Friday, July 26, 2019

No Resurrection From the Second Death.


(The Atonement Continued…)

Before leaving the subject of the penalty for transgression we will compare with the announcement of the penalty to Adam, the explanation of it by the Lawgiver himself.

When man was created and placed on probation, the Lord said to him that if he disobeyed the divine requirement or prohibition he should “surely die.” To this all future declarations conformed. Indeed, if there is unity of design in the Scriptures they all must conform to this. Accordingly they say, as already quoted: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze_18:4   “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23 Said the Lord to Israel: “I have set before you life and death.” Duet. 30:19  The penalty for violation of the divine law is nothing less than “the death penalty.” God is the author of life, and man is his creature. “All souls are mine,” said the Creator; “as the soul of the  father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Eze. 18:4.

The right both to order and to dispose of life rests with him alone. There is no surer method of settling the meaning of a penalty than to notice how the proper authority pronounces or executes the sentence upon a transgressor. Adam sinned; he was arraigned, and confessed his guilt. He could not hide it from his Maker. The Judge in this case was the author and giver of the law; it was he who first announced the penalty of death. The sentence or the punishment must be conformable to the penalty. Therefore the sentence will be an authoritative comment on, or explanation of, the penalty. The sentence was pronounced in these words: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for they sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” According to this sentence, when the Lord told the man he should surely die, he meant that he should be returned to his original element, the dust of the

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ground, out of which he was taken when he was made a man, a living soul. That is what we call literal, personal, or physical death. Nothing else could be implied, for the record speaks of nothing else as pertaining either to the penalty or the sentence. And who shall amend the word of the Lord, or question his decision, in a matter of his own law and of the life and death of his creatures?

On the subject of punishment we will examine but one text, as our limits do not admit of any extended argument on the point. This text is Mat. 25:46;

Mat 25:46  And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. 

and we notice this because it is supposed to conflict in direct terms with the view of the penalty given above. And this being one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, on which an objection is based, an exposition of this will show that the objection itself has no force. The text reads: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.” The Revised Version says eternal punishment and eternal life. This is strictly according to the original, and no one will object to the rendering. The whole objection is based upon a misapprehension of the term punishment. Many seem to think they have fully sustained the objection when once they have proved that the punishment of the wicked is as eternal as the life of the righteous. Thus Moses Stuart said: “If the Scriptures have not asserted the endless punishment of the wicked, neither have they asserted the endless happiness of the righteous, nor the endless glory and existence of the Godhead.” We admit this, and then our argument has lost nothing, and the objection has gained nothing.

The question is not one of the duration of punishment, but of the nature of it. Of this we say:—

1. The word punishment is not a specific term. Men may be punished by fine, by imprisonment, or by death. The term includes all these, and it may refer to many other things, but it specifies neither of them.

2. This being so, there is only an implied, not a direct, antithesis between the words punishment and life. When we say a man will be punished, we do not thereby declare what shall be done with or to him. But if we say of two men that one shall be punished and the

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other shall be suffered to live, the unavoidable conclusion would be that the first would be punished with death, or not suffered to live.

3. If death be punishment, then eternal death, from which there will be no resurrection, is eternal punishment. And this is the destiny of the wicked. “The wages of sin is death.”

As there will be a resurrection of the unjust, and their punishment is after that, they will suffer a second death, after which there is no more resurrection. The second death is therefore an eternal death.

4. Eternal life and eternal death are complete contrasts. There would be no strong contrast between eternal death and a brief life, or between eternal life and a brief state of death.

And there would be no contrast at all between eternal life and eternal imprisonment.

The penalty or punishment being death, there is this complete contrast between eternal life and the eternal punishment. But it would not exist if the punishment were anything but death.

5. Paul, in 2 Thess. 1:9, has given a decisive comment on this text. He uses both the terms used by the Saviour, with another term which is specific and therefore explanatory. Of the disobedient he says: “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” The Revised Version reads thus: “Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”

Death and destruction are equivalents. Many times the Scriptures say of the wicked that they shall be destroyed. That destruction will be fore ever. They shall die, and never again awake. What a doom! And it may be averted by obedience to God through faith in his Son. But he who dies that death receives the just due of his own works. “The wages of sin is death.” It is not the Lord’s pleasure that any should be destroyed. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” Ezk 33:11 The force of the apostle’s words in 2 Thess. 1:9 is sometimes lost by assuming that it means banished from the presence of the Lord,

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and from the glory of his power. But that could not be, for in the whole universe no one can get beyond his presence and power. See Ps. 139:7-12.

Psa 139:7  Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 
Psa 139:8  If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 
Psa 139:9  If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 
Psa 139:10  Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 
Psa 139:11  If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. 
Psa 139:12  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. 

The destruction of the wicked is by fire; and in Rev. 20:9, we learn that when the hosts of Satan compass the camp of the saints and the beloved city, “fire came down from God out of Heaven and devoured them.” And thus will the word be literally fulfilled; from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of his power, even from Heaven shall the fire of destruction fall upon the ungodly. 2 Thess 1:9 “This is the second death.” It is their dying a second time. Truly an “everlasting punishment.” Much as we deplore the utter loss of so many of our race, as lovers of order and Government we acquiesce in the decisions of infinite justice. And we rejoice that justice has decreed the utter destruction of the incorrigibly rebellious, rather than that the universe of God should be the scene of eternal blasphemies and misery.

Let creation be cleansed from sin, and all be love and peace. We repeat a declaration before made, that circumstances make the death of the sinner an eternal death. The term die, or the penalty death, as stated to Adam, does not necessarily carry with it any idea of time or duration. To die is to lose life; death is the absence of life. We know of no one thing which more clearly shows the nature of the penalty of the law than the revealed truth that “Christ died for our sins.”

(To be continued)

(Excerpt from-) THE ATONEMENT PART SECOND:
THE ATONEMENT AS REVEALED IN THE BIBLE
  (1884)

BY   ELDER J. H. WAGGONER


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