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THE x KING’S BUSINESS
arid also the biographical articles. Many o f the pictures in the book are very fine; the maps good. There are five volumes in the entire work; with a total o f 3,539 pages, exclusive o f maps. The indexing o f the book is done with rate thoroughness and skill. There are 145 different writers, cov ering a very wide range both as to nation ality and denominational affiliations. Prob ably on the whole the work would have been o f more" value if there had been fewer writers and more work assigned to the more able writers. W e wonder why some
o f the men were asked to write for the book, and on the other hand we miss the names o f men who would have naturally been expected to contribute. The work as a whole is o f the greatest value' and not likely to be superseded for many years. It should find a place in every public library and church library, and churches would do well to purchase a set and make a present o f it to their pastors. The book can only be secured directly from the pub lishers, the Howard-Severance Company, Chicago. The price is $30.00.
S '1 ';! ..... "■..!l ■................ :.... ........ ........ .. ; !. ................... 1 lift"............... |l!:|!"' M 1 L I GH T ON 1 1 - u l t a O PUZZLING PASSAGES and PROBLEMS 1 p By R. A. TORREY M ................................................................... ..... . 11
Please tell us does the Word o f God teach that the torment o f those who die out of Christ will be eternal and never ending? It certainly does. Our Lord Jesus Him self says o f those on the left hand in the coming day o f judgment,. “ These shall go away into eternal suffering: but the right eous into eternal life.” It is sometimes said that the W ord which is translated “ eternal” in this passage means “ age lasting,” and does not necessarily mean absolute endless ness, Though it does stand for very long periods o f time, longer by far than centu ries. This is true as to the necessary mean ing o f the word, but the meaning o f words is determined by usage, and the usage of this word in the New Testament is con fined to things that are endless in their duration. Furthermore, the exact meaning o f a word must be determined by context as well as by usage. The word is used twice in this verse, once in reference to the durafion o f the life o f the saved, the other time in reference to the time o f the dura tion o f the punishment o f the lost. In our Authorized Version the fact that the same word is used is obscured by its being trans
lated in two different ways, but in the Greek, as in the Revised Version, the same word is used in each half o f the verse. Now whatever the word means in the last half o f the verse it must also mean in the first half. No one has any question as to the duration o f the life and blessedness o f the saved, all agree that it is qndless, and if that is what the word must mean as used in connection with life it is therefore also what it must mean in connection with pun ishment. I f our Lord Jesus was an honest man, and who will deny that, He could not as an honest man have deceived His hearers by using a word in one sense in the first half o f a verse and in an entirely dif ferent sense in the last half. But further than this, there is another expression used to express the duration o f the punishment o f the wicked. That expression translated into English is, “ unto the ages o f ages,’’ or “untp ages o f ages” (the two forms are used). This is the strongest possible expres sion for absolute endlessness o f duration. It represents ages which are themselves com posed o f ages, or to put it more vividly, ages tumbling upon ages in endldss proces-
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