Is God Loving and Good even with Hell in View?
As I posted yesterday, in response to my message on Sunday from Philippians 3:19, 20 in which I called upon the church to have a heart for all those "many whose end is destruction" I received three questions via email; questions which were preceded by a tender expression of gratitude for the message and concern for the lost.
I answered one question yesterday; now question two: "What do I do when doubt/unbelief springs forth, regarding God's inherent love and goodness?"
Does the reality of hell and the fact that many exist whose end is destruction call into question the love and goodness of God? Let's face it; that's a question we've all had at least at times. And when it comes to us it comes, not as a matter of casual curiosity, but as a burdensome grief and frightening doubt.
How can a loving God damn sinners? And why does it seem that so many of my best efforts to rescue sinners from hell fail so badly? Doesn't God care? Doesn't He see? Can't He do something? And if He can, why doesn't He?
First let me say that no blog post can suffice to answer this question. The answers are too deep, too wrapped up in mystery, too shrouded in the secret wonders of God's being to be revealed adequately in any blog (or anywhere else for that matter). But that said, let me offer a few thoughts as they come to me:
1. God does love sinners very much. He loves some sinners savingly and eternally--choosing them from before time, redeeming them in Christ, and regenerating, justifying, and adopting them through grace. If you have come to Christ and have escaped hell, it means that God loves you, a sinner, very, very much indeed.
2. God has a love of compassion for all sinners. As Ezekiel proclaims, He "takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked." He weeps over Jerusalem. He grieves over the sinners in hell. God is not a sadist.
3. God loves Himself and His own glory more than anything. I know this sounds strange to the modern ear, but it really is very reasonable, even essential; it couldn't be any other way.
Let me just put it like this: What is it when someone loves and worships anyone more than God? Idolatry. Only God is deserving of supreme love. If we give that love to anyone else we've worshiped another god; we've committed the sin of idolatry.
So what would God be guilty of if He loved someone else more than himself? Idolatry. It is wrong worship if we love anyone more than God; it would be no less so if God did.
The fact is that the Bible says over and over that God does all that He does for his own glory, honor, and eternal joy. And those who love God are delighted with this fact. They are never happier than when God is glorified for all He is worth! When God gets glory, those whom God loves very much get joy! Now this truth that God loves himself and His own glory leads us to another truth...
4. God sometimes gets glory out of events that do not give Him joy. I need only remind you of the cross. God took no personal sadistic pleasure in the death of His Son, but in the brutality of Calvary God willed an event that simultaneously He grieved, that He might accomplish an end He designed: His own glory through the eternal salvation of those He loves to be with Him and to enjoy Him forever.
5. In a similar way God has resolved that some exist whose end is destruction (an end He grieves) because in ways we cannot fully grasp, it will rebound to His glory and to our joy in his glory.
Somehow God will get glory through the destiny of the wicked. I know that this is hard truth, but friends: it is truth. And in the end it is truth--even hard truth--that sets us free; free from sorrow, free from confusion, free from doubts, free from despair.
Friends, I do not mean to answer a deep grieving question of the heart with theological abstractions, and I'm really not. These--at least for me--are the truths that glue my world and life view together. God is up to things mysterious and deep and shrouded in wonder.
His ways and thoughts are higher than mine--higher than the heavens are above the earth. I cannot fathom His mind or comprehend His plans. I cannot trace His footsteps in the sands of time for they lead to places and plans I simply have no category for. I only know that He is God, that He is love, that He is committed to doing all that is right and all that will result in His highest praise and our highest pleasure in that praise.
Somehow, even the death of the wicked and their end that is destruction, is a part of that wonder and praise. Beyond that I cannot go. Instead, with Job I have learned to place my hand over my mouth and be silent in humble trust. Just like when I tell my kids and grand-kids to trust me in what they cannot understand, God does the same.
As the hymn puts it: "whatever my God ordains is right."
The Judge of all the earth will do both what is just, and what is good. O that we all may rest in this; may we rest in Him.
I answered one question yesterday; now question two: "What do I do when doubt/unbelief springs forth, regarding God's inherent love and goodness?"
Does the reality of hell and the fact that many exist whose end is destruction call into question the love and goodness of God? Let's face it; that's a question we've all had at least at times. And when it comes to us it comes, not as a matter of casual curiosity, but as a burdensome grief and frightening doubt.
How can a loving God damn sinners? And why does it seem that so many of my best efforts to rescue sinners from hell fail so badly? Doesn't God care? Doesn't He see? Can't He do something? And if He can, why doesn't He?
First let me say that no blog post can suffice to answer this question. The answers are too deep, too wrapped up in mystery, too shrouded in the secret wonders of God's being to be revealed adequately in any blog (or anywhere else for that matter). But that said, let me offer a few thoughts as they come to me:
1. God does love sinners very much. He loves some sinners savingly and eternally--choosing them from before time, redeeming them in Christ, and regenerating, justifying, and adopting them through grace. If you have come to Christ and have escaped hell, it means that God loves you, a sinner, very, very much indeed.
2. God has a love of compassion for all sinners. As Ezekiel proclaims, He "takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked." He weeps over Jerusalem. He grieves over the sinners in hell. God is not a sadist.
3. God loves Himself and His own glory more than anything. I know this sounds strange to the modern ear, but it really is very reasonable, even essential; it couldn't be any other way.
Let me just put it like this: What is it when someone loves and worships anyone more than God? Idolatry. Only God is deserving of supreme love. If we give that love to anyone else we've worshiped another god; we've committed the sin of idolatry.
So what would God be guilty of if He loved someone else more than himself? Idolatry. It is wrong worship if we love anyone more than God; it would be no less so if God did.
The fact is that the Bible says over and over that God does all that He does for his own glory, honor, and eternal joy. And those who love God are delighted with this fact. They are never happier than when God is glorified for all He is worth! When God gets glory, those whom God loves very much get joy! Now this truth that God loves himself and His own glory leads us to another truth...
4. God sometimes gets glory out of events that do not give Him joy. I need only remind you of the cross. God took no personal sadistic pleasure in the death of His Son, but in the brutality of Calvary God willed an event that simultaneously He grieved, that He might accomplish an end He designed: His own glory through the eternal salvation of those He loves to be with Him and to enjoy Him forever.
5. In a similar way God has resolved that some exist whose end is destruction (an end He grieves) because in ways we cannot fully grasp, it will rebound to His glory and to our joy in his glory.
Somehow God will get glory through the destiny of the wicked. I know that this is hard truth, but friends: it is truth. And in the end it is truth--even hard truth--that sets us free; free from sorrow, free from confusion, free from doubts, free from despair.
Friends, I do not mean to answer a deep grieving question of the heart with theological abstractions, and I'm really not. These--at least for me--are the truths that glue my world and life view together. God is up to things mysterious and deep and shrouded in wonder.
His ways and thoughts are higher than mine--higher than the heavens are above the earth. I cannot fathom His mind or comprehend His plans. I cannot trace His footsteps in the sands of time for they lead to places and plans I simply have no category for. I only know that He is God, that He is love, that He is committed to doing all that is right and all that will result in His highest praise and our highest pleasure in that praise.
Somehow, even the death of the wicked and their end that is destruction, is a part of that wonder and praise. Beyond that I cannot go. Instead, with Job I have learned to place my hand over my mouth and be silent in humble trust. Just like when I tell my kids and grand-kids to trust me in what they cannot understand, God does the same.
As the hymn puts it: "whatever my God ordains is right."
The Judge of all the earth will do both what is just, and what is good. O that we all may rest in this; may we rest in Him.
Labels: Doubt, The Love of God
posted by Tim Shorey at
6:48 AM
3 Comments:
Thanks Tim, very well balanced thoughts.
I always remind myself that I must stand at almighty God's bar of justice. I dare not bring him to my bar of justice. I shall give an account to him, not visa versa. I find it helpful to maintain the creature/Creator distinction here.
Having said that, it is not unreasonable to ask the questions that were asked of you. I keep finding answers to some of the hardest questions in life, developed in the Book of Job. If anything is clear in this volume, it is God's absolute right to do as He pleases with His creation. This language, as you suggested, is so foreign to our culture. The deeper we dive into the Word of God, the more our thinking becomes Theocentric instead of anthropocentric. This was a point I believe you made in your sermon Sunday. We have one great end, in God's creating of mankind, and that is to bring (not add to, or contribute to, in any way) Glory to God. God is glorified in the exercise of every one of his attributes. We do well to regularly review a good Systematic Theology. It reminds us of aspects of God that we frequenly forget. It also keeps us from creating a god in our minds who is different from the God the Holy Scriptures reveal. Here is a big danger. Modern American Christianity, has created and preaches a god of love. As J.I. Packer always says, a partial truth presented as a whole truth is a whole untruth.
Tim, it is no small thing that you choose to preach on hell Sunday. Many in our day avoid this to the peril of their listeners.
Thanks for being faithful to the word and bold to declare it.
My thoughts.....
JR
"What if God, desiring to show His wrath and make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory-----even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles" (Rom. 9:22-24).
Vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy------high mysteries indeed.
What are we to do but bow in humble adoration before this great infinite-personal God of holy love-----and cry out: He is glorious! He is glorious! He is glorious!
Another thought came to mind prompted by something Edward's expressed in a sermon on Matt. 25:46 - "These shall go away into everlasting punishment". The title of the message was "The Eternity of Hell's Torments". Here is what he said:
"............. when we hear or read of some horrid instances of cruelty, it may be to some poor innocent child or some holy martyr, and their cruel persecutors, having no regard to their shrieks and cries, only sported themselves with their misery, and would not vouchsafe even to put an end to their lives, we have a sense of the evil of them, and they make a deep impression on our minds. Hence it seems just, every way fit and suitable, that God should inflict a very terrible punishment on persons who have perpetrated such wickedness. It seems no way disagreeable to any perfection of the Judge of the world. We can think of it without being at all shocked. The reason is that we have a sense of the evil of their conduct, and a sense of the proportion there is between the evil or demerit and the punishment.
Just so, if we saw a proportion between the evil of sin and eternal punishment, i.e. if we saw something in wicked men that should appear as hateful to us, as eternal misery appears dreadful (something that should as much stir up indignation and detestation, as eternal misery does terror), all objections against this doctrine would vanish at once. Though now it seem incredible, [and] though when we hear of such a degree and duration of torments as are held forth in this doctrine and think what eternity is, it is ready to seem impossible that such torments should be inflicted on poor feeble creatures by a Creator of infinite mercy. Yet this arises principally from these two causes: 1. It is so contrary to the depraved inclinations of mankind, that they hate to believe it and cannot bear it should be true. 2. They see not the suitableness of eternal punishment to the evil of sin. They see not that it is no more than proportionable to the demerit of sin."
Two ways that this is helpful to me is first, understanding that we often have a struggle with the Bible's teaching about hell because we are not seeing God's holiness in its infinite glory, or our sinfulness in it's infinite depravity in respect to God's holiness. In other words, we often simply do not see ourselves as bad as we really are, and God as good as He really is. And second, it is helpful to me in understanding that hell is not really a challenge to God's goodness, but rather a manifestation of His goodness. Though a hard truth to grasp in our present condition this side of heaven, the eternal punishment of impenitent sinners in hell is an expression of the goodness of God, it is what they (and we)really deserve.
If I may recommend an excellent book for further reflection on this most serious of subjects to the readers of this blog, please get a copy of "Sinners in the Hands of a Good God: Reconciling Divine Judgment and Mercy", by Davud Clotfelter. It is very, very helpful.
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