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Famous Last Words

“Don’t worry, I’m sober enough.” “It’s safe.” “Everybody does it.” “Hey Joe, watch this!” “God would never send anyone to hell.” Of course, the latter may not be someone’s last words, but they will prove to be the most haunting. Hell will be populated with legions who denied its existence.

Wishful Thinking
People give many reasons for not believing in the existence of this terrifying place of judgment. One popular notion claims that a God of love cannot hate and would never send anyone there. Others reject God’s existence and an afterlife and therefore deny a future judgment of evil. Here today, gone tomorrow, and that’s all she wrote goes the refrain. Others claim belief in God but have little understanding of God’s justice or what Scripture teaches on the topic. Yet, a common thread among outright denials of hell involves the rejection of the authority and witness of Scripture to hell’s existence, either by denying Scripture’s authority in total, or by denying aspects of Scripture that speak of things people may not like or accept as true.

Two Sources of Truth
In all belief regarding the afterlife, the source and explanation can be reduced to two alternatives: human opinion or God’s revelation. Of course, Satan is the greatest source of error concerning God and reality, but he expresses his ungodly ideas through people. Opinion can be our own or that of another presumed expert, but in the end, we either trust what God has told us or trust what people say. The same can be said about the existence of heaven, moral absolutes, the nature of God, history, Christ, etc. Inevitably, we trust the meaning of our life and ultimate destiny to God’s revelation in Christ through Scripture, or speculation about things we could never know if God did not tell us.

Two Objects of Faith
Therefore, whether or not you believe in a literal place of eternal torment, as Scripture clearly teaches, we are left with two different objects of faith in which to entrust our souls. When an atheist tells you not to worry because hell does not exist, he or she is asking you to trust their opinion. Are you willing to trust your eternal destiny to the opinion of someone who cannot remember where he put the car keys and has no idea what lies beyond the three or four dimensions of this life? Or, will you trust the One who created, sustains, and knows all things, whose Word is the ultimate and final authority with respect to His universe and what lies beyond, who can never lie, who has loved us with an infinite love, has condescended to be with us and take infinite wrath on His soul to purchase forgiveness of our sin and give us eternal happiness, whose excellence and existence shines clearly in every aspect of the universe? Whose word would you rather trust?

A High Price
The cost for a few years of imagined independence from our Creator comes with a high price—an eternity without Him, separated from the source of all good things, and the penalty for treating with contempt the One to whom we owe all love, honor, and thanksgiving. Moreover, we will miss in this life the joy and contentment of a sure hope of heaven, forgiveness of sin, satisfaction of the deepest needs of our soul, and a love beyond all earthly comparison, in addition to the immeasurable blessings of heaven itself. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD and whose trust is the LORD” (Jeremiah 17:7). Trust in wishful thinking about our ultimate destiny will eventually give way to reality as God determined it to be, unchanged by the guesswork of those who refuse to humbly bow the knee before Him.

Come to the Waters
Therefore, every blessing and the evidence of God’s excellence and authority that surrounds and confronts every life calls us to “seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7). “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6). “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live” (Isaiah 55:1-3). “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). May your last words be followed by the words of your Creator and Savior, “Enter into the joy of the Lord.”

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, 1995. Used by permission.

Click here to download a PDF of this article.

© 2017 Craig Biehl, author of God the Reason, The Box, The Infinite Merit of Christ, and Reading Religious Affections

 

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    Every Good Is Grace—Every Breath, Mercy

    “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Never have so few words carried more far-reaching implications than the first verse of the Bible. For instance, in a single sentence God reveals Himself as the origin of everything, apart from whom nothing would or could exist, without whom we have nothing, and to whom we owe everything. Indeed, “every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

    Adam and Eve
    God also created our first parents. But while Adam and Eve entered the world with no trace of evil and in a personal and loving relationship with God, they did not possess eternal life, as indicated by their fall and subsequent ban from the Tree of Life. Eternal life required a simple act of fidelity and obedience to God. Created holy, they were able to forfeit their righteous status and relationship to God by a choice of the will. Yet, in freely choosing to disobey God and eat from the forbidden tree, they exalted themselves over the will, knowledge, and authority of God and spiritually died. And while their sin deserved immediate physical and spiritual death, without remedy, God cast them from the garden and kept them from partaking of the Tree of Life by which they would have lived as condemned and cursed, forever. Moreover, God sacrificed animals to cover their nakedness, granted them long lives, and gave them a quiver full of children. And so for Adam and Eve, every good was grace–every breath, mercy.

    Cain and Abel
    Adam stood for the entire human race in his trial of obedience in the garden, so when he fell his posterity fell with him. “All sinned” in Adam and “through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” (Rom. 5:12, 19). The results are promptly seen in Cain’s murder of his brother Abel from bitterness over God’s preference of Abel’s animal sacrifice to Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground. God judged and cursed Cain for his sin, but graciously allowed him to live and gave him a sign to prevent others from killing him. But what did Cain deserve? Like Adam and Eve, he deserved immediate physical and spiritual death, without remedy. So, for Cain, every good was grace–every breath, mercy.

    Noah and His Family
    When the horrible fruit of Adam’s sin filled the world, God filled the world with water and destroyed humanity with a worldwide flood, sparing only Noah and his family. After the Ark and its passengers disembarked upon dry land, God promised to never again destroy the world by water. Noah and his family were spared the judgment of the flood, but were they without sin? Since God judged Adam for a single sin, could Noah claim to have deserved less? Of course not, for “who can say, ‘I have cleansed my heart, I am pure from my sin?’” (Prov. 20:9). The question demands humble silence. For, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). So, in light of the same strict and unchanging standard of justice that condemned Adam, Eve, and the entirety of Adam’s posterity for a single sin, for Noah and his family, every good was grace–every breath, mercy.

    Everybody
    We could multiply examples, but suffice it to say that all of Adam’s physical posterity have born the curse and judgment for their own sin and the sin of Adam, for “through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men” and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 5: 18, 3:23). Apart from the righteousness of Christ imputed (credited) to us, “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). Thus, in light of God’s strict and unchanging justice, how should we view life? Should we ask why bad things happen to good people? Should we demand better treatment from God? No, for every child of Adam, every good is grace–every breath, mercy.

    Infinite Merit and Blessings in Christ
    And so we have every reason to rejoice in the saving work of Jesus Christ, whose life satisfied the requirement of sinless obedience for eternal life (the same requirement that Adam failed to meet as our representative), and whose death paid the penalty required by God’s justice for our sin. God’s infinite grace and mercy in Christ earned for us infinite merit, a merit that God’s justice will compensate with an infinite reward. Thus, while our every good is grace and every breath, mercy, we have been given infinite blessings in Christ.

    Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1988, 1995. Used by permission.

    Click here to download a PDF of this article.

    © 2016 Craig Biehl, author of God the Reason, The Box, The Infinite Merit of Christ, and Reading Religious Affections

     

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