The Holiness of God in Heaven and Hell
My prayer is that tonight we will see a glimpse of the glory of God's
holiness. We need to be struck with a vision of God's awesome and majestic
holiness so that we are broken before Him in holy, reverent, joyful and humble
awe. Perhaps this will begin to happen as we contemplate the holiness of God
in this great truth: God's holy anger is passionately against those who hate
Him, but God's holy joy is passionately upon those who trust in Him. These
truths are found side by side in Ezra 8:22: "The hand of our God is favorably
disposed to all those who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all
those who forsake Him." What a wonderful and marvelous God! He is passionately
committed to the joy of doing good to those who trust in His Son, Jesus Christ.
And God's goodness towards them is so great that it will never end, because He
will take all believers to heaven forever and "show the surpassing riches of His
grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" as Ephesians 2:7 says. But God is
also passionately against those who refuse to trust Him, and His displeasure
towards them is so great that it will never end--God will cast all unrepentant
sinners into hell forever. Heaven reveals the extent and wonder of God's
kindness to believers, and hell reveals the extent and horror of God's
displeasure on unbelievers. And as we will see, both God's kindness in heaven
and wrath in hell magnify the holiness of God. That's why I've titled this talk
"The Holiness of God in Heaven and Hell."
Before we begin, I think I need to defuse a few bombs that might be
ready to go off in your mind. Some of you tonight might not think that it is
appropriate for me to talk about hell, and so you might not listen to what I
have to say. So I'm going to try to defuse that difficulty by explaining why we
all need to hear about hell. The first thing to understand is that I am not
dealing with this issue tonight because I take delight in the fact that people
are going to hell. I'm going to teach about hell tonight because I don't take
delight that people are going there. If you are a non-Christian, you need to
see the danger that you are in and how serious your crimes against God are. But
you
will be blind to these things if you don't hear about hell. And if you are
blind to these things, you won't see your need for Christ. Hell is necessary
for you to see your need for the Savior. The second thing to understand is that
I'm not going to discuss hell tonight in order to be judgmental or mean. If the
union was on fire tonight, and I told you that if you don't get out of the
building soon you will die in the fire, nobody would accuse me of judging them
or being mean to them. Nobody would say to me "I was terribly offended tonight
when you told us about the danger that we were in. That was entirely
inappropriate, old fashioned, and mean." Instead, you would be glad and
recognize that my motives were love and concern--as they are tonight.
If you are a Christian, you need to know about hell in order to more
fully appreciate your salvation and honor Christ for the depths He went to in
order to save you. Furthermore, we need to somehow destroy the superficial and
irreverent attitude we so often have towards God and replace it with reverence
and fear of God. We lack reverence and fear of God because we don't see His
holiness. And few things will strike you with God's holiness like the doctrine
of hell. As a matter of fact, Hebrews 6:1-2 lists hell as one of the elementary
teachings of the Christian faith. Hell is one of the basic, essential doctrines
that Christians need to understand. So we cannot claim to be building people up
in the faith if we ignore the truth about hell. With this in mind, let us
proceed in understanding how heaven and hell reveal the holiness of God.
The first thing we need, if we are going to see the holiness of
God in heaven and hell, is a faint understanding of what God's holiness is.
There are several things that it means for God to be holy. The first is that
God is completely pure. He has no stain of sin in Him, but instead has utter
and unspeakable moral purity. But this is not the main truth conveyed by the
word "holy." The main truth conveyed is that God is a "cut above the rest."
That is, God is in a class by Himself. God is better than us. No one can
compare to God. In other words, when we say that God is holy, we are
acknowledging that God is the most valuable being there is. God's holiness
means that God is of infinite value. This leads us to the third truth of God's
holiness--since God is infinitely valuable and glorious, He seeks to glorify
Himself in all things. God is utterly devoted to honoring His infinite worth in
all things. One other thing conveyed by God's holiness is that He is
transcendent. This means that since God is "in a class by Himself," God is
above and beyond us. He is subject to nothing, and all things are subject to
Him. God answers to no one, and is determined by nothing outside of Himself.
He is the sovereign king of the universe, and the supreme court of the
universe. So the holiness of God, summed up in one sentence, means that God is
morally pure, infinitely valuable, devoted to seeking His own honor in all
things, and the final authority and power over all things. This is a marvelous
God!
Because God is holy, He requires us to be holy. But if we are honest
with ourselves, we will admit that there is a terrible problem at this point.
We have not responded appropriately to God's holiness. Romans 3:23 says "all
have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Instead of glorifying God's
infinite worth by enjoying and prizing and cherishing Him, we have attacked
God's infinite worth by shunning Him like a piece of trash and seeking our
happiness in things of lesser value. Instead of submitting to God as the final
authority in the universe, we have rebelled against His authority. And instead
of being morally pure, we are all terribly impure and sinful. Yes, we are
unholy in the strongest sense of the word. We have defiantly spray
painted the graffiti of sin all over God's holiness--and rejoiced in doing it.
We have despised the greatness of the most valuable and honorable being in the
universe.
It should be easy to see that you can't get away with offending a Person
of such great honor and value. We are in deep trouble because if God is going
to maintain His honor and holiness, He must judge sinners. Why is this?
Because sin is an attack on the holiness and honor of God. In other words, sin
treats God as worthless. Therefore if God did not deal with sin, He
would be treating Himself as worthless. He would be implying that He doesn't
care about His honor and holiness. That would be unrighteous. If God just
looked down on us and said, "that's ok, spray all of the graffiti on my
character that you want," could we really consider Him as holy? So if God is
going to maintain His honor, He must vindicate the worth of His glory by showing
that it is not as cheap as we make it look.
In simple terms, what this means is that because of our sins against the
holiness of God, we all deserve to spend eternity in hell.
But I wonder if you understand what hell really is. How would you
answer if I asked you this question: "What does God save believers from?" Many
of you might say "God saved me from my sin." That is true. But there is
something even deeper that you were saved from. Others of you might get closer
and think, "since the subject tonight includes hell, he probably means that God
saves believers from hell." But once again, this is not the full answer. It is
possible for you to believe that we are saved from hell without really knowing
what you are talking about. Perhaps this will be brought out if I rephrase my
question: "Who must God save us from?" What do you think? Satan? The
world? That's true, but there is something even worse that we are saved from.
Let's see what the Bible has to say.
Romans 5:9 answers this question very clearly: "Much more then, having
now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God
through Him." Who must we be saved from? God! We must be saved from God! But
praise be to God, this passage also says that He will rescue believers from
Himself through the blood of Christ! Hear this great truth: God is the one
who saves, and God is the one that we are saved from. God is the one
that we are saved from because God's wrath was going to destroy us for our
sins. God is the one who saves because He sent Christ to take away His wrath by
enduring it on the cross. Then Christ rose again in victory over death and
sin. If you are trusting in Christ, you have been saved from the wrath of God.
But if you are not trusting in Christ for refuge, you are still under God's
wrath and are in great need of being saved by God, from God.
The truth that God saves, and God is the one we must be saved from is
abundantly taught in the Bible. Amos 5:6 says: "Seek the Lord that you may
live, lest He break forth like a fire..." What must we be saved from, according
to this text? God! Who is it that saves you? God! What must we do to be
saved by God? Seek Him! Deuteronomy 32:39 is also a very powerful verse: "See
now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death
and give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal; and there is no one who
can deliver from My hand." God kills, and God makes alive. He wounds and He
heals. And nobody can save you from the wrath of God, because God says "there
is no one who can deliver from My hand." No one can save you from God--except
God Himself! What danger you are in, and what mercy God has that He has let you
live this long.
The power and terror of God's wrath is vividly portrayed by the prophet
Nahum. He writes, "A jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging
and wrathful. The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves
wrath for His enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the
Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished." God doesn't let your sin
go! Not even the little ones! He is too holy for that! God will avenge
all of your sins with His wrath. The passage says, "The Lord will by
no means leave the guilty unpunished." Has that truth hit you yet? God
is a God who punishes those who are guilty of sin. People, it is not Satan
who does the punishing in hell--he will himself be punished there. God is the
one who does the punishing in hell. And you will not be able to endure this
punishment. Verse 6 says, "who can stand before His indignation? Who can
endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the
rocks are broken up by Him." Notice also that this verse is very clear that we
must be saved from God. But read the next verse: "The Lord is good, a
stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him."
Nahum is also very clear that God is the one who saves! We must take refuge
in God in order to be saved from God. And God is not a wimpy
savior! He is a stronghold, a tower of refuge and strength. God is strong
enough to save you from His Almighty wrath! Nobody else could do it, because
nobody else is strong enough to endure the wrath of Almighty God. But Jesus
Christ has done this, because Jesus is fully God and fully man--and He endured
the wrath of God in the place of those who would believe.
What a terrible predicament we are in! But don't these truths also
shout in your ears the amazing mercy and grace of God? We are terribly
repugnant to God and worthy only of being destroyed because we have offended His
holiness. Yet this same God that we have so greatly offended is willing
to shelter us from the destruction that we deserve from Him! Words cannot
describe this fantastic patience and mercy of God! As Jonathon Edwards said
over 200 years ago in his sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,
"it is nothing but God's hand that holds you from falling into the fire every
moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, [but the hand of God], that you
did not go to hell the last night, and that you were [allowed] to awake again in
this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason
to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose this morning,
but that God's hand has held you up." If you are an unbeliever, God is delaying
the execution of His wrath upon you so you can repent. But one day that
patience will end--if you do not repent--and you will be locked up in hell
forever.
Often times we define hell as "eternal separation from God." As
should be clear, that is only half of the truth. Hell is also the "eternal
punishment under the wrath of God." These two aspects of the punishment
of hell are referred to as the pain of loss and the pain of sense,
respectively.
The pain of loss means being cut off from the experience of all
good things. It means being separated from the enjoyment of God's glory. 2
Thessalonians 1:9 says that those who do not know God or obey His gospel will
"pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the
Lord and from the glory of His power..."
But when we speak of hell as "separation from God," be careful not to
misunderstand. We do not mean that God is not in hell. God is omnipresent and
therefore is everywhere--which includes hell. But He isn't present everywhere
in the same way. He can either be present to bless or present to punish. So
when we say that hell is separation from God, we simply mean that God is not
present in hell to bless. People in hell are cut off from all good things.
While God is not present in hell to bless, God is present in hell to
punish. That is the pain of sense. The pain of sense is the addition of
torment on body and soul. Whereas the pain of loss means being cut off from
good things, the pain of sense means being inflicted with terrible things. An
example of the pain of loss would be if a person is deprived of lunch. He is
not able to experience the joy of eating. But the pain of sense would be if, in
addition to having to go without lunch, this person was forced to eat poison.
The pain of sense is the infliction of positive torment in addition to the pain
of loss. And since God is the one inflicting these torments, God is the one who
makes hell hell.
Both of these aspects to the punishment of hell cause terrible
suffering. This suffering is consciously endured by the people. The people in
hell are not asleep or dead to the pain, but terrifyingly conscious of it.
Jesus says it will be so bad that people will "gnash their teeth." And lest we
think that the punishments of hell are only temporary, the Bible is clear that
they never end. Once a person enters hell at death, there is no hope for him.
They will be there in punishment forever. In Matthew 25:41, Jesus expels
evildoers to the eternal torments of hell with the words: "Depart from me,
accursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."
Jesus says that the fire is eternal. Also notice how the pain of loss and pain
of sense indicated in this passage. "Depart from me" indicates that the
lost are cut off from the presence of God's glory. "Into the eternal
fire" indicates that they will endure the infliction of the pain of
sense.
Now that we understand how terrible hell is, and why people go there,
let me finish the puzzle by explaining how this reveals the holiness of God.
Isaiah 5:16 says, "But the Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment, and the
holy God will show Himself holy in righteousness." This passage is clear: God's
judgement exalts God, it is righteous, and it shows His holiness. How is
this? As we saw earlier, God's holiness means that He is morally pure and of
infinite value. But sin is impure and evil, and therefore it is the utter
contradiction of God's holiness. For God to be righteous, He cannot be
indifferent to things that dishonor, oppose, and contradict (and thus attack)
His character. Therefore, if God loves His holiness He must be repulsed by sin
because it opposes His holiness. That is, God's holiness requires Him to hate
sin. This utter hatred of sin is His wrath. God's judgement and wrath are
righteous because they vindicate the worth of His holiness. If God was not
angry at evil, we would have to wonder if He really loved moral purity. But
since He hates evil with such fervent intensity, the message is clear: God's
holiness is very important, and He loves it very much. We see, for example,
this connection between God's love for His moral purity and his
hatred of evil in
Psalm 11:6-7: "Upon the wicked He will rain snares; fire and brimstone and
burning wind will be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous;
He loves righteousness." This verse is clear: Because God is and loves
righteousness, He pours wrath upon the unrighteous. (It should be clear that
I consider God's holiness and righteousness, while somewhat distinct, to be very
close in
meaning. They both involve His moral purity and infinite worth.)
Thus, we see that God's wrath is an expression of His holiness and
righteousness. To be specific, God's wrath is the righteous hatred of His
holiness against sin. It is the holiness and moral purity of God reacting in
intense and terrible fury and anger to destroy sinners and thereby vindicate
God's holiness. The reason hell magnifies the holiness of God is because hell
is where God pours out His wrath upon sinners in order to vindicate His
holiness.
The terrors of hell that we have seen should therefore make clear to you
how seriously God takes His holiness, and how precious He considers it to be.
God's glory is so important that dishonoring it in even the smallest way
deserves eternal punishment.
In fact, hell makes clear to us, in a vivid display, the infinite
value of God's glory and holiness. Why? Because the sins against God's
glory receive an infinite penalty in hell. Since the sins committed
against God's glory receive an infinite penalty, then God's glory must be
infinitely valuable. In other words, the infinite severity of the
punishment for attacking God's glory reveals the infinite value of the glory
that was attacked. Therefore, the magnitude of hell's punishments should
make us marvel at the magnitude of God's glory.
We have seen the sobering and humbling truth that it is God that we must
be saved from. It is God who makes hell hell. But now we will briefly
consider the truth that it is also God who saves. It is God who makes heaven
heaven. As we read in Ezra 8:22, "The hand of our God is favorably
disposed to all those who seek Him." Let's take a look at how God rejoices
in doing good to all who seek Him.
Zephaniah 3:17 says, "The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior
who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will be
quiet in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing." God is so
happy to save us and do us good that He sings! But does it seem strange to you
that I would so strongly present God's anger towards sin and then say that God
finds great pleasure in doing good to people? How can God be so happy when He
is so angry?
To resolve this difficulty, the first thing we need to see is that God
is not wrathful just for the sake of being wrathful. Instead, He is wrathful
out of honor and zeal for His greatness. As we saw earlier, God's hatred of
sin is a result of His love for His holiness. Because God loves holiness, He
must hate unholiness. Therefore we should not conclude from God's wrath that
God is moody or irritable. Instead, we should conclude from God's wrath that He
deeply cherishes goodness--that is why He is so passionately against everything
that dishonors goodness.
The second reason that God's anger at sinners does not ruin His ability
to be happy is that God, in a certain sense, takes pleasure in being angry at
sin. Please be careful to understand that I did not say that God is pleased
with sin. I said that God is pleased to hate sin. Why is God pleased to
hate sin? Because, as we just saw, God's hatred of sin shows how much He
values His righteousness and holiness. If God did not hate evil, He would be
implying that His goodness is cheap. Therefore God is pleased to hate sin
because this hatred is a means of showing the great value that He places upon
His glory.
Third, God not only takes pleasure in hating sin, but in a certain
sense takes pleasure in judging sin. He does not take pleasure in the people's
suffering considered in itself. God is not sadistic. But He does take pleasure
in judgement when He considers it as a means to vindicating His glory. God's
judgement upon sin glorifies Him, and therefore God in a certain sense takes
pleasure in judgement in so far as it magnifies and vindicates the worth of His
glory. These three things show us that even in judging sin, God is not trapped
into a course of action where He takes no delight. The wrath of God against
sinners is consistent with the happiness of God.
But there is another problem we must solve before looking more closely
at God's great delight in doing good to believers: The people God saves are
sinners! We have seen how God can be a happy God in the midst of having great
hatred for sin. But how can God rejoice to save and do good to sinners who are
so deserving of His wrath, and His wrath only? This is why God sent Christ to
die. Paul says that Christ died as a propitiation for sins (Romans 3:25). A
propitiation is a sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God and turns it into
favor. Christ died in the place of all who would come to believe in Him,
thereby taking their wrath upon Himself. He endured the punishment we
deserved. Since Christ took away all of the wrath that was headed our way, God
is no longer angrily disposed towards believers. Rather, because they are in
Christ and clothed in His righteousness, God rejoices to do us good because He
rejoices in His righteous Son. So God is able to rejoice over us to do us good
because Jesus Christ took away God's wrath and made God favorable to us. Christ
takes us out of the wrath of God and into the pleasure of God.
It is also important to understand that those who hope in Christ have
turned from their sin. While they are not perfect, they have stopped being
controlled by the desire to do evil and oppose God. Now, they love God and seek
their joy in His goodness. With these things understood, we can now move
on.
The pleasure of God in those who hope in Him is vividly displayed in
Jeremiah 32: 40-41, where God says to His elect: "And I will make an
everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them
good, and I will put the fear of me in their hearts so that they will not turn
away from me. And I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will
faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul."
Notice three things in this verse that show us the greatness of God's love
towards us.[1]
First, God will not turn away from doing us good. If
you are His child, He doesn't do good to you sometimes and bad to you at other
times. God always does good to His children--He says He will "not turn away
from them to do them good." But what about when bad things happen to you? As
one author has said, "It doesn't mean that God has stopped doing you good. It
means that he is shifting things around to get them in place for more good."
"God causes all things to work together for those who love them" (Romans 8:28).
"No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:11).
Second, God doesn't just do you good, God rejoices to do
you good! If you are His child, God does not bless you begrudgingly. God is
not reluctant or bitter about doing good to people. He loves to do it! He
takes great pleasure in it! In fact, God is eager to do you good. Someone has
said, "God is like a highway patrolman pursuing you down the interstate with
lights flashing and siren blaring to get you to stop--not to give you a ticket,
but to give you a message so good it couldn't wait till you get home." Yes, God
loves to show mercy. While God is very slow to pour out His anger, He is
extremely quick to display His mercy. Exodus 34:6 says that the Lord is "a God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love." A
well-known pastor has painted this picture for us: "God is never irritable or
edgy. He is never fatigued or depressed or blue or moody or stressed out. He
is above any possibility of being touchy or cranky or temperamental."
Third, God rejoices to plant us in the land with all his heart and
soul. I believe that the "land" here ultimately means the new heavens and new
earth. So this verse is saying that God, with His whole being, will rejoice to
take us to heaven! When you die, do not fear! God is looking forward to your
coming! And when Christ returns, He will gather us to Himself with great
excitement and joy to be with Him in the new heavens and new earth forever. The
Scriptures say, "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God
rejoice over you" (Isaiah 62:4-5). God is pursuing the good of believers to all
eternity in heaven with omnipotent delight! What a wonderful thing!
But you may be wondering: how does the pleasure of God in taking
believers to heaven magnify God's holiness? First, because heaven will be a
place that perfectly reflects God's holiness. Just as hell is a display of
God's holiness in hating sin, heaven is a display of God's holiness in loving
righteousness. Everybody who is in heaven will be holy. In fact, believers will
be so holy that they will shine: "The righteous will shine forth as the sun in
the kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43). Second, the pleasure that God
takes in displaying His holiness in heaven reveals the infinite value He places
on His holiness. Why does God take so much delight in His holiness? Because it
is of infinite worth. And His delight in His holiness is so great that He seeks
the joy of brining us to enjoy His holiness. God loves His holiness so much
that He refuses to keep it to Himself. In fact, God thought His glory and
holiness was so great that He went so far as to become man and die on a cross to
save us, in order to bring us into the enjoyment of His glory. That glory must
be infinitely valuable if God has went to those lengths in order to give it to
us!
But won't hell be a dark cloud over heaven? No, because hell
displays the terrors that God has saved believers from, and it will therefore
cause us to more deeply appreciate God's mercy. As we contemplate hell, it will
make us marvel at God's mercy in giving us heaven instead, and it will make us
well up in great love for Christ because He endured the punishment of hell, on
the cross, in order to bring us to heaven. So even God's anger against sin
serves to magnify the love He has for those who trust in Him. Isn't it a
precious truth that the infinitely holy God has set His love upon you, if you
are trusting Him, and forgiven you of your sins so that He can shower blessings
on you forever! How amazing! The holy God has concern for lowly sinners!
Before asking how to apply these great truths, let me tie it all
together. The utter contrast between God's fierce anger against sinners and His
deep pleasure upon those who trust Him vividly exalts the holiness of God.
Why? Because they are both the result of the infinite worth of God's holiness.
God hates sin because it is the enemy of His holiness. His holiness is so
valuable that all offenses against it deserve to be eternally punished. And God
loves to do good in those who hope in Him because He wants to display the
greatness of His goodness and love. God is so exuberantly happy in Himself that
He doesn't want to keep His glory to Himself, but wants to bring others into the
enjoyment of His glory and holiness as well. In other words, God values His
holiness and glory so much that He wants others to value it too. He does this
by taking away the sins of believers and bringing them to heaven. So the
omnipotent joy with which God takes Christians to heaven reveals the surpassing
worth He places upon His glory that He showers upon them in heaven. In a one
sentence summary heaven, hell, and God's holiness tie together in this way:
because of the infinite pleasure God takes in His holiness, God rejoices to
spread the joy of His holiness to others, and He rejoices to vindicate the worth
of His holiness against those who oppose it.
In conclusion, let us apply these great truths. First, we should be
humbled before God's awesome holiness. We should wake up the greatness of God
and start treating Him as holy. Let your worship of God be more reverent and
deep from this knowledge of His holiness. Second, we should seek more
diligently to honor the holiness of God's name in all that we do. God commands
us: "You shall be holy, for I am holy." Having seen how abhorrent sin is, and
how much it provokes God to anger, we should be much more careful to avoid it!
Don't live as if sin isn't that bad--even the little sins we try to justify so
easily. Take great care to obey God in everything. Get to class on time.
Drive the speed limit. Keep your thoughts pure throughout the day. Make bold
stands for Christ. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. In doing so, you
will be honoring the holy name of God and creating a good display of God's
holiness to the world.
Finally, we should learn to more deeply fear God and hope
in God from these truths. Psalm 147:10-11 says "the Lord takes pleasure in
those who fear him, in those who hope in his love." How can we hope in God if
we fear Him? The answer is that Christians aren't to fear God in the sense of
being afraid of His wrath, but in the sense of being awestruck by His amazing
holiness. Someone once gave this illustration: imagine that you are caught in
the middle of a hurricane. At this point you have the fear that the terrible
storm will claim your life. But then you find shelter from it in a rock. This
refuge then gives you the certain hope of safety. Because of this, part of the
fear vanished--the fear of dying. But even in the midst of your shelter there
remains the trembling, the awe, and the wonder of the feeling that you would
never want to tangle with such a storm or be the adversary of that power. In
that sense Christians are to fear God. "The fear of God is what is left of the
storm when you have a safe place to watch right in the middle of it. And in
that place of refuge we say, this is amazing, this is terrible, this is
incredible power; oh, the thrill of being here in the center of the awful power
of God, yet protected by God himself.'"[2] Hope turns fear into a trembling and
peaceful wonder; and fear takes everything trivial out of hope and makes it
earnest and profound. And God delights in those who fear and hope in Him,
because our fear reflects the greatness of his power and our hope reflects the
bounty of his grace.
So let me close with this: If you are a Christian, seek a stunning
view of God's holiness so that you can fear and hope in God in this way. Study
more about the greatness of God. Let thoughts of God's holiness fill your mind
this week, and be humbled by them. The verses I have listed at the end of your
sheet are a good place to start. If you are not a Christian, time is running
out. You should be afraid of being consumed by God's wrath. Seek refuge
in Christ from the storm of God's anger. Recognize that it is not enough just
to come to Christ for fire insurance--only to escape hell. It is a legitimate
desire to want to escape hell. But you also must have a desire for Christ
Himself. You must be attracted by the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Therefore, contemplate the great danger you are in, together with the greatness
of Christ, until you discover joy and peace in believing.
Notes
1. Two of these three points are from John Piper's The Pleasures of God:
Meditations on God's Delight in Being God, chapter 7.
2. This quote and illustration are from Piper, chapter 7.
Appendix 1: Why God must judge sin to be righteous.
1. God's righteousness is His commitment to preserve the honor of His
glory.
2. Sin is an attack on the glory of God--it treats God's glory as worthless.
3. Therefore, if God did not judge sin, He would be agreeing with sinners that
His glory is worthless.
4. If God did this, He would not be acting to preserve the honor of His
glory--which is the essence of unrighteousness.
5. Therefore, God must judge sin to vindicate the worth of His glory.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, by the Lockman Foundation.
Appendix 2: Why sins deserve eternal punishment.
1. All sins are committed against God, who is of infinite honor and glory.
2. Therefore, all sins are infinitely serious.
3. Therefore, all sins require an infinite penalty--eternal punishment.
A few further resources:
Isaiah chapter 6
Deuteronomy 28-34
Lamentations
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Isaiah
Revelation chapters 18 and 21:21-22:5
Matthew chapters 5-7
The Holiness of God, by R.C. Sproul.
Knowing God, by J.I. Packer.
The Pleasures of God, by John Piper.
MP
Go back to Contend for the Faith.
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