What is called the doctrine of Conditional Immortality finds not a few advocates and adherents, who hold that existence in the future state is exclusively for the faithful, and that the sentence to be executed upon the wicked at death or at judgment is annihilation.  A different belief, termed “The Larger Hope,” is maintained by others, who affirm that the punishment to which those dying impenitent are to be subjected will in time work reformation and cleansing, after which, restored to God’s favour, they will enter upon a life of happiness.

It is a strong argument against such doctrines that the same word which our Lord employs to describe the permanent blessedness of the redeemed is used by Him to denote the punishment of the wicked.  The reward and the punishment are both declared by Him to be everlasting or eternal.  The same Greek word is in the English New Testament sometimes rendered eternal and sometimes everlasting.  The portion of the righteous will be life—­life everlasting; that of the wicked is described as consisting, not in annihilation or in terminable suffering, but in “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power."[239]

While this article may be regarded as bearing upon the doom of the ungodly, it is rather to be viewed as affirming the eternal blessedness of the risen saints.  The everlasting life begins on earth, but is perfected only in eternity.  It is sometimes spoken of as a present possession:  “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life."[240] Again it is spoken of as a reward in futurity:  “He shall receive an hundredfold now in this time ... and in the world to come eternal life."[241] Our knowledge of what that life will be is very limited.  Human words cannot describe it; human beings in this life cannot understand it.  We know that it will arise from knowledge of God.  Men will be equal to the angels who see God.  “Now we see through a glass darkly,"[242] but “we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."[243]

Statements regarding the happiness of the saints are in Scripture expressed sometimes in negative and sometimes in positive terms.  In the new heavens and the new earth the redeemed “shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more";[244] “There shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light."[245] Pain and sorrow and death can never touch them; they shall be delivered from perplexing doubts, from all misery and trouble.  Care and anxiety shall be banished for ever, and God will wipe away all tears from every eye.