God will
actively punish those who have not been justified, and they will be punished justly and severely—not with love, but with the terrible wrath of the Almighty Judge: "I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that they have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear:
fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!"
What's been set forth [here] is not a God who
casts people into hell, but one who allows them to cast themselves. But no one casts
himself into hell, anymore than a thief casts himself into prison. It denies God's active punishment; it makes Him out to be passive in their destruction. In short, it denies Him the
judgement. That's
not the picture the Bible presents.
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[In response to this line, "My loving heart which knows no hatred for anyone," I wrote:] "it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'"
[My friend complained about out-of-context proof-texting, and so I replied:] I don't think I need to quote the whole chapter for you. The meaning is perfectly clear that not every individual is the object of God's salvific purposes. Some indeed are prepared for wrath and destruction. Now, if you want to say that that's God's "love" toward them, you're really going to have to show how—"For God so loved each and every individual, that He will cast the majority of them into hell"?
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[I provided a link to a
piece by A.W. Pink, and my friend said that Pink was anthropomorphizing God. I responded:] I don't think Pink is anthropomorphizing God or explaining away a major theme of Scripture. Rather, as I think becomes all the more clear when reading the entire link, the perspective which you've presented is thoroughly rooted in a human incapability or unwillingness to believe that hate and love can coexist in God, and is explaining away the wrath and judgement of God by saying that it's really that men misperceive God's love for them.
The problem is that this presentation treats God's wrath as though it's only wrathful
from the perspective of the damned. It makes Him to be active in loving them, but only accidentally (as it were) punishing them, and even then only because they perceive His love in the wrong way. But God's wrath is wrathful
from His own perspective! It would be a horror no matter upon whom it fell. [Indeed, I might now add, Christ Himself bore it. Did He simply "misperceive" it, or was God's wrath truly terrible?]
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God's justice is good, surely, but it is not a benefit to the sinner anymore than prison itself is a benefit to the thief. Indeed, God's justice is the utter revocation of all the mercy He has shown the reprobate in life.
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It makes a difference as to whether hell is something one throws himself into or something God throws one into. At the end of the day, is God a Judge or isn't He? Do we believe that God actually casts the reprobate into hell, whence they have no hope of escape but are forever imprisoned under divine judgement? Or is it we who possess the keys of hell, who by our perception of God's love make it a reality?
In the words of that article, if we believe that God is love, i.e., that He loves each and every individual who ever existed and that every action He takes is nothing but love, "we know that God never hates, never punishes, never takes vengeance."
That sentiment is utterly contrary to how God has revealed Himself throughout the Scriptures. If we take the Scriptures seriously, I think we must reject this view of the judgement of God.
