Life and Judgement
On Sunday, our passage led us to consider Jesus’ words about “Life and Judgment.” Not only does Jesus speak more about judgment and hell than anyone else in Scripture, but nearly every time He speaks about heaven, judgment is part of the conversation.
In recent years, there has been renewed discussion about hell, both in public and within the church. Questions like: Is hell eternal? What is it like? Will people be annihilated? Will all be saved? And perhaps the most difficult: How can a loving God send people to hell?
These are not new questions. Throughout church history, faithful men like Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, and R.C. Sproul have wrestled with this weighty doctrine. And while we may not fully comprehend it, we must be careful not to "judge the ultimate Judge about His judgment.” In other words, we must never think our God is unjust, unloving, unreasonable, or malicious in His judgment. He judges with perfect justice (Ps 7:11, 9:8, Deut 32:4, Rev 16:5-7).
But why would our earthly, temporal sins require an eternal penalty? Here are a few considerations to this very human and sensible question:
We are all enemies of God, dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph 2:1-4; Rom 2; 3:10-20, 5:10).
All of us are infinitely worse than we think we are. Charles Spurgeon once said, “If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be.”
We commit cosmic treason against an infinite God.
The seriousness of sin is measured not only by the act, but by the One it is against. Ongoing cosmic treason, against an infinite holy God, requires an infinite holy sentence (Hab 1:13; 1 Pt 1:15-16; Is 6:3).
We sin eternally.
Whereas heaven is a place that we can never sin again (nor would we want to in perfection), hell is a place where we only want to sin and our true sinful nature is unleashed without any of God’s goodness or common grace present. In hell, no one repents of sin; rather, we increase our debt for eternity in total hard-heartedness and rebellion against God (Revelation 16:9–11).
C.S. Lewis famously wrote that “hell is locked from the inside.” Those who spend their lives rejecting God ultimately receive what they have chosen: existence apart from Him and His goodness. They will know that their punishment is just and that they alone are at fault. Lewis says it this way in his book The Great Divorce, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'"
Yet here we see a tension Scripture holds together. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and desires that people turn and live (Ezek. 18:32; 2 Pet. 3:9). At the same time, He is sovereign over salvation, and we are fully responsible for our response (John 6:37, 40; Acts 17:30–31). These tensions are not ones that humankind will remedy before all is complete, but we must remember that “He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31, emphasis mine). And in doing so, Jesus will be called “…Faithful and True, and righteous when he judges” (Rev 19:11, emphasis mine).
William Lane Craig has argued (along with several other apologists) that hell is not only compatible with the goodness/love of God, but His attributes also necessitate it! He says, “Hell is a manifestation of the perfect justice of God.” Hell shows that God is perfectly just, good, and loving through His judgment and removal of injustice, evil, and hatred. We rejoice when a murderer is punished severely for their crimes and taken off the streets. But for some reason, we don’t see our spiritual state of sin being worse than that against a holy God…and yet it is infinitely more heinous. In fact, other cultures and times have had more difficulty with the question: “How could an all-just God send any of us sinners to heaven!?”
No matter which way you ask these questions, the answers only start to make sense at the cross. At the cross, total justice/wrath and complete mercy/love are seen perfectly when God shows that He is the “Just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26). The cross shows how God’s wrath was satisfied and how God’s grace/mercy was applied (Rom 3:25-26, 5:8-9, 19; Gal 3:13; 1 Peter 3:18). Let us feel the weight of hell, but remember it was a burden that our Savior bore. And now we cry out to Him as our Abba.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).
Pastor Caleb
Foundational Faith Statement #29. Since we are redeemed by grace alone, through Christ alone, must we still do good works and obey God’s Word?
Yes, because Christ, having redeemed us by His blood, also renews us by His Spirit; so that our lives may show love and gratitude to God; so that we may be assured of our faith by the fruits; and so that by our godly behavior others may be won to Christ (1 Peter 2:9–12; Ephesians 2:10).