III. Taking it tlien as proved that perdition is the final destiny of certain persons, it remains for us to consider the passages which give us hints as to the nature of this terrible judgment. First, is it annihila- tion'? The word which looks most like annihilation in the Old Testament is nn^3, "nothingness," and its cognate forms, used by the prophet Ezekiel with refer- ence to Rabbath-ammon, Tyre, and other cities (ch. XXV, 7; xxvi, 21; xxvii, 36; xxviii, 19). Yet even in these extreme cases tlie exact and philosophical meaning of the word can hiirdly be pressed. For in trutli the nature of destruction will var3' according to the nature of the object to be destroj'ed, and it is not necessarily that utter extinction to which we give tlic name "annihilation," if indeed there be such a thing. There is a physical destruction, to which the material buildings of great cities were doomed, as Tj're and Jerusalem ; but in all such cases there are ruins, or stones, or fragments enough left, to show that tlie idea intended to be conveyed is that of a wreck rather than that of non-existence. There is a corporate destruc- tion of nationalities and of families, yet even from these ruins thei'e have been some that have escaped, and who Iiave been merged into other nations. There is individual A.Qstr\\ctAon — donth and something more — and no doubt in these cases the man thus destroj'ed is in one sense no longer the same man, with the same powers and faculties which he had before his final doom came upon him, yet there may be sufficient re- maining to him to enable him still to preserve an idea-
PERDITION"
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PERDITION, SON OF
fity and to recognise th-J iastice of his doom. The onlv passage in the New Testament which at all fa- vors the idea o*" annihilation or absolute extinction is Eev. XX, li, wh'.re Ave are told that " deatli and hades were cast into the lake of fire." Now it might be argued that we cannot suppose that death and hades suffered eternal punishment, and that as being "cast into the lake" means extinction in their case, so it is to be understood in the case of the reprobate. But the argument cuts both M\ays, for as death and hades are here personified, so their end is personified ; but as they are not really persons, so their end will not really be the same as the end of personal human beings who would not come unto Christ that they might have life. Whether anniliilation is a conceivable idea in relation to a being in whom God has breathed the breath of life we cannot tell ; nor do we know whether it would be a just recompense for the rejection of Christ as Lord and Saviour; but we may rest assured that if it were in accordance with God's character and design it would have been so ordered.
Proceeding with our investigation, we note that per- dition is set forth in the New Testament as involving the final ruin of the spirit. This may be inferred from 1 Cor. V, 5, where we are told that the spirit may be saved hereafter at the cost of the destruction of the flesh here, which implies that otherwise the spirit would be nnsaved or lost. Again, St. Paul tells us that perdition is the drowning of the soul, following from the love of money or erroneous belief (1 Tim. vi, 0), and St. Peter uses the word in reference to the fate of Simon Magus, who was in the bond of iniquity (Acts viii, 20). In two passages which bring the sub- ject before us (1 Thess. v, 3; 2 Thess. i, 9), the primary reference is to the fate of the enemies of Christ who shall be destroyed at his coming — an event which seems to be portrayed in figurative language at the end of Rev. xix. Perhaps we are not warranted in drawing an}' direct inference as to the fate of all the ungodly from these passages. But in whatever light we regard them, they evidently form part of the great revelation of God's wrath against sin, which we find full}- confirmed by the words of our Lord himself. For if we take the one word Gehenna, the scene or abode of perdition (Matt, x, 28), as used by Christ, we gather that it is to be the fate of the angry and revengeful (ch. V, 22), of the carnal (vcr. 29, 30), of hypocrites and persecutors (ch. xxiii, 33) ; and from several of the parables we see that punishments described in al- most similar terms are to be inflicted upon faithless and unprofitable members of Christ's Church. Perdi- tion is described as " the second death" in liev. xxi, 8, and a terrible list is given setting forth the real char- acter of those who shall share it; and tliis list is almost the same as that which St. Paul set before his Galatian converts more than once, as marking the characteris- tics of those who are finally excluded from the king- dom of tiod (Gal. V, 19-21 ; comp. 1 Cor. vi, 9, 10).
Another idea connected with perdition is that of cor- ruption. The body of the saint is sown in corruption, but it springs up and the harvest is incorruption. But it is not so witli tliose who are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Their harvest is corruption — ten times more corruptible than that which takes place at tlie first death (Gal. vi, 8). St. Peter tells us of some who have turned from the truth that they have become "servants of corruption," and in that state they enter the world to come (2 Pet. ii, 19). If we try to comprehend tlie nature of final spiritual corruption, we find it impossible to say more than that it implies the utmost degradation and loathsomeness of which the human spirit is capable, and that it probably will be wrought out by natural laws in God's spiritual kingdom, as in the case with physical corruption tiow.