Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 84:333 (Jan 1927)
Article: The Final Fate Of The Wicked Section
Author: George Lindley Young

BSac 84:333 (Jan 1927) p. 50

The Final Fate Of The Wicked Section

George Lindley Young

(Continued from October, 1926, issue.)

Section I. Introduction. Some Bible Facts

According to the Dictionary, destroy, when used of living creatures (save, of course, when used figuratively), means to kill, slay, put to death. So the Greek άπόλλυμι is defined by Liddell and Scott, to destroy utterly, kill, slay. Souter gives it: “(a) I destroy; (b) I lose: (mid.) I am perishing (the resultant death being viewed as certain).” So when used in Bible it has like meaning; and no amount of its figurative application can get rid of its signification as thus used. For instance, when the Bible refers to some temporal judgment, or visitation, coming upon people and destroying them, the meaning is that they were slain, killed, lost their lives. “The flood came and destroyed them all. It rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all” (Lu. 17:27, 29). “Were destroyed of serpents were destroyed of the destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:9, 10). “The Lord, having saved the people out of Egypt, afterwards destroyed them that believed not” (Jude 5; see its use in Deut. 2:21–23; 7:22–24; Josh. 24:8; 2 Sam. 24:15, 16; Am. 2:9; Heb. 12:28).

This does not mean that they were kept alive but unhappy. It clearly indicates that they met death, had an end put to their present life. So when finally the wicked are destroyed “forever” and “without remedy,” when they are punished with “eternal destruction,” the thought is not that they shall be kept alive forever in some most miserable plight. Instead, their future life comes to an end and that forever. The righteous alone are preserved, while all the wicked are destroyed (Ps. 145:20). And in view of what we have seen the Bible so harmoniously and continually to declare concerning the utter consuming, burning up, cutting

BSac 84:333 (Jan 1927) p. 51

off of the wicked, it seems impossible that the word destroy can properly have put upon it any such artificial signification as that essayed by some at the call of a theory, so that, instead of taking the ...