the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Encyclopedias
Soul
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or The present article is a sequel to that on Punishment, in which literature only of the question concerning future punishment will be briefly stated. The literature of the question concerning the nature and duration of future punishment consists of the following particulars. First, its duration was believed by the heathens to be eternal. Secondly, there is a still more striking similarity between the descriptions both of the nature and duration of future punishment given in the Apocryphal books and those of the New Testament. Thus; 'Woe to the nations which rise up against my kindred! the Lord Almighty will take vengeance on them in the day of judgment, in putting fire and worms in their flesh; and they shall feel them, and weep for ever' (comp.; ). These terms seem borrowed from Isaiah's description of a different subject (). Thirdly, Josephus describes the doctrine of everlasting punishment as being held by the Pharisees and Essenes: 'that the souls of the wicked should be punished with perpetual punishment, and that there was appointed for them a perpetual prison' (De Bell. Jud. ii. 8. 11, 14; Antiq. xviii. 1, 3). In the New Testament the nature of future punishment is almost always described by figures. 'The most abstract description occurs in : 'Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.' Our Lord generally describes it under figures suggested by some comparison he had just before made, and in unison with it. Thus, having described future happiness under the figure of a midnight banquet, lighted up with lamps, then the state of the rejected is described under that of 'outer darkness' outside the mansion, and 'gnashing' or chattering 'of teeth,' from the extreme cold of an Oriental night (; ). If 'the end of the world' be described by him under the figure of a harvest, then the wicked, who are represented by the tares, are accordingly gathered and burned. Our Lord also frequently represents future punishment under the idea of fire, which Calvin, on , remarks, must be understood metaphorically of spiritual punishment. Indeed both the nature and variety of the figures employed by our Savior in regard to the subject fully justify Paley's observation, 'that our Lord's discourses exhibit no particular description of the invisible world. The future happiness of the good and the future misery of the bad, which is all we want to be assured of, is directly and positively affirmed, and is represented by metaphors and comparisons which were plainly intended as metaphors and comparisons, and nothing more. As to the rest a solemn reserve is maintained' (Evidences of Christianity, part ii. ch. ii.). The question of the duration of future punishment chiefly turns on the force of the words translated 'ever,' 'everlasting,' 'never,' which our Lord and his apostles apply to it, and which it is well known have sometimes a limited signification, and are very variously translated in the English version. Hence, therefore, it is urged on the one side, that we can never settle the precise import of these words, as applied in the New Testament to the duration of future punishment, until we shall be able also to answer the following questions; namely, Was it part of the commission of Christ and His apostles to determine this matter? and if so, In what sense were the terms they used in regard to it meant by themselves, and understood by their hearers—whether as denoting a punishment of unknown duration, or one literally coexistent with the duration of the Eternal God? On the other side it is objected, that the same word is applied both to the happiness of the righteous and the misery of the wicked, though varied in our translation of : 'These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.' Upon this truly important subject we cordially acquiesce in the remark of Doddridge: 'Miserable are they who venture their souls upon the possibility that the words in question, when applied to future punishment, may have a limited meaning.'
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Soul'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/s/soul.html.
