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Does eternal
punishment deny God's justice?
Some of the proponents of
Universalism maintain that eternal punishment cannot be true because
if God eternally damned someone, it would mean that the punishment
would never be complete.
Therefore, God is not satisfied, His judgment is not realized, and
justice is never accomplished.
The first problem with this objection is the idea that
God's eternal judgment necessarily must have an end. If it is
eternal punishment, then it wouldn't end. "And
these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into
eternal life," (Matt.
25:46). Not all judgments and punishments end. Consider a person who is executed
for a capital crime. His punishment is
death. In effect, it is a judgment that is eternal. The judgment
is completed by the accomplishment of a sentence: execution. The
sentence has an eternal duration which will not end and at the same
time the judgment has been accomplished. The judgment, in and of
itself, is eternal by definition and this does not mean that it is not
satisfied or realized. The eternal sentence of death,
has been accomplished and is still in effect. Therefore, we can
see that a valid punishment with an eternal result can be a reality.
Second, it is not logically necessary that an eternal
punishment upon a sinner be an insufficient or non-accomplished judgment. It is just as logical to
say that God's infinite justice is properly accomplished with an
infinite punishment. After all, an offense of infinite value would require
an infinite punishment.
Third, it would
be an injustice to God's infinite righteousness and holiness to have
the sinner's punishment be terminated. Of course, I am not here
speaking of discipline, where the Lord chastises a person and welcomes
him back into fellowship. I am speaking here of damnation, that
pronouncement upon a sinner who is not covered in the blood of Christ.
As I said above, it follows that if God is infinite and
the sinner has offended God, then that is an infinite offense.
If judgment upon the sinner regarding his sinfulness were temporal, then it means that a sinner's suffering is
sufficient to appease an infinite God. That would be unjust
since, Gal. 2:21 says, "I do not nullify the grace of God; for if
righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly."
Paul is saying that if we could be please God by what we do
(suffer), then Christ died needlessly.
Fourth, the universalists have stated that though the
unrepentant sinners are truly forgiven in Christ, they must be
"punished," "purified," "corrected," for a period of time in the
after life before they are ready to be admitted into the eternal
life of realized forgiveness. This is a very dangerous teaching because it strikes at
the very heart of the atonement of Christ. For a person to suffer the
judgment of God because of his sin until he is found worthy to be
with God is to state that the atonement is insufficient and must be
completed through the suffering of the sinner. This is blasphemous and
must be avoided at all costs.
It should be plain to see that the universalist
position is incorrect.
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