Full Text for The Hades Gospel and the Apocatastasis Gospel (Text)

(ttuurnrota mqrnlngt.ral £tutl}ly Continuing LEHRE UNO VVEHRE MAGAZIN FUER Ev.-LuTH. HOMILETIK THEOLOGICAL Q UARTERLY-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vol. xvn September, 1946 No.9 CONTENTS Page The Hades Gospel and the Apocatastasis Gospel. Th. Engelder 641 Luther and the War Against the Turks. George W. Forell ______ 676 Outlines on the Standard Epistle Lessons ____ _ _____ __ ________ ________ ____ 694 Miscellanea ______ -___ ___ ____ - __ ___ __________ _ __ ______ _ __ __ ______ __ ______ ______________ ____ _ 704 Theological Observer _____ __ _ -__ ___ ___ ____ ________ ____ _______ ___ __ _______ _____ ___ ____ _____ 714 Ein Prediger muss IDeht alleln wei- den, also class er die Schafe unter- weise. wie sIe rechte Christen sollen seln. sondem auch daneben den Woel- fen 'lDehren , dass sie die Schafe nicht angreifen und mit falscher Lehre ver- fuehren und Irrtum elnfuehren. L uther Es ist keln Ding. das die Leute mehr bel der Kirche behaelt denn die gute Predigt. - Apolouie, Art. 24 If the trumpet give an uncertain sound. who shall prepare himself to the battle? -1 COT. 14:8 Published by the Ev. Luth. Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States CONCORDIA. PUBLISHING BOUSE, St. Louis 18, Mo. Panrrs.D IN "IJ". S. A.. Concordia Theological Monthly Vol. XVII SEPTEMBER, 1946 The Hades Gospel and the Apocatastasis Gospel By TH. ENGELDER No.9 The Hades gospel proclaims that some men will get an- other chance for conversion in yonder life. The apocatastasis gospel proclaims that all inmates of hell, including the fallen angels, will finally be saved. The Universalist Profession of Belief, adopted at Win- chester 1803, declares: "1. We believe that the Holy Scrip- tures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God and of the duty, interest and final destination of mankind. 2. We believe that there is one God, whose nature is love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of grace, .vho will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness. 3...." "This statement of belief in the ultimate success of the divine ad- ministration, the final holiness and sanctification of all souls ... was made known and declared to all the world as an Evangel in the articles of 1803. . .. 'Hail,' then, we say to the men of Winchester, these preachers of an Unlimited Gospel. To save the glory and honor of God we must believe in the salvation of all his children. . .. About one hundred and :fifty years ago men began to think and act whose hearts were intuitive of the love of an All-Father, and as they advanced in thought and fervor of soul, they could not but proclaim a gospel of gladdest news. . .. Nearly all the superstitions have gone at one blow. The devil troops to an infernal jail. The fires of hell are extinguished. A substitutional sacrifice disappears. 41 642 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL God is not to be propitiated, but served and loved and en- joyed." (The Winchester Centennial, 1803-1903, pp. 21, 38, 50, 60, 154.) "Let those who impugn the Gospel of Eternal Hope remember that it was openly preached by the 'Father of Fathers' - Gregory of Nyssa - whose writings were re- ferred to by the Council of Ephesus as the great bulwark of the Church against heresy. . .. He taught that the soul, hav- ing an affinity to God, must ultimately return to God." (F. W. Farrar, Eternal Hope, pp. 159, 161.) This Evangel, "the gospel of gladdest news," has found many heralds. "Not only speculative theologians, such as Origen and Schleiermacher, but also Bible theologians, Zin- zendorf, Bengel, Blumhardt, preached it." (A. Koeberle, Das Evangelium und die Raetsel der Geschichte, p. 72.) The list includes Gregory Nazianzen, J. Scotus Erigena, the Anabap- tists Denk and Hetzer, the Schleiermacherians Nitsch, Schwei- zer, etc., Archbishop Tillotson, Charles Kingsley, John Foster, the pietistic mystic J. W. Petersen, the Berleburger Bibel, C. F. Oetinger (theosophist), etc., etc. (See Th. Traub, Von den Letzten Dingen, p. 272. W. Rohnert, Die Dogmatik del" Ev.-Luth. Kirche, p.620. Meusel, Kirchl. Handlexikon, s. v. Wiede'rbring1mg Aller Dinge, Schaff-Herzog Encycp. of ReI. Kn., s. v. Punishment, Future, etc.) Other Origenists will be mentioned later. "The new light has been gaining ground steadily for a hundred years. . .. We venture the prediction that by the end of another hundred years the idea of an endless punishment in any form, medieval or modern, will be obsolete among all Protestant churches. . .. The Universal Fatherhood of God is now proclaimed from the housetops of Orthodoxy, and while many of the clear-sighted recognize this as logically involving Universalism, it is accepted neverthe- less." Thus The Winchester Centennial, pp. 39, 40, 44. We submit a few typical statements. Charles H. Eaton: "The doctrinal teaching of the Universalist Church is (1) The universal fatherhood and the universal brotherhood revealed in a universal Savior. . .. (4) The certainty of punishment, having for its object the final recovery of all men. . .. (8) The reunion of all in the everlasting life. . .. When God was represented as an infinite demon, gluttoning himself with the agonies of the damned, burning forever in flames of fire and brimstone, the Universalists said such views of God are blas- HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 343 phemous. God is an infinite Father." (Why I Am What I Am, pp. 71, 75.) Dr. S. Shepard: "We (the Universalists) believe that this is a universe of absolute justice, and that every soul will meet with justice, working out its problems until in some way it comes to a stage of high development and harmony with God." (See J. A. Weber, Religions and Philosophies, p.198.) The Unitarians have stated their creed thus: "There is a general consensus upon the unipersonality of God, the strict humanity of Jesus, the essential dignity and perfectibility of human nature, the natural character of the Bible, and the hope for the ultimate salvation of all souls, in distinction from the views traditionally taught on these points." 1 Theodore Parker, while he acknowledged that the doctrine of eternal punishment was taught in the New Testa- ment, rejected it and came at last to say of the whole theology which includes this idea of endless punishment that it "sneers at common sense, spits upon reason, and makes God a devil." (See A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, p.599.) The Bible Champion, Oct., 1922, p. 386, quotes a Unitarian writer thus: "Heaven and earth and stars in their infinite number, all worlds that roll through the great Creator's space, would raise one universal shout of horror at the endless punishment of sinners. . .. An eternal hell would make the God inflicting it more reprobate and more deserving of such pangs than any human being, though we should imagine one uniting in him- self the crimes of all the Caesars and the Borgias, the Haps- burgs and the Bourbons, the Sultans and the Tsars." Dr. Charles W. Eliot, President of Harvard: "The religion of the future will reject all the old teachings concerning rewards and eternal punislunents. In particular, the new religion will not believe in a hell, where God punishes sin eternally. The God of the future will be a God of mercy and of goodness and of grace." (See Lutheraner, 1924, p.424.) Bishop Ewing of Argyll and the Isles: "Unless this (apoca- tastasis) be held as a matter of faith and not as a speculative dogma, it is practically valueless. With me this final victory is not a matter of speculation at all, but of positive faith; and to disbelieve it would be for me to cease altogether either to 1 It has been said that the Unitarians teach that man is too good to be eternally damned, while the Universalists teach that God is too good to damn man eternally. 644 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL trust or to worship God." (See F. W. Farrar, Eternal Hope, p.218.) Harris Franklin Rail: "So far we have talked about the saints and their hope of heaven; but what about the sinners and the Church's teaching as to judgment and hell? ... We must cast out some unchristian ideas that have remained too long in Christian thought. . .. This world is not so much a place for the testing as for the making of men; that is God's great concern. And why should he be limited to this world? The physical fact of death does not at a stroke change these mixed and unformed lives into pure saints or sinners. If the world to come has place for growth and change, that may mean change of direction. We cannot believe that a Christlike God will ever turn away from men who turn to him, or cease in his effort to win men from death to life." (A Faith for Today, p. 258 ff.) "The time was," said Pastor W. H. Burns at a Methodist conference in Detroit on Oct. 31, 1938, "when I was a boy, that I believed that the world was made in six days. I was taught and believed in literal hell fire. But none of us believe these things today. We have made advancement in doctrine and faith." In a sermon preached in Grace Methodist Church, St. Louis, March 22, 1931, Dr. James Crowther declared: "I believe in a Christlike God. Jesus taught us that God is love. . .. Mankind can never reverence, much less love, a God who consigns his offspring to the eternal torments of the damned. Only a theologian could do that, and God is not a theologian, but a father and a friend." Walter Rauschenbusch: "No man, in any human sense of justice, has deserved an eternity of hell." (A Theology for the Social Gospel, p. 233.) And the Liberal Catholic Church has this creed: "We believe that God is Love, and Power, and Truth, and Light; that perfect justice rules the world; that all His sons shall one day reach His feet, however far they stray." (See Popular Symbolics, p. 208. - "The Liberal Catholic Church encourages among its adherents the freest play of scientific and philosophic thought," says its spokesman in Weber, op. cit., p.74.) "We affirm," say the Spiritists in their Declaration of Principles, "the moral responsibility of the individual and that he makes his own happiness or un- happiness as he obeys or disobeys nature's psychic laws. We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed against any human soul, here or hereafter." (Census of Rd. Bodies, 1926. Part II, p.1319.) HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 645 There are those who do not teach restorationism (or the related doctrine of annihilationism) directly, but speak of it as a possibility, and speak of it in a way which indicates that in their heart they believe in it. Vernon F. Storr, Archdeacon of Vvestminster: "The idea of an eternal fixity of condition, whether for weal or woe, does not appeal to us. . .. Another assumption made by the Universalist is that 'it is never too late to mend.' It may be so. The fate of the hardened sinner must remain an enigma. . .. The Bible throws little light upon the subject." (Do Dead Men Live Again? pp. 209, 225.) Syd- ney Cave: "Our Lord expressed this risk in terms of apoc- alyptic symbols. These symbols speak of loss that men need much to fear, but from them, in the opinion of most scholars, no theory of eternal punishment can be derived." (What Shall We Say of Christ? p.l77.) W. E. Channing (Unitarian): "1 have spoken of the pains and penalties of moral evil, or of wrong-doing, in the world to come. How long they will en- dure, I know not. Whether they will issue in the reformation of happiness of the sufferer, or will terminate in the extinc- tion. of his conscious being, is a question on which Scripture throws no clear light." (Channing's Works, p.353.) "Bei den TLeologen der Aufklaerung koennen wir eine allmaehlig sich vollziehende Au£loesung der alten Lehre von den ewigen Strafen und damit des Dualismus, der den Gedankengang del' Orthodoxie praegte, wahrnehmen. lIier wird von der Moeglichkeit und dell' Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass die Verdamm- ten sich bessel'n koennen, gesprochen." The rationalists in the period of "enlightenment" spoke of the possibility and prob- ability of the moral improvement of the damned. (G. Aulen, Das christliche Gottesbild, p. 300. - Here is a curiosity: "Die Verdammten stehen, wenn sie sich bessern, hinter denen, die von Anfang an selig sind. Eben dadurch aber, dass sie hinter denen stehen, erkennen sie in all Ewigkeit ihre Strafe. . . . Einige Theologen der Aufklaerung, wie Wegscheider, stellen sich VOl', dass die Bestraften bei fortgesetzter Besserung den Platz einnehmen koennen, der frueher von Seligen niederer Grade eingenommen war. Wegscheider denkt sich deutlich das Ganze zunaechst als ein ausgebildetes Befoerderungs- system." Ibid.) Julius Mueller: "While it may be open to the sinner in the next world, as in this, to turn to God by a free act of will, it is nevertheless true that the tendency of 646 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL sin is to perpetuate itself, and therefore that eternal punish- ment is possible." (Schaff-Herzog, l. cit.) The Lutheran, May 14, 1941: "Is there a hell? . .. In rejecting the extreme of material hell fire we should not go to the other extreme of explaining away hell itself. . .. In the moral order of a loving God, however, we have the hope that final mercy will prevail. Retribution may give way to reformation; justice to mercy. Divine Love, we like to believe, will triumph in eternity. Humanity's case is in the hands of the all-wise, all-gracious God, in Christ, the Savior-Judge." C. M. Jacobs: "But does not this clause of the Creed suggest - I will not venture to say that it teaches - another possibility? He descended into Hades, the place of the departed, that He might be their Savior too. . .. 0 God of the living and the dead, open our minds to the greatness of Thy Son, Jesus Christ, that we may never make His Gospel smaller than it is; help us to hope steadfastly in Thee, not only for our- selves, but for the whole race of men, for whom He died; and make us sure that all mankind shall see the glory which Thou hast revealed in Him." (The Faith of the Church, p. 62.) Friedrich Nitzsch: "Ueber den Ausgang des Gerichts an den Gottlosen ist schwer etwas auszusagenj ewige Verdamnis ist, wei! infolge der menschlichen Freiheit kein Mensch zur Auf- gabe seines Widerstandes und Ergreifung der Gnade ge- zwungen werden kann, ebenso moeglich wie die schliessliche Bekehrung aller Verlorenen." (See W. Oelsner, Die Ent- wicklung der Eschatologie, p. 53.) Seeberg's teaching is sum- marized by Oelsner (p.75) thus: "Die Verdamnis aber als ewige anzusehen, verbieten schwere Bedenken: der Par- ticularismus des Hells wuerde das Boese als wesentlich ewig in den Bereich des Gotteswillens hineinrueckenj will aber der Ailwirksame, dass das Boese ueberwunden werde, so darf er auch nicht ruhen, bis dieser Zweck so erfuellt ist, dass endlich jeder Wille das Gute will." Just what does Bishop Stewart of Chicago teach as to eternal damnation? We read in The Living Church, March 10, 1934: "The recent question- naire issued by a professor of Northwestern University deal- ing with a literal belief in a burning hell, the verbal inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures and the creation, is ridiculed by Bishop Steward of Chicago, in a statement published in The Diocese. 'It is simply incredible that such questions should HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 647 be offered as tests of modernism,' says the Bishop. 'They have nothing to do with what is technically known as modern- ism. One does not go about hoarsely and excitedly and mod- ernistically announcing that the world is round and not fiat. One does not toss back and forth at night feverishly asking whether he dare accept the new theory of Copernicus that the sun moves. We have always supposed that intelligent per- sons could accept their Lord's teaching about hell as about heaven without accepting the poetical scenery of sulphur and smoke on the one hand and pearly gates and golden streets on the other. For the past 50 years or so no intelligent clergy- man of the Church has held a theory of verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. And no one with even a whiff of theological learning confuses the cosmic significance of the Eternal Logos with His mission as the Incarnate Jesus of Nazareth born of the Virgin Mary. Nor has the Church with its theories of the poena sensus and the poena da7llni ever dogmatized on the character of infernal combustion.' " Some in this group teach both eternal damnation and apocatastasis. Peter Sterry, for instance, one of Cromwell's chaplains, a mystic, has this in his Catechism: "Q. What be- comes of those who believe not in Christ? A. They lie under wrath while they live. Their souls are in prison with the devils at their death. At the end of the world their bodies are raised and joined to their souls; both are brought to judgment, both are cast into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone." The second part of the Catechism, however, uses somewhat different language, and in a letter to a friend he says: "Jesus Christ, as the universal Person, and Spirit in which all these subsisted, which alone truly subsisted in All, by dying, carried down the whole offended and polluted world into death; in that death all things are dissolved into their first principle, into the Divine Unity, into the Unity of the Eternal Spirit: Thus are the sins and the sinners no more for ever; thus all sins, sinners, wrath are swallowed up in the first unity of the Eternal Spirit, which is the fountain of Beauty, the fountain of Love." E. H. Plumptre, who quotes this, says: "These two extracts seem to contradict each other." (The Spirits in Prison, p. 193 f.) Some in this group even go so far as to assert that Scrip- ture itself teaches both doctrines - eternal damnation and 648 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL apocatastasis. H. Martensen, Bishop of Seeland, Denmark: "This antinomy meets us if we turn to Holy Scripture; no definite solution is given of it there. There are texts which, if they be taken in their full and literal import, most dis- tinctly refer to eternal damnation. Matt. 25: 41; Mark 9: 44; Matt. 12: 32; 1 John 5: 16. These texts, if they be taken with- out reservation or refinement, clearly express the idea of a condemnation in which there is no cessation, to which there is no end. But on the other hand, there are contrasted ex- pressions of Scripture, which have an equal claim to be taken in their full sense. 1 Cor. 15: 26-28; Eph. 1: 10; 1 Cor. 15: 22. If we take these texts without limiting their full and obvious import, we shall not be far from the idea of a universal restora- tion; for the apostle says expressly all, not some. Cpo Matt. 19: 26. This apparent contradiction in the language of Scrip- ture shows that Scripture itself does not afford us a final dogmatic solution of the question." (Christian Dogmatics, p .. 475.) According to Martensen the Christian preacher would and should preach eternal damnation on one Sunday and on the following Sunday the final restoration of all men. P. Althaus follows the same line of thought. "Drei verschiedne Zukunftsbilder traegt die dogmatische Ueberlieferung uns zu: den dualistischen Ausgang in ewiges Leben und ewigen Tod, die Vernichtung der Heillosen und die Wiederbringung aller . . . . Es ist bezeichnend, dass jede der drei genannten Lehren Gedanken der Heiligen Schrift fuer sich anfuehren kann." He adds: "Die Lehre von der Apokatastasis oder Wiederbrin- gung, wenn sie den Anspruch macht, erschoepfende Beschrei- bung des Endes zu sein, ist und bleibt Vorwitz." He also adds: "Wenn Gottes Erwaehlen den Glauben wirkt, wie soUte die Demut uns nicht gewiss machen, dass die Liebe Gottes jedes anderen sich ebenso annehmen wird wie unser! . .. Wir fluechten immer wieder zu der Gewissheit der gnaedigen Macht, die alle heimfuehrt." He concludes with the statement: "Gewiss kann nur das eine wahr sein," only one of these thoughts expressed in Scripture can be true. (Die Letzten Dinge, pp. 175-189.) And Folke Holmstroem calls this method of teaching both truths - "die Vorstellung eines dop- pelten Ausgangs" and "die zuversichtliche HofInung einer endlichen Wiederbringung aller" (Althaus, p.186) a stroke of genius - "Althaus' genialer Griff." (Das Eschatologische HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 649 Denken der Gegenwart, p.308.) Dr. Adolf Koeberle seems to have the same idea: "In the New Testament the two thoughts' run parallel" (op. cit., pp. 70-73). - See the item in CONe. THEOL. MONTHLY, 1937, p. 214 f.: "Bejaht die Schrift, was sie verneint?" 2 1 This apocatastasis gospel is a vicious teaching. It directly denies the plain teaching of Scripture. Holy Scripture tells the wicked, the unbelievers, that they shall be cast into the fire of hell, to suffer eternal damnation. Jesus will say to them on the Day of Judgment: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal" (Matt. 25: 41,46). Jesus spoKe 2 We submit some statements by infidels, atheists, agnostics, who deny not merely the eternity of damnation, but hell itself. Their violent language is fully matched by that of some of the liberal theologians. We are not classifying these with the atheists, but are calling attention to the similarity of language both groups employ. Bertrand Russell's book: "Why I Am Not a Christian" declares: "There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that he believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly human can believe in everlasting pUlllshment. . .. Jesus goes on, in Matt. 13: 42, about the wailing and gnashing of teeth. It comes in one verse after another, and it is quite manifest to the reader that there is a certain pleasure in contemplating wailing and gnashing of teeth or else it would not occur so often." (Quoted in Sydney Cave, op. cit., p.145.) On the occasion of Luther Burbank's funeral in 1926, at which in compliance with his wish the famous tribute of Robert Ingersoll at the grave of the great agnostic's brother was read, the papers reported: "Appearing in the pulpit of the First Congregational Church in San Francisco, Burbank declared he had 'nominated himself an "infidel" so as to cause people to think.' . .. The idea that a good God would send people to a burning hell is utterly damnable to me. The ravings of insanity; superstition gone to seed. I don't want to have anything to do with such a God. I am a lover of men and Christ as a man and his work, and all things that help hmnanity, but nevertheless, just as he was an infidel then, I am an infidel today." David Friedrich Strauss: "Das J enseits ist der letzte Feind, welchen die spekulative Kritik zu bekaempfen und womoeglich zu ueberwinden hat." (See A. Hoenecke, Ev.-Luth. Dogmatik, IV, p.311.) "Mark Twain makes Satan reproach God as one who 'mouths justice and invented hell; mouths mercy and invented hell; . . . mouths morals to other people and has none him- self; ... frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all.''' William Adams Brown quotes this in Beliefs That Matte?·, p.285, in this connection: "There is, for example, the doctrine of everlasting punishment. . .. But this doctrine of retribution, morally defensible and even necessary as it is, was associated with a conception of future punishment so appalling both in its quality and in its duration as to make the thought of the future a nightmare for many sensitive spirits. . .. We can understand the bitterness with which Mark Twain makes Satan, etc. Much may be lost with the loss of the life after death. At least we are delivered from the hell of our fathers." 650 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL through His Prophet: "Many shall awake, some to everlast- ing life, and some to shame aJ.1.d everlasting contempt" (Dan. 12: 2). Jesus declared in the days of His earthly ministry: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3: 36). "It is better for thee to enter life with one eye rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire. It is better for thee to enter life halt or maimed than having two eyes to be cast into everlasting fire ... into the fire that shall never be quenched, where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched" (Matt. 18: 8-9; Mark 9: 42-48). Jesus, who will have all men to be saved, had His holy Apostles write these words: "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power" (2 Thess. 1: 7-9). And these words: "To whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever" (Jude 13). And these words: "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever . . . tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev. 14: 11; 20: 10). St. John exhausts the resources of the human language to express the concept of the end- lessness of damnation: "8(~ LOV~ ulwvuc:; LWV ULWVWV," "for the aeons of the aeons," "von Ewigkeit zur Ewigkeit" (Luther). And there is Heb. 9: 27! Man's eternal fate is not decided at some period in the aeons of eternity, but at the moment of his death.3 - "Scripture teaches the fact of eternal damnation so clearly and emphatically that no one can deny it unless he rejects the authority of Scripture." (F. Pieper, Christliche Dogmatik, III, p.611.) And Delitzsch writes: "There is no 3 Under the compulsion of Holy Scripture the Athanasian Creed confesses: "They that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith," the creed of Christendom. And the Augsburg Confession, Art. 17: "They condenm the Anabaptists, who think that there will be an end to the punishments of condemned men and devils." And the Apology: "Christ shall condenm the ungodly to be punished with the devil without end." And the Large Catechism: "They abide in eternal wrath and damna- tion." (Triglotta, p.697.) And the Westminster Confession, Chapter 33: "The wicked, who know not God and obey not the Gospel of Jesus ChriJ;t, shall be cast into eternal torments and be punished with ever- lasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power." And the Heidelberg Catechism, Q.52: "Who shall cast all His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation," etc. HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 651 teaching which flouts Holy Scripture more flagrantly than the apocatastasis." (Biblische Psychologie, p.412. See Pro- ceedings, Texas Dist., 1907, p.51.) There are those among the restorationists who admit that Scripture teaches eternal damnation, but openly declare that they do not accept Scripture as the authoritative Word of God. Theodore Parker readily acknowledged that eternal punishment is taught in the New Testament. He declared: "There is no doubt that Jesus Christ taught the endless suf- fering of the wicked. But I do not accept the doctrine on His authority." (See The Bible Companion, October, 1922, p. 383.) He would not accept it because it "sneers at com- mon sense, spits upon reason and makes God a devil." Charles Eaton, who denounces this teaching as "blasphemous," goes on to say: "God is immanent in human nature also. . .. God has never left Himself without a witness. Inspiration is not and cannot be confined to any favored or selected prophets. . . . To limit revelation to the Bible is to finally destroy religion." (Why I Am, p.68.) Lewis B. Fisher (Universalist), who declares that this doctrine "made the universe a chamber of horrors and a madhouse for countless sensitive people," that "theology should not make the universe an insane asylum and God hateful," also says: "We, with all Protestants, have affirmed the liberty of each soul to think for itself, itself to judge what is truth, to follow its 'inner light,' accountable to no human authority, but to God only," and, "Jesus never wrote a word, and never asked anyone else to do so. All we know is what his reporters have handed to us, in reports written from fifty to a hundred years after his birth." (Which Way? pp.15, 66, 118, 124.) This book is "a plain statement of what Universalists are believing now, in this new age, with its new Bible, its new science ... its new theology." (Preface.) Dr. S. Shepard, quoted above, says: "Such details as the origin and nature of the Bible, the birth, death, and resurrec- tion of Jesus are matters upon which each individual must form his own opinions, probably changing them from time to time." (See Weber, op. cit., p. 199.) "Archbishop Tillotson saw reason to believe that God might restore the lost by the superabundance of His mercy, though he considered that the letter of Scripture pointed the other way." (See Farrar, op. cit., p.175.) Archdeacon Storr, quoted above, says: "The 652 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL older traditional belief in hell and in endless punishment was based upon a literal acceptance of certain passages in the Bible. But the growth of modern Biblical scholarship has profoundly altered our view of inspiration. We no longer feel that a statement is necessarily true because it is in the Bible," (Op. cit., p, 208.) The conservatives among the restorationists will not, of course, use such coarse language. They recognize the author- ity of Scripture, But at this point they refuse to bow to the authority of Scripture. Anyone who in the face of the clear statement of Scripture that "these shall go away into ever- lasting punishment" insists that no man will suffer everlasting punishment, is certainly not bowing to the authority of Scrip- ture. While the left wing openly declares that the authority of Scripture may be rejected, the right wing, which stands for the authority of Scripture, is virtually brushing it aside. The only difference between the two wings is that the left wing denies more, many more, Scriptural truths than the right wing. F. S. Downs is right in saying: "Better renounce the authority of the Bible at once than trifle in this way with its most solemn fact." (The Heart of the Christian Faith, p.200.) True, most restorationists deny that they are rej-ecting the authority of Scripture and insist that Scripture does not teach the endlessness of damnation. A few, indeed, as we have pointed out above, admit that Scripture plainly teaches it, but the great majority claim that neither Jesus nor any of His Apostles taught it. L. B. Fisher: "No candid person can believe that the doctrine of endless hell torments is taught in the Bible. . .. The Bible, rightly understood, is a Uni- versalist book. . .. It is worth noting that the Bible never once spoke of everlasting death, or everlasting hell." (Op. cit., pp. 68, 74, 95.) Farrar: "The silence of St. Paul as to any such doctrine in such passages as Rom. 2: 8-9; 5: 21; 6: 23; Gal. 5: 21; 6: 8; Phil. 3: 18-19; the reticence of St. John in such passages as 1 John 3: 14-15; 5: 16 - in all which places the nature of the subjects handled would have led the Apostles to make explicit mention of endless torment, had they em- braced any such belief - cannot by any possibility be the result of accident. 'That the doctrinal writings of these three chief teachers of the Gospel (St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. John) HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 653 are wholly destitute of any assertion of the endless misery of sinners in the literal sense,' says Mr. White, 'can be verified by every reader.''' (Op. cit.) p. 218 f.) "It seems to me that . , . endless torments are nowhere clearly taught - the passages which appear to teach that doctrine being either obviously figurative or historically misunderstood." (Op. cit., p.227.) In the Christian Century of Jan. 7, 1934, Prof. H. L. Willett answered the question: "Does it not seem a strange and repellent idea that Jesus should have given his sanction to the Jewish doctrine of eternal punishment? I am thinking particularly of his references to the 'fire that is not quenched,' 'these shall go away into everlasting punishment,''' thus: " .. , His primary purpose was not the portrayal of the future life. He never issued a blueprint dealing with that sub- ject.. . He used the Jewish figures of speech or the frame- work of the picture, but went straight to the heart of the matter by his insistence that as long as willful evil persists in the disposition of any life, there will be the consequent suf- ferit"lg." The Pulpit Commentary on Luke 16: 19 ff.: "Be- tween a soul thus godless and the holy dead, who are at rest in the Lord, there is a great gulf fixed. But to press this into an argument for a hell of endless torment is to overstep the limits of parabolic interpretation." (P. 74.) 4 Sydney Cave relies upon Higher Criticism to prove the thesis that the Bible does not teach eternal damnation. In answer to B. Rus- sell, who had quoted Matt. 13: 42 to show "the serious defect in Christ's moral character" (see above), he writes: "The words of Jesus which he (B. R.) claims teach everlasting punishment are, indeed, perplexing, and on them have been based terrific theories which contradict our Lord's central teaching of the unwearying, holy love of God. Mr. Russell deals with the passages on the lines of the crudest and most ignorant fundamentalism, and ignores altogether the differ- ence between the earlier and more authentic version of these sayings in St. Mark and St. Luke and that given in St. Mat- thew, which, as we have seen, represents the harsher teach- ing of Palestinian Christianity; actually this phrase ('wailing 4 On page 81, however, we read: "Jesus Christ was using current language and familiar imagery to intimate to us that the man who has lived a selfish and worldly life will meet with severe condemnation and grievous penalty in the next world, a penalty in regard to which he has no right to expect either mitigation or release." 654 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL and gnashing of teeth'), though found six times in Matthew, is not found in Mark and only once in Luke. And he treats as genuine sayings which, as even a glance at the Revised Version margin would have told him, 'are omitted by the best ancient authorities' (Mark 9:44-46)." (Op.cit., p.176.-We don't understand. The marginal note in the American Standard Version and in the Revised Standard Version reads: "Verses 44 and 46: 'where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched' - which are identical with verse 48 - are omitted by the best ancient authorities. Would not verse 48 make the saying genuine?) - There is nothing to the plea that Scrip- ture often uses figurative language in describing the eternal things. In the nature of the case Scripture is compelled to use much figurative language. Moreover, there is nothing obscure about such figurative language as "their worm dieth not." Besides, Scripture employs a lot of language which is not figurative. Every single word in the statement: "The wrath of God abideth on him" must be taken in the most proper sense. Not a single word in the statement: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment" is a figurative ex- pression. - No, the Apostles did not always, in describing the future punishment, add the adjective "endless." They used that word often enough elsewhere. And Paul found the words "indignation," "wrath," "tribulation," "anguish" suffi- ciently strong for the purpose at hand. It is a good thing that Farrar himself, as he wrote his books, did not apply the law he lays down for the Apostles. - No comment is necessary on Cave's and the Higher Critics' manipulation of Scripture. Scripture does not teach eternal damnation, say the restorationists, for the word atffivLO~, translated "eternal," does not mean what the Greek scholars and the Greek laymen, the English scholars and the English laymen, have always understood it to mean - everlasting, endless, eternal. They consider this one of their strongest points. They write long chapters on it. The word, when used in connection with damnation, punishment, hell, can only mean "for a certain period," never an infinite period. We read in Which Way?: "The third word that Canon Farrar declared should be ex- punged from our English Bible is the word 'everlasting.' Presumably he meant that that word should not be applied to sin and to its punishments as necessarily meaning endless." HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 655 (P. 95. - The two other words are "hell" and "damnation.") "The true version of Matt. 25: 46 is: 'These shall go away into the punishment of the ages, and the righteous into the life of the ages." (P.97.) "As to 'everlasting,' while it was many times applied to life and to salvation, it is worth noting that the Bible never once spoke of everlasting death, or ever- lasting hell." (P.95.) Farrar: "It has been so ably proved by so many writers that there is no authority whatever for rendering aeonian 'everlasting,''' "Jeremy Taylor declared that the word 'everlasting' signifies only to the end of its proper period." (Op. cit., p. 62, 197.) Koeberle: "Zinzendorf, Bengel, und Elumhardt haben darauf hingewiesen: das neu- testamentliche Wort aionios, das wir gem mit 'ewig' ueber- setzen und wodurch die Kirche zu der Lehre von einer ewigen Verdammnis gekommen sei, dieses Wort bedeute in Wahrheit ja: einen Weltalter-Abschnitt lang waehrend." (Op. cit., p. 72.) That will not do. In the language of the world and in the Bible our word sometimes means "enduring for a long period," but usually it means "endless, enduring forever and ever - eternal." There cannot be a moment's doubt that when Scripture declares that the unbeliever shall receive "everlasting" punishment, it means "everlasting," for it uses the same word when it speaks of the "eternal" life, which receives believers at the end of the present aeon. "These shall go away into everlasting (atcOvLOv) punishment, but the righteous into life eternal (aLcOvLOv) " (Matt. 25: 46) . The restorationists, since they are not materialists, believe in the life eternal. They have no trouble with Matt. 25: 46 b. But it surely troubles them when their theory compels them to make the "everlasting" in Matt. 25: 46a mean a period which will come to an end. In the words of The Australian Lutheran: "Holy Scripture teaches the endlessness of this conscious suf- fering in hell. Objectors say that the word translated eternal, everlasting, literally means nothing more than age-long, long time. But let the reader note that the word aionios (eternal, everlasting) is used of the future life of the believer, of God's own being, of the blessings of the Gospel. In all these cases even our opponents do not think of limiting its duration. Six times it is used of the punishment of the wicked (Matt. 18: 8; 25: 41,46; Mark 3: 29; 2 Thess. 1: 9; Jude 7). What valid 656 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL reason is there for arbitrarily limiting its duration here? To limit its duration in Matt. 25: 46, where the same word is used for the reward of the righteous, is impossible ... , 'For- ever and ever' in Rev. 20: 10 literally means 'unto the ages of the ages,' that is, age rolli'·1.g upon age in endless succession." (See the Luthemn Witness, 1939, p. 165.) Otto von Gerlach, who is for the Hades gospel, writes: "The same adjective is used in describing 'punishment' and 'life.' Augustine ::::::ys, De Civ. Dei, XXI: 23: 'How is it possible to account eternal punishment to be a fire of long duration, and eternal life to be without end, since Christ comprised both in the very same passage, in one and the same sentence, saying, "These shall go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eter- nal?'" If both are eternal, either both must be understood to be lasting with an end or both perpetual without end. For like is related to like; on the one side eternal punishment, on the other, eternal life. But to say in one and the same sentence, life eternal shall be without end, punishment eternal shall have an end, were too absurd; hence, since the eternal life of the saints shall be without end, punishment eternal too shall doubtless have no end to those whose it shall be." (Das Neue Testament mit erklaerenden Anmerkungen, p. 160.) And Archdeacon Storr, who is at heart for the apocatastasis gospel, writes: "Whatever may be the meaning of 'aeonian,' we must note that the word is used in the New Testament of the fate both of the good and the bad, and we cannot logically give it one meaning in one case, and a different meaning in the other case. We may revolt against the idea of endless punishment; but if we are basing our argument upon the mean- ing of special words, we must remember that the same ad- jective is used of both life and penalty." (Gp. cit., p. 229.) 5 5 We have space for a few more statements. Professor Moses Stuart: "If then the words aion and aionios are applied sixty times in the New Testament to designate the continuance of the future existence of the righteous and at least twelve times to designate the continuance of the future misery of the wicked, by what principle of interpreting language does it become possible for us to avoid the conclusion t.hat aion and aionios have the same sense in both cases? The result seems to me to be plain and philologically and exegetically certain. It is fuis ~ we must either admit the endless misery of hell or give up the endless happiness of heaven." (See The Bible Champion, Oct., 1922, p.383.) The Pulpit Commentary, on Matt. 18: 8-9: "Everlasting fire. . .. It is not morally expedient to minimize the force of such terms by disputing about the exact connotation of 'aeonian.' When we remember that the words are spoken by the loving and pitiful Savior, we must allow that HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL 657 Then, too, the paraphrastic terms used Mark 9: 43-46: "Their worm dieth not," "The fire shall never be quenched," and Rev. 14: 11: "The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for- ever and ever," and John 3: 36: "The wrath of God abideth on him," force us to take aionion punishment to mean 'un- ending' damnation. And, finally, the very nature of the com- ing aeon, as distinguished from the present aeon, is timeless- ness, endlessness. Dr. A. L. Graebner says: "AtwvLO~ can here refer to but one aeon, the ulwv !!EAArov, utwv hELVO~, as it describes that which is to come at the end of the world, when the present aeon, ulwv oii'to~, shall be over and past. And the coming aeon is endless, eternity. And among the words that shall abide when heaven and earth shall pass away is also this: 'They shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal.' " (Theol. Quarterly, 1902, p. 143.) And Jesus will speak these words at the Last Judgment. It will they point to some dreadful reality." On Matt. 25:46: "Apparently Jesus meant to convey by these words the impression which every simple- minded, unbiased reader receives from them, that the duration of the punishment of the lost equals the duration of the blessedness of the saved. The word translated 'everlasting' in the one clause and 'eternal' in the other is the same in both clauses. . " The bliss pronounced and the punishment threatened would be understood to last so long as the subject of them lasts unless explicit intimation were given that it would not be so." Dr. VV. R. lnge, dean of St. Paul's, in his contribution to the symposium What Is Hell? puts it thus: "It is hardly too much to say that heaven and hell stand and fall togethel·. Those who refuse to believe in the possibility of final reprobation will usually be found ready to secularize religion, and to substitute some dream of 'a good time coming' for the blessed hope of everlasting life. . .. It is then that we face the dread alternative, the choice which, so far as we know, is for us endless in its results." He has no patience with those who would try to make words like "eternal" mean anything else than eternal. (See The Literary Digest, April 5, 1930. The Pl'esbyterian, June 5, 1930.) - Schaff-Herzog pronounces the verdict: "Whatever these words, XOAa<1L;;, aLoovLov, may be made to mean under the stress of a theory" (our italics), the plain meaning which they carry upon their face is that which the Church has always put upon them. . .. These words (Matt. 25: 46) cannot be explained away by speculation, or deprived of their obvious meaning by exegesis." - Kittel's Woerterbuch: "1m Neuen Testament wird aLoovw;; in der Bedeutung ewig gebraucht von Gott. Als Gottespraedikat enthaelt aLoovw;; nicht nur den Begriff der unbegrenzten anfangs- und endlosen Zeit, sondern zugleich den der die Zeit transzendierenden Ewigkeit. . . . In diesem Sinn wird es gebraucht von den goettlichen Guetern und Gaben - CHO't'l]QLCI. aLoJVw,;, Heb. 5: 9; Mark 16 (kurzer Schluss). . . . Enthaelt aLoovw~ in diesen Ausdruecken den voUen Begriff der goett- lichen Ewigkeit, so bedeutet es in 'to nUQ 'to aLoovLOv, Matt. 18: 8; 25: 41; Jude 7; XOACl.O"L'; aLoovLO;;, Matt. 25: 46, zunaechst nur niemals aufhoerend, endlos. Aber ein Ausdruck wie xQL!LCI. aLoovLOv, Heb. 6: 2 ... zeigt, dass auch hier das rein zeitliche Verstaendnis nicht ausreicht. Zum Gedanken der ewigen Strafe vergleiche Apk. 14: 11; 20: 10." 42 658 HADES GOSPEL AND APOCATASTASIS GOSPEL not be reversed at some later period. The ulwv f1EMOOV knows no change. Does Scripture teach eternal damnation? Dr. E. B. Pusey, Canon of Christ Church, makes this significant statement: "They who deny that any of the words used of future punish- ment in Holy Scripture express eternity would do well to consider whether there is any way in which Almighty God could have expressed it, which they would have accepted as meaning it." (What Is of Faith As to Everlasting Punishment? p. 44. - A reply to Dr. Farrar's book.) 6 The restorationists not only deny that Scripture teaches eternal damnation, but also assert that Scripture teaches the ultimate salvation of the damned. They quote Acts 3: 21: "Until the times of restitution of all things." 7 But the MO%U'tU