Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter 22.—What is Meant by the
Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked.
But in what way shall the good go
out to see the punishment of the wicked? Are they to leave their
happy abodes by a bodily movement, and proceed to the places of
punishment, so as to witness the torments of the wicked in their
bodily presence? Certainly not; but they shall go out by
knowledge. For this expression, go out, signifies that
those who shall be punished shall be without. And thus the Lord
also calls these places “the outer darkness,”1431
to which
is opposed that entrance concerning which it is said to the good
servant, “Enter into the joy of thy Lord,” that it may not be
supposed that the wicked can enter thither and be known, but rather
that the good by their knowledge go out to them, because the good
are to know that which is without. For those who shall be in
torment shall not know what is going on within in the joy of the
Lord; but they who shall enter into that joy shall know what is
going on outside in the outer darkness. Therefore it is said,
“They shall go out,” because they shall know what is done by
those who are without. For if the prophets were able to know
things that had not yet happened, by means of that indwelling of
God in their minds, limited though it was, shall not the immortal
saints know things that have already happened, when God shall be
all in all?1432
The
seed, then, and the name of the saints shall remain in that
blessedness,—the seed, to wit, of which John says, “And his
seed remaineth in him;”1433
and the name, of which it was said
through Isaiah himself, “I will give them an everlasting
name.”1434
“And
there shall be to them month after month, and Sabbath after
Sabbath,” as if it were said, Moon after moon, and rest upon
rest, both of which they shall themselves be when they shall pass
from the old shadows of time into the new lights of eternity. The
worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched, which
constitute the punishment of the wicked, are differently
interpreted by different people. For some refer both to the body,
others refer both to the soul; while others again refer the fire
literally to the body, and the worm figuratively to the soul, which
seems the more credible idea. But the present is not the time to
discuss this difference, for we have undertaken to occupy this book
with the last judgment, in which the good and the bad are
separated: their rewards and punishments we shall more carefully
discuss elsewhere.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
