The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

II. Blain-Devastating Blow Against Eternal-Torment Innovation

JACOB BLAIN (1812-1880), Baptist minister of Buffalo, New York, was another influential American challenger of the postulate of Eternal Torment. About the middle of the century he published a seven-chapter book titled Death Not Life: or the Destruction of the Wicked (commonly called Annihilation) Established, and Endless Misery Disproved by a Collection and Explanation of All Passages of Future Punishment, (1853). There were fifteen editions by 1870, so it was rather widely read. To it was added “A Review of Dr. E. Beecher’s Conflict of Ages,” and a reprint of “John Foster’s Letter.” Four significant texts appear on the title page:
“‘For all the wicked will God destroy.’ — Psalm 145:20.
‘For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be.’ — Psalm 37:10.
‘They shall be as though they had not been.’ — Obadiah 16.
For they ‘shall be punished with everlasting destruction.’ — 2 Thessalonians 1:9.” CFF2 474.2

1. APPEALS TO LEARNED AND TO PREJUDICED

In his Introduction, Blain contends that the “teaching of endless woe,” which “slanders our Maker,” has driven men “into Universalism and infidelity.” Consequently, his appeal is to two classesthose “learned in the original languages” and those who have not investigated but nevertheless “denounce and ridicule” those who challenge the Eternal Torment thesis. Blain charges certain ministers with being the “leading enemies to reform,” ¹³ and refers to some who have hurled “missiles of abuse.” He contends that the “endless duration” theory is not proved “from reason, nor yet from the Bible.” But it is because it has been taken for granted that “all men are immortal” that they contend that “the wicked must exist in endless misery.” ¹⁴ CFF2 474.3

2. CANNOT STAND BEFORE LIGHT OF WORD

Blain refers to a rising tide of witnesses-George Storrs (with one hundred thousand copies of his book, to date, which first aroused Blain’s own mind”), H. H. Dobney, Edward White, William G. Moncrieff, J. Panton Ham. He refers to some twenty recent writers, several periodicals, and some six hundred preachers so holding in the United States, with certain entire Baptist congregations wholly committed thereto. Such, he says, is the current status of the discussion. CFF2 475.1

In fact, the number is now “so large,” and they are “so decided in spreading light, that all efforts to stop its progress must be in vain.” He predicts “a general investigation must soon take place.” And he declares, “The doctrine of endless woe must soon fall,” for it cannot “stand before the light of God’s Word.” ¹⁵ A “re-examination” is “imperiously demanded.” ¹⁶ Prof. C. F. Hudson’s Debt and Grace is cited as “the most learned work of this age” in this field in America. ¹⁷ Blain then proceeds to examine “all passages” pertaining to “future punishment.” CFF2 475.2

3. SEVENFOLD SCOPE OF BOOK

The scope of his book is set forth in the annotated Index. Chapter one-the term “immortal soul” is “not in the Bible.” About two hundred uses of twenty such terms as “die,” “perish,” “destroy,” “burn up,” prove only “destruction.” “Life and death” are literal, not “figurative.” In chapter two the “metaphysical proof of immortality” is “exploded.” Chapter three discusses the misconceptions concerning the “four [Hebrew and Greek] terms” translated “hell.” CFF2 475.3

Chapter four examines the texts “supposed to teach endless woe,” “unquenchable fire,” et cetera, but which are in reality proofs of “destruction.” Chapter five deals with all remaining “figurative” texts bearing thereon-“aion,” “everlasting fire,” “everlasting punishment.” Chapter six is on the “smoke of torment,” which is explained. And chapter seven re-examines texts that “seem to teach endless woe” but are actually “proving destruction.” CFF2 475.4

4. INNATE IMMORTALITY BUT HUMAN ASSUMPTION

Note the high points of chapter one. Blain here declares that “not a text in the Bible says man is immortal, or has an immortal soul, or deathless spirit.” Such assumptions, he asserts, are “men’s additions to the Bible,” for “God only hath immortality.” And “of course the wicked are not immortal, if the Bible declares they are to be literally destroyed... and finally burned up.” ¹⁸ Blain then lists twenty terms pertaining to destruction, giving all texts and making trenchant comments on pertinent points. CFF2 476.1

5. ANALYSIS OF TWENTY “DESTRUCTION” TERMS

Note his list in some detail:
(1) “Die” (20 texts)-meaning “extinction of conscious existence.” If death is merely “separation of soul and body,” then “what is the death of a soul?” ¹⁹ CFF2 476.2

(2) “Death” (33 texts)-Did all the prophets conspire to blind the people by failing to teach death to be “eternal misery”? Yet commentators say that in the “second death” the “body will die again, and the soul live on in misery.” ²⁰ Such “assumptions,” he opines, “deserve ridicule instead of an answer. CFF2 476.3

(3) “Destroy” (42 texts)-not “preserved forever,” with endless misery, hatred, and cursing. We must learn the meaning from “Bible facts,” not from “theologians.” Think of Sodom as an example. ²¹ CFF2 476.4

(4) “Perish” (31 texts)-If “perish and destroy means loss of life in this world,” they mean “the same in the world to come.” CFF2 476.5

(5) “Perdition” (8 texts)-“to be ended.” CFF2 476.6

(6) “Consume” (6 texts)-not merely “shut up somewhere.” CFF2 477.1

(7) “Devour” (2 texts)-a “final doom.” CFF2 477.2

(8) “Slay, slain, kill” (8 texts)-at the time of the “judgment.” CFF2 477.3

(9) “Blot Out” (4 texts)-they will be “no more.” CFF2 477.4

(10) “Hewn down” (2 texts)-“Do we cast trees into the fire to preserve them?” ²² CFF2 477.5

(11) “Lose Life” (8 texts)-No doctrine is more plain than this. CFF2 477.6

(12) “End” (5 texts)-“If the wicked are immortal, then they have no end, and this language is absurd.” ²³ CFF2 477.7

(13) “Not Be” (5 texts)-they “come to naught.” CFF2 477.8

(14) “Cut off” (5 texts)-they cease to be. CFF2 477.9

(15) “Corruption” (1 text). CFF2 477.10

(16) “Ground to Powder” (2 texts)-crushed. CFF2 477.11

(17) “Tear in Pieces” (2 texts). CFF2 477.12

(18) “Put Away as Dross” (1 text)-in the judgment. CFF2 477.13

(19) “Nothing and Naught” (3 texts)-brought to “nothing. CFF2 477.14

(20) “Burn and Burn Up” (2 texts)-“The Old Testament begins with the threatening of death, and ends with the doom of being ‘burned up root and branch.’” “This tells us what ‘to die’ means.” ²⁴ CFF2 477.15

Then in the Old Testament eighty-five texts threaten “utter destruction,” and not one forecasts “endless suffering.” The New Testament begins with “burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire”—and chaff is not “put into fire to be preserved!” ²⁵ CFF2 477.16

6. NO DOCTRINE SETTLED BY PARABLES AND SYMBOLS

Chapter five deals with fifteen parabolic, figurative, or symbolic texts that are usually invoked, and quotes them. But, Blain says, What are these against 210 opposing plain texts? He then reminds us that no doctrine can be “settled by parables and symbolic language.” ²⁶ It must be expressed in “plain terms.” Then he again asks:
“Where in the book of God” is it said, “in plain terms,” that the “wicked shall suffer endless misery or torment after the final judgment?” ²⁷ He next appeals to men to emulate “Luther’s courage” in rejecting papal error, applying that courage to “tear endless woe from all creeds.” ²⁹ And on the same page he gives a catalog of twenty-four “Eminent Men Who Reject Endless Woe,” and none of whom taught Universalism. And on a supplemental page he refers to John Foster (d. 1843), a “profound thinker and powerful reasoner,” a “Baptist minister of England, who, for over forty years rejected the doctrine of endless misery, yet remained in good standing in that denomination.” CFF2 477.17

7. POPULAR CONTENTIONS VITIATE BIBLE TEXTS

On another page Blain contrasts, in parallel columns, the “popular teaching” with the plain intent of a dozen Bible texts. Here are some of the popular contentions, which he emphatically rejects.
(1) That God breathed into man’s nostrils “an immortal soul,” and man became a dual “mortal-body-man, with an immortal-soul-man” within.
(2) That the wages of sin is “separation of the soul-man from the body-man.”
(3) That the soul that sinneth shall live on in sin forever.
(4) That the dead “know more than all the living.”
(5) That He will not burn up the chaff, but will keep it burning “forever.”
(6) That the wicked will not perish, but “live forever in misery.”
(7) That “none of the wicked will God destroy, but will burn them forever.” It is in this way, Blain insists, th at men “make the word of God of none effect through their traditions,” and cause “many to stumble at the law.” ³⁰ CFF2 478.1