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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, July 16, 1867

FromReview and Herald, Vol. XXX, No. 5

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NATURE AND DESTINY OF MAN.

By N. V. Hull

DISCUSSION BETWEEN ELD. N. V. HULL, SEVENTH-DAY BAPTIST, AND ELD. R. F. COTTRELL, SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST.

  • (Continued from Review No 13, Vol. xxviii.)*

Elder Hull's Thirteenth Article.

ELD. R. F. COTTRELL:
Dear Brother,— Little did I think, when I wrote my last letter to you, that months would pass ere another would appear. But in the interim between that and the present time, sickness and cares and duties have occupied my time or consumed my strength. Accept this simple statement as my apology, and pardon, I pray you, what might seem an unjustifiable neglect.
1. In your reply to my last, you commence by defining what you understand to be the Bible sense of eternal punishment, thus: “It is not in the sense of the eternity of pain, but the eternity of its consequences.” To sustain this view, you quote Heb. vi, 2, where Paul speaks of “eternal judgment,” I also think that eternal judgment here means that judgment which fixes the eternal state of men. This makes the judgment eternal in its consequences. But the question still remains, whether this eternal judgment involves the idea of eternal torment, and whether this also is one of its consequences. I hold that the Bible expressly teaches that the suffering of the finally impenitent is eternal. Rev. xx, 10—“And they will be tormented, day and night, for ever and ever.” Matt. 25: 46—“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.” Rom. ii, 8—“But to those who are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, tribulation, and distress.” What is plainly taught here is eternal suffering, not eternal “consequences” of the judgment.
Your criticism on the Greek word aion is faulty. That it is limited by its connections, I grant, but not by our theories. Now there is not, according to my recollection, an instance where it is used in the Bible, with reference to the future state, in which it is not bounded by that state. If the state is limited, then the word is limited. When referring to things limited
to this world the word is of necessity limited accordingly. Your attempt to limit its meaning by connecting it with mortal man, would be of force if our question concerned man in this life, because mortality is affirmed of him here, but not of him hereafter. Your rule would destroy the idea of endless happiness in the case of the righteous, if the meaning of the word is to turn upon the fact of man's mortality, for the righteous, as well as the wicked, are mortal, and in precisely the same sense, namely, that they have mortal bodies. See Rom. viii, 11.
2. Your paragraph commencing “Death is a terrible punishment,” is without force, when it is remembered, that the sinner would greatly prefer annihilation to endless punishment, which is the point between us in this discussion.
3. In your third paragraph, you accept in part of my views as to the meaning in the Scriptures of the word death, but require me to show that the figurative meaning is involved in future punishment. This I do by showing that “the second death,” spoken of in Rev. ii, 11, is being cast into the lake of fire, (Rev. xx, 14;) and that this is not a destruction of being, is certain, because in this lake of fire and brimstone, the Devil, the beast, and the false prophet, are tormented day and night, for ever and ever, (Rev. xx, 10,) and the smoke of the torment of such as receive the mark of the beast shall go up forever and ever, nor shall they have any rest, day nor night. This is also in keeping with Matt. xxv, 46, where the future condition of the wicked is described by the phrase “everlasting punishment.” Now, take these passages with Rom. ii, 8, 9, where the indignation and wrath of God are said to produce tribulation and distress as the punishment of those who work evil, and is it not easy to see, that death, when spoken of in connection with the punishment of the wicked in the future state, is to be taken in a figurative sense?
4. I have considered the nature of the death threatened to Adam, and in what sense he understood it, as well as I am able, and cannot agree with you, that only temporal death was involved. I think you must be in error here, because the sin of Adam was the gateway through which all the sins and all the evils which afflict the race, both in time and eternity, flow in. The conclusion, that more than simply physical death was in the mind of God when this sentence was pronounced or threatened, seems to me inevitable. Nor do I sympathize with you in your alarm at the thought that Adam might not have understood the full import of the word death when it was first uttered to him. Can you not see, that he might not have seen all the consequences that would flow to the race even in this life? If so, why may we not suppose that he was in some measure ignorant of the effect of his sin upon the illimitable future? Why not? In the commentary of J. G. Murry just from the press, page 128, you will find the following excellent remarks: “This act altered fundamentally the position and character of man. He thereby descended from innocence to guilt in point of law, and at the same time from holiness to sin in point of character. Tremendous was the change, and equally tremendous the consequences. Death is, like most Scriptural terms, a pregnant word, and here to be understood in the full compass of its meaning. It is the privation, not of existence, as is often confusedly supposed, but of life in all its plenitude of meaning. As life includes all the gratifications of which our human susceptibilities are capable, so death is the privation of all the sources of human enjoyment, and among them the physical life itself, while the craving for ease and the sense of pain retain all their force in the spiritual part of our nature. These poignant emotions reach their highest pitch of intensity when they reach the conscience, the tenderest part of our being, and forebode the meeting of the soul in its guilty state with a just and holy God.” It seems to me possible, that Adam neither understood the full import of death as it lay in the Divine mind, nor of the promise, The seed of the woman shall bruise thy head. If anything is plainly revealed, when consulting the pages of inspiration, it is progress in revelation. Higher truths are revealed in the New Testament than in the Old. He that attempts the interpretation of the Sacred Volume, and ignores this fact, must fall into error. I interpret
the words of Jehovah to Adam by what has since been revealed, both in the Scriptures and in Providence.
Your next paragraph, I think, has been sufficiently answered.
5. Christ and his apostles certainly do not differ in their testimony. Still, I insist that Paul's “everlasting destruction” must be interpreted by Christ's “everlasting punishment.” This can easily be done, as the person who is everlastingly punished is most emphatically destroyed. To this I think you will agree. But to explain Jesus by Paul, and then make Paul's everlasting destruction physical, as you do, contradicts the idea of “everlasting punishment,” as punishment is the synonym of torment, and this requires the idea of consciousness. Your remark, “You have utterly failed to prove the immortality of the soul in the former part of our discussion,” is no more than I expected, knowing your habits. You have so long rung the changes upon this, that to require you to write or speak without, from time to time, refreshing yourself, and those who trust to your teaching, by returning to it, would in all probability expose yourselves to the danger of having your faith weakened in your theory. But, brother, would it not be better for our readers to judge of the merits of this debate without forestalling them by ad captandum remarks from us? But you proceed, and attempt to show that there is necessity of understanding “destruction” literally, by quoting the highly figurative language of Malachi iv, 1. That there was a real and terrible destruction of Jews in the overthrow of their city, the breaking up of their national polity, and the horrible slaying of the people, in fulfillment of these words, I am aware, but not in the exact manner of the figure of Malachi. The same mistake attends your interpretation of Psa. xxxvii, 20, and the parable of the tares, etc., etc. Take the latter case. Now Jesus was not discussing the manner of the punishment of the wicked, but the certainty and terribleness of it. The as in Psa. xxxvii, 20, and the so in the parable of the tares, do not refer to the form of punishment, but to the certainty of it. Your statement, then, that “these testimonies show that the wicked will be personally and literally destroyed,” is without foundation. Chaff, stubble, fat, &c., all easily consume away by fire—figures fit, indeed, to teach the dull and the indifferent, that God has power over them, and that in his righteous indignation he will smite, not sparing them! But when you make all this refer to the mode of punishment, you belittle the whole question, and blunt the keen edge of the Divine sword. The Lord give thee understanding, brother!
6. As you accept my rule for determining the meaning of apollumi, I will give no further attention to it at present. But your assertion that the lost sheep of the house of Israel were not destroyed, cannot be passed over, because I think it a serious mistake in their case. You think they were not destroyed, because that through mercy they might be recovered. But you forget that this was just their state, as described by Hosea, (xiii, 9.) “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thy help.” Every sinner is destroyed, ruined, yea, condemned already; but in God, blessed be his name, there is mercy!
7. I do not confound sin and its punishment. Perhaps your attempt here to convict me of weakness is legitimate, but I think not.
8. It is the easiest thing in the world for us to see how there can be degrees in punishment, as also in enjoyments, according to the theory I hold. If the sentence of the Court be in the case of two prisoners, that they receive each forty stripes, and in the execution of this sentence one receives forty heavy stripes, and the other forty light ones, are there not degrees in their punishment?
As ever yours, N. V. HULL.