50 The Fundamentals Or, if we adopt the alternative heresy—that hell is a punitive and purgatorial discipline through which the sinner will pass to heaven—we disparage the atonement and undermine the truth of grace. If the prisoner gains his discharge by serving out his sentence, where does grace come in? And if the sin ner’s sufferings can expiate his sin, the most that can be said for the death of Christ is that it opened a short and easy way to the same goal that could be reached by a tedious and painful journey. But further, unless the sinner is to be made right eous and holy before he enters hell—and in that case, why not let him enter heaven at once ?—he will continue unceasingly to sin; and as every fresh sin will involve a fresh penalty, his punishment can never end. FALSE ARGUMENT Every treatise in support of these heresies relies on the argument that the words in our English Version, which con note endless duration, represent words in the original text which have no significance. But this argument is exploded by the fact that the critic would be compelled to use these very words if he were set the task of retranslating our version into Greek. For that language has no other terminology to ex press the thought. And yet it is by trading on ad captandum arguments of this kind, and by the prejudices which are nat urally excited by partial or exaggerated statements of truth, that these heresies win their way. Attention is thus diverted from the insuperable difficulties which beset them, and from their bearing on the truth of the atonement. But Christianity sweeps away all these errors. The God of Sinai has not repented of His thunders, but He has fully revealed Himself in Christ. And the wonder of the revela tion is not punishment but pardon. The great mystery of the Gospel is how God can be just and yet the Justifier of sinful men. And the Scriptures which reveal that mystery make it clear as light that this is possible only through redemption:
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