A PROPHECY ABOUT HELL
Edward Fudge

We Restoration Movement folks do not speak often of prophecy, especially not of the modem variety. That is noteworthy since our movement sprang from the same general roots as the Seventh Day Adventists and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, both of whom bestowed prophetic status on their respective pioneers, Ellen G. White and Joseph Smith, Jr.

We have always viewed our forefathers more modestly (and scripturally) as simply pioneers who were right about some things and wrong about some others. This makes all the more striking a prophecy by Moses E. Lard, whose Quarterly is still quoted among us and whose work remains influential even where uncredited. In 1879 Lard published a 50-page booklet entitled “Do the Holy Scriptures Teach the Endlessness of Future Punishment?”

Dr. Jimmy Allen of Harding University, a beloved Christian brother of integrity and conviction, told me about Lard’s booklet. He had the university librarian to send me a copy printed from the library’s microfiche.

Lard’s chief point concerned the Bible’s usage of the Greek and Hebrew words translated “eternal” in our English versions. He concluded that the words simply signify “age-lasting,” and that one cannot know for sure whether that is literally endless in any given instance by the mere use of the word itself.

Because he found this to be the case, Lard rejected as a necessary doctrine the majority opinion which says that God will cause the lost to suffer conscious torment forever with no hope of end. That traditional understanding, he noted, has created unbelievers of “a large class of thoughtful men. . . of high morality and judicial fairness of mind.” Because he concluded that Scripture is not clear on the matter, Lard also declined espousing as a fixed view the notion that the suffering of the lost will come to an end.

Then came his prophecy. His own times were not such that open-minded study of this subject could take place, brother Lard wrote, although he observed that “many thoughtful men” already rejected the “traditional theory.” But that would change, he continued:

Belief in endless future punishment is destined to wane. With it, moreover, is doomed the present tyrannous orthodox sentiment which denies to dissent freedom of speech. Men dare not now utter aloud their conviction on the subject. But the day is at hand when they will be free. Manly independence will, at last, assert itself; and intolerance will grow gentle. Mark the course of coming events, and remember this foretelling.

Brother Lard’s “foretelling” was especially meaningful to me, seeing it was almost exactly 100 years after he published it that I began what I thought was to be only a research project on the subject of final punishment. Before the project ended, however, I had changed my own mind from the traditional theory, based on evidence now published in the 500-page book titled The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment.

Much material is available today that Lard did not have. If he had its use, I believe he would have reached the same conclusion Leroy Garrett and I have both reached, that Scripture does clearly teach that the lost, having endured conscious punishment meted individually in divine justice, will be totally destroyed body and soul, die the “second death” and perish with everlasting destruction. Lard did conclude, as I have, that there is no biblical basis for the opinion that God will make the lost indestructible and then torment them in fiery pain forever.

Lard’s prophecy also proved true about the coming change in attitude. During the past eight years, in presentations before scholarly meetings and popular forums, at universities, churches, and seminaries, as well as in living rooms, my views have met most often with understandable surprise at the confessedly new idea but also with a willingness to evaluate biblical evidence afresh.

Usually someone says he has reached the same views privately. Sometimes one or two people appear unwilling or unable to reckon with new thoughts on this subject, and probably not on other subjects either. They therefore decline to join that growing group of open-minded students whom Lard applauded a century ago.

So, dear brother Lard, you were right. The time has come when belief in endless punishment is waning, the “tyrannous” sentiment is on the decline, and “manly independence” is asserting itself in full view. But, as we both know, we live in a fallen world of fallen people, which includes both of us. So I will also tell you of one presentation I gave on this subject which concluded with the master of ceremonies informing me that his people would be praying for me to repent of my unorthodox views so that I would not find myself in hell.—Box 218026. Houston. TX 77218   (Edward Fudge’s book referred to above may be purchased from Restoration Review at $23.50 postpaid.)

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A Doctrine That Makes Atheists

As a child, Robert Ingersoll heard a preacher proclaim the doctrine that God subjects sinners to unending torment in hell. Ingersoll decided that if God was like that, then he hated Him. Later he wrote of this belief that it “makes man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Below this Christian dogma, savagery cannot go.” There are substantial moral and logical difficulties in believing in a God who tortures His enemies forever. Like Ingersoll, thousands of thinking men have turned away from such a God.—Tim Crosby in Ministry