THE DOCTRINE OF HELL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19455, 11 October 1926, Page 14

THE DOCTRINE OF HELL.

ANGLICAN REPUDIATION. ERROR OF THE MIDDLE AGES. ORIGIN IN MISTRANSLATIONS. " It belies tho character of the lovo of God to conceive that He is preparing a holl of torment for all those who do not, including those who cannot, behove," said Canon Grant Cowen, vicar of St. Matthew's Church, last evening in a sermon on tho fear of hell. The preacher took as his text I. John, v., 18: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath torment. Ho that feareth is not made perfect in love." After reading the cabled summary of the remarks made recently by the Bishop of Liverpool and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, condemning the doctrine of eternal punishment, Canon Grant Cowen said that these and various letters that had appeared in tho press made it desirable to consider how far one's theology was impregnated with the medieval belief in everlasting punishment hereafter. There was no doubt that in the middle ages Christians had been encouraged to believe in a place of torment whero all the unsaved must spend an eternity of suffering. The Roman Catholic Church and the Baptists, he thought, had been in the past the most emphatic in declaring that a man must burn if he were not saved. A number of texts had been quoted to prove this. Unknown to the Jews. " How," asked the preacher, "has this unwarranted interpretation of the mind of God and of Christ ever come to form part of Christian theology ? As I have pointed out before it is based upon a series of mistranslations." As the first of these ho cited tho Hebrew word

"sheol," meaning the place to which went all departed spirits. The Jews, ho explained, did not believe in torments hereafter. If Jesus, in His use of tho word, had implied anything of the kind, it would not have been understood by those whom He addressed. The Greek word used in the New Testament as a translation of " sheol '' was " Hades," which simply meant "the unseen place." Dives and Lazarus in the parable both went to Hades. ' Abraham's bosom," in which Lazarus lay, was a place of peace and rest, the "paradise" of Christ's promise to tho dying thief. The torments of Dives in hades were, no doubt, of the mind alone. Hades was referred to in the article of the creed, "He descended into Hell." It was to be hoped that when the prayer book was revised this mistranslation would be corrected.

Tho error was also founded on wrong renderings of a number of Greek words. One which was translated over forty times in the New Testament as "judgment, was also translated in some passages as "damnation." " The dmanation of Hell" should bo '* the judgment of Hades." "Damned" should lie merely "condemned." All references to fire undoubtedly indicated purification, not everlasting torment. The Greek word translated "eternal," or "everlasting," meant a definite period. Mother-love Hereafter. "If we alt' could road our Bible in the Greek," said ('anon Grant Co wen, "we should have different ideas in our theology. Christ said, ' I will draw all men unto me." If some are' left, unsaved that purpose will not be fulfilled. All may not saved in this world, but. our life here is only one chapter in the book that is being written about each of us. Christ's death for a few only would be futile. It would be no triumph if countless souls were lost, but, rather a proof of Divine weakness. No mother could rest if she knew that a child of hers were suffering for ever and ever in some state of eternal torment. I. know what a mother's love is. She would find her way out of paradise and search until she found the loved one and brought him to he with her. "Do not think that I am minimising the effects of sin. Sin is horrible :it blots out. the fare of the Father, but not the Father's love. Perhaps (lie greatest torture hereafter "ill he when we face Him and realise our lost opportunities of serving Him. What a man sows that shall he also reap. Is there arty hell worse than that in the mind of a man who realises the wrongs he has done and the lives he has ruined In the judgment of which Christ spoke, any punishment would be. just, remediable and terminable—that of a, loving father upon a son whom he would bring to the right. God was not. building a torture chamber for the world's failures; rather He had tears for the shipwrecked lives of many whom He had made in His own image.