3 Eternal Punishments
3 Eternal Punishments
Daily Readings: Matthew 22:1-14
“What is this garment? Christ. We who are Christ’s, let us put on Christ.”
- (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Matthew C. 22 L. 1 pp 1770)
Being a disciple of Jesus: following Him implies that we are following him not merely in some extrinsic manner, but the very interior life (movement of our will, affect and mind) is conformed to the interior life of Christ. This, according to St. Thomas Aquinas, is what it means to put on the wedding garment, and it’s what it means to be sanctified and saved.
In as much as there are three dimensions to putting on Christ, there are three consequences for failing to do this. Christ is ultimately what enables all three of these dimensions of the human person to rest, and so without Him, His absence will be the three reasons why these languish instead. Read how Aquinas breaks that down:
“A twofold punishment is set out, the punishment of the damned and the punishment of the senses. For in the world a thing can be perfected in three ways: through the intellect, by thinking; through affection, by tending to the highest good; and through action; therefore it is punished in three ways.”
- IBID, pp 1773
Aquinas explains that the binding of the feet reminds us that in this life those who are evil have the chance to repent, but in the next life, repentance is impossible. This is sometimes called the eternalization of the soul, whereby our evil dispositions are calcified or made permanent. So our action is limited (our will is fixed). The darkness is the inability to grow in knowledge or thinking, whereby the will and intellect are fixed in sinfulness to embrace ignorance and not have the grace of saving revelation. It also represents, according to Aquinas, being cut off from the community.
With regard to the weeping and gnashing of teeth, Aquinas explains that not all sorrow or anger is evil; yet in this case the sorrow is not a humble type, and it leads to anger. This is why gnashing (anger) follows weeping. Today we might call them crocodile tears. Our affections are obnoxiously disordered as we tend toward what is evil rather than what is good. In this regard, the affect is never fulfilled, because it desires what perpetually does harm, and enduring that eternally is unbearable.
This isn’t a pretty picture - but it’s one Jesus painted for us in our Scriptures. It’s important to believe that this is stated out of love - and that such punishments in hell are not some artificial judgment or positive-law that is punitively assigned to us out of a petty God. These are the natural consequences of not wearing Christ - this is what it looks like to not have the Spirit of Christ in us for eternity. Ensure that you are on a different path.