And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
(Matthew 25:46 – ESV)
(Matthew 25:46 – ESV)
Everyone who has ever lived will spend eternity with Jesus. It is true.
Some, however, will spend eternity with Jesus in His love in Heaven, and others will spend eternity with Jesus in His wrath in Hell.
You are going to spend eternity with Jesus, the question is, where?
7 comments:
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” John 14:21
Know Him now or know Him later...
True!
Short and to the point. I was speaking to a pastor the other day and shared with him that all roads lead to God. God's eternal wrath or God's eternal love. He had never thought of it like that before. Of course, neither had I until I heard it from you. It is a sobering thought.
I am honestly wrestling with this concept... that the wrath of God is necessarily connected with the very presence of the Lord. There are so many who teach that the death of hell is an "eternal separation" from God. It seems to jive with the concept and ramifications of holiness. This weekend, I read the following passage, but I don't know the Greek well enough to do a more thorough study of this verse:
"They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might," --2nd Thes. 1:9
R.C. Sproul has taught the same thing (that hell is the presence of God in his wrath), (and I respect R.C. a lot) but for me, the jury is still out. I am not tossing the idea out; I'm just carefully listening for stronger evidence before I lock in to either explanation.
Can you recommend more Scripture passages or other references that might shed additional light on this topic?
Amos 5:6
Nahum 1:2, 8
Matthew 8:29
Romans 5:9
Revelation 6:15-16
Revelation 14:9-10
Read, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards...
In any event, God is onmipresent, and so when 2 Thessalonians talks of being separated from His presence, it means separated from any mercy at all...
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