Mortal or Immortal? Which?

TWO ALLEGED AND FINAL DIFFICULTIES CONSIDERED

As in the ages before our existence we suffered no punishment, so it is claimed it will be no punishment to be reduced to that state again. To this we reply, that those who never had an existence cannot, of course, be conceived of in relation to rewards and punishments at all. But when a person has once seen light of life, when he has lived long enough to taste its sweets and appreciate it’s blessings, is it then no punishment to be deprived of it? Is it no evil? is it no loss? Says Luther Lee, “We maintain that the simple loss of existence cannot be a penalty or punishment in the circumstance of the sinner after the general resurrection.” ¹ And what are these circumstances? He comes up to the beloved city, and sees the people of God in the everlasting kingdom. Then says the Saviour, addressing a class of sinners, there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. What is the cause of this wailing? It is not that that they have to choose between annihilation or eternal torture. Had they this privilege, some might perhaps choose the former; others would not. But with eternal misery the sinner has nothing to do. That is but a thing of the imagination, and cannot enter in any wise into his account. The conditions between which he can draw his cheerless comparisons are, the blessed and happy state of the righteous within the city of God, and his own hapless lot outside its walls. And we may well infer from the nature of the case, as well as the Saviour’s language, that it is because he finds himself thus thrust out, that he lifts up his voice in lamentation and woe. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of God, and ye yourselves thrust out! The sinner then begins to see what he has lost; the sense of it, like a barbed arrow, pierces his soul; and the thought that the glorious inheritance before him might have been his but for his own self-willed and perverse career, sets the keenest edge upon every pang of remorse. And as he looks far away into eternity, to the utmost limit which the mind’s eye can reach, and gets a glimpse of the inconceivable blessedness and glory which he might have enjoyed, but for his idol sin, the hopeless thought that all is lost will be sufficient to rend the hardest and most obdurate heart with unutterable agony. Say not then that loss of existence under such circumstances is no penalty or punishment. Those who thus speak now, should it be their lot at last to try, in person, the truth of their statements, we venture to affirm would find their ideas of the subject intensely modified. At any rate, may it never be our lot, dear reader, to be brought to so fearful a test. MOI 103.1

But again: The Bible plainly teaches degrees of punishment; and how is this compatible, it is asked, with the idea of a mere state of death to which all alike will be reduced? Let us ask the believers in eternal misery how they will maintain degrees in their system. They tell us the intensity of the pain endured will be in each case proportioned to the guilt of the sufferer. But how can this be? Are not the flames of hell equally severe in all parts? and will they not equally affect all the immaterial souls cast therein? But God can interpose, it is answered, to produce the effect desired. Very well,then, we reply, cannot he also interpose, if necessary, according to our view, and graduate the pain attendant upon the sinner’s being reduced to a state of death as the climax of his penalty? So then our view is equal with the common one in this respect, while it possesses a great advantage over it in another; for while that has to find its degrees of punishment in intensity of pain alone, the duration in all cases being equal, ours may have not only degrees in pain, but in duration also;for while some may perish in a short space of time, the weary sufferings of others may be long drawn out. But yet we apprehend that the bodily suffering will be but an unnoticed trifle compared with that mental agony, that keen anguish which will rack their souls as they get a view of their incomparable loss, each according to his capacity, and consequently a deeper experience in sin, the burden of his fate will be proportionately greater. While the man of giant intellect, and almost boundless comprehension, who thereby possessed greater influence for evil, and hence was the more guilty for devoting those powers to that evil, being able to understand his situation fully, comprehend his fate and realize his loss, will feel it most keenly of all. Into his soul indeed the iron will enter most intolerably deep. And thus, by an established law of mind, the sufferings of each may be most accurately adjusted to the magnitude of their guilt. MOI 104.1

But if death is the wages of sin, it is asked, when a man is once dead, why not let him remain so? Why should God raise him just to put him to death again? Does not this view make him as unjust and cruel as that which represents him as keeping sinners alive in hell for the express purpose of tormenting them? We answer, No; and for this reason: God has told us that we shall be brought to account for our own sins; but in order to this, we must have a resurrection to a future life; for the death we die here, we die in Adam and not on account of our personal transgressions. No one thinks, when death comes upon him here, that he is dying for his own sins, and that but for them he would live on. But the Bible tells us here in our lifetime that the soul that sinneth, it shall die, in addition to the death we die in Adam. We must therefore be raised from this first death to give account of ourselves to God. And he has told us that this time shall be to the sinner a time of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, a time of tribulation, distress and anguish of spirit, ending finally in death, from which no resurrection ever again will call him. We can only say therefore to this suggestion, that God will be faithful to his word. MOI 105.1

Then, says one, the sinner will long for death as a release from his evils, and experience a sense of relief when all is over. No, friend, not even this pitiful semblance of consolation is granted you; for no such sense of relief will ever come. The words of another will best illustrate this point: MOI 106.1

“But the sense of relief when death comes at last.’ We hardly need to reply: there can be no sense of relief. The light of life gone out, the expired soul can never know that it has escaped from pain. The bold transgressor may fix his thoughts upon it now, heedless of all that intervenes; but he will forget to think of it then. To waken from a troubled dream and to know that it was only a dream, is an exceeding joy; and with transport do the friends of one dying in delirium note a gleam of returning reason, ere he breathes his last. But the soul’s death knows no waking; its maddening fever ends in no sweet moment of rest. It can never feel that its woe is ended. The agony ends, not in a happy consciousness that all is past, but in eternal night,—in the blackness of darkness forever!” ¹ MOI 106.2

Fearful! scene! from a participation in which we would that all who read these pages might haste to make a timely and eternal escape. MOI 107.1