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HOUSMAIL HM119 27
December 2004 TOUCHSTONES
AND ETERNAL TORMENT This
all started with a need to understand the meaning of the phrase "tormented
for ever and ever". (Revelation 20:10) It
is an important topic. The mainstream Church has long used the threat of
eternal torture, to control its members. And it regularly uses fear to
reclaim "backsliders” or compel heathens to "convert". It has
even used the concept to justify torture and murder, to gain conversions!
e.g. The Spanish Inquisition. In my childhood it was common to hear of
"Christian" parents who won reluctant obedience from their
children, with threats of "hellfire". And wouldn’t you know it?
Throughout the history of the Church, this teaching has all too often been
used as a tool to extract money from terrified sinners! WHAT
DOES THE BIBLE REALLY SAY ABOUT THE FATE OF THE WICKED? Of
course, those who KNOW that the doctrine of "eternal torment" is
not supported elsewhere in the Scriptures, will want to look a bit more
carefully at the meaning of this passage. How can it be read in harmony with
the rest of the Bible, which clearly teaches that the dead are unconscious;
and that the punishment of the wicked is everlasting DESTRUCTION? Throughout
the Bible it is clearly stated that the penalty of sin is death; and that
death is the cessation of conscious existence. (Ecclesiastes 9:5) When applied as a
penalty, it is the culmination of a judicial process which cuts short the
life of the convicted sinner. Once the sinner is dead, the law is satisfied,
and punishment is complete. Paul says that they are "destroyed from the
presence of God". (2 Thessalonians 1:9) They are in a place where God does not go. And that can only
mean non-existence in the most absolute sense! The
death of Jesus on the Cross is the ultimate proof that the conscious
experience of punishment for sin is of limited duration.. His resurrection
confirms that it is not everlasting torture in "hell". If it is
everlasting torture, then Jesus should still be in "hell" in
torment. And if it is really "for ever and ever", the ransom price
which is supposed to set us free from our own penalty, will never ever be
paid in full! He would have to stay there suffering torture, for all
eternity! Praise
God! It isn’t like that at all. No sinner can ever be asked to pay more than
Jesus has already done. Otherwise, it would leave God open to accusation that
His Son had paid a lesser "ransom" than was due. So
how should we understand that verse from Revelation
20:10? The short answer is that English words
translated from another language don’t always adequately reflect what the
writer meant to say. In the passage under consideration, it would seem likely
that they indicate "tunnel vision" on the part of translators whose
minds were conditioned by established theological tradition. To understand
them better, we will have to dig a little deeper to find a meaning which does
not conflict with the rest of Scripture. And
in this case it all revolves around an ancient metal testing tool called a
"touchstone". WHAT
IS A TOUCHSTONE? A
touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone, such as quartz, or slate, or a
type of basalt called basanite. When rubbed on the finely grained surface,
soft metals leave a distinctive mark. The colour of the mark made by a sample
of known purity can be compared with that of the mark made by another sample,
to determine its purity. It was commonly used to test the purity of gold and
silver, as a protection against dishonest traders who often used counterfeits
containing quantities of less expensive alloy metals such as lead or tin. The
method works particularly well for gold, and gold alloys. A trained eye can
detect the presence of variations in purity of as little as one percent. It
can also be used for other metals such as silver but is much less reliable.
The touchstone method is still used in some places today, for testing gold. AN
ENGLISH IDIOMATIC MEANING In
the English language, the word "touchstone" has also become an idiom
meaning "a standard or reference point, or benchmark, against which
someone or something is measured, or tested, or compared". The phrase
"To put to the touchstone" means to apply a test to check the truth
of a matter, or the quality of something. TOUCHSTONE
IN GREEK In
the New Testament Greek text, we find a family of Greek words, (basanos, basanismos, basanizo, basanistes) which
have the same PRIMARY "touchstone" meaning as our English word. In fact,
our English words "basalt" and "basanite" have come into
our language from the Greek "basanos". In
NT times, touchstones were in common use in the commercial world, and the
primary meaning would have been universally known. And just as in English,
there was a secondary idiomatic meaning, which is much the same as ours.
People, or things, were compared or tested against a standard. The
Greeks had a few other idiomatic meanings which we do not have in English.
They could be used about a ship being "tossed" by a violent storm, (Matthew 14:24); or rowers in a boat "toiling" against impossible
physical odds, (Mark 6:48); or Lot’s "vexation" with the sins of Sodom, (2 Peter 2:8); or even the pains
of childbirth. (Revelation 12:2) They
were also sometimes used to describe what happened when people were tortured
to extract important information, or "confessions" to a crime. In
Greek, they were being "put to the touchstone" by torture, to
"test" whether or not they were telling the truth. In Matthew 18:34 the
"tormentors" (RSV "jailers") are "touchstoners". SO,
WHAT IS THE BIBLICAL RELEVANCE OF THIS GREEK LESSON? In Revelation 20:10, it is unfortunate
that the translators have completely ignored the logical application of the
primary "touchstone" meaning and have opted instead for the
secondary meaning "torment". Sadly, they have used it in a way
which portrays God as an eternal torturer of those who reject Him. And this
has caused great confusion about the nature of God’s final judgement against
sinners. When
John uses the Greek word "basanizo" to
describe the fate of the wicked, he is actually saying that they are going to
be "touchstoned day and night for ever and
ever". But as we have just seen above, that doesn’t have to mean
"torment" or "torture". And in fact, to be consistent
with the rest of Scripture, it shouldn’t be used that way. NO ONE is going to
be tortured "for ever and ever". In
the context of Judgement and punishment of sinners, it would be much more
appropriate to use it in the sense of "put to the proof to show what
they really are, compared with the genuine thing". But that does NOT
mean that the wicked will be alive for ever, in the fire! We have to take
other Scriptures into account, to learn what really happens when the wicked
are " put to the touchstone" in the lake of fire. Daniel
12:2, tells us that the result will be "shame
and everlasting contempt". [Note that Daniel’s "everlasting"
has the same meaning as John’s "for ever and ever"] Isaiah 1:28, says that the wicked
will be "consumed". Isaiah 66:24 (RSV) says that the bodies in the fire are dead. Malachi 4:1-3 says that they will be
burnt up like stubble, until they are ashes under the feet of the righteous.
John the Baptist tells us that after the wicked are separated from the
righteous at the judgement, they are going to be burnt up like chaff, in
unquenchable fire. (Matthew 3:12) Paul says that the final end of the wicked is total destruction.
(2 Thessalonians 1:9) And Obadiah 1:16 says that the end of the wicked is to become "as though
they had not been"! SO,
WHAT ABOUT "FOR EVER AND EVER"? What
is everlasting about this fiery "touchstoning"
in Revelation 20:10? Since
we know that it cannot be torture, it must be something else. Our starting
point must be the Scriptures which say that those in the fire are DEAD. (Isaiah 66:24 RSV) They will be
consumed until they are as though they had never existed. (Obadiah 1:16) It
follows that it is this end result which is everlasting. The "mark"
on the touchstone can never be changed for all eternity. Day and night,
"for ever and ever", the ashes of the wicked, (Malachi 4:3) will be the mark on
the touchstone which declares that they do not measure up to the standard of
purity which qualifies the righteous to inherit immortality. Read
that way, there is no conflict between Revelation 20:10 and the rest of Scripture, which says plainly that the
punishment of sin is NOT everlasting TORTURE, but DEATH. Allon |