A. H. Bradford, Age of Faith, 239, mentions as causes for the modification of view as to everlasting punishment: 1. Increased freedom in expression of convictions; 2. Interpretation of the word “eternal”; 3. The doctrine of the immanence of God,—if God is in every man, then he cannot everlastingly hate himself, even in the poor manifestation of himself in a human creature; 4. The influence of the poets, Burns, Browning, Tennyson, and Whittier. Whittier, Eternal Goodness: “The wrong that pains my soul below, I dare not throne above: I know not of his hate,—I know His goodness and his love.” We regard Dr. Bradford as the most plausible advocate of restoration. But his view is vitiated by certain untenable theological presuppositions: 1. that righteousness is only a form of love; 2. that righteousness, apart from love, is passionate and vengeful; 3. that man's freedom is incapable of endless abuse; 4. that not all men here have a fair probation; 5. that the amount of light against which they sin is not taken into consideration by God; 6. that the immanence of God does not leave room for free human action; 7. that God's object in his administration is, not to reveal his whole character, and chiefly his holiness, but solely to reveal his love; 8. that the declarations of Scripture with regard to “an eternal sin” (Mark 3:29), “eternal punishment”(Mat. 25:46), “eternal destruction” (2 Thess. 1:9), still permit us to believe in the restoration of all men to holiness and likeness to God.
We regard as more Scriptural and more rational the view of Max Müller, the distinguished Oxford philologist: “I have always held that this would be a miserable universe without eternal punishment. Every act, good or evil, must carry its consequences, and the fact that our punishment will go on forever seems to me a proof of the everlasting love of God. For an evil deed to go unpunished would be to destroy the moral order of the universe.” Max Müller simply expresses the ineradicable conviction of mankind that retribution must follow sin; that God must show his disapproval of sin by punishment; that the very laws of man's nature express in this way God's righteousness; that the abolition of this order would be the dethronement of God and the destruction of the universe.
F. The proper preaching of the doctrine of everlasting punishment is not a hindrance to the success of the gospel.
The proper preaching of the doctrine of everlasting punishment is not a hindrance to the success of the gospel, but is one of its chief and indispensable auxiliaries.—It is maintained by some, however, that, because men are naturally repelled by it, it cannot be a part of the preacher's message. We reply:
(a) If the doctrine be true, and clearly taught in Scripture, no fear of consequences to ourselves or to others can absolve us from the duty of preaching it. The minister of Christ is under obligation to preach the whole truth of God; if he does this, God will care for the results.
Ez. 2:7—“And thou shalt speak my words unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear”; 3:10, 11, 18, 19—“Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears. And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.... When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy hand. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.”
The old French Protestant church had as a coat of arms the device of an anvil, around which were many broken hammers, with this motto: “Hammer away, ye hostile bands; Your hammers break, God's anvil stands.” St. Jerome: “If an offence come out of the truth, better is it that the offence come, than that the truth be concealed.”Shedd, Dogm. Theology, 2:680—“Jesus Christ is the Person responsible for the doctrine of eternal perdition.” The most fearful utterances with regard to future punishment [pg 1055]are those of Jesus himself, as for example, Mat. 23:33—“Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell?” Mark 3:29—“whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”; Mat. 10:28—“be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”; 25:46—“these shall go away into eternal punishment.”
(b) All preaching which ignores the doctrine of eternal punishment just so far lowers the holiness of God, of which eternal punishment is an expression, and degrades the work of Christ, which was needful to save us from it. The success of such preaching can be but temporary, and must be followed by a disastrous reaction toward rationalism and immorality.
Much apostasy from the faith begins with refusal to accept the doctrine of eternal punishment. Theodore Parker, while he acknowledged that the doctrine was taught in the New Testament, rejected it, and came at last to say of the whole theology which includes this idea of endless punishment, that it “sneers at common sense, spits upon reason, and makes God a devil.”