CHAPTER VI.

THE RESURRECTION STATE: REWARDS AND

PUNISHMENTS.

ACCORDING to the language of Scripture, the resurrection state is everlasting. The second advent determines the fate of all, when the righteous and wicked are consigned to their respective abodes for ever. That the happiness of the former will not end, expositors admit without question. It is plainly asserted in the New Testament; and it accords with the best feelings of humanity. The state is described in various. ways. It is everlasting life or life absolutely, the kingdom of God, a reward or treasure in the heavens, a condition in which the redeemed are

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as the angels of God in heaven, a kingdom, an inheritance, the inheritance of the saints in light, a crown of righteousness or of glory, a native or heavenly country, an abiding substance, glory, peace, sabbatism, the heavenly Ferusalem, etc. "The righteous will go away into everlasting life;" "He that is righteous, let him do righteousness still."2 The predicate aonian or everlasting, which is applied to the punishment of the wicked, has been a source of dispute; some saying that it means nothing more than an indefinitely long time either in the past or the future, so that we have only to assume a punishment long continued. The suggestion has also been made, that the word belongs to the Jewish description of the Messianic kingdom; æonian life and condemnation being mere states in the æon or age to come. The adjective, with its equivalent expressions in Hebrew, often means relatively not absolutely

1 Matt. xxv. 46.

2 Rev. xxii. II.

eternal. By itself, therefore, the predicate is not decisive. To be a clear conveyancer of the one sense or the other, it must be taken with its surroundings.

The following passages are adduced in favour of the opinion that hell-torments are absolutely eternal:

(a) One predicate is applied to the life of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked. Both are conian or everlasting. A necessary rule of interpretation requires that the same word should have the same signification in both clauses of a verse.1 "These will go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into everlasting life." 2 We are told, indeed, that the

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"Si utrumque æternum, profecto aut utrumque sine fine diuturnum, aut utrumque sine fine perpetuum debet intelligi. Pari enim relata sunt, hinc supplicium æternum, inde vita æterna. Dicere autem in hoc uno eodemque sensu, vita æterna sine fine erit, supplicium æternum finem habebit, multum absurdum est. Unde quia vita æterna sanctorum sine fine erit, supplicium quoque æternum quibus erit, finem procul dubio non habebit."—Augustine, De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi. c. 23.

2 Matt. xxv. 46.

rule does not hold good in the phrase "let the dead bury their dead;" but the example is not analogous to that in Matthew's Gospel. The difference between the literal and figurative use of a word is unlike the difference between an adjective in its primary and in its restricted significations. The assertions of Canon Farrar about this argument are contrary to correct exegesis; and his saying that it "is absolutely no argument," is absurdly strong. The passage he refers to in the Epistle to the Romans (xvi. 25-26), where the adjective aonian occurs twice, and cannot mean " everlasting" in one of the clauses, is not analogous, because its signification is limited in that clause by the noun (times) to which it is joined. Some stress is also laid upon the Greek word translated punishment (Matt. xxv. 46), which is said to mean corrective, not vindictive, chastisement; but the niceties of classical, should not control those of Hellenistic Greek, especially in the case of a word rendered

out of Aramæan.1 The same Gospel mentions the being “cast, or departing into, the everlasting fire;"2 called also "unquenchable fire.”3

(6) We read in Mark's Gospel that the punitive fire shall not be quenched, and that the worm of the condemned shall not die. “And if thy hand cause thee to offend, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having the two hands to go away into hell, into the fire unquenchable. And if thy foot cause thee to offend, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life halt, than having the two feet to be cast into hell. And if thine eye cause thee to offend, cast it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye,

1 See Eternal Hope, excursus iii. pp. 199, 200.

"If the words aid and alúvios are applied sixty times (which is the fact) in the New Testament to designate the continuance of the future happiness of the righteous, and some twelve times to designate the continuance of the future misery of the wicked, by what principles of interpreting language does it become possible for us to avoid the conclusion that alev and aivios have the same sense in both cases?"-Moses Stuart.

* See xviii. 8, xxv. 41.

3 iii. 12.