Future Punishment

________________________________________________
Title:     Future Punishment
Author: Norman Macleod [More Titles by Macleod]

The subject of future punishment is one the consideration of which gives mental pain. We naturally shrink from it, would prefer to leave it alone, and to think, as we say, of something else.

But the question won't leave us alone, and we must think about it. It forces itself on our notice, and that, too, in our most thoughtful and sober moments. We cannot read the Scriptures without the dark vision passing before our eyes with more or less gloom. Conscience whispers to us about it. It recurs to our thoughts amidst the penitential confessions and earnest prayers of public worship. The theme is constantly discussed in works and periodicals widely read, and not even professedly theological.

There are few, we presume, who will assert that every man, whatever his character may be when he leaves the world, shall after death immediately pass into glory, and be received into fellowship with God and His saints. With such a belief earnestly entertained, suicide would cease to be an evidence of insanity, and murder would become philanthropy.

Most men are prepared rather to believe, apart altogether from any Scripture statements on this momentous subject, that punishment of some kind or other must be awarded to crime at last, and in some degree proportionate to the character of the criminal,--that somewhere or other, by some means or other, not yet discovered or revealed, reformation if at all possible must necessarily be effected in order that peace and happiness may be secured. Man's undying sense of righteousness, and what ought to be, is not satisfied by the prosperity which, in spite of every drawback, so frequently attends the most selfish and unprincipled villain to his grave. Like the Psalmist, we all are disposed to exclaim when contemplating such histories, "As for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well-nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no bands in their death, and their strength is firm; neither are they plagued like other men.... Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than their heart can wish.... And they say, How doth God know? and is there knowledge with the Most High?"

But when we open the Word of God, it is impossible for any honest man to deny, that whether its teaching be true or false, the fact of future punishment is an essential portion of what is taught. By no conceivable perversion of the words of Christ, so often repeated on this subject, and by no interpretation of His parables, can it be denied that it was His intention to give the very impression which the universal Church has received, that there is a "wrath to come," and a state of being which to some is "cursed," and so very dreadful that, with reference to one of His own disciples, who is called "the son of perdition," the Saviour said that it would have "been good for that man had he never been born."

I must presume that this general statement regarding the teaching of Christ himself, not to speak of that of His apostles, requires no proof to any one who has ever read the Gospels. Punishment of some kind awaits the wicked after death. Yet if this much is admitted, we have surely already reached a conclusion which ought to fill with the most solemn awe the mind of every man who has any reverence for the Divine authority of Jesus Christ; or who even believes that He who represented Himself as saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels,"--"Depart from me, I know you not, all ye workers of iniquity," and who narrated such a parable as that of the rich man and Lazarus, was one incapable of all exaggeration or evil passion, and one who possessed the only perfect love which was ever manifested in humanity. The apostles, who express in language as strong and unhesitating the certainty and dread nature of future punishment, were men also who, more than any who have ever lived, loved their fellow-men, wept like their Divine Master for their sins, and devoted their lives, with untiring unselfishness, to rescue them from present evil and future woe. Now, if this be so far a true, if not a full, representation of the teaching of Christ and His apostles on this momentous theme, I may be permitted to put two questions of a practical and personal kind to my reader. One is,--Whether the knowledge of the character, apart from the authority, of Jesus and His apostles, who spoke in such language of the future history of some men in another world, ought not to make us pause with becoming self-distrust and reverence, if disposed to exclaim against the possibility of so terrible an ending as a thing "unjust," "revengeful," and "revolting to benevolence?" Who are we, what have we been, or what have we done for our fellow-men, that we should thus presume to have a more tender regard for their well-being than the Lord Jesus Christ or His apostles had, and to be incapable of entertaining or of uttering such "harsh thoughts" as they did about their future state?

The other question which I would humbly suggest for consideration is this:--What is your real belief in reference to man's future state? Have you any faith in our Lord's teaching? Any firm practical conviction in the fact of future punishment? After you have made every possible deduction from the weight of Scripture testimony, and explained away every metaphor, parable, and dogmatic statement to the lowest possible point short of absolute denial of their truth in any fair sense of their meaning,--may I beg of you to consider what, or how much, remains to be firmly believed as the truth of God? For it does appear to me that there exists a wide-spread callousness and indifference, an ease of mind, with reference to the fate hereafter of ungodly men, which cannot be accounted for except on the supposition that all earnest faith is lost in either the dread possibilities of future sin or of its future punishment. Men seem to have made up their minds that they have nothing to fear in the next world, whatever they believe, whatever they are, or whatever they do in this. We are, verily, not incapable of experiencing fear, but in a vast number of cases we are great cowards, in spite of all our bravery,--cowards when there is nothing actually present to alarm us; and each one of us seeks to his very utmost to keep danger or suffering far away from himself or from those he loves. Accordingly, the possible or near approach of mere bodily pain, or of domestic sorrow, or the anticipated loss of money--not to speak of such horrors as public disgrace from loss of character, imprisonment, transportation as a felon, or execution as a criminal--would induce thoughtfulness, anxiety, wretchedness. Yet, strange to say, the very same persons who would tremble for such calamities as these, treat with indifference a coming punishment, which cannot, even in their own estimation, be less terrible, and which, as sure as Christ's words are true, they may themselves, because of their present character, be liable at any hour to enter upon and endure.

But many of those readers, who, up to this point, may heartily sympathise with me in my feeble efforts to quicken a more earnest thoughtfulness on this subject, will be disposed to avoid its further consideration. I would not blame them for so feeling. God knoweth I have no wish to "dogmatise" on this subject, but to approach it with real sympathy for the difficulties, the pains, the perplexities, which the noblest, the truest, and the most reverential have experienced when they have attempted really to believe in it What chiefly induces me to submit a few thoughts upon a theme so solemn, is the "dogmatism" and unworthy views of God which are attributed to all of us who cannot discover sunrise beyond the gloom; and the conviction also that a more thorough belief in the clanger of sin, as well as its inherent vileness, and a wholesome "terror of the Lord," would tend to "persuade men" to entertain with more earnestness the deliverance promised in the gospel.

The idea which many have formed of punishment is that of a mere arbitrary annexation of a certain amount of suffering in the next world to a certain amount of crime committed in this--so many stripes for so many sins; and, as if obvious injustice were inflicted on men, by threatening them with coming woe for present wickedness, they exclaim, "Surely such sins as these do not deserve such punishment as that!" But if sin itself, by an eternal moral necessity, carries with it its own punishment, even as the shadow accompanies the substance, then the real question in regard to the possible ending of future suffering is merged in the deeper one of the possible ending of future sin. And if so, what evidence have we from any one source to inspire the hope, that the man who enters the next world loving sin, and therefore suffering punishment as its necessary result, will ever cease to sin, and thereby cease to suffer? It must, remember, be admitted as an indisputable fact, that life eternal can only co-exist with a right state of the soul. "This is life eternal, to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Up to the moment in which the spirit turns with filial confidence and obedience to God, there cannot be a cessation either in the curse that must rest upon enmity and disobedience, or in the pain which must be produced by so terrible a malady. Some time or other, be it near or remote, in one year or in a million, there must be repentance in the sinner, a turning away from sin and to God, as the only possible means of bridging over the otherwise impassable gulf that separates the bad from the good, or hell from heaven. There is no salvation for man but from sin; there is no restoration for him but to love.

But if this change in the sinner is not accomplished in this world, what evidence have we that it can be accomplished in any place of even limited punishment? In what conceivable way, we ask with deepest awe, is a moral and responsible being, who ends this life and begins another at enmity to God, rejecting Christ, disbelieving the gospel, dead in trespasses and in sins, hateful and hating, selfish and vile,--in what way is he to be made holy after death, and before entering heaven, by a temporary discipline of mere suffering?

We are here considering the possible future of one only who knows the gospel of the grace of God, and we ask, what advantages will such an one possess elsewhere for the attainment of piety that are denied him here? If all that God has done to gain his heart has so far failed up till the hour of his death, that he is morally unfit by his habits or even desires for the society of God and His people, what appliances can we conceive of more likely to influence the will and gain the affections in a prison-house set apart for the reformation of the impenitent? Can the sinner expect to meet, in this supposed place of punishment and consequent reformation, more loving friends to win him by such solemn counsels and tender ministrations as earth did not afford? Does he anticipate daily returning mercies and sources of enjoyment more rich and varied than those possessed here, in order to bring him back to God? Will he possess a healthier body, a happier home, holier society, a more beauteous world with fairer skies and brighter landscapes, or any of those innumerable blessings which have such a tendency to tame and soften the rudest nature? Shall means of grace be afforded more powerfully calculated to enlighten the mind, convince the understanding, influence the will, or draw the affections of the heart towards God? Shall Sabbaths of more peaceful rest dawn upon the troubled heart, or sacraments of more healing virtue be administered? Can retreats be secured where God's Word may be read and prayer enjoyed with more undisturbed repose? Will the gospel be preached more faithfully, and a people be found more loving and pious to assemble for public or private worship? Can a Saviour be offered more able or willing to save, and the Spirit of God be poured down upon the burning soil in more plenteous or life-giving pentecostal showers? Is this how men picture to themselves the place in which they expect to atone for past sins by limited suffering? Impossible! They are thinking of a world better and more glorious than the present;--not of a hell, but of a heaven!

Even if such a place were prepared for the impenitent and wicked, what conceivable security is there that a new mind and spirit would be the necessary result of those new and enlarged benefactions? We must assume that the power of sinning remains, otherwise man's responsibility would cease, and punishment thereby become mere cruelty. If sin is thus possible, then why may not the sinner indulge there in the same selfishness, disobedience, and rebellion which characterised him here? Why may it not be with him as with many a man who loves sin in the low haunts of profligacy and crime, but loves it not the less when brought into circumstances of greater comfort and among society of greater godliness? But should it be otherwise, and the supposed place of future punishment have none of those advantages,--and we are forced by the necessity of the case to assume their absence, at least for a limited period, and to admit, in some form or other, the presence of a dread and mysterious sorrow,--we ask again, on what grounds is it concluded that this anticipated punishment shall itself possess a healing virtue to produce, some time or other, that love to God which, up till the hour of death, has never been produced in the sinner? Men attach, perhaps, some omnipotent power to mere suffering, and imagine that if hatred to sin and love to God are all that is needed, then a short experience of the terrific consequences of a godless past must insure a godly future. Why do they think so? This is not the effect which mere punishment generally produces on human character. Its tendency is not to soften, but to harden the heart,--to fill it not with love, but with enmity. It cannot fail, indeed, to make the sufferer long for deliverance from the pain; but it does not follow that he thereby longs for deliverance from the sin which causes the pain, and for the possession of the good which alone can remove it. It is certainly not the case in this world, that bad men are always disposed to repent and turn to God in proportion as they suffer from their own wilfulness, and become poor from idleness, broken in health from dissipation, alienated from human hearts by their selfishness, or pass, with a constantly increasing anguish, through all the stages of outcasts from the family; dwellers among the profligate; companions in crime; occupiers of prisons; members of convict gangs, till the scaffold with its beam and drop ends the dreadful history. Such punishment as this, constantly dogging the crime which at first created it and ever preserves it, only makes the heart harder, fans the passions into a more volcanic fire, and possesses the soul with a more daring recklessness and wilder desperation. And arguing from this experience, to which men appeal, as if it was truer than the Word of God, what more special virtue will punishment have in the next world than in this? What tendency will there be in that long night of misery to inspire a man with the love of God, whose very character, and whose holy and righteous will, have annexed the suffering to the sin? If the sinner's character is not thereby reformed, and all the while he retains his responsibility,--as he must do on the assumption that reformation is possible,--and if he continues to choose sin with more diabolical hatred to the good, is it imagined that such a process as this, of continued sin accompanied by continued mental suffering, will at any period render him mere meet to enjoy the holiness of heaven than when he first departed from the world to enter upon his new and strange probation? Oh, the more we think of it, the darker does the history grow,--the faster does the descent of the evil spirit become, clown that pit which, from its very nature, seems to be bottomless! If means are discoverable there more suited to gain the end of moral regeneration than any which exist here, let them be pointed out. We have searched in vain to find them in the Word of God, or in the mind and history of man.

Making every allowance for the real difficulties which beset this question, and for the peculiar feelings, partly allowable, and largely the reverse, with which it is entertained, we have no doubt that many have been driven to the extreme of utter disbelief in the existence of any punishment by the bold and presumptuous manner in which they may have heard men consign all the heathen, and all Christendom, with the exception of a very few, to this awful doom. Infants even have not escaped the condemnation of some who, professing to have more orthodox faith than their neighbours, have really little or any faith at all in God, but utter mere words to which--in this case, fortunately for themselves--they attach no meaning. For if they did, what would life be to them, believing that it was possible for their babe, because of Adam's sin, to be cast for all eternity into literal fire? But while we have perfect confidence in the salvation of infants, and of many more, we dare not condemn any. The living God, who alone knows each man, may be dealing in ways beyond our comprehension with the most lonely savage, whose inmost spirit He ever sees, and who is of more awful value in His sight than all the stars of the sky. How the living and omniscient Spirit of God has access to the inner spirit of man, I neither know nor could perhaps understand if it were revealed; nor how He can teach that spirit without the gospel or the ordinary means of grace, so as to bring it under law to God. But when I saw a child (Laura Bridgman) who was born deaf, dumb, and blind, marvellously educated by the genius and wisdom of her remarkable instructor, I could not but feel how grand ends might be accomplished in the human soul by means which before this experience I would have pronounced as impossible;--and it suggested also to me how a poor heathen even, like that blind girl, might be really taught by another person, and be receiving light within, though for a time utterly ignorant of either the name, the character, or the purposes of the unseen and unheard teacher, who yet in his own way gradually was training his scholar for fellowship with God and man.[A] We ignorant and sinful men must confine our judgments as regards others to what is right or wrong in their actions, and that solely to guide ourselves in our personal duties towards God and one another. But as to deciding the eternal fate of any man, that, thank God! can be done only by Him to whom all men belong. When disposed to occupy the throne of the judge, and to scrutinise human character with a jealous regard for the righteousness of God, let us at once do so by summoning ourselves to the bar!

[Footnote A: As an illustration of this, see a remarkable account of a North American Indian, narrated by Brainerd in his Diary, date September 21, 1745.]

This, however, amidst all perplexities we may certainly rely upon with perfect confidence, that whatever is finally decided, and whatever punishment is finally awarded to any, will be in accordance with the perfect will of "God, whose name is love;" so that all the true and just, the good and loving in the universe, will, when they know all the grounds of His judgment, sympathise with their whole soul in His decisions, and see His glory revealed in them. We also know that there will be "a multitude greater than any man can number" in God's family; that they will be gathered "out of every nation, kindred, and tongue;" and this we may hope for, that the number of the lost may be to those who are saved fewer far than the number of those in penal settlements and prisons are to the inhabitants of a well-ordered and Christian kingdom.

But not only are our thoughts of future punishment naturally darkened into deepest gloom by the assumed multitudes of those who will suffer, but also by the nature of those sufferings which we also assume are to be assigned to them. We literally interpret all those images of unquenchable fire and the undying worm, borrowed from the constant conflagrations and corruptions of the offal and carcases of dead animals in the valley of Hinnom, (or Gaienna,) near Jerusalem, and also the obviously metaphorical language used in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, as if necessarily teaching that worms or fire would be employed to torture for all eternity the immortal bodies of the lost. But what if there is to be no such bodily pain? though possibly there may be some kind of physical suffering immediately produced by sin there as well as here. What if the wicked shall be punished only by permitting them to "eat the fruit of their own way, and to be filled with their own devices?" What if, instead of the wrath of God being poured upon them to the utmost, it will be inflicted in the least possible measure, and only in the way of natural consequence? What if the sin which makes the hell hereafter, is, in spite of all its suffering, loved, clung to, even as the sin is which makes the hell now? Nay, what if every gift of God, and every capacity for perverting His gifts, are retained; and if the sinner shall suffer only from that which he himself chooses for ever, and for ever determines to possess? I do not say that it must be so; but if it is so, then might a hell of unbridled self-indulgence be preferred then, as it is by many now, to a heaven whose blessedness consisted in perfect holiness, and the possession of the love of God in Christ, for ever and ever. Let, then, the fairest star be selected, like a beauteous island in the vast and shoreless sea of the azure heavens, as the future home of the criminals from the earth; and let them possess in this material paradise whatever they most love, and all that it is possible for God to bestow; let them be endowed with undying bodies, and with minds which shall for ever retain their intellectual powers; let them no more be "plagued with religion;" let no Saviour ever intrude His claims upon them, no Holy Spirit disturb them, no God reveal Himself supernaturally to them; let no Sabbath ever dawn upon them, no saint ever live among them, no prayer ever be heard within their borders; but let human beings exist there for ever, smitten only by the leprosy of hatred to God, and with utter selfishness as its all-prevailing and eternal purpose; then, as sure as the law of righteousness exists, on which rests the throne of God and the government of the universe, a society so constituted must work out for itself a hell of solitary and bitter suffering, to which no limit can be assigned except the capacity of a finite nature. Alas! the spirit that is without love to its God or to its neighbour is already possessed by a power which must at last create for its own self-torment a worm, that will never die, and a flame that can never more be quenched!

* * * * *

And yet, when forced to come to this conclusion, especially after reading the Scriptures, which in our judgment but confirm it, and give it the sanction of Divine authority, who can, even then, with his human heart silence a "timid voice which asks in whispers" many questions suggestive of what would appear to be the brighter hope? "Who can limit" (in some such form might those questionings be put) "the resources of God's infinite love and wisdom? May there not be found means, though yet to us unknown, and as yet unrevealed, by which the good shall ultimately triumph over the evil,--when every being whom God has originally made capable of love and joy will at last fulfil His glorious purpose,--when every sheep lost to the Shepherd will be found, and brought with rejoicing back to the fold,--when every lost piece of money with the King's image, defaced, yet not destroyed, will be recovered from the dust and restored to the King's treasury,--and when every prodigal, weary of his wanderings, convinced at last, through self-inflicted misery, of his folly, and remembering a Father, will return to that bosom which never can reject a child seeking there his rest and refuge,--until, finally, there shall not be throughout creation even one sinner, but a mighty family of immortal beings, who, after their terrible experience of the reign of self, shall freely and joyfully accept of the reign of the blessed and loving God? If it is possible, must it not be so? May we not, in our darkness and difficulty, rely upon One who, knowing man's fallen condition, yet said, Increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth? upon One who declared it to be a legitimate source of joy to every mother that a child was born to the world? upon One whose love to all whom He has made is to our love as the light of the mighty sun to a fire-fly's spark wandering in darkness?"

"Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood

"That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete:

"That not a worm is chosen in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a pent-up fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

* * * * *

"So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

* * * * *

"I falter where I firmly trod;
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar stairs,
That slope through darkness up to God,

"I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope."

With deep sympathy for all who thus feel the weight and pain of the subject, and who hope against hope, we ourselves are compelled to abide in our first faith. We cannot forget that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of man, who was perfect love, truth, and life, has neither Himself, nor through His apostles, given us by one word the slightest ground for hoping that any man who leaves this world an enemy to God will ever repent and become a friend of God in the next. The whole teaching of Scripture is one with what prudence and principle would dictate:--Believe in Jesus; now or never!

Hear, in conclusion, God's Word:--"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.... He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.... He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him."

Hebrews ii. 1, 3:--"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.... How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him."

[The end]
Norman Macleod's essay: Future Punishment

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN