King's Business - 1915-07

Future Punishment

By Dr. W. H. Griffith Thomas Member of the Faculty of Wycliffe College, Toronto, Canada

N ote . —Rev. W. H. Griffith Thomas, D. D., of Toronto, is one of the vital scholars, preachers and writers of the present day, and is no stranger ta the readers of' T h e K ing ' s B usiness .— E ditor ,

HERE is no subject more i m p o r t a n t and more pressing than that of human destiny. It af-

to the exact words and meaning of Holy Scripture, without attempting to draw inferences beyond which strict exegesis allows/' The Bible as the Word of God must be the sole and supreme Court of Appeal, for noth­ ing else must enter. This is no ques­ tion for mere human reason, still less for human desire or imagination, it follows, therefore, that those who re­ ject Scripture as the divine arbiter are necessarily set aside in this con­ sideration. Our. one aim must be to discover what the Word of God teaches, overlooking-, nothing, giving everything due weight and endeavor­ ing to elicit the true meaning. Wheth­ er passages are bright or dark, indica­ tive of hope, br fear, tending towards one side or the other, everything must be taken into consideration. It is essen­ tial, therefore, to proceed carefully in the examination, first, of the lan­ guage, and then of the teaching of Scripture, in order that we may draw the conclusions which arise out of the Word of Truth.

I l 5 ^ = s ^ 1 fects millions and mil­ lions of people, past, present and future. The, Subject is perhaps the most-solemn of all conceivable ques­ tions. What is to be the future of so large a proportion of the human race? What are we to say of God’s power and love in connection with the future "of the wicked? What are we to understand about the rela­ tion of the Atonement of Christ to the destiny of the human race? The very mention of future punishment arouses opposition in the minds of many. And even when it is accepted as a Scriptural truth, it is often re­ ceived with perplexity and either with some faint hope of restoration or else with the thought and desire of annihilation. All these considerations show that there is perhaps no subject on which it is more necessary to keep strictly

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