Q. Believing that the rejectors of God and His Son and salvation by grace will be everlastingly punished in hell, I ask will it be varied in intensity? We know that there will be degrees of reward in God's kingdom. Does this principle apply equally to punishment? W. F. U.
A. It is revealed distinctly that men will be judged according to their works. Old and New Testaments are equally clear. “For all these things God will bring thee into judgment” (Eccl. 11:9). “For God shall bring every work into judgment with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil” (Eccl.12:14). “God shall judge the secrets of men according to my gospel by Jesus Christ” (Rom. 2:16). “The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books according to their works... They were judged every man [each] according to their works” (Rev. 20:12-13). Such is man's portion, death, and after this judgment; for he is sinful and lost. But grace has intervened after the sin and before the judgment. God has sent His Son to save all who believing receive life in Him Who died and bore their judgment on the cross, and who manifest life in a fruit-bearing course here below. Hence the Lord Who is to judge has Himself ruled that the believer comes not into judgment. Even while here he has passed out of death into life. But none the less must we all, the whole of us absolutely, be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things [done] by the body, according to what he did, whether good or bad (2 Cor. 5. 10). This will be true of all, saint or sinner, not all at the same time, but each at the time and in the way and with the aim as well as result laid down in other scriptures. The careful reader will note “manifested” is the word where the faithful are included, “judged” is confined to those who refusing divine mercy in Christ must own judgment to be righteous.
But along with this, scripture speaks of “reward” for work done (1 Cor. 3) and declares in many forms and occasions that God will not forget work and love shown toward His name. Similarly, as saints will differ, not as to salvation or heavenly glory, but in special recognition of fidelity, so surely (judgment being according to works) the Lord will mark His unerring sense of special iniquity, though all the lost be forever in the lake of fire. He is righteous altogether, always, and everywhere. Cf. Luke 12:45-48. But every spiritual mind will appreciate the comparative silence of scripture in a matter so harrowing to the affections, and so appropriately left in His hands, Whose judgment unbelief must solemnly prove, as we have mercifully proved His grace by faith.
2. “TRANSGRESSION,” “SIN,” “INIQUITY,” AND “GUILE.”
Q. What is the distinctive force of the various terms for our evil mentioned in Psa. 32:1-2, and translated “transgression,” “sin,” “iniquity,” and “guile” in both the A. and the R.Vv.? I.C.
A. The English versions seem to one more exact than the Greek Septuagint or the Latin Vulgate; so that it would be vain to look for a closer reproduction of the Hebrew original.
“ Transgression” (not sin) is the violation of a known and imposed law. With this the psalmist begins. It is what would first act on the conscience of a Jew, and blessed indeed to know it “forgiven.” Where no law is, as the apostle teaches us in Rom. 4, there is no transgression. There might be sin. The law was added, as he tells the Galatians, because of transgressions. It works wrath. It is the power of sin, forcing out into manifestation what otherwise was latent, that through the commandment sin might become exceeding sinful. “Sin” is then the evil root which is uncovered to the conscience, that it might be “covered” of God by the blood of atonement, as here. Verse 2 brings forward a great accession of blessing: not only the past evils effaced and gone, but the consequent present state of absolute non-imputation of iniquity by Jehovah. This at once opens the heart, and takes away all “guile” from the spirit. There is no desire to hide the least evil. Because He imputes no iniquity, no guilt, there is no guile in one's spirit, no wish to extenuate or deny. The psalmist then shows how far from this he had been. God had wrought to bring the Israelite to acknowledge his sin, and not to cover his iniquity. When he confessed his transgressions to Jehovah, Jehovah forgave the iniquity of his sins. The psalm itself is a fine comment on the words. How a learned and pious scholar could say that ἀνομία, lawlessness, is never in the N.T. the condition of one living without law, but always the condition or deed of one who acts contrary to law, is marvelous. Rom. 2. 12 should have corrected the error. It is just the word to describe the lawlessness of a Gentile ignorant of law, no doubt sin, and iniquity, but most precisely “lawlessness.”
Etymologically the Hebrew words mean respectively, desertion or revolt, missing a mark or error, perversion, and deceit or fraud. But the usage sanctioned by the Spirit is the true criterion.