Treason to God as Rational Justification for Eternal Punishment

I get challenged regularly by atheists who object to God because, they believe, they don't deserve Hell. they claim that Hell is overkill for the actions of most human beings. 

Do they have a case? No, I don't believe that they do. 

In his book, The Existence and Attributes of God, Puritan Stephen Charnock addresses this point: "Man would make himself his own end and happiness. As God ought to be esteemed [as] the first cause, in point of our dependence on Him, so He ought to be our last end, in point of our enjoyment of Him. When we, therefore, trust in ourselves, we refuse Him as the first cause; and when we act for ourselves and expect a blessedness from ourselves, we refuse Him as the chief good and last end, which is an undeniable piece of atheism. For man is a creature of a higher rank than others in the world, and was not made (as animals, plants, and other works of the divine power) materially to glorify God, but was made a rational creature, intentionally to honor God by obedience to His rule, dependence on His goodness, and zeal for His glory. It is, therefore, as much a sleighting of God for man - a creature - to set himself up as his own end as to regard himself as his own law." 

This concept was not new with Charnock. rather, he put into his own words the thoughts of the Apostle Paul: "Although they [i. e., unbelievers] knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Romans 1:21-23). 

The two men are describing two different forms of unbelief, of course. While Paul is describing the turning to pagan worship, Charnock is describing the atheist. However, the two forms are fundamentally one, in that they put someone else in the place of our Creator and Sustainer, the triune God of the Bible. All unbelievers have chosen Satan's offer (Genesis 3:5) of autonomy, illusory though it be.

Now the question to the atheist or pagan should be one that either can understand rationally: if a traitor has pulled his rightful king off the throne, whether to take it for himself or to give it to an interloper, is that not a crime which should be subject to the highest penalty available? A political figure may have only the ability to hang a traitor, having no reach beyond physical death. But God's jurisdiction cannot be thwarted by mere physical death (Matthew 10:28). And just as the rebel in Hell does not eschew his rebellion, neither does his divine Judge relent in His judgment through the rest of eternity. 

So, contrary to the assertion of the atheist, the judgment of Hell is both real and perfectly just. The only escape is to flee to Jesus, to be covered by His atoning blood, and to recognize that God remains on His throne, regardless of the efforts of man to cast Him down.

The Word of God Against Abortion Exceptions for Rape and Incest

In Ezekiel 18, that prophet gives us this rebuke to Israel from her God: "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine: the soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). This verse is often taken out of context to mean that sin causes spiritual death. While that doctrine is true, it has nothing to do with the prophet's message here. As the rest of the chapter goes on to tell us, this verse is about God's justice. The soul that sins shall die for its own sins, not the sins of another person. 

"If a man is righteous and does what is just and right -... he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God" (Ezekiel 18:5, 9). "[Then] if he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood... Shall this son live? He shall not live. he has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18: 10, 13). So the prophet gives a hypothetical case of a righteous man with a wicked son. Shall the righteousness of the father preserve the wicked son from the just consequences of his wicked acts? No, it shall not. 

Now we are given the case the other way: "Now suppose that this man [i. e., the wicked son] fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise... He shall not die for his father's iniquity; he shall surely live. As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, behold, he shall die for his iniquity" (Ezekiel 18:14, 17-18). So now the wicked man has a godly son, the grandson of the earlier righteous man. Shall this son die for his father's wickedness? No. In fact, the wicked son, even though he is between two generations of godly men, is also not excused thereby, but is required still to receive justice. 

"Yet you say, 'Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father? When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all My statures, he shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:19-20). This was a remarkable statement at the time! It was the common practice to kill whole extended families for the crime of one member. God declares that the common system was not His standard of justice. 

We have moved beyond such primitive concepts as described here, haven't we? We like to tell ourselves that, but it just isn't so. Do not most prolife Americans take for granted that exceptions for abortion in cases of rape or incest must always be allowed? Why is that? Has the preborn child committed a crime worthy of death? I would say that he obviously has not. Rather, in either case, it was his father who committed the crime. So why do we grant that killing the innocent baby is a just response? 

I think that this passage from Ezekiel shows that God does not grant such injustice. 

God, the Just Justifier

"The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

- Romans 3:21-26 

In prehistory, when God decided to save a Church from their sins, God faced a dilemma (I am putting this in human terms). If sin is contrary to His nature, how could He save sinners without denying His own nature? How could God remain the holy deity which is He is, if He merely ignored the wickedness in men? As verse 26 puts it, how could God remain just while becoming the justifier of His people?

 First, let us consider whether the wickedness of men is contrary to God's nature. The Prophet Habakkuk asks God this question: "You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong why do You idly look at traitors and remain silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?" (Habakkuk 1:13). The prophet asks the exact question that we are considering. How can the righteous God, to whom evil is an alien and contrary condition, allow wicked men to continue? Such a God cannot receive the evil of men into His fellowship. Therefore, the problem of sin requires a solution. How can His justice be satisfied apart from the destruction of every sinner? 

Then another steps forward and volunteers. This one is Himself God; not a different God, but God the Son, both the one God and a distinct Person within the Godhead. He voluntarily offered Himself, sinless and holy, just as God the Father is, on behalf of those whom the Father would give Him to be His body the Church (John 6:37-39, 10:7-18, 17:1-19, Ephesians 5:25). As represented by the Mosaic priestly sacrifices, Jesus's priestly offering of Himself as the true sacrifice (Hebrews 9:14) achieved the Father's desire. His judgment of sin fell on His own Son, so that His justice was satisfied, and the justification thus purchased was imputed to His elect, so that He could become their justifier. 

"Apart from the obedience and death of Christ in the stead of elect sinners, God may not justify guilty sinners. Apart from the cross of Christ, God would show Himself unrighteous were He to justify the ungodly. the Christian gospel is not simply that God justifies the sinner who believes in Jesus Christ. The Christian gospel is that God justifies the sinner who believes in Jesus Christ, on the ground of Christ's substitutionary obedience, especially the obedience of His suffering and death" (Rev. David Engelsma, "Gospel Truth of Justification," p. 266; emphasis in the original).

The Eternal Reality of Hell Contra Annihilationism

 I have noticed a curious trend among professing evangelicals to adopt the doctrine of annihilationism. That doctrine holds that the wicked who are sent to Hell are burned into nothingness. That is, contrary to the traditional belief, there is no such thing as the eternal, conscious consignment of the wicked to a state of punishment. They are annihilated, hence the name. 

Historically, this doctrine has been associated with the sects, primarily the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists. But in our recent times, it has become mainstream. Even the otherwise orthodox teacher, the late John Stott, adopted it. The spread is because of a growing embarrassment among many over the supposed harshness of the doctrine of an eternal, conscious punishment in Hell. I have been told that annihilationism serves to remove one stumblingblock that keeps unbelievers from accepting the Gospel. 

My response is this: Removing every distinctive doctrine of Christianity would make it more palatable to unbelievers. But, what then do you have left? You have unbelief. You would certainly have no Christianity, and no Jesus. Not in any meaningful sense. The unbeliever hasn't moved to a position of faith. Rather, faith has become unbelief. I cannot accept that as a means of evangelism. 

Furthermore, how does truth change in order to make it palatable to those who deny it? If someone believes that two plus two equals 749, do we stop saying that it really equals four in order to make math palatable to him? I would hope not! 

The proper question is not what the unbeliever thinks, but rather what does God say? 

In answer to that, we have God's word on the subject in Revelation 20:10: "[Then] the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever." There is no equivocation here! The torment of the wicked is eternal. They never escape. God's justice never finds satisfaction in mere ashes. 

The problem with the annihilationist assumptions about unbelievers is the acceptance that the stated reason for unbelief is the true reason. The Bible tells us that unbelief is a cover, not an issue in itself. Every person knows that there is a God, and that we are answerable to Him. The issue is that, apart from the intervention of the Holy Spirit, every person hates that knowledge, because he loves his sin. Since those two things are incompatible, he must either give up his sin or give up his knowledge of God. His choice? He chooses to suppress his knowledge of God (Romans 1:18-19). Appeasing him by doing away with the doctrine of eternal Hell does nothing to address that deliberate choice. It is like taking an antibiotic in an effort to cure a virus. 

Jesus, Justice, and the Woman Caught in Adultery

There is a strange and controversial story found in John 7:53-8:11. In the story, the Pharisees bring to Jesus a woman who was caught in adultery. They say, and correctly, that the Law required those convicted of adultery to be put to death (see Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22). Yet, we notice at least one problem with their presentation: Where was the man caught with her? So, the Pharisees ask Jesus, what do You say that we should do with her?

Jesus does not respond with law. Rather, His response is to point at the character of the woman's accusers. Rather, He says, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her" (verse 7). In our popular culture, this has been taken to mean that any person with any sin has no grounds for criticizing the actions of any other person. Well, we know that Jesus meant no such thing, because He had prescribed righteous judgment just before this story (John 7:24). And that indicates the problem that He had with the Pharisees in this case. Their accusations did not come from righteous grounds, regardless of their pious citation of Moses. Note that these are men who had allowed a guilty man to depart without punishment, while they were prepared to punish the woman with death! I think that this was the specific intent of the response of Jesus, quoted above. These men had justified the man because they shared his same proclivities for illicit sex, but they still wanted to play at being righteous! They all walked away in shame because Jesus had torn off the bandage with which they had been hiding their perversion. 

If the text is a legitimate part of John, a question which I am not qualified to answer, then why is it here? 

I started thinking about this story because of something I read in my private Bible study this morning: "I will not punish your daughters when they play the whore, nor your brides when they commit adultery; for the men themselves go aside with prostitutes and sacrifice with cult prostitutes, and a people without understanding shall come to ruin" (Hosea 4:14). Doesn't that sound a lot like the story from John? And in it I found what I surmised about the story that I described above. Jesus was exemplifying the same redemptive purpose that He, in His preincarnate state, had inspired in the prophecy of Hosea. 

Jesus was not, and is not, opposed to true justice. After all, He was also the source of the Law. He was the Yahweh who revealed the commandments to Moses in Exodus 20:1. However, He is also our compassionate Redeemer who went to the cross on behalf of His people. Notice how He deals with the repentant thief on the cross next to Him (Luke 23:40-43). He promised the thief that he would be with Him in Paradise in just a few hours. However, He did not take the thief down from the cross. The thief was redeemed and forgiven, but still received the due temporal, legal consequence of his wicked acts (Luke 23:41). There is no sign here of the sentimental supposition that no one can judge the sins of someone else.

The Justice of Reprobation

There is a hard verse in Scripture. Not just hard, but hard.  It is Romans 9:21: "Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" In this verse, God refers to Himself figuratively as a potter, who has made mankind from a lump of clay (Genesis 2:7). He looks at this lump as after the Fall, the mass of sinful humankind. As formed from one lump, every human is by nature equivalent to every other. Yet, as the potter, God chooses to form some lumps for honorable use, i. e., the elect, making them honorable, and some for dishonorable use, i. e., the reprobate. All men are by nature dishonorable. Yet, upon some He chooses to be merciful, and others are left condemned.

Even among Christians, this verse is blanked out, or explained away by semantic acrobatics. Why? Because there can be no greater ax laid to the pride of men than to be told that God is in absolute control, and men are absolutely without sovereignty.

One of the worse ways that men fight against this truth of God's sovereignty is by the creation of caricatures. For example, I have been told by actual opponents that this means that some men would be begging to be saved, to be forgiven, yet God will refuse them because they are not among the number of the elect.

That caricature is demonstrated to be humanistic drivel by one simple truth: it describes an impossibility. The Scriptures tell us that no man of himself seeks God: "None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God" (Romans 3:10-11). We even have the words of Jesus Himself: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). So, even the proposition of this caricature is to claim that Jesus and Paul were mistaken about the nature of men. 

Furthermore, all objections to the doctrine of reprobation erroneously assume that men deserve to be saved. They deny the sinfulness of sin. They deny that all sinners deserve the judgment of Hell. Yet these same evangelicals will quote the answer in other circumstances: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Therefore, "it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy" (Romans 9:16). The objector to God's sovereignty has the truth reversed. It is the reprobate who receives justice. He only gets what his sins have earned him. The elect receives mercy, not what he deserves. No one ever receives injustice.

"None but a sinner can be a suitable subject of reprobation, and men are reprobated only as sinners; but one man is passed by and another elected, not because one was a greater sinner than the other, but because God saw fit to do so" (James Henley Thornwell, "Election and Reprobation").

The Sinfulness of Sins: Are They All Worthy of Death?

The subject often comes up of whether some sins are worse than others. And the answer must be, "It depends." Depends on what? Are you talking about God's justice or man's? For example, God's law condemns theft in the Eighth Commandment and coveting in the Tenth Commandment. We would say that coveting my neighbor's car is not as bad as stealing his car.

And that is because we are talking about sin here as the actions of one sinful creature against another.

However, when we consider that question from God's perspective, it takes on a very different character. Then we are talking about the sins of a creature against his perfectly holy Creator. From that perspective, every sin becomes not merely an act of theft or coveting, etc., but rather an act of treason.

And that consideration makes every sin equally one act, the act of treason. And what is the judgment for treason against our rightful King? "Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them" (Romans 1:28-32). Look at some of the sins listed here. We see murder, and nod in agreement. Yeah, capital punishment is appropriate for murder. But what about gossips? What about those who disobey their parents? The foolish? Most people would be backing off now.

Yet, what does God say? "Those who practice such things deserve to die" (verse 32). Paul doesn't even say, "God says that they should die," though that would be sufficient reason. Rather, Paul says just that they deserve to die. That is, Paul recognized this fact, and believed that every spiritually-aware person would also believe so.

How far we have fallen from Paul's time that we question the justice of God, which consigns every sin, no matter how small in the sinner's eye, to final death, which is Hell (Revelation 20:14-15).

Can Kids Sin? The Age of Accountability

There are things in the Bible that can make a man uncomfortable. That is no criticism. It represents historical situations without modern parallel. We simply have no comparable experiences in our lives. We no longer live on farms, where we face the daily reality of, for example, the butchering of animals for our food. Meat is something we get in plastic wrap from the grocery store. We are completely separated from how that meat was prepared before that point.

One issue in particular is the Conquest, the period of time in which the nation of Israel, after having been rescued from bondage in Egypt, is called by God to take the Promised Land from its inhabitants. And not just to impose their rule over those inhabitants, as we think of a conquest, but rather to eliminate them: "We captured all his cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors" (Deuteronomy 2:34; cp. 3:6, etc.). However, that action was only as God had commanded them: "But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction" (Deuteronomy 20:16-17).

This offends our sense of justice, because God judges even the children to destruction. How can God do such a thing and remain just?

The problem is that we think of children as innocent. And, comparably speaking, that is true. Children haven't committed murder, for example (and even that is no absolute). We are justified in saying that, for example, abortion is evil, because it is exactly that, a genocide of the innocent. The relatively innocent. This has led to a manmade doctrine called "the age of accountability," according to which there is some age under which God does not hold a person accountable for sin.

The problem with applying that to God is that He doesn't judge on the basis of relativity. In His omniscience, He knows what is in the heart of every person, whether it is expressed in action or not. We cannot do the same because we are not omniscient. In addition, we judge as one sinner looking upon on another. That is why we are able to think only in terms of relative innocence. But God's commands to Israel show that He holds all humans to His holy standards, regardless of age, gender, or social status.

God, however, in His absolute knowledge and holiness says that even infants have wicked hearts (Psalms 51:5, 58:3). Therefore, He alone is just in determining to destroy the wicked, even children, in pursuit of His purposes. The doctrine of an age of accountability accuses God of injustice for the inclusion of children in His judgment on the Canaanites.

What the modern mind rarely grasps is that what Israel did to Og and his people or Sihon and his people is what He could properly do to every human in existence. Is it unjust that He exercised His justice in those cases but does not in our modern world? Of course not. That isn't injustice; it is mercy.

Is There Injustice in God?

A lot of people, both among professing believers and among unbelievers, express moral objections to the commands of God to the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites - man, woman, and child - during their conquest of the Promised Land. For example, we read in Deuteronomy 7:1-2 God's commandment: "When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them."

And we have the record of Israel's partial obedience to the commandment: "We captured all his [i. e., King Sihon of Heshbon] cities at that time and devoted to destruction every city, men, women, and children. We left no survivors" (Deuteronomy 2:34). The same thing happened in the defeat of King Og of Bashan: "We devoted them to destruction, as we did to Sihon the king of Heshbon, devoting to destruction every city, men, women, and children" (Deuteronomy 3:6).

Is that harsh? I think any sane person would say so. But does that mean that it was unjust? That I must deny!

The problem with the objections to the Canaanite pogrom is that these objectors have an unbiblical view of man.

According to the Bible, all human beings (excluding only Adam and Eve before the Fall, and Jesus) are sinners, rebels in our hearts against our Lord and Creator, the triune God in Heaven (Romans 3:23). And the consequence of sin is death: "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine: the soul who sins shall die" (Ezekiel 18:4). This is the point of error in the argument of those who accuse God of immorality; they fail to understand the wickedness of men or its consequence.

However, we notice that, though all are sinners, not all die at any particular time. That is certainly true. God restrains His justice for a time - for most. And that is the issue. After giving them 400 years to change their ways (Genesis 15:16), God chose to apply His justice to the pagan residents of Canaan through the Israelites at that time. If He chose to carry out His justice on those people at that time, but restrains it for a time for the rest of the world, is that injustice? No, it's mercy. When the false believer or the unbeliever accuses God of immorality in ancient Canaan, he is really denying the mercy of God to the rest of the world in the rest of history.

And that error is deliberate. Unrighteous men are not ignorant of God. Rather, they "suppress the truth through unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18). They throw up this smokescreen in their minds, so that they can avoid their innate knowledge of the reality of God and our accountability to Him. This is the moral equivalent of the child who sticks his fingers in his ears and sing-songs, "La-la-la I can't hear you," when his parents are chastising him for misbehavior. Does that exempt him from the consequences? Of course not! Nor does this smokescreen from unbelievers protect them from the justice of God.

Society Has a Choice: Wickedness or Righteousness

"When a land transgresses, it has many rulers,
     but with a man of understanding and knowledge,
     its stability will long continue.
When the righteous triumph, there is great glory,
     but when the wicked rise, people hide themselves.
When the wicked rise, people hide themselves,     
     but when they perish, the righteous increase."
- Proverbs 28:2, 12, 28 

The Book of Proverbs is the most practical book in the Bible, addressing every area of life, both for the man on the street and for the man in the highest socio-economic strata of society. Here the writer, apparently Solomon, addresses the latter, the leaders of society.

His first comment, verse 2, describes much of what we see in modern America. He says that a society where wickedness becomes commonplace will be plagued with a multiplication of government officials. As our society has moved away from its biblical traditions, have we not seen an expanding swarm of bureaucrats, promulgating more and more laws? Is there not a mindset that says that social order will be restored if we just come up with the right regulations? Of course there is! It is a humanistic mindset which claims that morality is a matter of law, not grace, and even that is the autonomous laws of men, not the sovereign laws of God. It is the plague of tyranny!

The second comment, verse 12, also describes a humanistic society in moral breakdown. As biblical morality has broken down, have we not become a society of fear? We often hear of a golden age when no one had to lock his doors at night, or where no parents had to explain "stranger danger" to our children. People lament the loss of neighborliness, because too many people fear walking the streets of their own neighborhoods, due to gangs. When was the last time a woman felt safe walking down her own street? 

The third comment, verse 28, also describes the fear of peaceful people, sealed in their own homes for fear of the chaos outside. Yet, unlike the other two verses, this one describes a solution: "When they [the wicked] perish, the righteous increase." Note that God, speaking through Solomon, does not advocate a new social program or a new government agency as the solution, but rather says that righteousness will increase as the wicked perish! The wicked do not need self-esteem or social support. Rather, society needs for them to be removed. We have absorbed a humanistic mindset that says that wickedness is a disorder, for which the rest of society is responsible. It isn't! Wickedness is a choice, and violence is its consequence. Humanism, therefore, puts the welfare of the wicked ahead of the welfare of the peaceable members of society. Therefore, until that mindset is changed, we can only anticipate that wickedness will continue to dominate American society.

The Missionary Heart of Jesus

"Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a

shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'"
- Matthew 9:35-38 

These verses show us something about Jesus that I find amazing. While He came to save the church (Eph. 5:25, confer John 10:29 and 17:6), He is not blind to the rest of fallen humanity. Rather, He sees their sin, spiritual blindness, disease, futility, and even their stubbornness (see, for example, Matthew 23:37), and is moved with compassion. He sorrows over the irremediable fallenness of the reprobate, though He acts in justice in judging them for their sin (Matthew 25:31-33, 46, and Revelation 20:11-15). 

How can these things be compatible?

It is certainly true that God takes no pleasure in destroying the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11). If He did, would He not be too sadistic for us to contemplate? But the Bible also says (Psalm 5:4), "You are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with You."

The problem continues to be that God is more complex than we want Him to be. Too many people talk about the love of God for men, and then stop. What does God value above men? Himself. To love sinners without acting in justice, He would be forced to excise that side of His nature, His holiness (Heb. 12:29). He would thus cease to be God. The God of that kind of belief system is not the God of the Bible, but is rather an idol, a god made, not even in man's image, but rather according to man's desires.

The Two Sides of the Character of God: Love and Wrath

People - those who are more ignorant of the Scriptures than they will admit - will often claim that there are contradictory images of God in the Bible, one of the loving God we see in Jesus, the other a wrathful God who, for example, told Israel to destroy the societies on Canaan. However, the problem isn't the God that we see in Scripture, but rather the view of God from which they make their judgment.

What these people, whether professing Christians or honest unbelievers, fail to acknowledge is that they are judging God, as He is presented in the Bible, from a humanistic worldview, that is, from an assumption that people are inherently good and deserving of hugs, self-esteem, flowers, and all the other syrupy slogans that have become so common in our society. However, that isn't the view of the Bible.

The worldview of the Bible includes the understanding that humans, from the moment of conception (Ps. 51:5), are wicked (Rom. 3:10-18), sinful (Is. 64:6, Jer. 17:9), and separated from God (Is. 59:2, Hab. 1:13). The Bible says that all men are "dead in trespasses and sins, by nature children of wrath" (Eph. 2:1-3). This is not a syrupy view!

Thus, we are forced to conclude that those who hold to this syrupy worldview are seeking to impose an anti-biblical presupposition onto a Bible that teaches a contrary worldview. Of course this results in conflict!

In contrast, we must view the Bible from its own worldview. Consider Psalm 34:15-16:
"The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
     and His ears toward their cry.
The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
     to cut off the memory of them from the earth."

In these two verses, an example of Hebrew parallelism, we see God in two distinct fashions: in the first two lines, there is a kind God; in the latter two lines, there is an unkind God, as the two sides of a single coin. Do these two verses confirm the view I described above? I am sure those folks would say so. But that would only be because they avoid considering the other side of the verses, i. e., to whom is God kind or unkind. The first reaction is to the "righteous," an epithet for the people of God, or the Church. The second is to "those who do evil," that is, those who are not His people (Rom. 1:18, 2:8). In other words, these verses - and the rest of Scripture - are far from teaching contradictory views of God. Rather, they reveal one God who responds with justice to different types of people! That is the fundamental error of the humanistic interpretation of scripture, not that there are two kinds of God, but that there are two kinds of people, and His reaction is distinguished by which type of person a particular individual is. God's actions are always consistent with His nature.

For the man who submits to receive God on His terms, not ours, there is this message of kindness (Rom. 3:21-26): "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins. It was to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." This passage shows that God's attitude to the particular individual is changeable. How does one move from the class of people under the wrath of God, to the class under His love? Through Jesus Christ alone. If you fear the wrathful God revealed in Scripture, as the unbeliever should, then He calls you to give up your unbelief, receive Him as He is offered in Scripture, and then you will be under His love (John 1:12), no longer under His wrath (Rom. 5:9).

In Eternity, Will Christians Sorrow Over Loved-Ones in Hell?

This is a question that I have been asked by both Seventh-Day Adventists (because they believe in the annihilation of the wicked) and atheists (who don't appear to stop and think that - in their worldview - all their loved ones have simply ceased to exist; is there no sorrow over that?). I expect that Jehovah's Witnesses ask it, too.

The answer to their question is, "No, Christians will not sorrow, whether for this or for any other reason." The Prophet Isaiah prophesied, "The ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isaiah 35:10). And the Apostle John agreed (Revelation 21:4): "[God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." These are general considerations; there shall be no sorrow, over any matter, in glory.

But specifically on this issue, there will be no sorrow. It is true that, in this life, we sorrow over such things, because we do not yet have the perspective we will have in our glorified state. We still view things according to the values of our fallen state, that is, we look at the situation as sinners. Yet, even now, the scriptures urge us to place the holiness and justice of God ahead of our distorted emotions. In Psalm 9:16, David advises, "The Lord has made Himself known; He has executed judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands." And in Psalm 51:4, the same writer tells of himself, "Against You, You only, have I sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You may be justified in Your words and blameless in Your judgment." And further, in Psalm 58:10, David realizes, "The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked." Notice that: when we are no longer sinners, in our glorification, we will have the perspective of God, and place His holiness ahead of our creaturely preferences. Logically, who matters more: God? Or your relatives?

David's point, in these Psalms, is that the justice of God's judgment is based on against whom sin is committed. Sin isn't naughtiness, as has become the common view in our society. It is an act of treason against our Creator, He Who made us and has provided the world we live in, the food, air, and water we require for survival, and the human comforts that make our lives enjoyable. To sin against Him after such gifts is wicked enough. However, if you further consider the gift that He has given in His Son, who suffered, bled, and died, how horrific we must now see sin to be. For this, God has said (Psalm 81:11-12), "My people did not listen to My voice; Israel would not submit to Me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels." He has allowed us to pursue the consequences of our own choices and actions. Can there be any injustice in Him now?

The Puritan theologian Thomas Watson said, "The reason why sin committed in a short time is eternally punished is because every sin is committed against an infinite essence, and no less than eternity of punishment can satisfy. Why is treason punished with confiscation and death, but because it is against the king's person, which is sacred; much more that offense which is committed against God's crown and dignity  is of a heinous and infinite nature, and cannot be satisfied with less than eternal punishment."

Yet, we must go further: God has allowed us, not only to pursue our own wicked choices, but also opportunities to awaken and repent of those choices. In Jeremiah 26:3 and 13, He said to Israel, "It may be they will listen, and every one turn from his evil way, that I may relent of the disaster that I intend to do to them because of their evil deeds... Now therefore mend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God, and the Lord will relent of the disaster that He has pronounced against you." And in Revelation 2:21, "I gave her [i. e., Jezebel] time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality." Has He been unfair? Unjust? Clearly, He hasn't. So, how can anyone claim to have been wronged when He finally carries out the judgment which He has, so far, withheld? 

Now, to refer back to the question with which I began: Will Christians sorrow over loved-ones in Hell? No, we won't. Rather, we will rejoice that the holiness of God has been vindicated. In contrast, unbelievers will indeed suffer sorrow in the life to come, not just for their suffering loved-ones, but because of the judgment for their own personal sins. In fact, you will sorrow, not for loved-ones in Hell, but because of antipathy toward loved-ones in Heaven! If such sorrowing is a horror, something to be avoided, then the solution is to repent of your unbelief. Then, not only will you be freed from your condemnation, but you will also have a message of hope for your loved-ones. Rather than picture them in Hell, suffering for their sins, picture them saved from condemnation, never to suffer sorrow again. As John also says (Revelation 14:13, see also Job 3:17), "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. 'Blessed indeed,' says the Spirit, 'that they may rest from their labors!'"

Is There Such a Thing as Godly Wrath in the Believer? Yes!

"Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies."
- Psalm 139:19-22

In my church, we read a psalm (or a portion of a long one) to begin each Sabbath-day service. Then we sing the same Psalm. We go through the whole Psalter every 4-5 years this way. One of the benefits of this practice is that we see the whole range of human emotions addressed in the Word of God. Ah, if only this practice were more common, perhaps we wouldn't see the saccharine, spineless Christianity which has become commonplace, even in professing evangelical churches.

Some may be astonished at the passage above. David, the man after God's own heart (I Samuel 13:14, cited also in Acts 13:22), actually talks about hating the enemies of God. Aren't we supposed to love everyone? Not according to the Bible.

This has become an issue with the recent killing of an abortion doctor. Abortionists have been taunting, "You Christians are supposed to love everyone!", a principle supposedly violated by this murder. While it is certainly true that it is a presumption against the Divine Judge to carry out vigilante justice, that is because we are to love and obey GOD, not for any supposed love toward someone who made a living by torturing and murdering unborn children.

This same David, in another Psalm, gave us the pattern for seeking God's justice against such an evil person. Referring to someone who persecuted him, David prays in Psalm 109:6-16,

"Appoint a wicked man against him;
     let an accuser stand at his right hand.
When he is tried, let him come forth guilty;
     let his prayer be counted as sin!
May his days be few;
     may another take his office!
May his children be fatherless
     and his wife a widow!
May his children wander about and beg,
     seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!
May the creditor seize all that he has;
     may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!
Let there be none to extend kindness to him,
     nor any to pity his fatherless children!
May his posterity be cut off;
     may his name be blotted out in the second generation!
May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the Lord,
     and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out!
Let them be before the Lord continually,
     that He may cut off the memory of them from the earth!
For he did not remember to show kindness,
     but pursued the poor and needy
and the brokenhearted, to put them to death."

In Romans 12:19, the Apostle Paul says, "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'" He is referring back to such Old Testament warnings as Deuteronomy 32:41, "I will take vengeance on My adversaries and will repay those who hate Me." Certainly it would be a great act of rebellion to usurp the authority of God by seeking vigilante justice. However, if vengeance is properly part of the holy purposes of God, how can it be any less holy to pray to Him to carry out His purposes?