No. 1.
THERE is a class of persons, and perhaps a larger one than we think, who have a real difficulty as to the eternal punishment of the wicked and impenitent. They judge it to be inconsistent with the love of God.
After all, such objections arise in the first place by separating punishments from the nature and being of the God against whom sins are committed, and according to which they receive their character, as sins against the holiness and majesty of God. In this way sins and iniquities are too much connected with the finiteness of the individual, and with the love of God as preached to sinners whilst they are in this world, and before the day when “the wicked shall be turned into hell” with the devil and his angels.
One can readily pay attention to the real difficulty, and pity souls that are stumbled about the eternal misery of the wicked, from their one absorbing idea of God’s love to sinful men, as proclaimed in the gospel of salvation for today.
In saying a word or two for such persons, and for their real help, let it be observed by them that whilst this love of God is perfectly true and essential in the gospel of His grace, yet it is also said that “He is known by the judgment which He executes on the earth.” It will be found that these individuals overlook the righteousness of God as an essential of His being, and of His government in the world— “that He sits upon the throne in judgment” as well as upon the mercy-seat in grace. Else how can they reconcile the Deluge, whereby the world that then was perished, with their one idea that “God is love”? Righteousness was there in terrible judgments, as well as sovereign mercy to Noah and those who by faith were saved by the ark! So, at the Red Sea, all Pharaoh’s hosts sank as lead to the bottom under the fearful judgment of God, whilst Moses and the children of Israel passed over as on dry land. Indeed, I much question whether such persons, from their imperfect knowledge of the Jehovah of Israel and of God, could sing the song of Moses: “The Lord has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea.” Does their faith embrace this necessary fact (for government and for glory), that “the Lord is a man of war; the Lord is His name”?
Such persons are in difficulty upon eternal punishment and misery in the lake of fire, because they have not the knowledge of God and His ways amongst men in this world, nor of the rights and titles of the rejected Christ, which have yet to be avenged and made good here!
We have noticed some of the judgments that are past, such as the Deluge, in which all mankind but eight souls perished; and the Red Sea, where the right hand of the Lord became glorious in power— “Thy right hand, O Lord! has dashed in pieces the enemy.” Now, let us take the fearful judgment which is yet in the future, as described in Rev. 19, “Out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”
Have these persons opened their minds to receive this truth of God’s righteous judgments with men upon this earth, whether past or at the very doors, as just quoted, and contained further in the Apocalypse? If not, are they qualified to express an opinion upon the righteous judgments of God hereafter, when the misery will be eternal? “And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever.”
Before leaving the solemn subject of punishment as connected with the ways of God and mankind in this world, we may, for the sake of those who wish to determine everything in the light of God’s love, take up the question of the judgment of sin at the cross of Christ. As Christians, our true knowledge of redemption and our title to the eternal glory, yea, and of the eternal life which we have in a risen Christ, are connected with the sufferings of our precious Saviour. And what were they? Where was love (in manifestation) to Him in those sufferings which He endured under the hand of God? Were not those pains and troubles and cries the effect of the judicial dealings of God with Him when, in grace towards us, our iniquities were laid on Him and He was bruised in our stead? Undoubtedly all was love—the purest and strongest love—to us. But was this the hour of God’s manifested love to Him? Was He forsaken or not when He asked Why? Was He not drinking the cup then which the hand of holy justice presented? Yet never was He so loved by the Father as at that instant when, through the Eternal Spirit, “He offered Himself without a spot to God,” that He might put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. The judgment of God was due to us; but our Substitute bore this in our stead, that we might never taste it. The judgment was His, that grace might be ours.