15 Objections Answered

1. — SHAME AND EVERLASTING CONTEMPT

Daniel 12:2: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Those who believe in the eternal conscious suffering of the lost, couple the shame spoken of in this text with the contempt, and claim it to be like that, everlasting; and if the shame, which is an emotion to be exercised by the individuals themselves, is to be eternal, it is argued that they must be awakened to everlasting life and consciousness.HHMLD 276.1

In answer it may be said that the fact that they are raised to shame proves indeed that they have a veritable resurrection to life and consciousness, and that this is no figure of speech which is applied to them. But the reader will notice that the shame is not said, like the contempt, to be everlasting. Contempt is not an emotion which they feel; they are not raised to the contempt of themselves; but it is an emotion felt by others toward them; and this does not imply the consciousness of those against whom it is directed, inasmuch as contempt may be felt for them as well after they have passed from the stage of consciousness as before. The Syriac sustains this idea. It reads, “Some to shame and the eternal contempt of their companions.” And thus it will be. Shame for their wickedness and corruption will burn into their very souls, so long as they have conscious being. And when they pass away, consumed for their iniquities, their loathsome characters and their guilty deeds excite only contempt on the part of the righteous, unmodified and unabated, so long as they hold them in remembrance at all. The text, therefore, furnishes no proof of the eternal suffering of the wicked.HHMLD 276.2