: when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; they would none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof; therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil."



The idea of wresting this language from its application to Wisdom, and applying it to the merciful God and Father of all, is one of the many illustrations of the manner in which the advocates of endless torment have misapplied the language of the Bible to make it seem to sustain the horrible doctrine. Think of God mocking the sinner's groans, and laughing as he listens to his cries of torment! And why should he not, if he has, in infinite wisdom and love, created an endless hell for his abode?



YE SHALL NOT FIND ME



"Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am thither ye can not come."--John 7:34. "Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and die in your sins; whither I go ye cannot come."---John 8:21.



These verses are usually misquoted thus: "If ye die in your sins, where God and Christ are ye never can come." But Jesus said just the same thing to his disciples in John 13:33.



"Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said unto the Jews, whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you."



True, he said to his disciple Peter: "Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterward," and so he told the wicked Jews: "Ye shall not see me till ye shall say, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Matt. 23:39). In both instances he meant that he should not be followed at that time, but in neither case did he mean that they should be excluded from his presence forever.



NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD.



"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."--Gal.5:19-21. "For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."--Eph. 5:5. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drundards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."--1 Cor. 6:9,10.



The popular rendering of these passages is, that those who commit these sins in this life will never find heaven, unless they repent before they die; but that idea is not expressed nor implied. The kingdom of God, of heaven, is a condition of purity, and whoever is guilty of these sins shuts himself out from the enjoyment of the kingdom. No Christian sect teaches this doctrine more earnestly than do Universalists. All Christians teach that this language is not to be interpreted literally. All those thus guilty; may, by repentance, enter the kingdom.



THE BARREN FIG TREE



"Cut it down why cumbereth it the ground?"--Luke 13:7. This language is parallel to that in Matt. 3:10: "and now also the axe is laid unto the root of the tree; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."



Man is compared to a fruitless tree, that is destroyed because barren. No point of the description is literal--neither the tree, the axe, the fruit, nor the fire. The nation, or the individual, that does not serve God, perishes; that is, passes through a process of decay, destruction, as the penalty of sinfulness. Not annihilation, nor ceaseless torment, but that moral condition for which the Scriptures have no better name than death.



GOD ANGRY EVERY DAY.



"God is angry with the wicked every day."--Psalm 7:11.



Anger, as the word is ordinarily used, is not a noble emotion; it is altogether unworthy of God, and he is incapable of it. The wise man says (Ecc. 7:9): "Anger resteth in the bosom of fools." Then God cannot be "angry every day," all the time. What is the meaning of these words?



Dr. Adam Clarke, the well known scholar and commentator, has examined the text with equal learning and candor, and he gives us the result of his investigation in the statement that a mistranslation of the language puts a false meaning on the words. He gives these as authorities:



The Vulgate:--"God is a judge, righteous, strong and patient. Will he be angry every day?" The Septuagint:--"God is a righteous judge, strong and long-suffering; not bringing forth his anger every day." The Arabic is the same. The Genevan version, printed in 1615:--"God judgeth the righteous, and him that contenmeth God, every day;" marginal note: "he doth continually call the wicked to repentance by some signs of his judgments."



Dr. Clarke says: "I have judged it of consequence to trace this verse through all the ancient version in order to be able to ascertain what is the true reading, where the evidence on one side amounts to a positive affirmation, 'God is angry every day,' and, on the other side, to as positive a negation, 'He is not angry every day.' The mass of evidence supports the latter reading. The Chaldee first corrupted the text by making the addition, 'with the wicked,' which our translators have followed, though they have put the words into italics, as not being in the Hebrew text. Several of the versions have rendered it in this way: 'God judgeth the righteous, and is not angry every day." The true sense may be restored thus; el with the vowel tsere signifies God; el, the same letters with the point pathach, signifies not.



Several of the versions have read in this way: 'God judgeth the righteous, and is not angry every day.' He is not always chiding, nor is he daily punishing, notwithstanding the daily wickedness of man; hence the ideas of patience and long-suffering which several of the versions introduce."



It will be seen that David expressly says that God is not angry every day, though those who quote the text as found in our version to prove God petulant, wrathful and passionate, do not seem to reflect that it is no proof of endless punishment, for the same author and others declare (Micah 7:18; Psa. 103:8,9; 30:5) that "He retaineth not his anger forever." So that, if he were--as he is not--angry every day, the time would come when his anger would no longer exist.



It will enable the reader to understand the meaning of anger, as ascribed to God in the Scriptures, if he will consider how the word is used in the Bible. There are two kinds of anger. One is right, and is exhibited by God, good angels and good men, and the other is wrong and is an animal characteristic, of which God is incapable. Abstract anger is a disposition to combat, destroy, and its legitimate use is to remove obstacles. Employed by the good it never harms, but used by the evil, its work is mischief and woe.



The first sort is referred to in the passage we are considering, and is exercised by God, who is said to "hate all the workers of iniquity." And how does he exhibit his anger? Not against the sinner, but against the sin. Men, smarting under the penalties of sin, seeing only the stroke, and not realizing the love that impels it, say with Saul that God hates them, but it is Infinite Love that wields the rod, and that inflicts every stroke because it loves the sinner, and will destroy that in him that alienates him from his best friend, and ruins his best interests.



David says; "Thou shalt make the wicked as a fiery oven in the time of thy anger, the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them."--Psa. 21:9. The prophet declares: "The Lord reserveth wrath for his enemies."--Nahum 1:2, 3. Paul affirms; "The wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience." "The power and wrath of God is upon all them that forsake him."--Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6. Jesus says: "The wrath of God abideth on him that believeth not the Son."--John 3:36. He also says: "God is kind to the unthankful and evil."--Luke 6:35. "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust."--Matt. 5:48.



Now these are not contradictory statements. They are consistent with each other. What God is determined to destroy in the sinner is that which makes him a sinner, and he proceeds towards him as a good parent must, to eradicate it by punishment. An angry mother--a true mother--punishes her wayward boy, just as God punishes the wicked, because she loves him. The boy may call it anger, but it is that kind which will not harm a hair of his head. It is indeed the highest love; it is determined on the child's welfare, and so will not shrink from inflicting pain. But it is temporary. This is evident when we remember that men are told to be like God, and yet they must not let the sun go down upon their wrath. We must love our enemies that we may be children of the highest. If God were angry every day, and we were like him, we should be cross, petulant, wrathful, vindictive and hateful all the time. But we can only be like God as we "put off anger" (Col. 3:8) and "put away all wrath, anger and malice," (Eph. 4:31) inasmuch as "a fool's wrath is presently known," (Prov. 12:16) while "he that is slow to wrath is of great understanding." (Prov. 14:28)



"God is not angry with the wicked every day," is the correct reading of this passage, and it must be true of him who is Love, and who is unchangeable, that he never was, never is, and never will be--for he never can be--angry with any human being in any other sense than that his righteous indignation burns towards those traits that cause his children to sin, and that it will continue to burn until it destroys those traits, and transforms his enemies into friends. "The man who destroyed his enemies" transformed them to friends. God's anger will destroy the enmity of his enemies. He will always be kind to the unthankful and evil. He "is not angry with the wicked every day."

THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY GHOST



The passages that relate to this subject are in Matt. 12:31, 32:"Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men; but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor the world to come." Mark 3:28-30: "all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because they said, he hath an unclean spirit." Luke 12:10: "And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven."



What is this sin? It consisted in ascribing the power by which Jesus wrought his wonderful works to Satan. He was accused of being aided by Beelzebub, of having an unclean spirit, and of working his miracles by the power of an evil spirit. From this it follows that but very few persons are exposed to the doom here threatened, inasmuch as very few have ever committed this sin.



But if we take this language literally, we must hold that all other sinners, of every character and kind, will be saved, because just as positively as the Scripture declares that these blasphemies shall never be forgiven, it declares that all others literally and absolutely shall be forgiven. "Verily I say unto you all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme." The sin against the Holy Ghost is the only sin that shall not be pardoned. All other sinners. thieves, liars, murderers, all except that very small number that accused Jesus of receiving diabolical help, shall be forgiven. Does not this show that the terms of the passage are not to be taken literally? Does it not appear that men must either believe that all kinds of sinners, and all of them, except this small number, must be pardoned, or else that the rest of the language is not to be taken literally? It is asserted just as positively that all others shall be, as that these few shall not be forgiven.

If the "shall" and "shall not" are to be understood literally, then the number of the damned is entirely limited to the very few who actually saw Christ's miracles, and ascribed them to Beelzebub. No one since, and no one hereafter can be damned, for all other sin but that shall be forgiven. This saves all mankind except those few persons who said, "He [Christ] hath an unclean spirit." This reduces hell to a mere mote in the universe, and excludes all now living, or who hereafter shall live, from any exposure to it.



What does that language mean? Campbell says this is "a noted Hebraism;" that is, a term of speech common among the Jews, to teach that one event is more likely to occur than another, and not that either shall or shall not occur.



Dr. Newcome says: "It is a common figure of speech in the oriental languages, to say of two things that the one shall be and the other shall not be, when the meaning is that the one shall happen sooner, or more easily, than the other."



Grotius and Bishop Newton are to the same purport. For illustration, when Jesus says, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," he does not mean that heaven and earth shall actually pass away, but they will sooner fail than his words. It is a strong method of asserting that his words shall be fulfilled. This is common in the Bible.



Prov. 8:10: "Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold." Matt. 6:19, 20: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Luke 14:12, 13 "Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbors; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind." John 6:27: "Labor not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you; for him hath God the father sealed."



The plain meaning is, all other sins are more easily forgiven than this. The words "never," "neither in this world nor the world to come," do not change the sense, but only strengthen and intensify the Savior's meaning that this is of all sins the worst.



The popular impression that 'the world to come" here means the life after death is an error.

Dr. Clarke well observes: "Though I follow the common translation, yet I am fully satisfied the meaning of the words is, neither in this dispensation, viz., the Jewish, nor in that which is to come. Olam ha-bo, the world to come, is a constant phrase for the times of the Messiah, in the Jewish writers."



Wakefield, Rosenmuller and Hammond also give the same opinion. And it should be added that the word "never" is no part of the original Greek. That is, not under either dispensation, or age (aion--mistranslated "world"), will this inexcusable sin be less than the greatest of transgressions.



Bishop Pearce declares: "This is a strong way of expressing how difficult a thing it was for such a sinner to obtain pardon. The Greek word aion seems to signify age here, as it often does in the New Testament (see Matt. 13:40; 24:3; Col. 1:26; Eph. 3:5, 21) and according to its most proper signification. If this be so, then 'this age' means the Jewish one, and 'the age to come' (see Hebrews 6:5 and Eph. 2:7) means that under the Christian dispensation. The end of the world took place during the time of the apostles. 'Now once in the end of the world hath he [Christ] appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.'--Heb. 9:26. 'Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.' 1 Cor. 10:11."



Gilpin observes, "Nobody can suppose, considering the whole tenor of Christianity, that there can be any sin which, on repentance, may not be forgiven. This, therefore, seems only a strong way of expressing the difficulty of such repentance, and the impossibility of forgiveness without it. Such an expression occurs Matt. 19:24: 'It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven;' that is, it is very difficult. That the Pharisees were not beyond the reach of forgiveness, on their repentance, seems to be plain from verse 41, where the repentance of Nineveh is held out to them for an example."



Clarke says: "Any penitent may find mercy through Christ Jesus; for through him any kind of sin may be forgiven to man, except the sin against the Holy Ghost, which I have proved no man can now commit."--Clarke on 1 John 6:16. And again: "No man who believes the divine mission of Jesus Christ, ever can commit this sin."



These are all "Orthodox" commentators, whose opinions were certainly not formed by prejudice in favor of our views of the passages in question. They agree with what seems the meaning of the Savior, that this sin is of all others most inexcusable. But that any sin is literally unpardonable, by a God and Father of infinite love and mercy, is nowhere expressed or implied in the Bible.



Mark's language "hath never forgiveness" should read "has not forgiveness to the age," but is liable to aionian judgment; that is, to an indefinite penalty. See the word aionios, explained in subsequent pages of this book.



THE WRATH OF GOD



Paul speaks (Col. 3:6) of "the wrath of God on the children of disobedience." We have shown that wrath is a reprehensible passion, unworthy of men and impossible to God. The word can only be applied to God in a figurative sense, to denote his disapproval of sin.



Macknight (Presbyterian) gives a lucid exposition of the subject: "Thus, many words of the primitive language of mankind must have a twofold significance. According to the one signification, they denote ideas of sense, and according to the other they denote ideas of intellect. So that although these words were the same in respect of their sound, they were really different in respect of their signification; and to mark that difference, after the nature of language came to be accurately investigated, the words which denoted the ideas of sense, when used to express the ideas of intellect, were called by the critics metaphors, from a Greek word which signifies to transfer; because these words, so used, were carried away from their original meaning to a different one, which, however, had some resemblance to it.



"Having in the Scriptures these and many other examples of bold metaphors, the natural effect of the poverty of the ancient language of the Hebrews, why should we be either surprised or offended with the bold figurative language in which the Hebrews expressed their conceptions of the Divine nature and government? Theirs was not a philosophical language, but the primitive speech of an uncultivated race of men, who, by words and phrases taken from objects of sense, endeavored to express their notions of matters which cannot be distinctly conceived by the human mind, and far less expressed in human language. Wherefore they injure the Hebrews who affirm that they believed the Deity to have a body, consisting of members of the human body, because in their sacred writings, the eyes, the ears, the hands and the feet of God are spoken of; and because he is represented as acting with these members after the manner of men.



"'The voice of the Lord walking in the garden.'--Gen. 3:8. 'The Lord is a man of war' 'Thy right hand O Lord, hath dashed,' etc.; 'The blast of thy nostrils.'--Exod. 15:3-6-8. 'Smoke out of his nostrils;' 'Fire out of his mouth;' 'Darkness under his feet;' 'He rode' and 'Did fly.'--Psa. 17:8, 9, 10.



"In like manner they injure the Hebrews who affirm they thought God was moved by anger, jealousy, hatred, revenge, grief, and other human passions, because in their Scriptures it is said: 'It repented the Lord' 'It grieved him.'--Gen. 6:6. 'A jealous God.'--Ex. 20:5. 'The wrath of the Lord.'--Num. 11:33. 'I hate."--Prov. 8:13. 'The indignation of the Lord' 'His fury'--Isa. 34:2. 'God is jealous' 'Revengeth and is furious' 'Will take vengeance' and 'He reserveth wrath.'--Nahum 1:2.



"They also injure the Hebrews who affirm that they believe the Deity subject to human infirmity, because it is said: 'God rested.'--Gen. 2:2. 'The Lord smelled.'--Gen. 8:21. 'I will go down and see,' and 'if not, I will know.'--Gen. 18:21. 'He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh' 'Shall have them in derision.'--Psa. 2:4. 'The Lord awaked,' etc.--Psa. 78:65.



"These and the like expressions are highly metaphorical, and imply nothing more but that in the divine mind and conduct (to human perceptions) there is somewhat analogous to, and resembling the sensible objects and the human affections, on which these metaphorical expressions are founded. If from the passages of Scripture in which the members of the human body are ascribed to the Deity, it is inferred that the ancient Hebrews believed the Deity hath a body of the same form with the human body, we must conclude they believed the Deity to be a tree, with spreading branches and leaves which afforded an agreeable shade; and a great fowl, with feathers and wings; and even a rock. because he is so called.--Deut. 32:15; Psa. 17:8; 18:2-31; 91:4."--Macknight on the Epistles, Essay 8: Sec.1.



The consequences of human misconduct, the judgments of God on wickedness, are ascribed to wrath, anger, hatred, to God, but always in a figurative sense; for he who is the same always, and whose nature is love, cannot literally be angry or wrathful.



"And said to the mountains and rock, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb."--Rev. 6:16. At the opening of the sixth seal, "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, and the heavens departed as a scroll," etc.--Rev. 6:12, 13.



The fearful evils of the times here prophesied are figuratively attributed to God's wrath. But all these scenes transpired on earth.



Dr. Clarke says: "All these things may literally apply to the final destruction of Jerusalem, and to the revolution which took place in the Roman Empire, under Constantine the Great. Some apply them to the day of judgment, but they do not seem to have that awful event in view."



Whatever the phrase means, it applies wholly to this life, and has no reference to the world beyond the grave. The phrase "Wrath of God" is an adaptation of human language to human apprehension; to ascribe human passions to him, is a metaphorical employment of terms. Man, smarting under God's chastisements, or beholding the results of his judgments, characterizes as wrath, hatred, what is dictated by love. God has not wrath as men are angry. There can be no such thing as hatred in him who is perfect love.



Prof. Stuart, in his comments on Romans, observes: "It is impossible to unite, with the idea of complete perfection, the idea of anger in the sense in which we cherish that passion; for with us it is a source of misery, as well as sin. To neither of these effects of anger can we properly suppose the Divine Being to be exposed. His anger, then, can be only that feeling or affection in him which moves him to look on sin with disapprobation and to punish it when connected with impenitence. We must not, even in imagination, connect this in the remotest manner with revenge; which is only and always a malignant passion. But vengeance, even among men, is seldom sought for against those whom we know to be perfectly impotent, in respect to thwarting any of our designs and purposes. Now, as all men and all creation can never endanger any one interest (if I may so speak) of the Divine Being, or defeat a single purpose; so we cannot even imagine a motive for revenge on ordinary grounds. Still less can we suppose the case to be of this nature, when we reflect that God is infinite in wisdom, power and goodness. This constrains us to understand the anger and indignation of God as anthropapathic, i.e., speaking of God after the manner of men. It would be quite as well (nay, much better ) to say that when the Bible attributes hands, eyes, arm, etc., to God, the words which it employs should be literally understood, as to say that when it attributes anger and vengeance to him it is to be literally understood. But if we so construe the Scriptures in this latter case, we represent God as a malignant being, and class him among the demons; whereas by attributing to him hands, eyes, etc., we only represent him to be like men."



Dr. Clarke thinks that the word "wrath" in the New Testament ought to be "punishment."



"Taken in this sense, we may consider the phrase as a Hebraism; punishment of God, i.e., the most heavy and awful of punishments; such as sin deserves, and such as it becomes divine justice to inflict. And this abideth on him (the unbeliever), endures as long as his unbelief and disobedience remain."



These comments express our views, and they certainly afford no support to the idea of endless torment.



THE WRATH TO COME



"O, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"--Matt.3:7

John Baptist addresses this language to the Scribes and Pharisees. By "wrath to come" he meant the approaching desolation of the Hebrew nation.



Bishop Pearce says, "the punishment to come in the destruction of the Jewish state" Kenrick, "the impending punishment in the destruction of the Jewish state;" Dr. Clarke, "the desolation which was about to fall on the Jewish nation."



But the same words may be applied to the consequences of any sinful career, whether of an individual or of a nation. The wrath to come is awaiting, not in endless hell, but here, in this world.



THE SPIRITS IN PRISON



"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water."--1 Peter 3:19, 20.



Why this passage is ever quoted against the Universalist faith cannot be seen. If Jesus went to hell to preach to the damned who were disobedient in the time of Noah, as many understand the text to teach, it was for the purpose of converting them, and therefore probation extends into the future state of existence We should be very glad to believe this to be the meaning of the text, but the facts compel a different view. What is the meaning?



The spirits in prison are the minds of men imprisoned in sin. By his spirit Jesus preached and preaches to such.



Dr. Clarke says: "I have before me one of the first, if not the very first edition of the Latin Bible, and in it the verse stands thus: 'By which he came spiritually, and preached to them that were in prison.'"

Wakefield says Christ here makes comparison between the Antediluvians and the Gentiles:



"By which he went and preached to the minds of men in prison, who were disobedient, as those upon whom the long suffering of God waited, as in the days of Noah."



That is, the Gentiles to whom Christ came to preach by his spirit were as disobedient as the Antediluvians. The language has no reference whatever to a future state of being.



There is no objection--based on our views--to the exegesis of the passage that represents Jesus as having gone to Hadees to preach to spirits there yet unredeemed, but the doctrine finds no warrant in this passage.



"I PRAY NOT FOR THE WORLD."



"I pray for them; I pray not for the world but for them which thou hast given me, for they are thine."--John 17:9.



Jesus was offering a special prayer for his disciples. He frequently employs this form of expression; that is, he uses the negative in order to give the greater emphasis to the affirmative, as when he says, in reference to forgiveness: "Not seven times, but seventy times seven;" or, "Lay not up treasures upon earth, but lay up treasures in heaven." He does not forbid us to forgive seven times, nor to lay up treasures on earth, but he precedes his command to forgive seventy times seven, and to lay up heavenly treasures, by a negative, in order to give the greater force to what follows. He offers a special prayer for his disciples, but in verse 21 he extends it to others, and on his cross he prayed for his murderers (Luke 23:34); and he also prayed for all men when (John 10) he prayed for all the sheep for whom he had laid down his life.



"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring; and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd."



Barnes (Presbyterian) says: "This passage settles nothing about the question whether Christ prayed for sinners." Whitby says: "He made this prayer out of affection to the world, and with this design, that the preaching of the apostles to them might be more effectual for their conversion and salvation."

The language is simply a special prayer for the disciples.



THE RIGHTEOUS SCARCELY SAVED.



"For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner and the ungodly appear?"--1 Peter 4:18.



In preference to any comments of our own on this passage, we present the views of "orthodox" commentators, who express our opinion of the passage exactly.



Dr. Macknight says: "Indeed the time is come, that the punishment to be inflicted on the Jews as a nation, for their crimes from the first to last, must begin at you Jewish Christians, now become the house of God. And if it begin first at us, who are so dear to God, what will the end be of those Jews who obey not the gospel of God? And when God thus punishes the nation, if the righteous Jews, who believe in Christ, with difficulty can be saved, where will the ungodly and sinful part of the nation show themselves saved from the divine vengeance? That the apostle is not speaking here of the difficulty of the salvation of the righteous, at the day of judgment, will be evident to anyone who considers 2 Peter 1:11. What he speaks of, is the difficulty of the preservation of the Christians, at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem; yet they were preserved, for so Christ promised (Matt. 24:13). But the ungodly and wicked Jews were saved neither in Judea, nor anywhere else."



Dr. Adam Clarke: "Judgment must begin at the house of God. Our Lord had predicted that, previously to the destruction of Jerusalem, his followers would have to endure various calamities. (See Matt. 24:9, 21, 22; Mark 13:12, 13; John 16:2, etc.) Here his true disciples are called the house or family of God. And if it first begin at us, Jews who have repented and believe on the Son of God, what shall be the end of them, the Jews who continue impenitent, and obey not the gospel of God? Here is the plainest reference to the above Jewish maxim; and this, it appears, was founded upon the text which St. Peter immediately quotes.



"Verse 18--And if the righteous scarcely be saved. If it shall be with extreme difficulty that the Christians shall escape from Jerusalem, when the Roman armies shall come against it, with the full commission to destroy it, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? Where shall the proud Pharisaic boaster in his own outside holiness, and the profligate transgressor of the law of God, show themselves, as having escaped the divine vengeance? The Christians, though with difficulty, did escape, every man; but not one of the Jews escaped, whether found in Jerusalem or elsewhere. I have, on several occasions, shown that when Cestius Gallus came against Jerusalem, many Christians were shut up in it; when he strangely raised the siege, the Christians immediately departed to Pella, in Coelosyria, into the dominions of King Agrippa, who was an ally of the Romans; and there they were in safety; and it appears from the ecclesiastical historians that they had but barely time to leave the city before the Romans returned under the command of Titus, and never left the place till they had destroyed the temple, razed the city to the ground slain upwards of a million of those wretched people, and put an end to their civil polity and ecclesiastical state."



This salvation relates exclusively to deliverance from the approaching terrors of those times, and not to any sufferings after death by those to whom Jesus spoke, or to any others.



But by "accommodation" we may apply the language to all men, and say that if now, in this world, even the righteous but just escape the temptations and evils that surround them--"scarcely be [not shall be] saved"--the ungodly and sinner experience no such deliverance. "They are like the troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt continually." But in no event can the words be applied to any other state of existence than the present, without perverting the meaning of the Savior.



WRESTING THE SCRIPTURES TO DESTRUCTION.



"As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also other scriptures, unto their own destruction."--2 Peter 3:16.



When these words were written the land of Judea was full of confusion, and many portents indicated its approaching desolation, which was usually spoken of as identical with the "coming of the Lord."

Jesus had said: "And when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh."--Luke 21:20.



Now Peter wrote this epistle to keep the church in remembrance of the prophecies of the coming event. He refers to those who asked, "Where is the promise of his coming?" (5:4) and added (5:42) "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come."



He gives, in similar imagery to that employed by Jesus, the signs of the coming: "The heavens passing away with a great noise, and the elements melting with fervent heat."



Jesus had said: "The stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken."--Matt. 24:29. See also 2 Peter 3:10.



He exhorts (5:11) "seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness." Thus they misunderstood, perverted, the words of Jesus and Peter, and so were destroyed in the coming calamities, "before that generation passed;" when, had they understood and obeyed the Scriptures, they would have escaped. Those who misunderstood and misapplied those Scriptures were involved in the general overthrow.



NO MURDERER HATH ETERNAL LIFE.



"Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."—1 John 3:15.



This language shows that there are millions of murderers who never destroyed life, for every one who hates his brother has already committed murder. If no murderer can ever reach heaven, then millions must be lost forever, for, observe, it does not say that a murderer who does not repent before he dies, but "no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him;" that is, no one who hates his brother.



Partialists of every name do not act on the theory that the murderer must be lost, for every felon's cell and gibbet is surrounded by zealous Christians seeking to secure the repentance of the murderer: and it is notorious that nearly every executed murderer anticipates heaven, notwithstanding his crime, and there have been thousands of murderers who have, if the popular view be correct, by a repentance on the gallows escaped all punishment.



Now we accept no such easy, immoral theory as this. We are confident that no murderer swings from the gibbet to glory in a moment of time. The Scriptures include all transgressors when they say:



God “will by no means clear the guilty."--Ex. 34:7. "He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong that he hath done; and there is no respect of persons."--Col. 3:25. "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished."--Prov. 11:21. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."--Isa. 57:21.



The murderer who dies unpunished will receive what he deserves before he can be happy. But here or hereafter it will always be true that no murderer, whether he hate his brother or destroy his brother's life, hath eternal life abiding in him.



There is no more difficulty in applying infinite grace to convert and save the murderer than any other sinner. Indeed, as if to guard Christians against refusing to apply God's converting power to such, Paul says:



Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God."--1 Cor. 6:9-11.



Some of Paul's associates had been guilty of the grossest sins, and had cast them off. As long as they were thus sinful, they had not eternal life, but when they were reformed, regenerated, they possessed that life.



This will always be true of all souls. No murderer, or other gross sinner, no one whose heart is controlled by evil, possesses eternal life; but when the bad spirit is exorcised, the divine life will enter.



LET HIM BE ACCURSED



The word anathema, improperly rendered "accursed" in Gal. 1:8, has no such meaning. It's real significance is: "Let him go," "Ignore (or disregard) him." It really means "to separate." The apostle uses it here as he applies it to himself (Rom. 9:3): "I could wish myself separated from Christ." This is the view of all good critics.



Hammond: "And if any attempt to do that, though it were I myself, or even an angel from heaven, I proclaim unto you mine opinion and apostolic sentence, that you are to disclaim and renounce all communion with him, to look on him as an excommunicated person, under the second degree of excommunication, that none is to have any commerce with in sacred matters. And that he may take more heed to what I say, I repeat it again: Whosoever teaches you any new doctrine, contrary to what I at first preached unto you, let him be cast out of the church by you."



Wakefield: "But, if even we, or an angel from heaven, should preach the gospel differently from what we did preach it unto you, let him be rejected. As we told you before, so now I tell you again, if any one preach a different gospel to you from what ye received from us, let him be rejected."--Trans. in loc.



Clarke: "Perhaps this is not designed as an imprecation, but as a simple direction; for the word here may be understood as implying that such a person should have no countenance in his bad work, but let him, as Theodoret expresses it, be separated from the communion of the church. This, however, would also imply that, unless the person repented, the divine judgments would soon follow."--Com. in loc.



Nothing like what is implied in the common use of the English word "anathema" is meant by the Christian use of the Greek word. The Catholic church has employed it to mean accursed, or damned, in the Evangelical meaning of those words, which is as foreign to the spirit of Christ and Christianity as it is to curse and damn in common profanity.



THE SECOND DEATH.



"But the fearful, ant unbelieving, and the; abominable, and murderer, and whoremonger, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death."--Rev. 21:8



"And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God'; and the; books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in those books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead that 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."--Rev. 20:12-14.



Popularly "hell" and the "lake of fire and brimstone" are the same thing; but it is seen, as we read the description in Revelation, that they are entirely different. In chap. 20, verses 13 and 14, it is said that "death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death."



There are four opinions as to what the second death is. 1. Some suppose it refers to those who, having once been dead in trespasses and sins, have become quickened into newness of life, and then have returned to their wicked ways. 2. Others apply it to the apostasy of the Christian church. 3. Others to the second destruction or death of the Jewish people, which soon occurred. 4. Others refer it to the endless torment of the soul after death.



This last view is evidently incorrect, for a man's death in trespasses and sins is the first death, the dissolution of the body is the second death, and the endless torment of the soul would be the third death, if the term death were allowable. But it bears no resemblance to death, and if such a fate were in store for any it could not be called death.



The first, second, or third opinion may be adopted. Jude describes those who were "twice dead, plucked up by the roots." Such are all who have once been good, and who have fallen into evil ways.

We favor the first or third view indicated above; but whichever view we take, the popular one has no warrant in the language employed.



The careful reader of the book of Revelation will see that this second death is a temporal destruction to befall the Jewish nation soon after the book was written. The Apocalypse was written just before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. It had once before been laid waste. The Jewish nation had lost its national life, and now it was to pass through a similar experience, undergo a second death, which it did when Titus (A.D.70) overwhelmed the people, and inflicted national death on the Jews. The first death lasted seventy years, the captivity in Babylon; the second has lasted now eighteen centuries, and justifies the term everlasting.



The first death is described by the prophet Ezekiel, chap. 37:12-14: "Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves. And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land; then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord."



The second death was when the Jews were again extinguished as a nation. The revelator declares it was to be very soon.



"And behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly."--Rev. 22:12, 20.



Jesus thus announces the same event: "And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."--Matt. 24:30.



John says: "Behold, he cometh with clouds;" Jesus says: "The Son of man cometh in the clouds of heaven;" John: "And all the kindred of the earth shall wail because of him;" Jesus: "And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn."



In Rev. 21:8, the same idea is taught. "The fearful, unbelieving," etc., are to be burned in "the lake of fire, and this is the second death." The lake of fire denotes the fearful judgments of those days during which the Jews experienced their second death. Or, it may be used as a figure, and denote the idea marked "1" above.



THE FIRST RESURRECTION.



"But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.--Rev. 20:5, 6.



The first resurrection was when the morally dead of our Savior's time heard and obeyed his call:

"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead."--Eph. 5:14.



They lived and reigned with Christ. This spiritual living was the first resurrection. It was here in this world. Those who experienced it were not exposed to the second death; it had no power over them. Eusebius, the historian, says not a Christian was slain during those fearful times. They lived and reigned with Christ. The first resurrection and the second death were entirely confined to this world.

If any one objects to the exclusive application of these terms to the times and circumstances to which they were applied by John, it may be said that they also are applicable to us. We are dead in trespasses and sins. If we awake to righteousness, we rise out of this moral death, and this is our first resurrection. But if we continue indifferent and sinful, we are experiencing the second death, a condition that will continue until he who led captivity captive shall destroy our destroyers, and "the last enemy, death, shall be destroyed," and the final resurrection shall come, beyond which there shall be "no more death, neither shall there be any more pain."



LET HIM BE UNJUST STILL.



"He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still."--Rev. 22:11.



This language is often understood to teach that those who are unjust, or filthy, or righteous, or holy, at the death of the body, will remain unalterably fixed in that condition forever. If this were true, then millions of infants would be miserable to all eternity, for those who understand the text to relate to the future state of existence also teach that infants are born and die with depraved and corrupt natures.

But a careful reading of the context shows that the revelator has no such reference. He declares that the time of its application was "at hand;" saying, "Behold, I come quickly." The whole book was written, according to its author, to "show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass." The approaching destruction of Jerusalem, and overthrow of the Jewish state are the topics prophetically described throughout the book. The second overthrow of the Jewish nation was at hand. This event was to signalize the establishment of the Christian religion, and therefore it assumed immense importance. When the great event took place, those who had not previously become converted were fixed in their wicked ways, were filthy still; while those who had embraced Christianity were righteous still. The death of those spoken of is not referred to; the condition described is in this life. Tomson's Beza gives the correct view:



"This is not as were other prophecies, which were commanded to be hid till the time appointed, as in Daniel 12:4, because that these things should be quickly accomplished, and did even now begin."



ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION.



"If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."--Phil. 3:11.



All men are to attain unto the literal resurrection. It does not depend upon human effort. What resurrection can man accomplish by his efforts? The context shows. Paul is exalting the Gospel when he says:



"And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable to his death: if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead."



Evidently he refers here to a rising into that moral condition that Jesus occupied. He frequently employs this idea.



"Knowing this, that the old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."--Rom. 6:6.



The resurrection to be attained follows the crucifixion of "the old man." Seeing he had not yet reached that condition, Paul says: "Not as though I had already attained, neither were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."



He inculcates the same idea when he says: "How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Again he says that we should "walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together, in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."



The resurrection which Paul strove to attain unto, and for which we should all strive continually, is from sin to holiness, from the death in trespasses and sin to the life in Christ. The Greek word ana-stasis signifies "resurrection." The element stasis may be traced back to the old Sanscrit root sta, "to stand," or, "to stand up." The element ana is intensive, and in this case has the sense of "again." The word ana-stasis, then, signifies literally a standing up again, or the "resurrection." It is standing up a second time, after having fallen down in death. The resurrection to be attained by human effort is the rising out of sin into Christian manhood or womanhood.



SHALL NOT SEE LIFE.



"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."--John 3:36



This is a simple statement of the effects of belief and unbelief, regardless of the duration of the consequences. As long as one believes, life abides with him, the aionian life of the Gospel, while the unbeliever is deprived of this life. "He that believeth hath everlasting life," though by unbelief he may forfeit it, and regain it again by believing again. Such passages as these illustrate the New Testament use of the term:



"You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins."--Eph. 2:1. The believer hath "passed from death unto life."--John 5:24. "We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren."--1 John 3:14. "To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."--Rom. 8:6.



The question of the duration of the life or the wrath is not raised in this passage. It remains, in either case, as long as the condition remains that causes the life or the wrath.



"AS THE TREE FALLS SO IT LIES."



"And as death leaves us, so judgment finds us," is the home-brewed method of misquoting the language of Solomon. There is no such text or idea in the Bible, nor anything like it. The language referred to reads thus:



"If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be."--Eccl. 9:3.



It has no reference whatever to death, or the end of probation, though so often quoted both in and out of the pulpit. The book of Ecclesiastes is the wail of a misanthrope, who looks back at the end of a wasted life, spent in the gratification of ambition and sensuous appetite, and from its wreck draws a lesson for those who are setting out upon the voyage which he has ended. In the eleventh chapter, he counsels men to prepare for misfortunes before they come, and in this counsel is embodied the advice of the text, which may thus be paraphrased: "It never rains but it pours; and when the wind has blown over the trees you have planted with such care, that is the end of them; there is no putting them up again."



THE DEAD IN CHRIST SHALL RISE FIRST.



"For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."--1 Thess. 4:15-17.



We regard this as obscure and highly figurative language.



Christ's second coming was not a literal, visible, but a spiritual coming. All the other language is to be interpreted in harmony with his coming. There was no shout, no literal trump, nor did the literal dead literally rise at his coming, which occurred during the generation which was on earth when he lived. "The dead in Christ were first;" that is, those who had died Christians rose to the first position in the estimate of mankind.



The imagery all points to that second coming which occurred while some of those lived to whom the words of the epistle were addressed.



THE HARVEST PAST AND WE NOT SAVED.



"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."--Jer. 8:20.



This is the text of many a revival sermon, the word "saved" being wrested from its true meaning, and forced to relate to deliverance from an endless hell. The prophet applies it to deliverance from those national calamities to which the Jewish nation were at the time subjected by Nebuchadnezzar. They were besieged, without preparation, on the verge of winter after harvest, and were not saved from their enemies.



Dr. Clarke says: "The harvest is past. The siege of Jerusalem lasted two years: for Nebuchadnezzar came against it in the ninth year of Zedekiah, and the city was taken in the eleventh. (See 2 Kings 25:1-3.) This seems to have been a proverb: 'We expected deliverance the first year--none came; we hoped for it the second year--we were disappointed; we are not saved--no deliverance is come.'"



FIRE



The word "Fire" is employed in the Bible; sometimes it is to be understood literally, and at other times it is emblematic of God's judgments.



It is made synonymous with punishment in Matt. 25. The wicked nations are sent into a fire that is called "everlasting punishment." This "everlasting punishment" we shall hereafter show to be reformatory. The fire prepared for "the devil and his angels" is equivalent to the punishment to which they were sent.



"OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE."



This language (Heb. 12:29) is usually misread thus: "God out of Christ is a consuming fire." but it must not be supposed that the unchangeable God, he who is "the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever, " "without variableness or the shadow of turning," is modified for better or for worse, in any mode of his manifestation to man. What God is in Christ he is, and ever must be, out of Christ. He "is a consuming fire" always and everywhere. But this fact does not render God forbidding, repulsive, when we understand it. There is no relation sustained by our heavenly Father, no figure by which he may properly be represented, that can be understood, without inspiring impulses of gratitude and joy in the mind that comprehends the truth presented.



"God is Love," therefore is the consuming, unquenchable fire of infinite and divine love. He cannot, therefore, be anything else than love to his children, and what the fire of human love is in the heart of a human parent, the fire of God's love is in him, only multiplied by infinity.



Trace this sacred element from its lowest manifestation in the heart of reptile or brute, up through its holy of holies in the breast of the human mother, and onward up to God himself, and it has but one purpose, and that is to cherish its object, and to destroy all that would harm that object. God is a consuming fire towards his children--but it is the fire of love and not of hate.



George MacDonald well says: "Nothing is inexorable but love. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. 'Our God is a consuming fire.' It is the nature of love, so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure. It is not that the fire will burn us if we do not worship God, but that the fire will burn us until we worship thus; yea, that will go on within us, after all that is foreign to us has yielded to its force, no longer with pain and consuming, but as the highest consciousness of life, the presence of God."



It is not because God hates us, but because he loves us, that he will burn towards us by all the disciplinary processes needful, until he has burned away that sin in us which is contrary to his nature and hurtful to us.



He is a "refiner's fire."



He burns to purify. "He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver." Could the melting metal feel, how might it misunderstand the process through which it is passing. The unrelenting fire burns beneath the crucible, and the dirty, unsightly ore becomes like liquid light, and circulates as useful coin, and sparkles on the fingers of happy brides, and shines on the sceptres of kings, and in the coronets of queens. And all because the severe and purifying fire of the refiner has tried it.



Inasmch as the consuming fire of God is refining, we learn that it only destroys the dross of sin, and leaves the spiritual gold, the immortal soul, unscathed and pure when its blessed work is finished.



God's judgments like fire.



Many phenomena are feared because not understood. The savage thinks thunder the voice of an angry deity, when it is the rolling of God's chariots as they carry health and life through the air. Because fire is sometimes the author of apparent calamity, its beneficent character is lost sight of. It is the right hand of civilization. Its chief office is not destruction, but service. In fact, it destroys nothing. It decomposes substances, releasing constituents from existing relations, but all the elements remain intact, undiminished. Every particle in a substance burned exists still, and is ready to be taken up again in new forms.



If we burn a stick of wood, and carefully preserve the smoke and the ashes, we shall find that they weigh a little more than the wood weighed--just as much more as the oxygen weighed that combined with the flame in the process of combustion. The ultimate particles are all preserved, not one disturbed or changed from its original form and size, and they are released by fire that they may go out into the great laboratory of nature, to be again employed in new forms of utility and beauty. Science declares that the ultimate particles of which all substances are composed are like microscopical bricks; they never lose form or identity, but, let loose from any combination by fire, or otherwise, they are ready to be again taken up in other forms. Destruction is a mere incident in the biography of fire--a preliminary process; fire is the great emblem of purity.



When, therefore, we read in the Scripture that God's processes of dealing with his children resemble fire, or that he is a fire, we must remember these characteristics, and interpret the allusion in the light of scientific facts. If fire never destroys an atom of the material universe; if fire is only a process by which God is reconstructing his universe, why should men imagine that God's moral fires are other than healthful and beneficial in the moral world?



It need not be claimed that the authors of the Scriptures were familiar with these facts, but we shall find that they so far perceived the office of fire as to use it accurately. Thus:



"For thou, oh God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us as silver is tried; we went through fire and through water, but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place."--Ps. 66:10-12.



Silver is tried that its impurities may be purged away. The hotter the furnace, the more certain is the precious ore to be purified. Again:



"Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."--Mal. 3:2, 3.



God's consuming fire refines, purifies, and purges away the dross of sin. Hence says the apostle:

"Every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire."--1 Cor. 3:13-15.



The exacting love of God, demanding purity, can do no less than destroy all that is opposed to the purity and happiness of its object.



Thus "everlasting fire," the "furnace of fire," "consuming fire," "unquenchable fire," and all the forms in which fire figures in the Bible as an emblem of God's dealings with men, denote the severe but kindly and disciplinary character of God's judgments. There is always a beneficent purpose in all God's dealings with men. Divine love is seeking and securing by severe processes, sometimes as though by fire, the welfare of those towards whom the flame burns.



"The holy flame forever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth."



When Universalists say, "God is Love," and others reply, "Yes, but he is also a consuming fire," our reply should be, "No, he is Love and a consuming fire," The two terms are not contradictory but synonymous. Nothing precious will perish or permanently suffer from the consuming fire of God. Sin, error, evil, will perish; but the soul will come forth from the conflagration purified as silver is purified, perfectly reflecting its Maker's image as it never can until the impurities of time are consumed, and it returns to that purity it had when it came from the hand of that being in whose image every human soul is created.



UNQUENCHABLE FIRE.



"He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."--Matt. 3:12 "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; where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."--Mark 9:43, 44.

Many suppose that the words "unquenchable fire" mean a fire of en