THE KING’S BUSINESS
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this means that they have it in order to be punished. The fact, is that the difference between saved and unsaved is not .duration but quality. Eternal life includes eternal existence, but it is far more. It is only possible to accept this interpretation of death as meaning dissolution, by a narrow lit eralism, especially in the face of such a text as “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God” (Rev. 20: 12 ). (3) Immortality is taken for grant ed in the New Testament as the basis and presupposition of everything, and if 1 Tim. 1 :17 and 6:16 are pressed they make God alone immortal ana no one else in the universe. (4) It hardly seems likely that the wicked will be raised only to be de stroyed. On this view creatures are kept in existence and- recalled only for judgment. If death ended all it would be at least possible to accept this view, but their survival for judg ment implies torture, when they might be annihilated at once, for annihila tion would be mercy to end their suf ferings. “Not even the coarse hell of mediaeval ignorance is more revolting, more incredible than this; and yet these views are held and taught on the plea that God is a God of Love” (Anderson, p. 100). (5) It is surely not just to deal with every degree of sin exactly in the same way, by annihilation. Ex tinction of being raises more diffi culties than -it j solves, and the only difference between the Hell of anni hilation and that of orthodox theology is one of duration. (6) To expel sin by destroying the sinner would almost appear like. a confession of failure on the part of God. It would argue that God can not do anything but extinguish the being of the noblest of His creatures. Such a method, would really imply that evil was the victor, since God would be compelled to put an end to
His
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