A
Brother asked a deep question:
I
was reminded this morning of a statement made by Pastor: God provides the
righteous & wicked sustenance of water & food BUT eternal salvation to only those He gives to
our Lord Jesus Christ. Often one would ask why give lives to those whose ending
are in the lake of fires since He knows from eternity? How would you answer
such 'logic'? Hopefully keep us praying & meditating on this before the
church starts a new bible study topic of Job.
=========
Q:
Why give lives to those whose endings are in the lake of fire since He knew
from eternity?
I
didn’t mean to overlook these parts of the inquiries.
Here
are some thoughts:
i.
God is good and righteous in all His ways, whether in His office as the
Creator, the Governor, and Upholder of all His creation and creatures, and the
Redeemer – i.e. His work of creation, providence, and redemption.
-
His moral creatures who observe and obey the Creator’s laws are blessed; He is
good and righteous.
-
His redeemed children, freely by Divine grace, who do the Father’s will are
blessed in this life; He is good and righteous.
ii.
Let us retrace our steps way back in time, and beyond time…
-
When the Triune God decreed the creation of man in eternity (before time began;
all divine decrees were made in eternity even though they were executed in
time), the whole human race was represented by their federal head Adam; Adam
was decreed to be the representative head of the whole human race.
-
In time, the creation of man was executed, i.e. on the sixth day of the
creation week. When God had created man, He entered into a covenant of life
with Adam (as the representative head of the whole human race), upon the
condition of perfect obedience (which Adam was completely capable of, having
been created very good): forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, upon pain of death (physical death, and eternal death in the
lake of fire mentioned; the separation of body and spirit, and the permanent
separation from God, the fountain of all blessings.
iii.
God the Creator entered into a covenant of life with the whole human race
represented by Adam.
This
covenant of life was made in the context of the following:
-
Adam and his wife were made perfectly upright and righteous, i.e. very good.
They were perfectly capable of willing and rendering perfect obedience to the
Creator God.
-
Adam and his wife were placed in the garden of Eden, the most perfect,
conducive environment unto obedience.
-
The condition of the covenant of life was simple, refrain from eating of the
fruit of the tree of knowledge good and evil. I have said many times from the
pulpit that the tree is just like any other tree; it is not poisonous or
toxic. Not eating of it as the LORD God
had commanded is to acknowledge that the LORD God is both the Creator and Ruler
and the Sole Arbiter of what is good and evil; eating it is the rejection of
and defiance against the LORD God as their Creator and Ruler and the Sole
Arbiter of what is good and evil, declaring man as autonomous, the source of
what’s good and evil, man declaring himself god!
-
This prohibition was preceded by this exceedingly glorious liberty, “Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat.”
iv.
Everything, absolutely everything was exceedingly in the favour of Adam and the
whole human race represented by him in the covenant of life the LORD God so
graciously entered with him and his race.
-
Everything was SO FAVOURABLE to Adam and his whole race to confirm themselves
in the covenant of life and continue their perfect sinless life in the natural
paradise and creation pronounced by the LORD God as “very good.”
-
BUT ALAS… he blew it and damned himself and brought his whole race into ruin.
What was the ruin?
-
“… for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Please note, it
does not say, “… thou shalt die” but “thou shalt SURELY die.” Please note too
that the serpent didn’t say, “Ye shall not die” but “ye shall not SURELY die.”
-
The emphatic and intensive adverb “surely” conveys the severity and intensity
of the death intended. It is intended to convey. “in dying, thou shalt surely
die.” Simply put – eternal separation from God, i.e. lake of fire.
-
“For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.” Rom 6:23.
v.
With the background above, we may be able to respond to the question “Why give
lives to those whose endings are in the lake of fires since He knows from
eternity?”
-
Why give lives to those whose endings are in the lake of fire?
-
All the human lives that the LORD God had decreed, and were represented and
embraced in Adam in the covenant of life, to CONTINUE to enjoy the natural life
of perfect bliss in this perfect world of God’s creation.
-
Each and every life in the human race was placed in the perfect sinless “very
good” world, with the covenant of life to confirm themselves to continue in
such perfect bliss in the “very good” world. That was how it began. Their
probation period was in the most favourable and conducive environment.
-
So, it was man’s own doing that they end up in the lake of fire; but wicked men
would want to blame the LORD God, just like Adam blamed the LORD God for giving
him the woman whom he had rejoicingly owned earlier as “bones of my bone, and
flesh of my flesh.”
BUT
by God’s abundant mercy, He did not let every one of Adam’s race end up in the
lake of fire. It would have been perfectly just and righteous of the LORD God
to leave the whole human race to its just desert. But wicked men are blind to
their own faults but always find faults with the LORD God.
“For
the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.”
-
“wages” is something justly EARNED, and must be rendered. A place in the lake
of fire is justly earned.
- “free
gift of God” – this is a free gift indeed, completely, wholly, truly unmerited,
and instead bestowed unto the most ill-deserving rebels.
Why
would men who love not God in this life want to be with God in heaven in the
next and whine about the lake of fire is a good question? (assuming they do
believe in the things presupposed in the question!)
I
hope the above helps.
Keep
asking.
