| WE have borne testimony here to our uncompromising belief in the
reality of judgment. There is no law in God's universe more sure than the inexorable
decree that every transgression and disobedience shall receive a just recompense of
reward. The absolute certainty of judgmaent should be emphasized and insisted upon; but to
teach its eternity is a vital mistake, amounting to a slander upon God and a most awful
misrepresentation of His character. There is judgment in this eon, there is judgment in
the eons that will follow; but all of the judgments of God are salutary and remedial, and
though they may be, like the destruction of Sodom, age-lasting in their effects, yet the
outcome shall be blessing and salvation. The sole props on which the champions of a pitiless orthodoxy rest the dogma of endless woe are the phrases "for the eon of the eons" and "for the eons of the eons." But it has been shown that these terms do not imply infinity but have reference to finite duration; not in one single instance does the noun eon mean eternity, or the adjective eonian mean eternal. Thus the biblical usage of these terms gives no support to the dogma of unending torment. As eonian life is a certain kind of life, as has been shown, so eonian judgment is a certain kind of judgment; in neither case does the word mean endless; but it describes the nature of the life and of the judgment. Investigation proves to demonstration that the Hebrew and Greek terms supposed to denote eternity refer invariably to terminable periods, with definite starting and terminal points. Where, then, is the ground for this awful doctrine to stand upon? It has no foundation whatever in the Scriptures. Who would wish to cling to it, then? For ourselves, we are glad to shake it off as a horrible nightmare of the past, and walk out into the glorious light that lifts the veil of a bright and happy future for every son and daughter of the race, secured to them by God's sovereign love and the sufferings of His Son. Human happiness must ever depend upon God's glory. Apart from His perfection it is but a fleeting phantom. But the God of Christendom is a deity defeated and dishonored by a devil of his own creation. Where He gains thousands, the adversary grasps his tens of thousands. But the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our God, is invincible and victorious and will not give His glory to another. He is a God of gods, who is able to gain the goal He has set before Him. Once He was All and He will be All again. Not as then, when there were none to find satisfaction in His love; not as now, when but few are filled with His fulness; not till the consummation, when His work is finished, when all the scaffolding of the eons is removed, when every heart beats in unison with His, when sin no longer sullies the effulgence of His affections, when His attributes retire to let essential Light reveal essential Love -- then, then shall He become All in ALL.
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