ARE the wicked dead now being punished? This is a question of awful
solemnity, and should not be treated as a matter of speculation and idle curiosity.
For the greater part of mankind live in neglect of the great duties of religion, if not
in open contempt of its most solemn commands. Such has ever been the fact
with our fallen race. This vast throng of sinful men for long ages have been
pouring through the gates of death, and its dark portals hide them from our
further view. What is the condition of this innumerable multitude of impenitent
dead? Where are they? and what now is their real state?
To this question two answers are returned: 1. They are now suffering the
torments of the damned. This is the answer of the so-called orthodox creeds. 2.
They are now sleeping in the dust of the earth, awaiting the resurrection to
damnation. This answer is believed by many candid Bible students to be the
harmonious teaching of the Scriptures on this subject. Which of these two
answers is the true and proper one?
1. There is no statement in the Bible relating to the wicked dead in general,
where they are in any way represented as in a state or place of torment. Nor is
there any instance in the Bible where men are threatened that they shall, if
wicked, enter an abode of misery at death. Even the warning of Jesus, in Matt.
10:28, which is thought to contain the strongest proof of the soul's immortality
that can be found in all the Bible, says not one word concerning the suffering of
the soul in hades, the place of the dead, but relates wholly to what shall be
inflicted upon "both soul and body in gehenna" (the Greek word here rendered
hell), the place of punishment for the resurrected wicked.
2
2. There being no general statement in the Bible representing the wicked
dead as now in torment, and no instance in which the living wicked are
threatened with consignment to the furnace of fire till after the Judgment, we now
search out the particular cases which may be thought to teach such a fact. There
are just two of these cases which may be cited to prove that some of the wicked
dead are now in torment; and from these, if at all, the torment of the wicked dead
in general must be deduced. These cases are the Sodomites; "set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire;" Jude 7; and the rich man lifting
up his eyes in torment; Luke 16:19-31. These are the only cases that can be
cited from the Scriptures in proof that the wicked dead are now undergoing the
punishment of their sins.
3. The case of the Sodomites first claims our attention. The text reads thus:
"Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving
themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an
