Apologetics to the Glory of God

Gill – of the Final State of the Wicked

It is called destruction, or Abaddon, which is the name of the king of the bottomless pit, (Rev. 9:11 which signifies a destroyer, and is rendered destruction in Job 26:6, Proverbs 27:20 and 15:11 where “hell and destruction” are mentioned together, as signifying the same thing, the one being explanative of the other. Indeed the grave, which the word used for hell sometimes signifies, is called the pit of destruction and corruption, because bodies laid in it corrupt and waste away; but here it seems to signify the place of the punishment of the wicked, where body and soul are destroyed with an everlasting destruction; which is not to be understood of an extinction of soul and body, as by the Epicureans and Socinians;[1] for this is contrary both to the immortality of the soul which cannot be killed, and to the resurrection of the body, which, though it rises to damnation and everlasting contempt, yet dies not again; and to what purpose should it be raised, if it becomes immediately extinct? Hell, or a state of punishment, follows upon death, and the resurrection, and is connected with them; it follows upon the death of the body; the rich man died, with respect to his body, and in hell he lift up his eyes; that is, he found his soul in torment, and therefore not extinct. And when the body is raised and united to the soul, and has passed the general judgment, and received its sentence, both will go into everlasting punishment; and therefore neither of them extinct. Besides, there would otherwise be no meaning in those words of Christ, “It had been good for that man if he had never been born,” (Matthew 26:24 since for a man to be extinct, or to be in a state of nonexistence, and not to be born, are the same; at least, if a man is extinct, it is as if he had never been born; and therefore no comparison can be made between them; nor better nor worse be said of them. But when hell, or the punishment of the wicked in it, is called destruction, it does not mean a destruction of the being of a person, but of all happiness to him; he is deprived of all, both in soul and body; no light of joy; but darkness, horror, and distress; nothing but indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish.[2]

  1. [1]Vid. Socin. in 1 ep. Johan. 2. 17. Oper. tom. 1. p. 178, & Resp. alter ad Volanum, tom. 9. p. 392.
  2. [2]Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, Bk. 7, Ch. 10, 1b1a.

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