(a) These passages, as obscure, are to be interpreted in the light of those plainer ones which we have already cited. Thus interpreted, they foretell only the absolute triumph of the divine kingdom, and the subjection of all evil to God.
The true interpretation of the passages above mentioned is indicated in Meyer's note on Eph. 1:9, 10—this namely, that “the allusion is not to the restoration of fallen individuals, but to the restoration of universal harmony, implying that the wicked are to be excluded from the kingdom of God.” That there is no allusion to a probation after this life, is clear from Luke 16:19-31—the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Here penalty is inflicted for the sins done “in thy lifetime” (v. 25); this penalty is unchangeable—“there is a great gulf fixed” (v. 26); the rich man asks favors for his brethren who still live on the earth, but none for himself (v. 27, 28). John 5:25-29—“The hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself: and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, until the resurrection of judgment”—here it is declared that, while for those who have done good there is a resurrection of life, there is for those who have done ill only a resurrection of judgment. John 8:21, 24—“shall die in your sin: whither I go, ye cannot come ... except ye believe that I am he, ye shall die in your sins”—sayings which indicate finality in the decisions of this life.
Orr, Christian View of God and the World, 243—“Scripture invariably represents the judgment as proceeding on the data of this life, and it concentrates every ray of appeal into the present.” John 9:4—“We must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh [pg 1040]when no man can work”—intimates that there is no opportunity to secure salvation after death. The Christian hymn writer has caught the meaning of Scripture, when he says of those who have passed through the gate of death: “Fixed in an eternal state, They have done with all below; We a little longer wait; But how little, none can know.”
(b) A second probation is not needed to vindicate the justice or the love of God, since Christ, the immanent God, is already in this world present with every human soul, quickening the conscience, giving to each man his opportunity, and making every decision between right and wrong a true probation. In choosing evil against their better judgment even the heathen unconsciously reject Christ. Infants and idiots, as they have not consciously sinned, are, as we may believe, saved at death by having Christ revealed to them and by the regenerating influence of his Spirit.
Rom. 1:18-28—there is probation under the light of nature as well as under the gospel, and under the law of nature as well as under the gospel men may be given up “unto a reprobate mind”; 2:6-16—Gentiles shall be judged, not by the gospel, but by the law of nature, and shall “perish without the law ... in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.” 2 Cor. 5:10—“For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; [not that each may have a new opportunity to secure salvation, but] that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad”; Heb. 6:8—“whose end is to be burned”—not to be quickened again; 9:27—“And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh[not a second probation, but] judgment.” Luckock, Intermediate State, 22—“In Heb. 9:27, the word ‘judgment’ has no article. The judgment alluded to is not the final or general judgment, but only that by which the place of the soul is determined in the Intermediate State.”
Denney, Studies in Theology, 243—“In Mat. 25, our Lord gives a pictorial representation of the judgment of the heathen. All nations—all the Gentiles—are gathered before the King; and their destiny is determined, not by their conscious acceptance or rejection of the historical Savior, but by their unconscious acceptance or rejection of him in the persons of those who needed services of love.... This does not square with the idea of a future probation. It rather tells us plainly that men may do things of final and decisive import in this life, even if Christ is unknown to them.... The real argument against future probation is that it depreciates the present life, and denies the infinite significance that, under all conditions, essentially and inevitably belongs to the actions of a self-conscious moral being. A type of will may be in process of formation, even in a heathen man, on which eternal issues depend.... Second probation lowers the moral tone of the spirit. The present life acquires a relative unimportance. I dare not say that if I forfeit the opportunity the present life gives me I shall ever have another, and therefore I dare not say so to another man.”
For an able review of the Scripture testimony against a second probation, see G. F. Wright, Relation of Death to Probation, iv. Emerson, the most recent advocate of restorationism, in his Doctrine of Probation Examined, 42, is able to evade these latter passages only by assuming that they are to be spiritually interpreted, and that there is to be no literal outward day of judgment—an error which we have previously discussed and refuted,—see pages [1024], [1025].
(c) The advocates of universal restoration are commonly the most strenuous defenders of the inalienable freedom of the human will to make choices contrary to its past character and to all the motives which are or can be brought to bear upon it. As a matter of fact, we find in this world that men choose sin in spite of infinite motives to the contrary. Upon the theory of human freedom just mentioned, no motives which God can use will certainly accomplish the salvation of all moral creatures. The soul which resists Christ here may resist him forever.
Emerson, in the book just referred to, says: “The truth that sin is in its permanent essence a free choice, however for a time it may be held in mechanical combination with the notion of moral opportunity arbitrarily closed, can never mingle with it, and must in the logical outcome permanently cast it off. Scripture presumes and teaches [pg 1041]the constant capability of souls to obey as well as to be disobedient.” Emerson is correct. If the doctrine of the unlimited ability of the human will be a true one, then restoration in the future world is possible. Clement and Origen founded on this theory of will their denial of future punishment. If will be essentially the power of contrary choice, and if will may act independently of all character and motive, there can be no objective certainty that the lost will remain sinful. In short, there can be no finality, even to God's allotments, nor is any last judgment possible. Upon this view, regeneration and conversion are as possible at any time in the future as they are to-day.
But those who hold to this defective philosophy of the will should remember that unlimited freedom is unlimited freedom to sin, as well as unlimited freedom to turn to God. If restoration is possible, endless persistence in evil is possible also; and this last the Scripture predicts. Whittier: “What if thine eye refuse to see, Thine ear of heaven's free welcome fail, And thou a willing captive be, Thyself thine own dark jail?”Swedenborg says that the man who obstinately refuses the inheritance of the sons of God is allowed the pleasures of the beast, and enjoys in his own low way the hell to which he has confined himself. Every occupant of hell prefers it to heaven. Dante, Hell, iv—“All here together come from every clime, And to o'erpass the river are not loth, For so heaven's justice goads them on, that fear Is turned into desire. Hence never passed good spirit.” The lost are Heautoutimoroumenoi, or self-tormentors, to adopt the title of Terence's play. See Whedon, in Meth. Quar. Rev., Jan. 1884; Robbins, in Bib. Sac., 1881:460-507.