WHAT comes, when by death the light in man’s eye is extinguished, no one of us knows from experience, and equally little can any one make it out from his nature. A strong surmise, that death does not end all, may be derivable from nature, from history and conscience, but even this surmisal differs far from certainty. Certain knowledge of what awaits us after death, God Himself alone could give you by revelation. Revelation about this, therefore, you have in abounding measure, not least by God’s Only Begotten Son, Who first is come down from heaven, then Himself has undergone death, after that arose, and then ascended again into heaven.
That Unique Only Begotten Son of God Who came down from heaven, and returned to heaven, has not once, but repeatedly assured us, that he who dies outside of faith, and thus dies in his sins, is forever cast out into outer darkness.
And notwithstanding this, scholars who know nothing of it, now assert, that this is not so. They contradict Jesus in the face. They persuade the great multitudes no more to believe it. And a number of confessors of Christ, here and abroad, hasten, be it with reserve, to underwrite this denial on the part of unbelieving scholars.
So they deem to have rid themselves of hell. Even in preaching there is scarcely so much as a whisper abroad of hell. And the outcome is, that thousands and again thousands die away indifferently, thoughtlessly, or with a false hope, and that the most striking warning of Jesus has no more hold upon their heart.
WHAT now in the face of this denial of an eternal misery, is the ground on which one founds his denial?
With all those who still count with an all-directing God it is this: That it does not harmonize with the God-idea, and particularly with the love of God, to let the world’s course end with such a terrible outcome.
This, however, contradicts itself.
Ask these selfsame scholars, what Jesus’ high excellency was, and they answer: His pure knowledge of God. Even Jesus’ maxims they criticize. But this one thing they leave to the Savior’s credit, that His was a fellowship with God, so pious, so intimate and so tender, that at this point He remains revelation and rule of action.
And see, while to this same Jesus, Whose knowledge of God according to their own concession was the most perfect, the representations of an eternal misery perfectly harmonized with His idea of God and with the love of God, they maintain that this can not be so, that it is unthinkable, that it can not be reconciled and that it is absurdity itself.
One then makes of it, that after death the development here begun goes on. A second, that also after death there is still opportunity for conversion. A third, that after death bitter suffering, for a certain period, will be the just means to reconcile with God those who have died without God. And a fourth, that there are such as shall never succeed, but that these shall be annihilated, so that they shall no more exist; which is then called: conditional immortality. Immortality alone for those who here or hereafter convert themselves, but annihilation and ceasing to exist for those who conscienceless, here and hereafter, continue to harden themselves against God.
IS it asked, whether we have no sympathy with this? Whether we would not wish a good deal, that it were so? Whether the representation of an eternal wretchedness does not make us shudder with horror? And whether it does not cost us pain to reconcile that never ending antithesis of thousands and yet again thousands of miserables with God’s boundless compassion? —we answer all these questions with an unconditional yes.
Most preferably we cling fast to what Calvin wrote regarding the miscreant, who in France had shed royal blood, that we never know, what in the last sob God yet doeth to those, who seem to us to die far distant from God.
But further than this we can and may not go.
Jesus alone has here full right of speech. Of ourselves we know nothing about it. To imagine, that we should cherish higher and purer ideas about God and His love than Jesus, we do not presume. And equally little do we assume the right to apply an utterance such as: “that once God shall be all and in all” to every man, and not exclusively to the mystical body of Christ, in direct contradiction to what the Holy Apostle constantly testifies. Of the play with the word “dying,” as when Jesus says, “that they shall die in their sins” we do not even say anything here. Conditional immortality can be maintained contrary to Scripture,—taught from Scripture and on the ground of Scripture, never. They who deem that they can do this, show that they do not begin to know, what in Scripture death and dying is.
WITH respect to this you have to hold fast to Jesus and depend upon Jesus’ teaching, or else you know nothing, and are not even able to stammer.
And Jesus spoke about this, time and again, with the greatest positiveness.
They, who die without God, shall go into the eternal pain. They shall be cast out. In them the worm shall gnaw which never dies. They will suffer anguish by a fire that shall never be extinguished. And this never-ending condition shall be so dreadful, that Jesus says of it that there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth (Matth. 13, 42). This last terrible portrayal alone Jesus has repeated even thrice.
In the portrayal of the Last Judgment Jesus has again confirmed this after this fashion, that in that hour He will say to the lost: Depart from me, ye cursed, into the everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.
His apostle repeats it, that “we Christians know, that they who do not obey the truth, shall be recompensed indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man, that doeth evil” (Rom. 2, 8).
Even on the last page of Holy Writ we are told, that in a vision given him by Jesus St. John on Patmos saw, that “whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast ino the lake of fire” (Rev. 20, 15).
Is it not plain and clear as day, that he who still says that this shall not be so, shows that he neither believes in Scripture, nor in Jesus?
And clearer than day at the same time, that he who borrows his knowledge of eternal things from Scripture, and deems that Jesus can not lie, can not and must not represent this matter to himself otherwise, than that there shall be indeed, very really, a hell and an eternal misery.
TO say, it is not genuine piety, to seek God and to believe in Jesus to escape hell, is equally an urge to be wiser than the Scripture.
Surely, the Scripture teaches, that our highest desire must be, not to be safely sheltered for ourselves, but eternally to be satisfied with God’s image. (Ps. 17, 15).
BUT this deep longing of the soul, however exalted in him who is transposed from death into life, has no hold yet on the sinner. And therefore to sinners Jesus comes to save them from perdition. “So God loved the world, that He gave His Only-Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
And this is the effect, which the certainty of an eternal misery must still have.
It must urge father and mother, not by neglect of Christian training to leave the child of their love a prey to eternal perdition.
It must urge believers of every sort of standing, rank and age, not to leave their friends, to whose heart they have an approach, to die without Jesus.
It must urge the church of Christ, by preaching and missions to save from perdition and to exhort to conversion.
The same love of God which made Him send His Son, that sinners should not perish, but come to eternal life, must also stimulate, inspire, prompt us.
The love of Christ must constrain us.
For does it not witness in a dreadful way against the coldness of your love, when you leave a child, a brother, a friend of your heart, any one whom you can reach, to die away quietly into eternal misery, because you would not believe, on Jesus’ authority, that there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, a fire, that shall never be quenched?
Nothing witnesses more strongly against the seriousness of many Christians than the cold indifference, with which they stand at the deathbed of unbelieving members of the household or family or friends, even when before their dying they observe no single sign of faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.
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