George Whitefield on the final state of the lost
Eternal conscious punishment
If the wicked man dieth in his wickedness, and under the wrath of God, he must continue in that state to all eternity.
THE POSITION
The punishment of those who die impenitent lasts as long as the life of the righteous, since Matthew 25:46 uses the same word for both, and he gathers the other everlasting-fire and undying-worm texts behind it. His argument for the duration is that whatever reason justifies punishing a sinner for a day holds equally for an age or eternity, since the sinner dies still under the guilt of his sins. To the charge that this is unjust he answers that calling God unjust does not make him so, any more than a condemned prisoner's saying so makes the judge unjust.
46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
25 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Anglican priest and field preacher of the Evangelical Revival and the First Great Awakening, who crossed the Atlantic seven times and died on his last American tour. Wesley's Oxford companion and, from his 1740 letter answering Free Grace, his public opponent on election — the Calvinist half of the Methodist split, set here beside Wesley and Edwards. This entry rests on that letter and eleven of the sermons printed in the standard selected editions.
Cite this page
"George Whitefield on the final state of the lost", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/whitefield/final-state (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/whitefield/final-state).