Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 38:151 (Jul 1881)
Article: Does The New Testament Warrant The Hope Of A Probation Beyond The Grave?
Author: R. D. C. Robbins

BSac 38:151 (July 1881) p. 460

Does The New Testament Warrant The Hope Of A Probation Beyond The Grave?

Prof. R. D. C. Robbins

Preliminary Remarks. The present discussion is intended to be exegetical mainly. Still, as preliminary to a right understanding of particular passages of Scripture, and to clear away some objections which arise in some minds in reference to what God ought to have done if he intended the punishment of sin to be endless, a few suggestions cannot be amiss. No argument, perhaps, is so much dwelt upon by the advocates of universal salvation or restoration as the fact that future endless punishment was not clearly and specifically revealed before, near to, or after the advent of the Messiah. A leading authority1 for this doctrine asks, “Is it probable after an utter silence

BSac 38:151 (July 1881) p. 461

in relation to endless punishment for four thousand years that it was revealed with and as a part of the gospel of Christ? “By parity of reasoning, is it any more probable that life and immortality are first brought clearly to light in the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10)? Why also was the future blessedness of the righteous ignored as a source of moral influence during all the early ages of the world? Why did God almost entirely, if not exclusively, use temporal retribution as a motive to right action during all the period of his special guidance of the patriarchs and their descendants, until near the close of the old dispensation? Must we not in reference to all these things say in humility that they are done “according to his good pleasure which he has purposed in himself.” Even more than this, why were the heathen left to grope their way to the truth through the light of nature alone, with their vain imaginations and foolish, darkened hearts, and only now shone upon by some incipient gleams from the blessed gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? We can only say with the reverent docility of the apocalyptist, “Lord, thou knowest”; we are ignorant. It may be that we on this earth are made a spectacle for other worlds, or that God in his wisdom chose to make proof to man of the futility of all other means of salvation before he gave up his Son as a full and complete sacrifice for the sins of the world. Certain only is it that we cannot, relying on our wisdom and our own interpretation of the acts of him with whom a thousand years are as one day, forestall the just interpretation of him who spake as never man spake, and of those who were under the infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit, unless we would bring upon ourselves the reproof of the apostle (Rom. 9:20-21, “Nay but, O man, w...