“GOD is too merciful to send any of His erring creatures to hell!”
Such a statement is often heard today, but is it correct?
Let us examine it.
First, it says that God is merciful; second, that His creatures are sinful; and third, it admits such a place as hell.
As to the first, it is divinely true that God is merciful. His written Word announces that blessed fact, both in the Old and New Testaments. He is “merciful and gracious;” He is “rich in mercy.”
And every one of us, as he reviews his life, whether long or short, must assuredly own that he has proved great mercy at God’s hands.
But is He so merciful that He cannot punish the sinner, or mete out to him the exact measure of award which his sins, according to the standard of absolute holiness, justly deserve. That is, is God more merciful than holy, and is His love for the sinner greater than His abhorrence of sin? That cannot be truly asserted; nor could God show grace to the sinner unless the claims of His justice were first fully satisfied.
Now, for the true knowledge of God we are shut up to the Bible, because that precious book reveals to us His mind. It is His word. It tells us what man is and what God is. No doubt we may see, unless our minds are blinded, His power and God-head in the fair creation around, whose wondrous mechanism asserts His creatorship; but, apart from power and design, if we would know what God is, we are beholden to the book which has been, and is today the target of Satan—God’s enemy and ours.
If, then, we turn to the Bible in order to find our inquiry answered, we shall see that, if grace reigns, it reigns through righteousness; or, in other words, that but for the settlement of the claims of justice in respect of sin (and that, of course, in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ) there could be no grace for the sinner, — no blessing at all. God must be just in justifying him who believes in Jesus.
Now let us face the truth of the justice of God. It is all very well to speak of His love; but do not let us overlook His justice.
Justice is not mere impartiality, nor is it judgment; it is righteousness; and, by reference to the Epistle to the Romans, which elaborates our present inquiry, we find that ere love is mentioned at all, righteousness is revealed and established. We start on a solid basis—the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. His work on the cross, in all its infinite value, that is the manifestation of God’s righteousness, precedes the statement that “God commendeth his love” (ch. 5:8) Such is the Divine order, and indeed what family, or business, or State could be properly regulated which did not have justice for its base principle of action? We must be just before we should be generous.
If, then, God is just, He must deal with sin. To this solemn fact the cross (where the Just suffered for the unjust) is the fullest witness, though we may trace, all through the Scriptures, various punishments inflicted on the wicked. Hence we affirm that God is not too merciful to punish His erring creatures.
Nay, reader, He forsook His own Son, when bearing sin on the cross, in order that you might avail yourself of the atonement then made. And, mark, the rejection, nay, the non-acceptance of the Lord Jesus as a personal substitute is the deliberate refusal of the greatest mercy that God could show.
Receive Him by simple faith, I pray you, nor risk the dread alternative!
Now, a word as to “God’s erring creatures”; it is perfectly true that some have erred more than others; but, whatever the measure of aberration, we read in the same Epistle to the Romans: “They are all gone out of the way;” again: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Some have sinned more than others, and some have come more short of the glory of God than others, but, be the shortage what it may, all have done it; all are responsible, and all shall give account to God. Moreover, the expression “erring creatures” is far too mild a way of stating facts. If we are erring creatures we are guilty sinners, willful, wicked rebels against God, who deserve not mercy but judgment.
And last, as to “such a place as Hell!”
“We are all going to Heaven, where there are degrees of reward,” said a man to me the other day. “There’s no Hell,” he added.
Heaven there is, but no Hell! “How do you know—who told you that?” I asked him.
The Bible speaks of Heaven, but it also speaks of Hell—not very often indeed, but more than once or twice, and of “everlasting punishment,” and of “eternal judgment,” and of “the lake of fire,” and of One who, perforce, must say— “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
“The fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death” (Rev. 21:88But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:8)).
Reader, face these revealed facts, nor allow your mind, I beseech you, to be deceived by the reasonings of perverted men, or the treachery of your own heart, as to the awful holiness of God and the necessity that is therefore laid upon Him to judge all evil according to the nature of that holiness.
It is blessedly true that “God is love,” and that He is “rich in mercy.” It is equally true that “our God is a consuming fire,” and that “the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience.” “God is not mocked, whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.” All equally true!
Justice and mercy are maintained in perfect balance, but when man refuses the overtures of mercy, and persistently takes his own willful way of sin and impenitence, there remains for him nothing but “a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.” Justice, stern and inexorable, must take her way, and how shall the sinner escape? Reader, “if you would flee from God, flee to Him” without delay!
“Look to Jesus, look and live;
Mercy at His hands receive;
He has died upon the tree;
And His words are, ‘Look to Me.’”
J. W. S.