“Anxious.” — Your inquiry runs “would God our Father who is merciful commit anyone to eternal punishment for wrongdoing;” and your letter passes on to the question of whether there is or is not “a sort of purgatory where we purify after death to fit us for heaven.”
The witness of the Scriptures to the dread reality of eternal punishment is plain and direct. It is impossible for anyone who honestly and implicitly accepts the Bible as the Inspired Word of God to doubt the fact of judgment being “eternal” (Heb. 6:22Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. (Hebrews 6:2)). The same word is used to describe the duration of the punishment of the wicked as is used to describe the duration of the blessing of the just (Matt. 25:4646And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:46); and note here that the two words used in the verse, “everlasting” and “eternal,” are both the same in the original); the same word is used moreover as to the very existence of God Himself (Rom. 16:2626But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: (Romans 16:26)).
God has only one measure of judgment for sin, and that is infinite. Sin is rebellion against God, hence it is infinite in its character, and judgment against it must be infinite.
For the believer that infinite judgment has been exhausted in an infinite Sacrifice, but he who rejects the free offer of mercy and pardon on the basis of that infinite Sacrifice must himself, as the only possible alternative in the righteous ways of God, come under the weight of eternal judgment.
As to the last question, the idea proceeds on the assumption that punishment is reformatory. It is not. The history of Pharoah in the book of Exodus is evidence of how the enmity of man’s heart is unaltered by judgment; stroke after stroke of wrath from God fell upon him; there were apparent momentary repentances, but the instant these judgments were withdrawn the irreconcilable enmity of the sinner’s heart was manifested in renewed rebellion against God. For an awful New Testament example of this truth see Revelation 16:10, 1110And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, 11And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. (Revelation 16:10‑11); “they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven.”