1071
THE KING’S BUSINESS
the same is surely true of many human beings. Not only is there no vestige of founda tion in our Lord’s words for the doctrine of universalism, there is also no shadow of a suggestion of any restoration of the wicked hereafter. So far from this being the case, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus rings the death knell of any such hope. Abraham is there represented as saying to Dives: “Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that they which would pass from hence to you may not be able, and that none may cross over from thence to us” (Luke 16:26). That “fixed gulf” is surely a yawning chasm too deep to be filled up, and too wide to be bridged over; and the awful description of hell by the poet Milton, in “Paradise Lost,” remains sadly true: “Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell; hope never comes That comes to all, but torture without end.” 4. W hat did C hrist teach as to th e causes of fu tu re retribu tion ? A careful study of our Lord’s words shows that there are two primary causes, namely, deliberate unbelief and wilful rejection of Him; and surely these are but different aspects of the same sin. In Matt. 8:12, it was the-contrast between the faith of the Gentile centurion and the unbelief of the Jewish nation which drew from His lips the solemn words: “The children of the Kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness;” while, in chapter 23 the awful denunciation in verse 33 is followed by the sad lamentation: “How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not” (v. 37). Sim ilarly, in Mark 3 :29, R. V., the “eternal sin” spoken of can only be that of con tinued rejection of the offers of mercy; and in John 8:24, our Lord plaiply declares: “If ye believe not th a t'I am He,
make so much of the love of God to argue that, punishment will prove remedial here after in the case of those whom Divine^ Love has failed to influence here. Not only is there not the slightest hint in the teaching of our Lord that future punish ment will prove remedial or corrective, but His words concerning Judas in Matt. 26:24 are inexplicable on that supposition. Surely His existence would still have been a blessing if his punishment was to be followed by ultimate restoration, and Christ would therefore never have uttered the sadly solemn words: “It had been good for that man if he had not been bom.” Similarly there is a striking and signifi cant contrast between our Lord’s words to the unbelieving Jews recorded in John 8 :21: “Whither I go ye cannot come,” and those to Peter in chapter 13:36: “Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me after wards.” As character tends to permanence, heaven is a place of perfect holiness and hell must be of the opposite; and this throws light upon the words o f Rev. 22:11, which were apparently uttered by . our ascended, glorified, and returning Lord: “He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still; and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still; and he thát is righteous, let him do righteousness still; and he that is holy, let him be made holy still.” The doctrine of universal restora tion springs from a natural desire to wish the history of mankind to have a happy ending, as in most story books; but it ignores the fact that, by granting man free will, God has (as it were) set a boundary to His own omnipotence, for it is a moral impossibility to save a man against his will. Surely eternal sin can only be followed by eternal retribution; for, if a man deliberately chooses to be ruled by sin, he must inevitably be ruined by it. One never hears of the doctrine of final restora tion being applied to the devil and his angels, but why not? If the answer is, “Because they cannot and will not repeht,”
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