9These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power …
Contemporary, popular Christianity downplays hell, eternal destruction, and torment—if not embracing, at least tipping its hat to universalism or annihilationism. The desperate desire to make God into an acceptable deity for the “modern” or (if the reader is philosophically informed) “post-modern” world, waters down the eternal nature of God’s anger. The fear is to sound like the “hell-fire and brimstone” preaching of yesteryear or the medieval imagery of Dante’s Inferno. But if we are believers in the Book of God, the New Testament does present precisely that: eternal destruction for unbelievers. We cannot escape it without doing severe injustice to inspiration and authority of Scripture and normal interpretative principles. It requires more than a subtle reference to judgment.
Yes, the Scripture says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8), but that is not the whole story. His wrath is real; He is a judgmental God who penalizes those who reject the truth, as we see in our passage today. Notice the context of Paul’s teaching, namely a description of what it means to be “away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.” His anger is an expression of separation from the Creator God of the universe, who fashioned us in His image. So His judgment has to do with His character, that is, to be separated from Him.
This all begs the question, how can a kind and loving God consign an individual to eternal torment that never, never ends? Does this not represent an overkill, a consequence that completely outweighs the offense? First of all, the horror of it ought to cause us to reflect more deeply on how offensive sin is to God. He is perfect and holy, and He is the Creator. He certainly has the “right” to do what He wants. And this does not contradict His goodness. He is so absolutely good that any rejection of Him is tantamount to absolutely embracing the bad. It is a complete travesty of life and creation to reject God and His message. How dare we downplay the gravity of sin by impugning God with being less than good because He assigned rejecters of Christ to eternal punishment?
Rather than downplay God’s anger and righteous judgment, we ought to “up-play” the awfulness of sin. If the judgment is that bad, then how bad must the sin be in God’s eyes?! How terrible must it be for God to banish someone from His presence for eternity in a state that He describes as eternal destruction?
Lord, again, I thank You for saving me from a lost eternity apart from You.
Excellent comments. Thank you brother Gianotti.
It is an almost an unbelievable part of the Gospel that God will consign His own much loved creatures to eternal suffering. It is only when I think of how extremely much our Savior suffered that I see that such a price must have been required because my debt of sin was so enormous. It must have been to save me from unspeakable, but well deserved, suffering (Hell) that the Lord Jesus had to pay such an unspeakable price. The reality of Hell is the only reason I see that explains the suffering of Calvary.
Thank you for your additional comments, Mike.