The Harp of God: Proof Conclusive That Millions Now Living Will Never Die. J. F. Rutherford
of doing ultimate good, and where the parents are compelled to punish or discipline their children they do it because they love them. The apostle Paul, discussing the discipline by earthly parents and by God said: "We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness."—Hebrews 12:9,10.
[77]Only a wicked fiend would want to torment anybody, such a one as loves dark and wicked things.
[78]Our great God is love. (1 John 4:16) "God is light and in him is no darkness at all," (1 John 1:5) Everything that Jehovah does is good. God created the first man Adam and gave him the power to transmit life to his offspring. All the human race are the children of Adam. Only by God's permission could these children have come into existence. Adam was God's son and all the human race descend from Adam; and thus they bear relationship to Jehovah.
[79]None of Adam's children were born perfect. Some were born under very depraved conditions. God's love, then, for the human race is so great that he made provision for the redemption and ultimate blessing of all, and it would be wholly inconsistent with his attribute of love to arrange to torture any of them at any time. The doctrine of eternal torment is a libel upon the great and loving name of God, and Satan is responsible for it. But in God's due time he will make it clear to all that he is love; and that all of his dealings with the human race are for their good.
[80]The eternal torment teaching is not supported by any Scripture text in the Bible. There are some texts that are written in symbolic phrase, parables and dark sayings, which were written to illustrate another great truth, but with no reference to the eternal punishment of the human race. These Scriptures must be considered elsewhere. Our space does not permit us to consider them here. What we will examine are the direct Scriptural statements.
[81]All the Scriptures show that the wicked will be punished, but punishment does not mean torment. There is a wide distinction between everlasting punishment and everlasting torment. Everlasting punishment is a punishment that lasts. Everlasting torment would be a torment that never ends, but one would be consciously suffering all the time. The laws of the land punish the wicked who violate the law, and the duration of punishment is short or long in proportion to the enormity of the crime committed. One who steals a loaf of bread violates the law and he may be punished by confinement for a day or a month in prison. One who destroys his neighbor's house by fire is punished, and his punishment may be a number of years in prison. Another takes the life of his neighbor, and his punishment is death. No law of any nation on earth permits the violator of the law to be tormented. The stealer of bread is punished for a short period; the one who destroys the home is punished for a longer period; and the one who takes his neighbor's life deliberately is punished by the full penalty of the law, and his punishment is lasting. Death is the highest penalty inflicted by the law. It is also the greatest punishment inflicted by Jehovah. Life is the dearest thing to any creature, and to be deprived of life would be the greatest punishment that could be inflicted. Therefore eternal or everlasting death, with no hope of a resurrection, would be an everlasting punishment. But it would not be an everlasting conscious torture. God plainly declared: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), and not eternal torture.
[82]Having fixed this penalty, God could not change it afterward, because God could not be inconsistent; he cannot deny himself. (2 Timothy 2:13) It was by the disobedience of one man that sin came into the world and death as the result of sin; so death has been the penalty upon all mankind. (Romans 5:12) And this will continue until God's due time to awaken them out of death and give all an opportunity for life; and this we will discuss later. "The Lord preserveth them that love him, but all the wicked will he destroy." (Psalm 145:20) The Apostle plainly says that all the wicked shall be punished with an everlasting destruction.—2 Thessalonians 1:9.
[83]But do not the wicked go to hell?
[84]It is true that all who have died from Adam until now have gone to hell. But hell does not mean a place of conscious torture. Wherever the word hell occurs in the Bible it means the condition of death. Hell is not a place, but a condition. Those who go into the grave are not conscious there; but they have gone into the death condition. Their bodies decay and return to the dust. The word hell is translated from the Hebrew word sheol, as used in the Old Testament. This same word is a number of times translated grave and sometimes pit. In the New Testament the same word hell is translated from the Greek word hades and likewise means grave, the condition of death, the tomb.
[85]Some Scriptural illustrations of this prove that hell means a condition of death. Job was a good and godly man, who tried to obey Jehovah. He had suffered the loss of all his earthly possessions and then his neighbors taunted him because of his suffering; and while he was thus suffering, he prayed that God would permit him to go to hell, saying: "O that thou wouldest hide me in hell [sheol, the grave] until thy wrath be past". (Job 14:13) He desired to be hid in the grave until the time of the resurrection, hoping in God's promise that some day the dead would come again. Then Job says: "If I wait the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness". "Our rest together is in the dust." (Job 17:13,16) Thus he pictures the grave as a condition of darkness, where there is no knowledge, no wisdom or device. Again he said: "A man's sons come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them". (Job 14:21) Why? Because those who are in hell, in the tomb, in the grave, in the condition of death, have no knowledge of anything. They are out of existence, waiting for the resurrection.
[86]Jacob's beloved son Joseph was sold into Egypt by his brethren. Joseph's coat was dipped in the blood of an animal and brought to Jacob, and it was told Jacob the father that his son Joseph was dead. In his grief he exclaimed: "I will go down into hell [sheol, the grave] unto my son mourning". (Genesis 37:35) Jacob was a good man and approved of the Lord; for the Apostle says he was. (Hebrews 11:9,39) Jacob meant that he was going to the grave, to the death condition, mourning for his beloved son.
[87]Benjamin was Jacob's youngest son. After he lost Joseph his affections were centered upon Benjamin. His elder sons came to him and requested that their younger brother be permitted to go down with them to Egypt. Their father Jacob objected to their taking him, saying, "My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to hell [sheol, the grave]". (Genesis 42:38) We know, then, that the hell here described could not be a place of fire and brimstone, for the gray hairs of Jacob would not last long in the fire. What he really meant was that as an old, gray-headed man he would go down to the grave in sorrow if anything befell his beloved son.
[88]Jesus came to earth and lived and died and was buried; and it was written of him that he went to hell. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell." (Psalm 16:10) If hell is a place of endless torment and Jesus went there he could not have been released. The fact that he did not remain in hell is proof conclusive that hell is not a place of eternal torment.
[89]Jehovah established the true religion in the earth, which was and is to worship him and glorify his name. Satan established a false religion in his attempt to be like the Most High. God established his covenant with the nation of Israel and commanded that they should keep themselves separate and distinct from the heathen nations round about. Satan established a false religion amongst the heathen nations and caused them to worship images and other things aside from Jehovah. These heathen idolaters built an altar in the valley of Hinnom for the purpose of offering sacrifices to their gods. The Jews forsook their covenant with Jehovah and became worshipers of Baal, one of Satan's deified ones. In practising Baal worship they offered their children as sacrifices, and upon this has been based the doctrine of torture by fire, concerning which Jehovah says: "They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind". (Jeremiah 19:5) Again said the Lord: "They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech, which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this