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. 2. Matt. 25:41: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” What is here said to be everlasting? Wicked men? No. The devil? No. His angels? No. But only the fire. And how can the application of this term to the fire prove the indestructibility and eternal life of those who are cast therein? It may be answered, What propriety could there be in keeping up the fire everlastingly, if its victims were not to be eternally the objects of its power? And we reply, This word is sometimes used to denote the results and not the continuance of the process. Everlasting fire may not be fire which is everlastingly burning, but fire which produces results which are everlasting in their nature. The victims cast therein will be consumed, and if from that destruction they are never to be released, if that fiery work is never to be undone, it is to them an everlasting fire. This will appear more fully when we come to speak of the “eternal fire” through which God’s vengeance was visited on the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.