August 1928
T h e
K i n g ’ s
B u s i n e s s
480
PASSAGES THAT PERPLEX
gious obligation and at length land one on those bleak shores of hopeless ness where sin, crime, violence and suicide are not far off. There are pervèrse men whq welcome any scrap of evidence that there is no after destiny. It wouldv.be something like an enchantment and an invitation to continue in sin, if men could believe that they were to end their career in a state o f eternal forgetfulness of all their debauches and blasphemies. ‘The august and icy solitudes o f nothingness’ would have no terror and they would kill themselves tonight i-f assured that it would end all and that they could escape the disgrace o f a suicidal surrender. But what a defeat of justice it would be should a monstrous lifelong wretch complete his most nefarious, crimes, then retire to his room, lock his doors, bolt his win dows, blow out the gas, seek his bed and sleep forever ! Could such a release from the grand and awful moral re sponsibilities and accountabilities which man’s existence solemnly has imposed upon him be possible in a well- administered universe ?” _ ; ; ' Annihilation on scientific grounds is- confronted by another serious objection, based upon the indestructibility of things in the natural world. It is probable that not a particle-of matter has been added to the physical universe or lost from it since its creation, though the changes under gone possibly by every particle of matter may have been next to infinite. Would it not, therefore, seem even more probable that such things as memory, consciousness, and conscience will live on, whatever vicissitudes may befall either the individual or the entire universé of material things ? Maurice Maeterlinck, author of “ La Mort,” puts the thought with brevity and force: “ Total annihilation is an impossibility,-for we are prisoners in an infinite, without outlet, where nothing perishes; where everything is dis persed, but nothing lost.” — 0 — Christ’s Words—For Whom? T o M rs . C. S. This correspondent believes the Sermon on the Mount for Jews only) not for Christians in this age. Has she observed the warning with which Jesus closed His Sermon on the Mount? “ W HO SOEVER [what does that word mean in Jn. 3:16?] heareth THESE SAY INGS OF M INE and doeth them shall be likened to a wise man, etc. EVERY ONE who heareth them and doeth them not shall be likened to a foolish man who built his house upon the sand,” etc. (Mt. 7:24, 26). What did Jesus tell His Jewish disciples in His great commission? “ Go ye INTO ALL THE W ORLD and preach this Gospel . . teaching THEM [the Gentile world] to observe ALL TH INGS W HATSOEVER I H AVE TAUGHT YOU ’? (Mt. 28:19-2(0’):. That is exactly what has- been done through the church age. It-is. only''within- the last' few years that the idea that the words of Jesus are not for the people of God in this age, has arisen. Paul foresaw this and warned in 1 Tim. 6 :3 : “ If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words o f our Lord Jesus Christ ■. . . he is
The Annihilation Theory To D r . A. W . T.
UR correspondent holds that God will not permit endless suffering of the wicked either to man or devil. “ There is no truth more clearly taught,” he declares, “ than the utter extermination of the unrepentant. They shall be utterly consumed !’ ” . W e are aware that there are some passages which, taken apart from the context, or without regard to the exact meaning of the original words, may be made to teach annihilation. Some of these have reference to the body, not the spirit or soul. Some are connected with the day of the Lord and the destruction coming upon the wicked at the termination of the Great Tribulation. We should find it most comfortable to believe that future retribution is not to be eternal ; but the words used to describe the duration of the bliss of the redeemed, the glory o f Jehovah, the kingdom o f our Lord, and the blessedness of heaven, are the very words used to express the endless duration of future punishmenffljv The effort to limit these words in their application to the unrepentant seems to us unpardonable from an exegetical point of view. The duration of the bliss o f the redeemed.is evidently imperiled by this false exegesis. St. Gregory speaks of this peril in these words: “ If that be false which God threatens (eternal punishment), then that which He prom ises (eternal life) is false also.” .Speaking of the terms in question, Professor Moses Stuart, one of the earlier and ablest New Testament exegetes, puts the case thus: “ If then the words aion and aionios are applied sixty times in the New Testament to designate;,thé continuance of the future existence o f the righteous arid at least twelve times to designate the continuance o f the future misery of the wicked, by what principles of interpreting language does it become'possible for.us to avoid the conclusion that aion and aionios have the same sense in both cases:? The result seems to me to be plain and philologically and exe- getically certain. It is this—we must either admit the endless misery of hell or give up the endless happiness of heaven.” The theory of annihilation after a limited period of suffering has been difficult to defend, either on Scriptural or scientific grounds. It has met with very weighty objec tions. An article in The Bible Champion in 1922 presented the moral argument against this theory : “ It is this: that while annihilation may subserve the. wish o f an unrighteous man, yet a belief in it never can inspire or lead to what is really worth while. A writer on these subjects puts the case in these words: ‘Where is the man who can stand up and say, “ I was a drunkàrd, a gambler, profane, licentious, i a Sabbath-breaker, and prayerless, but I became a believer’ in annihilation and instantly lost all desire for vicious things” ?’ , And we may add this question, Where is toffie found a-young man op woman who can say, T started in the downward path, but was Reformed by embracing the doctrine of annihilation ? Or who, when contemplating murder or suicide, ever was arrested in his purpose by a belief in the doctrine of anni hilation? The tendency of a belief in that theory is rather to destroy the restraining force o f moral and reli-
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