In the past few weeks, from Lord's Days 2 and 3, we have seen that the perfect God sets before man the perfect requirement of obedience to God's law. The Holy God requires of us that we love Him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and that from that love of God we also love the neighbor as ourselves. And we saw that the obedience of that law is outside of our reach. Though God created us good and after His own image, we sinned and made ourselves guilty before God. I say, We did that. You will recall, that truth received some emphasis, primarily because that is a truth that we readily reject. We are those who quickly point the finger at others. And when it comes to the sin of Adam, we have no easy time accepting the fact that we bear the blame for his sin. But Scripture teaches very clearly that such is exactly the case. You and I and every person are guilty in Adam. For God created Adam our legal and organic head. And with the sentence of death executed upon Adam, that sentence is also passed down to all his children. Hence, as the Catechism puts it, "our nature is become so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin." By that guilt that is ours in Adam we brought upon ourselves a devastating depravity. Indeed, we are so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness—except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. That is our misery. That is God's righteous judgment of the whole human race.
That immediately causes another question to arise: What is God's attitude to our sin and corruption? Even if we submit to His judgment, and acknowledge its righteousness, what is His attitude with regard to our guilt and depravity? Will He accommodate Himself to it? Will He disregard it and look upon all men in love? Will He lift the demand of His law, seeing now that man cannot possibly perform it? Will He let our rebellion to go unpunished, because He is the God of all mercy? Those are the questions which we are compelled to face in this Fourth Lord's Day. And the general answer to every one of those questions is this: God is unchangeable. He cannot change. If any one of the two parties change—God or the creature—it will not be God. And therefore we and the whole human race stand before one sure thing. There is a just and inescapable punishment that God executes upon the sinner. Today I call your attention to the first two questions and answers of this Lord's Day, doing so under the theme:
JUST AND INESCAPABLE PUNISHMENT
I. JUST DEMANDS
II. INESCAPABLE PUNISHMENT
III. UNCHANGEABLE HOLINESS
WE BEGIN OUR TREATMENT OF THIS THEME—JUST AND INESCAPABLE PUNISHMENT—BY CALLING ATTENTION TO THE TRUTH SET FORTH IN Q & A 9, NAMELY, THAT THE DEMANDS OF THE LAW THAT GOD CONTINUES TO PLACE UPON THE SINNER ARE JUST DEMANDS.
IT IS CERTAINLY TRUE, AS WE HAVE SEEN, THAT THE SINNER CANNOT POSSIBLY PERFORM THE DEMANDS OF THE LAW.
The sinner cannot, does not, and cannot even want to love God with all his heart and mind and soul, as God demands in His law. That is the truth of total depravity. I will not take the time to prove that truth again. We spent an entire sermon on it last Sunday, pointing to Christ crucified as our only hope and our only comfort. But even though we, by nature, cannot perform the demands of the law, God continues to uphold that law without change. Sinful men might object. Some, who are Pelagian, say, "It is not true that man cannot perform the law." They deny the truth of total depravity. But we have seen that truth. It is inescapably set before us in the Bible.
Others say—and this generally strikes closer to home among us: "It is true that I cannot possibly perform the law. But because I cannot love God with all my heart and mind and soul and strength as the law demands, therefore God must compromise. That's all. He must simply be satisfied with the best I can do." That is a very common conception. I hope it is not your way of thinking. But many think that way, and sometimes even talk that way, trying to explain away their continued walk in a particular sin. "Well, I can't do any better. I'm trying. Therefore God must be satisfied, and you ought to be too." As if the Holy God can be satisfied with anything less than perfect obedience. Such would rob God of His holiness! And that is characteristic of the church in our day. They don't believe in the seriousness of sin. They have lost all sight of God's holiness. Therefore their religion becomes a matter of, "We do the best we can."
Scripture, however, says (Galatians 3:10): "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Scripture says in James 2:10: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." Scripture says that "except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven." Contrary to such faulty thinking which desecrates the truth of God's holiness, Scripture maintains the law without compromise. "Love Me with all your heart and soul and mind, and out of that love for Me, love your neighbor as yourself." So says God. "Disobey, and you must bear the punishment of that disobedience."
AND YET, QUITE NATURALLY, WE CONTINUE TO ASK THE QUESTION: HOW CAN GOD CONTINUE TO ASK OF MAN THAT WHICH MAN CANNOT POSSIBLY PERFORM? DOES GOD THEN DO INJUSTICE TO MAN?
To that question let us remember one thing first of all. This is very important. You and I cannot possibly criticize God. Let us not forget who we are. We are the clay; He is the Potter. We cannot possibly impose upon God our own idea of justice. This is fundamental. God is God. He is Lord of all. It is impossible for us properly to impose upon God our system of justice, our human idea of righteousness. Such a position would elevate ourselves above the living God. A creature cannot say anything of himself about his Creator. Still more, because we are sinful creatures, we cannot even imagine the correct conception of God's justice.
But in the second place, we may say positively that there is one way to answer that question. And that is that we learn from God His own position over against the sinner. Let God speak. Let us be silent. And then, when we do that, when we let God speak, the answer is found in Romans 9—elsewhere too, but I call your attention to Romans 9. There the Apostle answers the question: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?" That is the question. That is the question we face now too. Only the application is different. The Apostle is facing the objection that is raised over against God's sovereign determination concerning man. He is facing the objection that is raised over against God loving one, and hating another. That is exactly what He did with respect to Jacob and Esau, and that before either was born or had done any good or evil. God said, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." And so the question arises: "What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God?" Is there unrighteousness when the Lord says to Pharaoh, "Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth"? He raised Pharaoh up for this purpose, and yet holds Pharaoh responsible? Is there unrighteousness with God then? The inspired Apostle answers, "God forbid." And then he says, "Let us listen to God." "For he saith unto Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."
Now does that solve the problem? No, it doesn't. But it is sufficient for you and for me. It is enough for us who believe, it is enough for us that God speaks, that God says of Himself, "There is no unrighteousness with Me. There is no unrighteousness no matter what I do. That must be the very basis upon which we consider the question before us. Let us not ever forget that.
Then we can look at the answer given by the Catechism, already knowing the righteousness of God, and we can say, "Of course God does not do injustice to man, by requiring of him that which he cannot perform. Because God made man capable of performing that law; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own wilful disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts." Notice once again that the Catechism calls attention to that inseparable relation in which we stand to Adam. The answer does not speak simply of Adam, but man. You and I are inescapably connected with Adam. I will not expand on that truth again, having done so at length before.
But to the other aspect of the question, I will use an illustration. If I have a debt, say the mortgage on a house, and I have a good job, but I squander all my income and I squander my gifts and neglect to do my work, so that I lose my job, do I have the right to charge the bank with injustice when they insist that I continue to pay my debt, even when I cannot possibly do so? Of course not. I cannot get out of that debt. The same holds true with respect to the debt we have toward God's law. We owe God perfect obedience. That is an inescapable debt. Furthermore, God gave us everything necessary for us to walk in obedience to that law. That we squandered those divine gifts changed not the demands at all. They are just demands.
AND THE DEPARTURE FROM THAT LAW BRINGS INESCAPABLE PUNISHMENT.
"WILL GOD SUFFER SUCH DISOBEDIENCE AND REBELLION TO GO UNPUNISHED? BY NO MEANS; BUT IS TERRIBLY DISPLEASED WITH OUR ORIGINAL AS WELL AS ACTUAL SINS; AND WILL PUNISH THEM IN HIS JUST JUDGMENT TEMPORALLY AND ETERNALLY, AS HE HATH DECLARED, 'CURSED IS EVERY ONE THAT CONTINUETH NOT IN ALL THINGS, WHICH ARE WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO DO THEM.'"
This is really a terrible thing to confess. You see that, don't you. Terrible. We know there are consequences to sin. We like to think that there are some sins that do not bear consequences. We like to think that the bad consequences are only borne with certain gross sins. But the fact is, there are consequences to every sin. No sin goes unpunished; not one. And according to this answer of the Catechism, which comes from Scripture, that punishment is both in time and in eternity.
God punishes sin in time. Make no mistake about that. This, of course, is a truth that our churches have had to defend throughout our history. There are many who want to deny this. There are many who despise the very thought of God punishing men in time. They cannot handle the thought of God being the One Who executes judgment in the earth. But even in Reformed churches there are those who deny that God punishes sin by his curse in time. They prefer to think, rather, that in this present time and with respect to the things of this present time, God is gracious to all men. That is the theory of common grace. Our churches have had to confront that theory throughout our history. That is not a minor matter. It ultimately reflects upon God Himself, upon His nature, His holiness, His righteousness. And when men teach that God is gracious to the natural man in time, it isn't that they deny that He will ultimately reveal His wrath in the day of judgment. There are those who deny that, too, of course. In Reformed Churches even there are men who deny that ultimate revelation of the wrath of God in the day of judgment. One minister, still in good standing, wrote a book even, maintaining a universal salvation. He was simply being consistent in his maintaining the idea of a love of God for all men. His point was, If God loves everyone, He can damn no one! He was correct in his logic. His error was in the premise that God loves everyone. But what he said is true, "If God loves everyone, He can damn no one, but must also save everyone. Love necessarily implies salvation with a God Who is powerful to accomplish His desire.
But most Christians understand that God does not save everyone. Most will confess that God will ultimately reveal His wrath against the unbelieving and impenitent in the day of judgment. Yet some like to insist that before that day of judgment, God in His love for all and His grace toward all, gives them temporal blessings. The two Psalms which we read, as well as Psalm 73 from which we sang, ought to cause us to see that such a theory cannot be true. It cannot be put any more clearly than Psalm 11:5: "The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth." Furthermore, that hatred is expressed. "Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup." That has reference to the final judgment and execution of justice, it is true. But that is not limited to that, as is clear from what we read in Psalm 73. There is explained that which we read in Proverbs 3:33: "The curse of the LORD is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just." God tells us that His curse abides on the wicked always, constantly. It permeates his house. Even when God bestows upon him the good things of this present time, He does so not in His grace, but in His wrath, as part of His curse upon them.
That is confirmed in Psalm 73. There, as you remember, the psalmist writes about being confused for a time, when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. He knew that prosperity that was enjoyed by the wicked came from God. God caused the wicked to prosper, just as He does now. When the wicked prosper, that is from God's hand. It is. And for a while that confused Asaph, the psalmist. Especially when he saw God's people suffer! His people must suffer, while the wicked prosper? Asaph, in his spiritual confusion, actually complained against God. It wasn't merely that Asaph saw a common grace. It was that, as he saw it, the wicked received God's grace, while His people abode under His wrath. That is what Asaph saw. "God loves the wicked more than those whom He calls His own!" That was Asaph's complaint. And then, as we sang a few minutes ago, God led him into the sanctuary. He gave him to see the truth, the reality; and his doubts were dispelled. When he stood before God's face, and was given to see things from God's perspective, Asaph understood what was really taking place. Look at verse 18 of Psalm 73. In awe Asaph stood before God and confessed: "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castest them down into destruction. How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment! they are utterly consumed with terrors." That is the truth of Scripture throughout.
GOD PUNISHES SIN NOT ONLY ETERNALLY, BUT IN TIME AS WELL.
Right now He executes righteous judgment, even though it is not seen nor understood by men, as it shall be in the day of judgment. In just judgment, God punishes temporally, i.e., in time, not only actual sin, but also original sin. You know, I can understand why men want to rationalize this truth away. I can understand why there is a very strong desire to camouflage this truth, whether it be by a theory of common grace, or by any other means. This is indeed a terrible truth, no question about it. But for that very reason, we must not reason. We must not look at this very distasteful truth and try to avoid it by inventing our own philosophy, our own theory. And I emphasize this especially for the sake of our youth. You must understand that this truth is going to come under attack. It is a terrible truth. But we mustn't let our own feelings determine whether or not we will receive this truth. It is God's truth. That is why we must simply listen to the Scriptures, to the Word of God. That's all we can do.
How does God punish sin in time? In many different ways. The most basic answer to that question, the one very evident, is that God punishes sin in time with physical death. Death, physical death, is the punishment of God upon the sinner. We who are in Christ Jesus may now look at death from a different perspective, thanks be to Christ! But the fact is, as we read in Psalm 90, "all our days are passed away in the wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told." The same is true of spiritual death, of course. God punishes us by keeping us from His fellowship. To live apart from God is death, says the Scripture. And so it is. When we live in sin, God hides His face from us. We can have no peace, no comfort.
But God also punishes sin in many other ways. Some of them we realize, if we interpret things in the light of the Scripture. The various ailments and diseases that come as a direct consequence of certain sins, are clear indications of God's wrath and punishment against sin. The same is true with all earthly calamities. All are signs of God's wrath, the execution of His righteous judgment against the sins of men. But there is another revelation of the righteous judgment of God that we often overlook, and I call your attention to that at this time.
One of the chief ways in which God punishes the sinner is by giving the sinner over to continued sin. We often forget that such continued sin and development in sin is a clear indication of God's wrath. That is the teaching of Romans 1, verses 18 and following. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." How is it that they hold the truth in unrighteousness? They know the truth, i.e., the truth that God is and that He must be glorified as God. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them." In other words, no man is an atheist. God doesn't allow it! A man may say it. A man may insist that he is an atheist. He may say, There is no God. There are those who say that. We read about them in the Bible, in Psalm 14 and Psalm 53, "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." He tells himself that. But he knows better. He can't escape the testimony of God. God has inscribed into the heart of every sinner this sentence: "I am God. Love Me." That is what this says in Romans 1. "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." Notice that.
God causes the sinner to heap sin upon sin. They are given over! "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves." And so it continues. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, hates of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable—i.e., they cannot be persuaded, are not open to the Scriptures, hard-hearted—unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."
Do you wonder sometimes at the rapid development of sin in the world, in our country? Do you stand amazed at the rapid advance of apostasy in the church? Are you dumbfounded over the continued walk in sin of one who claims to be a Christian? Then understand this, beloved: The punishment of God rested heavily upon the sinner. That is the explanation, the only explanation. God gives men over to their sin. I say, we rarely think about sins development in those terms. But that is exactly what is happening. God is executing His righteous judgment, His wrath and indignation. Inescapable is the sinner's punishment at the hands of the Just God.
But the worst is yet to be seen; for God punishes the sinner eternally. That truth is not set forth in Scripture in order to scare the sinner into heaven. That will never happen. There is only one thing that will bring a sinner to repentance and that is not the terror of hell and the fear of punishment, but the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, worked His by Word and Spirit. Nothing else. But the truth of everlasting and unending punishment is proclaimed in order to emphasize the holiness and justice of God. Scripture teaches the inescapable punishment of the sinner. It teaches hell as the place of everlasting punishment, the terror of which can only be set forth in pictures. All unbelievers shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
THE REASON FOR THIS JUST AND INESCAPABLE PUNISHMENT IS THE UNCHANGEABLE HOLINESS OF GOD.
SCRIPTURE EMPHASIZES THROUGHOUT THAT GOD IS HOLY.
It sets before us the calling that we are to be holy, for God is holy. And that holiness of God is that attribute according to which He seeks and must seek Himself and His own glory. He is totally consecrated to Himself as the only Good. He desires and wills all things for His own name's sake. So that the calling of the law, is the calling of holiness for you and for me. We are to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly, perfectly to the Lord God. For you and me to be holy, we must be God-centered in our whole life, consecrated with heart and mind and soul and strength to the living God. That is holiness. And sin is an attack upon that holiness and glory of God. Sin seeks self, self-enjoyment, self-pleasure, self-fulfillment, self-, self-, self. Sin pushes God aside!
And because God is holy, eternally Self-seeking as the only Good, He is hotly displeased with all workers of iniquity. It isn't merely that He hates the sin and loves the sinner. That is an expression that is a denial of God's holiness. It is not with an abstraction that God deals when He judges. He does not express His wrath with an abstraction. The sinner must stand before Him. The sinner is called to love Him perfectly. The sinner has dared to bring his will into collision with the Most High. And against the sinner the holiness of God reveals itself in wrath. As the Catechism quotes from Galatians 3:10, which itself is a quote from the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things, which are written in the book of the law, to do them." That wrath of God is not a passing passion. Oh no. It is the eternal and continuous attitude of God over against the sinner, that consumes the sinner! In time and eternity, God wrath consumes the sinner. Joshua set that truth before Israel in Joshua 24:19,20: "And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good." The holiness of God, and the wrath that arises out of that holy jealousy for His own glory, are the reasons for the just and inescapable punishment of the sinner in time and eternity. And any religion that denies the seriousness of sin, and that denies the wrath of God against the sinner, is a religion that is rotten at its very root. For it denies the holiness of the God Who is God alone.
DO WE THEN DENY THAT GOD IS LOVE?
I want to close this morning by facing that question. And I ask for your close attention on this matter. There is much confusion in the church world today on this question. That confusion is rather recent. Up until very recent years, the past few decades, the Reformed churches always taught a particular love of God, a love that was for His people and for them only, a love that focuses upon Christ and therefore upon those who are in Christ. But in recent years virtually the whole Reformed church world has been consumed with the idea that God loves everybody, even those who are unbelieving and impenitent and whom God will ultimately cast into hell. And so much has this idea taken hold in the church world, that when you and I take the position that God does not love everybody, people look at us as if we are some life-form that suddenly turned up from another planet. They are shocked. Sometimes they are indignant that we would even take up space among them.
Beloved, we do not deny that God is love. Scripture teaches that throughout. God Himself tells us that the very essence of His Being is love. He is love. But we simply insist upon a biblical conception of this love of God. The trouble is that we are inclined in our sinful mind to define God's love on our terms, and to conceive of His love as if it must be identical with the love of the creature. But that we may never do. We may never carry our own definitions and conceptions to the Word of God. God Himself, remember, is love even apart from men. Before man was ever created, God was love. So we must be careful not to take that relationship between God and man, and use it as a basis to define His love. Love was before the creature. God loves Himself. As a Triune Being, He lives a life of love within Himself. And as such He loves Himself above all. Here we see the inseparable nature of His attributes. All God's attributes are one in Him. He is Holy, perfectly consecrated to Himself, perfectly self-seeking. He loves Himself. He cannot, He will not, love anything or anyone above Himself. For that reason God's love is a holy Self-love. We must understand, therefore, that His love for His creation and for His creatures is also a love for His name's sake. It is that holy self-love of God that comes to expression in His law. Because God made all things for His own name's sake, all creatures exist for Him. And man, therefore, must love Him above all.
What is now the relation between the God Who is love and man that He created? It is this, that the sinner refused to love God above all, and placed himself in rebellion over against the Holy One. The sinner really makes a bold attack upon the very Being of the Almighty, and attempts to steal into the holy Self-love of his Sovereign. And in doing so, he attacks God at the heart of His holy majesty! What then is the result? That God loves the sinner? Of course not. God loves Himself. Therefore this love of God for Himself causes Him to turn against the guilty sinner as a consuming fire, to kill that rebellious creature. The wrath of God, you see, is nothing less than His holy love for Himself, as that turns against any who attack His holiness.
Oh, this is not the last word. In mercy that goes beyond our human conception, and according to His own sovereign good pleasure, God ordained Christ His Son to be a Savior to a people of God's own choosing. And in Christ Jesus His Son, the Holy God focused the fire of His wrath that had to burn against us who had sinned against Him. His love came to expression toward the sinful men and women and children of His election, as He looked upon them in Christ. And so as we read in Romans 5:8, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." So we preach Christ. For that reason we call you and all who hear this gospel to repentance and faith. And if you believe this, if you believe the righteous judgment of God in punishing the sinner in time and eternity, if you stand before the holiness of God with a saving faith, then you may certainly know that God loves you. And looking upon the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, you see that love of God, and confess, "O Lord, I thank thee, that thou hast given thy Son to bear my curse, that I may have life forevermore." Amen.
Preached:1) Randolph PRC 8/11/96 (am)
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