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express a period, longer or shorter, that will have an end. Thus the Aaronical ministry is called an everlasting
priesthood;" the hills are called "everlasting hills."
Those who think, because the same term expressing duration is applied to both classes, in the text under consideration,
it is made certain that the wicked will exist as long as the righteous may be taught that they reason both inconclusively
and dangerously. Take the following text, "The everlasting God." Is.40:25; and compare it with Hab.3:6, "The
everlasting mountains." Shall the mountains continue as long as God? How will the advocates of unending misery
evade the conclusion on their premises, that the mountains will continue as long as God? Will they say, "We know the
mountains will melt in the final conflagration?" True; and we know the wicked will be "burned up, and be left neither
root nor branch," because, "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts;" Mal.4:1. But the Bible declares that God is "the King
immortal:" not subject to be dissolved: while the everlasting mountains will be scattered and melted.
What is the argument, then, that the righteous are to continue in life while the wicked perish from life?
It is not alone in the expression everlasting or eternal, in the text; but in the fact that other texts assure us the righteous
"put on immortality, incorruption," at the resurrection; 1Cor.15: and, saith Jesus, "Neither can they die any more:" Luke
20. Thus their perpetuity in life is settled by language that can have no other sense than that of unending life and being:
while no such language occurs in relation to the wicked. On the contrary, they are to be "consumed, devoured, burned
up, be destroyed, utterly destroyed, soul and body," &c. Such expressions, in the absence of any text affirming the
immortality of wicked men, must settle the question, if testimony can settle any point.
The stumbling stone of our opposers is, in their assumption that protracted pain and punishment are necessarily
identical. But this assumption is false in fact. What is the highest crime known in human law? It is murder. What is
the punishment for that crime? Is it the most protracted pain? Or, is it the deprivation of life? It is the latter: and that is
called the "capital punishment;" not because the criminal endures more pain, or as much as he might by some other; but
because he is cut off from life.
Six Sermons by George Storrs - Sermon 2 - 5
If it be attempted to evade this point by saying - "The criminal feels horribly, while awaiting the day of execution," - I
ask, if his feelings are any part of the penalty of the law? Certainly not. They may be a consequence of the crime; but
the law does not say he shall feel bad, but that he shall die. But, say the advocates of the common idea of pain, as
essential to punishment, "there is the dreadful hereafter to the criminal." I reply, whatever may be hereafter to him, that
is no part of the penalty of the law under which he dies. So the Judge understands it, who pronounces the death
sentence; for he concludes by saying, "May God have mercy on your soul:" i.e.,
"May you not be hurt hereafter." Thus, turn which way our opposers may, they meet a two edged sword that hews in
pieces their notion of protracted pain and punishment being necessarily identical.
In the text under consideration, the Saviour expresses the idea of punishment, without any necessary idea of protracted
pain. The word here translated punishment is kolasin: and it is never used, on any other occasion, in any of our Lord's
discourses, as recorded in the Bible. When he speaks of torment, as he often does in the Gospels and in Revelation, he
most uniformly uses the word basanois, but never, kolasin. Kolasin properly expresses punishment; and, strictly, the
kind of punishment; as one meaning of the term is "cut off." The righteous enter into life eternal: the wicked are
eternally cut off from life.
But we have an inspired Commentator on this declaration of our Lord; i.e., Paul, the apostle. Whatever scene is
described Matt.25, and whatever time is spoken of, the same, in both respects, Paul speaks of 2Thess.1. They are both
laid in one scene. Compare them together. "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with
him." Matt.25:31. "When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels." 2Thess.1:7. Is here
any mistake? Is not the scene the same in both texts? Is it possible to separate them? Again, "These shall go away into
everlasting punishment." Matt.25:46. "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction." 2Thess.1:9.
Here is no room to doubt but what Paul is speaking of the same punishment as Jesus; and the apostle declares the
punishment is "destruction" not preservation under any circumstances; and the apostle tells us this destruction is "from
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power." This last expression may have the sense of "out of his
presence," but I am inclined to believe it has reference to the consuming fire that sometimes came out from the presence
of the Lord, under the law given by Moses. As for example, in Lev.10:1,2. - "Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron, took
either of them his censor, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which
he commanded them not: and there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord."
Or, take the case of those who, in the rebellion of Korah (Num.16:25,) had taken their censors to appear before the
Lord, "And there came out a fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense."
Here was no preservation, but a being consumed, devoured; so that they "died." To this, most likely, Paul refers. The
presence of Christ in his glory, with his only angels, will so overpower and fill with terror the wicked, who behold him,
that they will die - be destroyed - by the sight. If Daniel, Dan.10th, and John, the beloved disciple, Rev.I, both "fell as
dead" at the sight of the glory manifested to them, and recovered not till a hand was laid on them, with a voice saying, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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