Cheese, Music, Marriage, and God and the Church

Long-standing love affairs.

As the blame-passing scab-picking garden-variety of psychotherapy will have you know, the seeds of dysfunction were sowed in childhood, with the thin foil and red tabs of The Laughing Cow. By 13, cheese was so much part of my life, so spinach to Popeye, that "Je mange du fromage avec du pain" was de rigueur in any self-description. The hardcore hard-rind stuff came mostly in England, home to the Wensleydale-chomping Wallace and with him, a whole nation of nibblers who must have, through centuries of communal nibbling (and thousands of cups of tea), created the Cheddar Gorge. Countryside-living was inevitably dairy-related: a shortcut to a particular pub for weekly smoky chats on philosophy meant sneaking through a muddy paddock, running if chased by the resident bull. Sunny summer days meant cows, expressing their great satisfaction with the sweet grass, interrupting lectures. And there was always a crumb of curdled and fermented milk to be had about town. Cheese, like good farmhouse artisanal mould, was unhindered in its blue-green veining through the creamy curds of my life: one summer, lost in a storm on Ben Nevis, it was a little package of Scottish mature cheddar and highland oatcakes that (as they often say in British stories about adventures of sorts) kept my spirits up. And back in Singapore, Monsieur Gérard Poulard's early incursions suggested that a long-term stay here might just have the right kind of stink about it after all.

Two fromageries opened in Singapore in the last few months: a little walk-in cupboard at Jones the Grocer's and another simply called La Fromagerie along Mohamed Sultan. ("Chi-chi cheese-shopping" someone sniffed. But unlike some overpriced frivolities (I'm talkin' about you, S$20 Persian candy floss), much cheese is honest-to-goodness stuff, like hot crusty bread and cold beer. Plus, since Ramadan's just over, dried figs and dates, with which Muslims usually break their fast, still abound. The possibilities (BVM surprise guest-appearance on grilled cheese sandwich excepted)!) But they are only a small whiff of the great heaven that is Neal's Yard Dairy, stockist of 200 cheeses piled high to the sky, exuding promises of casomorphine opiates.

Perhaps, I said to someone, cheese is my raisin cake. Or perhaps strawberries are my raisin cake. But I came to strawberries later in life than cheese. You are going all postmodern on me, he said. I am going to leave you now, very quietly, and shut the door behind me. And I will make no sudden movements. I might even throw you some Babybel once I am safely outside.

Or perhaps, music is my raisin cake, came the realisation, as Wang Jian sawed through the third movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor. An indiscriminate love that knows no bounds: Gregorian plainchant, polyphonic counterpointy Baroque, coquettish Classical, OTT opera, hep-hoppin' jazz, moshpit metal, eccentric 80s, SNAG soft-rock, blingbling hiphop, college indie, bouncy Bollywood, cheesy Chinese...I love them all from the bottom of my pencilcase. I can live without cheese and strawberries, but if I never hear even soppy songs with my ears again, I promise you that I shall never breathe again, breathe again, that I shall never breathe again.

Soppy songs. It is the season for weddings again.

Floating on the top of the breaking curl that was the series on Hosea, boosted by the talks imported by kind friends from this year's London's Men's Convention (fetchingly titled "liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons"?), weddings have never looked more beautiful.

Weddings: the smile of sunshine, the white satin train of the bride's gown, the fragrance of bouquets, the smell of cologne and new suits, the back-patting, the teary farewells, the walk-in, the giving-away of the bride, the cameras, the sermon on love, the solemnisation, what God has brought together let no man put asunder, the unveiling, the kiss, the signing of the marriage register, the hand-in-hand walk-out as husband and wife, the thrown rice and popped confetti, the photos for the family album, the hearty hugs and grinned best wishes, the happy whispers of how great the new couple look together.

But. Far more than the entertainment value afforded by the perfect execution of meticulous plans and aesthetically-pleasing couples set in dreamily-romantic mis-en-scenes, the tear-inducing heart-bursting beauty of weddings lies in that of which they are but mere shadows: God and his people, Christ and the church.

The tender love exhibited by the wedding couple that makes the rheumy hearts of many an old aunt flutter is but a puny birthday candle to the great hot furnace that is God's love for his people and Christ's love for the church.

We think that a wedding is one of the most lovely, most romantic things in the world. But, step right up step right up! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Plato might have said had he known, you have all been obsessed with mere shadows! What's that? A heart full of love you say, sir? Filled your days with endless wonder did he eh, lady? Well! You haven't seen anything yet.

The story, good folk, the real story is that of the divine husband and his adulterous wife; a wife so stupid, so greedy, so lewd, that even though married to the perfect husband, she abandoned him to strut her stuff openly before lascivious male eyes. Lacking even the remnant of decorum of whores, who allow themselves to be approached by customers, in a frenzy of desperate lust, she pursued her would-be lovers.

So Hosea indicted Israel, who'd chased after the Baals in crazed delusion that they had been responsible for her prosperity and abundance. What inexcusable stupidity. She, of all people, ought to have been familiar with her true husband. Centuries of Israelite history, written down in God's word and repeated by prophet after prophet, should have taught her that God alone was her creator and her sustainer. No one apart from him was able to give and take away life and all the trappings of existence.

Through Hosea, Yahweh contrasted her thirst for spiritual adultery, for the Baals, with her treatment of him:"But me she forgot." She had courted their favour and adorned herself for mute idols, but neglected and slighted her real benefactor and true lover.

The LORD swore that her betrayal of his love would not succeed. Israel's misuse of God's gifts to her would prompt him to withdraw them. At the time of the harvest, the crop and wine would fail. Her vines and fig-trees would be laid barren. Her people would starve and die.

But God did not intend to send Israel away as a bad job, or win custody of the children and then look for a much better mother for them. Instead, amazingly, he wished to allure rotten old Israel once more, to rekindle the romance they'd enjoyed in their honeymoon years, to draw her back into union with himself. The image was not just of renewal or renovation of the old marriage but a completely new betrothal, with Israel starting out again as a fresh-faced virgin bride. And unlike the complete mess of the old marriage, the new marriage would last forever, secured by steadfast love and mutual faithfulness. And it'd be God who would impart to Israel the qualities that will ensure a marriage for all eternity.

The institution of marriage is not a convenient metaphor co-opted to describe the relationship between God and his people. Rather, God instituted marriage for the very purpose of demonstrating to dimwitted humans some faint shadow of the mindblowing relationship Christ would have with his church (Ephesians 5:32).

So human marriage is not a useless Victorian social construct to be thrown out with yesterday's kitschy fridge magnets but an institution weaved into our human fabric to be a meaningful display of the love relationship between Christ and his body. We preserve marriages not because of shared family values nor so that the children won't grow up splashing out money on psychiatrists' couches nor so as to give Dr James Dobson a point of pontification, as if marriages were valuable in and of themselves; we preserve marriages because Creator made them so that when a man and a woman come together in matrimony, they do, by his design and in a way we cannot fully comprehend, truly become one flesh.

And if God designed marriage, then he alone knows how best they are meant to work. And they work best in imitation of Christ's loving relationship with the church (Ephesians 5).

Extremely elegant equations. Our math teacher (who ever-despaired of us brutally hacking our way to the correct answer) would have applauded.

Yet if our relationship with God is not an armslength schoolteacher-badstudent one, but one even more intimate than a marriage, then raisin cakes are no laughing matter. Sins, trivial though they seem, aren't just about cheekily breaking a window and running away or copying someone else's homework; they are about having our lives and our decisions revolve around things other than the one whom they should rightfully revolve around: God, in place of God; they are acts of adultery, they constitute the vomitous betrayal of a relationship, the cuckolding of the perfect husband, the tearing away at an entity that has since been constituted organically as one flesh.

Whoredom, Raymond C Ortlund Jr
Marriage: Sex in the Service of God, Christopher Ash

Jones the Grocer
Dempsey Hill
Block 9 Dempsey Road #01-12

La Fromagerie
5 Mohamed Sultan Road
Singapore 239014
Tel: 6732 6269

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, Magic, Love and Death

Well, that's done then.

The canon: revealed to be fanfiction on shoot-'em-up blockbuster steroids (interesting innit, the universality of certain fears and hopes and dreams), accompanied by healthy shot of deus ex machina, a goodly dose of Chekhov's gun, a sprinkling of peripeteia (some gratuitous). Throughout, the Harry/Voldemort mindlink was milked to the max for toggling between scenes. And at the end, an express cash-in of plot coupons for the final boss showdown. Ah but, Joanne, was the extended dénouement Epilogue at all necessary?

Following photo contains spoilers:
Harry and Snape gaze into each others' eyes. Snape holds Harry and pulls him close.

"Look...at....me..." he whispers.

The green eyes find the black. Snape glows a pale fluorescent green at Harry...

Alright. Not totally.

Meanwhile, some fan's apparently typed out the whole book and pdf-ed it. Why in the name of Merlin's saggy left... But typos abound like a gnome infestation in the garden. A weighty tome of sustainable paper in hand might be fairer and better (for eyesight, probably not for trees).

PS: Magic in the Wizarding World, analogous to science in our Muggle world, has its limitations: it does not give the solution to every problem; vast and deep knowledge of it does not endow its holder with power and control over every aspect of life (and death).

PPS: Undergirding love motif and love motive in Harry Potter:

• One of the limits of magic in the Wizarding World is that it cannot create love. Well, not true love anyway. Slughorn discussing the properties of Amortentia in Half-blood Prince:"Amortentia doesn't really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room - oh yes. When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love."
• True love, which Voldemort dismissed as old magic and weakness, proved ultimately to be more powerful than the most powerful magic. It was Lily's love for Harry that caused her to shield him from the killing curse. It was Severus Snape's lasting love for Lily Evans that led him to betray Voldemort. It was Harry's love for his friends that brought him before Voldemort to be killed without any attempt at self-defence. It was Narcissa's love for Draco that made her lie about Harry's death.
  
  At the final battle, Harry tried to explain all this to Voldy:
  

  "You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people -"
  
  "But you did not!"
  
  " - I meant to, and that's what did it. I've done what my mother did. They're protected from you. Haven't you noticed how none of the spells you put on them are binding? You can't torture them. You can't touch them. You don't learn from your mistakes, Riddle, do you?"

• Plus, love motive in Wizarding World = not direct Christian allegory or symbolism but deliberate simulacrum? (The afterdeath chat between Harry and Dumbledore was, afterall, at *King's Cross*, whatwhat.) Only in reality, the sacrificial love unto death was not to save us from Eternal Evil (for Evil never quite had the upper hand) but from Eternal Condemnation to Death Wrought By Our Own Hands.

PPPS: Recurring death leitmotif:

• One of the other limits of magic in the Wizarding World is that it cannot resurrect the dead. The Inferi are just dead bodies. The Resurrection Stone (one of the Hallows in Deathly Hallows) can recall some semblence of the dead but once recalled they are separated from the living as by a veil, and returned to the mortal world where they do not truly belong, the dead suffer. Magical objects like the Philosopher's Stone and unicorn's blood (drinking it with the terrible price of being cursed forever) can be used to assist living and prolong life, but that is in the absence of accidentally wandering into the path of a stray Avada Kedavra. Death still conquers in the end.
  
• Knowing, perhaps, the limitations of magic, Voldemort feared death, specifically (seeing the bloodbath of Book 7) his own death. In Order of the Phoenix, the madeover Tom Riddle snarled,"There is nothing worse than death!". He went to great lengths to avoid it, what with soul-splitting and horcruxes and suchlike. To die was weak. The constant threat of his own death put a bit of a dampener on his ambition to universal and eternal power as Da Dark Lord. In one polite little exchange, Dumbledore corrects his former student: "...your failure to understand that there are things much worse than death has always been your greatest weakness".
• Dumbledore too, in his younger days, wanted to master death for invincibility, for personal glory and triumph. Hence the search for the three Hallows. Later, though, it is clear he repented of this view, explaining to Harry in Philosopher's Stone that Nicholas Flamel destroying the Philosopher's Stone was no problemo; "After all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure".
• Harry, as expected, was the true master of death: not that he could not die, but that "...the true master does not seek to run away from Death. He accepts that he must die, and understands that there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying".
  
• And remember the gravestone of James and Lily Potter at Godric's Hollow:
  

  "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death"
  
  A horrible thought came to him, and with it a kind of panic. "Isn't that a death eater idea? Why is that there?"
  
  "It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry,"said Hermione, her voice gentle. "It means...you know... living beyond death. Living after death."

  Totally, word-for-word, 1 Corinthians 15:26 (KJV Bible).
  
  Death is not something to be feared, not because as mature adults, we accept death as a fact of life and do not seek to run away from it with pills and health regimes.
  
  We do not fear death because there is life after death. If, as Dumbledore says in Half-Blood Prince that "it is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more", then the antidote to mad fear is certainty about the afterlife. Not an afterlife of our own imagination of course, sometimes of the variety featuring fluffy white clouds, angels with harps and ("choose only Menu A or Menu B") Menu A: an everlasting chocolate fountain buffet where no buffeteer ever gets fat, Menu B: 7,000 virgins.
  
  For, if the afterlife is only of our own imagination, and if, infact, death is really The End, then Christians and their silly faith and hopes are to be pitied more than all others.
  
  How can we be certain about the afterlife? The usual way: on good solid evidence; the testimony of one of trustworthy character, who died and was raised again from the dead, who by his death conquered Death.
  
  So there will be a Last Day when all the dead will be resurrected. But not all afterlife will be equal: those who'd, in their earlier life, repented of their rebellion against God and trusted in Christ's death to save them will indeed see salvation from the wrath of God and will rise to new life. Those who didn't bother getting Christ's blood as a Protective Shield will rise to be condemned and bear the full brunt of God's terrible judgement themselves.
  
  Always good to plan ahead.

"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

***
For everyone who keeps asking who died in Deathly Hallows:

• Charity Barbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts, was killed by Voldemort at the Malfroy's mansion and fed to Nagini;
  
• Hewig died when Harry was attacked by Death Eaters while leaving the Dursleys;
• Mad-Eye Moody was killed by Voldemort while acting as a decoy for Harry. His body was never recovered though, grossly, his magical eye was found tacked to Umbridge's door, suggesting that the Ministry found his body;
• Rufus Scrimgeour during the takeover of the Ministry of Magic by Death Eaters;
  
• Bathilda Bagshot, a minor character, the author of the Hogwarts textbook A History of Magic and an old family friend of the Dumbledores, was killed off-set and was impersonated by Voldemort's snake, Nagini, the better to draw Harry and Hermione into a trap;
• Peter Pettigrew, aka Wormtongue, aka the secret-keeper who betrayed the Potters to Voldemort, was strangled by his own silver Hand of Glory when he hesitated in killing Harry;
• Dobby caught Bellatrix's knife in his chest while disapparating with Harry, Hermione, Ron and Griphook from Malfroy's mansion;
• a Gringotts goblin (possibly Griphook?) for not preventing the break-in to the Lestranges' vault and allowing Potter etc to run off with Helga Hufflepuff's cup;
• Severus Snape is killed by Nagini on Voldemort's order because Voldemort mistakenly thinks Snape is the master of the Elder Wand;
  
• Vincent Crabbe accidentally burns himself to death with Fiendfyre;
  
• Remus Lupin and his wife Nymphadora Tonks at the Battle of Hogwarts;
• Fred Weasley at the Battle of Hogwarts;
  
• Colin Creevey at the Battle of Hogwarts;
  
• Bellatrix Lestrange at the Battle of Hogwarts by Molly Weasley(!); and
  
• lastly, Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle, aka The Dark Lord, aka He Who Must Not Be Named, by his own backfiring Avada Kedavra. It's a long story.
  
• (I suppose a whole lot of Death Eaters die too but no one seems to be keeping count.)
  

***
Harry Potter, the Deathly Hallows and the Internet Chatter Juggernaut (Or Something)
Some Christians Read Harry Potter

Compelled By Love

Compelled By Love
Compelled by love Christ left His Father's glory
The Word took flesh as man He did appear
The Son of God took on the role of servant
And emptied all to bring salvation near

Compelled by love Christ heralded the Gospel
Repent believe the Kingdom is at hand
Despite His call Israel failed to follow
They turned aside despised the Son of Man

Compelled by love Christ set His face to Zion
He gave His life nailed to the tree in pain
Though without sin He took our place in suffering
To set us free from all our guilt and shame

Compelled by love Christ will return in glory
And all the earth will join in endless praise
But until then we go to all the nations
Compelled by love to share the news of grace
Bryson Smith and Philip Percival

Serial Cereal-eating, God's Love and Christian Love (Part II)

It's been a mad few weeks with parties and dinners and birthdays and weddings and CLOBS and DGs and makeup Bible studies and friends' performances and friends' recitals and writing talks together and planning camps and restaurant openings and deal closings and housewarmings and new babies to visit and late-night discussions (accompanied by pen-twirling and spreadsheets on laptops) over coffee and wine that descend into series of non sequiturs:
"30's too much."
"Coconuts."
"A coleman?"
"We can have crocker. With the baby's basketball."
"I only have a tennis one."
"No good. We want big for ice."
"We're having a party on New Year's Eve."
"How can a birthday party be evangelistic if the very essence of a birthday celebration is ME, ME, ME?"
"Coconuts." (Very persistent, that one.)

And past midnight one...err...day, there was serial cereal-eating going on: there was Trix, unashamedly, proudly even, choked enriched with refined sugar, artificial colours and flavours; there was Strawberry & Almond Crunch from Marks & Spencer; there were good old Milo pops out of the box. Then there was singing, in a poorthing Mexican accent, to the tune of "On Top of Spaghetti":

On top of my Bible, all covered with crumbs
I lost my poor cocoa ball when somebody bumped

He rolled off the table, and onto the floor
And then my poor cocoa ball, he roll out the door.

And as yet another Milo pop made a hasty getaway, there appeared a bowl for effective containment and some cold milk for drowning potential escapees.

Cereal-fuelled and awash with chocolate milk, there were brains bouncing off the walls and a great number of flowcharts drawn and some handwaving and loads of Scripture-sifting through the night, until some lacklustre grey light, trying to pass off as dawn, made a shamefaced appearance in the sky.

"The sun!" she exclaimed optimistically, even as the birds chirped hesitantly, suspiciously; the tentative scattered applause of an audience unsure if an unfamiliar piece had ended and there was fresh bit about to start, or if it was just more of the same. For breakfast, because we were out of breakfast cereal, there was meringue with the last of the Northern Hemisphere's raspberries.

(Beloved, John the Apostle might have said, this is how you may know you are Singaporean: that you eat breakfast cereal for dessert and dessert for breakfast.)

But enough with ribbing poor old John. For all his apparent garrulousness, his letters are still the word of God.

Love and the Kingdom of God
John tells us that even though we do not earn admission into the kingdom of God by our acts of love towards our neighbours, there is an unbreakable connection between the existence of love in a Christian and his entrance into the kingdom. God's sheep follow his voice and his commandments, and love of neighbour is the second part of God's great double commandment of loving the LORD our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength (Mark 12:28-34). Love is the characteristic mark of those who are already in the kingdom (John 13:34-35, 1 John 2:3-6, 3:10b - 18, 4:7-21).

As in Part I, I don't suppose it is possible for any one post to be able to encompass the absolute enormity of the concept of love. However, since D.A. Carson has had a pretty decent go in "Love in Hard Places", most of what follows is quoted at length from it, with some rearrangement, editing and interjection:
Evangelical Clichés
Love is niceness
The sentimental view of love, when applied to a deity, renders God with all the awesome holiness of a cuddly toy and all the moral integrity of a marshmallow.

Applied to Christians, the sentimental view breeds expectations of transcendental niceness. This view says that whatever else Christians should be, they should be nice, where "niceness" usually means smiling a lot and never ever hinting that anyone may be wrong about anything (hey, that isn't nice). In the local church, it means abandoning church discipline (it isn't nice to be judgemental), and in many contexts it means restoring adulterers (for instance) to pastoral office at the mere whimper of broken repentance. After all, isn't the church about forgiveness? Aren't we supposed to love one another? Aren't we just called to be really nice people?

Similarly with respect to doctrine: the word/law kills, while the Spirit gives life, and everyone knows, of course, that the Spirit is Mr. Nice. So let us love one another and refrain from becoming upright and uptight about this divisive thing called "doctrine" and this other thing called "truth".

Our surrounding culture's sophomoric reduction of love, even Christian love, into niceness is far from biblical, for the Bible speaks firstly of the overarching responsibility of the Christian to speak the truth in all circumstances and the need to deal seriously with error and sin by, in some instances, church discipline. Scripture also speaks of a diversity of ways in which one ought to express Christian love and a diversity of contexts that demand something a great deal more profound than sentimental niceness.

It is not easy to think clearly with exegetical evenhandedness when you are being told, by outsiders or even other Christians, that you are not nice, that you are not displaying Christian love, that infact, you are a hypocrite because you have politely pointed out that the God someone worships is not the true God that the Bible presents. All of us know with shame that the church has generated its share of hypocrites, don't we? So hearing the scorn, not knowing quite how to answer, we are tempted to hunker down in our holes and resolve to be a little nicer - to smile a bit more, to crinkle the eyes and to hold that tongue even on matters of the gospel.

But we must remember that our ways are not to be the ways of the world, and our behaviour, not what is right in the eyes of the world or pleasing to them but in the eyes of God and pleasing to him.

Loving someone doesn't mean you need to like him
It is sometimes objected that love cannot be commanded: one falls in love, or one surges with love, or love grows cold but the affections cannot be commanded. Which is why some defend the false view of agapic love (discussed previously). That gives people scope for willing the good of the scoundrel whom they emotionally detest - a nice dodge. Love your neighbour but hate his guts. But we have already seen that such a view of agapic love is erroneous. In any case, it is dismissed by Paul's warning in 1 Corinthians 13 that even the kind of willed philanthropy and self-sacrifice that causes one to cast one's body to the flames can be loveless. Such a compartmentalised view of love cannot prevail. We are not allowed off the hook so easily.

(At this stage, the MumblyOne pointed out that we need not necessarily hang out and attempt to enjoy each other's sinful reformed nature, but we still fellowship in love and stand alongside our brothers who are in need, in the knowledge that we will be spending eternity together. And God cuts away our petty dislikes for the furtherance of his kingdom.)

Our failure to respond wholly to the double commandment is a function not of some alleged inherent incapacity of the affections but our sinful weakness, a function of the Fall. Just as the law functions, in part to expose our lostness, our moral inability and culpability and thus to multiply our explicit transgressions, so also here these two great commands expose our lostness, our moral inability and culpability and thus multiply our explicit transgressions.

Why love?
From 1 John, we know that we find assurance of our status as children of God by the fact that we do, in practice, love our brothers. But this is not so much a reason to love as a consequence, an effect, of loving. So why do we love? Because God first loved us (1 John 4:19) and he demonstrated this by sending his Son to die in our place, that we might have eternal life.

As a young Christian, I struggled to see the nexus between God's love and our love. Why should God's love translate into love for him and for others? Was the command some sort of emotional blackmail, like how many Asian parents wave about their acts of sacrificial love to lay claim to their right to filial piety from their children? Or the sort of guilt trip laid on by politicians who say,"Look how much I did for you: I built this nation from nothing, I upgraded your housing estate, but you were ungrateful enough not to love me by voting for me at the elections"?

The parable of the debtor was most educational:

...the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.

"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded.

"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.

"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (Matthew 18:23-35)

And so Jesus instructs his disciples to pray "Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:13), for if we grasp the enormity of the forgiveness and mercy that is shown by God to us in the giving of his Son for us, if we are so filled with this extraordinarily bighearted display of love, then it cannot help but overflow into our other relationships. Why love? Because we cannot help ourselves but love, and it is unthinkable that we nurse our little petty grudges against our brothers and perpetuate silly quarrels with our sisters. (Unthinkable, but our sinful selves sometimes have no qualms in indulging in such things.)

If we have established that our love as Christians is certainly derivative of God's own love, what should be the nature of a Christian's love for God and for brother and neighbour?

A Christian's Love for God: No Exact Reciprocation
Naturally, there cannot be an exact parallel between speaking of God's love and speaking of a Christian's love, for the simple reason that there are, to put it mildly, rather significant differences between God and his image-bearers. Our creatureliness and our fallenness necessarily means that our love can neither reciprocate his exactly nor emulate it entirely.

God's love for us is the love of Creator for creature; ours is the love of creature for the Creator. In some instances, the descriptions of his love for us are clearly redemptive, the love of a holy but a redeeming God for sinners; our love for him is never redemptive, but the response of hearts grateful for being loved. Our love is properly centered on him, with heart and soul and strength and mind, because he alone is God. When his love is fastened on us, it is most certainly not because we are God, but because he is God - that kind of God.

Christian's Love for Neighbour: Attempt at Emulation
Of our love for other Christians, a redeemed fallen man's love for a fellow redeemed fallen man, the Bible expressly urges emulation of the different facets of God's love.

(1) God's Intra-Trinitarian Love
Christians are to love each other (1 Thessalonions 5:15; Galatians 6:10) because they are indeed truly and organically one, like the Trinity is one. So God's intra-Trinitarian love is to be mirrored in the peculiar love that binds Christian to Christian. "I have made you known to them," Jesus tells his Father,"and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them" (John 17:26).

Unity, however, is not an intrinsic good. There is good unity, and there is bad unity. Bad unity occurs in Genesis 11 when rebellious humankind unites to build a tower to heaven to defy God. Good unity occurs around the throne of God, which is surrounded by people bought by the blood of the Lamb of God, people drawn "from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9). Good unity is found among the disciples of Jesus, those for whom he prays in John 17:23:"May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me".

If this intra-church inter-Christian love commanded by God is to manifest in unity amongst Christians, the echo and extension of God's intra-Trinitarian love and unity, then this unity is to be a gospel unity and those who deny the fundamentals of the gospel are to be regarded as outside of the locus of this fold.

And however flawed the church is, the unity for which Jesus prayed for is real, deep and partially-realised on this side of the consummation. And we do see this in our experience, don't we? Despite substantial differences, we see genuine believers reach across cultural, linguistic, organisational, denominational, racial and economic barriers, and by their love they promote the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(2) God's Providential Love
As sons of God (Matthew 5:9), we are to love our enemies in imitation of our Father who shows universal and undifferentiated love in his providential provision for the righteous and the unrighteous alike. God evenhandedly sends his sun and rain upon both the just and the unjust (Matthew 5:45b).

If God himself is so generous and gracious, should we not act similarly?

However, just as we cannot absolutize passages that speak of God's providential love and thereby domesticate or eliminate other ways the Bible has of speaking of God's love (for there is also God's wrath and God's judgement upon his enemies), so also one cannot responsibly absolutize this moral demand on Jesus' followers and eliminate other thing we should be imitating in God, for instance, in hating his enemies and being holy because he is holy (Leviticus 11:44-45, 1 Peter 1:15).

(3) God's Salvific Love
God's yearning love to see men and women saved is to be repeated in us: the God who loved the world now commands us to preach the gospel to every creature, driven by the same love to implore a dying world,"Be reconciled to God!"

And we are given another reason to love our enemies: Romans 12 urges us to love our enemies by appealing to God's mercies in redemption. After all, in redemption, God has given us the supreme example of loving enemies:"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Similarly, the ethical appeal in 1 Peter 3:9 - 12 finds itself under the explosion of praise in 1 Peter 1:3: it was in God's great mercy that he gave us new birth and thus empowered us to live in a certain way.

We have been called to follow Jesus and if Jesus suffered reproach and hate, then his followers must surely expect the same, since a disciple is not above his master (John 15:18 - 16:4). 1 Peter says that Christians are called to a life in which we do not repay evil with evil, insult with insult, but rather with blessing. Paul tells the Philippians: it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him (Philippians 1:29).

(It flies in the face of our inbuilt selfishness to bless those who persecute us and seems terribly unfair and unjust. Surely there must be justice. Surely those who defy God and blaspheme his name and hate his people should be treated harshly. But we are not to respond in kind, even when such response might be just, because at the end of the day, God himself will exact justice. We are to "leave room" for God's wrath (Romans 12:19). All sins are sins against God himself so the forgiveness and punishment of sins are God's prerogative and he will exercise this prerogative in due time.)

The demonstration of Christian love within the body and the demonstration of Christian love for those who are on the outside combine to drive us toward evangelism. Jesus said,"to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me". It is Christ's love that compels the ambassadors of the new covenant to exercise their ministry of reconciliation, imploring men and women on Christ's behalf,"Be reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:14, 20). Christ's love for us reminds us that we did not deserve this wonderful salvation. Because we have been objects of Christ's seeking and redeeming love, so we become the mediators of that love to others.

(4) God's Choosing/Selective Love
God's sovereign love for the elect is reflected not only in Christian love within the community of faith, but also in Christian marriages: as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, so the Christian husband is to love his wife and give himself for her (Ephesians 5:25) - and that, too is a restrictive and selective love, even as it is sacrificial and seeks the other's good.

If the love of Christ for the church is the standard of the husband's love for his wife, the least that this standard means is that the love must be self-sacrificial and for her good, for that is the way Christ loved the church. Always, therefore, the Christian husband must be thinking of expressing his love for his wife not only in terms of the characteristics found in 1 Corinthians 13, but with these two immensely practical tests: in what ways am I diligently seeking her good? And how is this pursuit of her good costing me something, promipting me to sacrifice something, as an expression of my love for her - in exactly the same way that the Saviour sought the church's good at the cost of his life?

The PatientOne thought that in the case of a life partner, liking the person would probably help with the lifetime commitment to love them. But regardless of whether the husband's heart still pounds within his chest upon setting his eyes on his wife, God's love for his people never allows them to forget that when he set his love on them, they were enemies (eg. Romans 5:8-11), for we are all by nature "objects of wrath" (Ephesians 2:3). So the husband is to love sacrificially his wife whether or not she is likeable or even deserving of his love.

(5) God's Conditional Love
If in some contexts God's love is made conditional on obedience, in some contexts ours is too: as we rear our children, exercise discipline in the church, deal with evil in a fallen and broken world. Indeed, just as the Bible's diverse ways of talking about God's love cannot responsibly be deployed to eradicate other things of which the Bible speaks (God's wrath, his judgement, his jealousy, his perfect holiness, his justice, his mercy), so the Bible's diverse ways of talking about the Christian's love cannot responsibly be deployed to eradicate or domesticate the fullness and complexity of what the Bible says about our dealings with sin, injustice, war, brokenness and judgement in this life and in the life to come.

Sticky!

If one of the dangers of this discussion has been to focus on and differentiate between the myriad ways the Bible has of talking about the love Christians should display, then the corrective is to focus on the motive for loving: a very important reality - the reality of God's love. "We love," John writes,"because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Love is so inherent in God's nature that love is a ncessary mark of every person who is born of God:"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:7-8). If we grasp something of the spectacular way in which God has shown his love for us in the giving of his only Son to die for us, if we understand the enormous richness of this love in our lives, that is to say, if we have knowledge leading to salvation, it cannot but spill over into all our relationships whether with our spouse, our friends, our churchmates or our enemies. There is an unbreakable and inevitable connection between entrance into the kingdom of God and our love for others.

But we know too well that in this world, in this life, despite all the pleasure and healing it could bring, Christian love will always be a matter of loving in hard places. But none of it as hard as what God himself did:"God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us...For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" (Romans 5:8,10).

The commandment to love our neighbours, even our enemies, surfaces in diverse and colourful ways in the New Testament. All of these diverse forms of expression are deeply challenging, greatly burdensome in time and energy, and might sometimes be hurtful and painful, but we know that none is naïve.

And we can be sure, as David Jackman says in "The Message of John's Letters", that his commands are no more burdensome than wings are to a bird. They are the means by which we live in freedom and fulfilment, as God intended us to do. We would hardly be commanded to love God and our neighbour if love were not a function of God's will and if we were unable to do so or if this was not God's optimal design for humans. But this does not mean that it is easy to fulfil God's commandment and God's design.

A Christian does not go on habitually practicing sin (1 John 3:9) but he certainly sins (1 John 1:8) and he is not happy to remain in any state of sin. And he thanks God that God has provided forgiveness in the person of Jesus Christ our advocate (1 John 2:1).

One day, the hard places will be gone. But the love will remain, unalloyed, immensely rich, reflecting in small but glorious ways the immeasurable love we have received. There, we will be able to love and be love perfectly.

The Haze, God's Love and Christian Love (Part I)

The Haze, God's Love and Christian Love (Part I)

"My child, my dear child. When you are grown, all this will be yours."
"Eh," said the child as the Pollutant Standards Index rose to 150 and the dreary horizon was barely distinguishable from the grey sky and his throat burned from the acrid air,"that's very kind of you, but no thanks."

Weeks of dismalness and tenebrific bleakness has meant that most meals have been had, grudgingly, indoors, out of the eye-watering haze. (Beanies and scarves and boots stayed in storage because it wasn't the good sort of grey you get before a beautiful snowfall.) The air was thick with the dust of Indonesian fires and hints of Seasonal Affective Disorder, kept somewhat at bay by the cheap bawdiness of Ἀριστοφάνης.

"My friends," said someone, swishing a red dishcloth about grandly like a cape, thrusting forth a worn fryingpan heroically like a weapon of war,"this calls for drastic action!" So there were ladles of duck confit and hunks of bread and stone cups of cold apple cider and plates of crêpes spread thickly with crème de marrons and then more cider and some cake and also, because someone knew where they were in bloom, rainbow cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles, and a pretty slim red teapot (which, really, deserves to have a tearoom named just for it) for mugs of strong hot tea. There were cunning plans to convert smooth secretblack T2 cannisters (fresh from Tangs, Vivocity) into smooth secretblack pinhole cameras, and some tentative conclusions about Christian love.

(The story behind the conclusions about Christian love is this:
after CLOBS on 1 John 2, there were lengthy sms-es hurtling back and forth and back and forth through the night until the PatientOne finally said, in characteristic understatement,"Maybe talking is better than sms-ing". So after service on Sunday, there was congregating and by way of explanation, there was hasty scribbling of three circles on the back of the service bulletin. "Ok, three circles…", said the PatientOne, uncomprehending, but still mostly patient. "Mmm...three circles," said the ShaggyOne, peering shortsightedly, one ear still glued to a mobile. "Three circles? No such thing as three circles lah! There should only be two circles!" shouted the ShoutyOne, flapping about, before being distracted by a passing babe-in-arms. Later, after almost losing Firsttimevisitor to the incoming crowd, there was more talking and gesticulating on the landing outside the hall and then later, more shaping and refining and drawing out of implications over tea and muffins and then even later, more hurtling smses past midnight. And throughout the week, there was sitting on couches juggling Bible verses and biblical theology and doctrine, until someone, fresh from preparing a study on Thessalonians, began an impromptu sermon before being waylaid by a tasty bag of chocolate wafers, while another clock struck midnight. (Ah, the joys of the Christian family!)

And throughout the next week, accompanying the airconditioned life, were D.A.Carson's "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" and "Love in Hard Places" and Michael Hill's "The How and Why of Love".)

The troubling question that sparked these discussions was this:
what is this elusive thing called "Christian love"? We know from 1 John that as Christians, we are under an obligation to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, it is part of our new nature to love our fellow siblings. But before we can love, we must know what this love looks like, how it feels (in a tactile, not emotional, sense), its shape, content and substance.

And our tentatively-drawn conclusions on God's love, the prelude to Christian love, went something like this:
What is love?
(No, do not start humming Haddaway's pre-millenial German house anthem.) We know that love is not limited to hot steamy sex, nor, the sort of anxiety ripe for an angsty heartbreak (and lots of bad soppy poetry):

Falling in love is just that
Falling
Out of control
Of your heart and your soul

Falling in love is just that
Falling
That's how it feels
Falling head over heels

Why love when love hurts?
Why love when love ends?
I know how it feels
When it turns and pretends
It ends with the pain
And the making amends
Why love when there's peace
In the making of friends?

Losing your heart is just that
Losing
Too high a cost
When it's given it's lost

Taking a risk is just that
Taking
Been there before
I can't take anymore

Dick Lee, "Forbidden City"

nor is it the dewy-eyed sentimentality of too many a Hallmark card and Precious Thoughts figurine. It cannot be translated into the mere "niceness" of remembering birthdays, kissing babies, asking after sick pets nor general Jacintha Abisheganaden ditzy niceness (in any case, "I love you" cannot, generally, be considered a useful comment from a judge).

Our understanding of Christian love stems from our understanding of God's love. So what exactly does the love of God mean?

Erroneous (But Popular Definitions) of Love
Based on the lesser known work of Swedish theologian Anders Nydren, C.S. Lewis famously preferred to speak of "Four Loves": eros (ερος), affection (storge, στοργη), friendship (philia, φιλια) and charity (agape, αγαπη). In his "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" and his earlier "Exegetical Fallacies", D.A. Carson concludes that this sort of categorisation is erroneous:

In the past many have tried to assign the love of God and, derivatively, Christian love to one particular word group. The classic treatment is that of Anders Nygren. The noun eros (not found in the New Testament) refers to sexual love, erotic love; the phileo word group refers to emotional love, the love of friendship and feeling. By contrast, the agapao word group refers to willed love, an act of willed self-sacrifice for the good of another. It has no necessary emotional component, however generous it may be. Moreover, it was argued, the reason the agapao word group became extremely popular in the Septuagint and subsequently in the New Testament is that writers in the biblical tradition realised they needed some word other than those currently available to convey the glorious substance of the love of the God of Judeo-Christian revelation; so they deployed this extremely rare word group and filled it with the content just described, until it triumphed in frequency as well as in substance.

What is now quite clear to almost everyone who works in the fields of linguistics and semantics that such an understanding of love cannot be tied in any univocal way to the agapao word group.

Carson goes on to demonstrate that the frequency of use of the agapao word group arose not for theological reasons but for diachronic reasons in Greek philology. Even within the Septuagint New Testament, it is far from clear that the agapao word group always refers to some "higher" or more noble or less emotional form of love. For example, in 2 Samuel 13 when Amnon incestuously viciously violently rapes his half-sister Tamar, both the words agapao and phileo are used. Again, in 2 Timothy 4:10, Paul writes that Demas has deserted him because he "loved" (agapao) this present evil world. This is an incongruous use of that particular verb if agapao only refers to the willed self-denial for the sake of the other.

Biblical Love
In "The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God" and "Love in Hard Places", Carson draws attention to five main (but not exhaustive) ways in which the Bible speaks of the love of God, and derivatively, Christian love:
(1) Intra-Trinitarian Love
The peculiar love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father. John's Gospel (eg. John 3:35, 5:20; John 14:31) and letters (as we have seen in recent weeks) are especially rich on this theme. This intra-Trinitarian love is not the love of redemption: neither the Father nor the Son needs redeeming. Nor is it the love that is poured out despite the imperfections of the loved one: not only do the Father and the Son love each other, but each is to the other inestimably lovable.

(2) God's Providential Love
The Bible speaks of God's providential love over all he has made, even though by and large, none of the Greek words that would be translated into the English "love" is used in this connection. But the theme is not difficult to locate. God created everything and before there is a whiff of sin, he pronounces all that he has made to be "good" (Genesis 1-2). This is the product of a loving Creator.

The birds of the air find food, but that is the result of God's loving providence, and not a sparrow falls from the sky apart from the sanction of the Almighty (Matthew 6:26, 10:29). If this were not a benevolent providence, a loving providence, then the moral lesson that Jesus is driving home in this context (that God can be trusted to provide for his own people) would be incoherent.

Even now in its disordered and rebellious state, Jesus taught that God "causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Mathew 4:45). That this is an act of love on God's part is shown by what Jesus says next:"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get?" (Matthew 5:46). In other words, our responsibility to love our enemies is grounded in the fact that God providentially loves the just and the unjust.

(3) God's Salvific Love
This refers to God's yearning, inviting, seeking, saving love. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son (John 3:16) for it, that anyone who believed in him would have eternal life and not face death. However much God rightly stands in judgement over the world, people who are in rebellion against him, he also presents himself as the God who invites and commands all human beings to repent. He orders his people to carry the gospel to the farthest corner of the world, proclaiming it to men and women everywhere. To rebels, the sovereign LORD cries out:"As surely as I live...I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11).

This is rather different from the love of the Father for the Son and distinguishable from God's providential love.

(4) God's Choosing/Selective Love
That is, God's particular, effective love toward his own elect. The elect may be the entire nation of Israel (as was the case in the Old Testament) or the church as a body or individuals (as is the case from New Testamental times). In each case, God sets his affection on his chosen ones in a way in which he does not set his affection on others. The people of Israel are told,"The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:7-8; cf 4:37). Again, "To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations as it is today (10:14-15). God's love is directed toward Israel in these passages in a way in which it is not directed toward other nations.

This discriminating feature of God's love surfaces frequently: God declares,"I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated" (Malachi 1:2-3). This was grounded in the mind of God even before either Jacob or Esau "were born or had done anything good or bad" (Romans 9:10-12). Similarly, in the New Testament, Christ "loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25) even while people were still sinners.

(5) God's Conditional Love
God's love is sometimes said to be directed toward his own people in a provisional or conditional way - conditional, that is, on faithful obedience. It is part of the relational structure of knowing God; it does not have to do with how we become true followers of the living God, but with our relationship with him once we do know him. The Decalogue declares God to be the one who shows his love "to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Exodus 20:6). Jesus commands his disciples to remain in his love (John 15:9) and adds,"If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love" (John 15:10). "Keep yourselves in God's love," Jude exhorts his readers (Jude 21), leaving the unmistakable impression that someone might not keep himself in the love of God. Clearly this is not God's providential love - it is pretty difficult to escape that. Nor is this God's yearning love, reflecting his salvific stance toward our fallen race. Nor is it his eternal, elective love. One cannot walk away from that love either.

Carson continues:
It is better to speak of this list as five different ways the Bible has of speaking of the love of God, rather than as five different "loves" of God. We cannot view these ways of talking about the love of God as independent, compartmentalised loves of God. It will not help to begin talking too often about God's providential love, his elective love, his intra-Trinitarian love, and so forth, as if each were hermetically sealed off from the other, as if heturns different "loves" off and on for different targets or on different occasions. There is no good evidence that that is what the biblical texts mean.

Nor can we allow any one of these ways of talking about the love of God to be diminished by the others, even as we cannot, on scriptural evidence, allow any one of them to domesticate all the others. We must hold these truths together and learn to integrate them in biblical proportion and balance.

God's love reflects the complexity and variety of relationships in which he as a person engages. His love works out in a diverse array of patterns that reflects this.

Evangelical Clichés
"God's love is unconditional" goes a popular Christian catchphrase. That is true in the fourth sense of God's love but it is certainly not true in the fifth sense and we know that God does discipline his wayward children. Citing this cliché to a Christian who is drifting to habitual sin may lead her to shrug her shoulders at her sin and say, like Catherine II of Russia:"Et le bon Dieu me pardonnnera: c'est son metier" (And the good God will pardon me: that's his job)".

"God loves everyone exactly the same way" may be true in the second sense of his providential love. After all, God sends his sunshine and rain upon the just and the unjust alike. But it is certainly not true in the fourth sense - his elective love.

If this is what God's love is, then how should a Christian's love look?

Partie Deux: akan datang here's a stab at it.

(The love of God is not merely to be analysed, understood and adopted into holistic categories of integrated thought, just to identify what Christian love should look like. It is to be received, to be absorbed, to be felt for its own sake. We ought to meditate long and frequently on Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21:"I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God". Paul connects such Christian experience of the love of God with Christian maturity, with being "filled to the measure of all the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:19). This suggests that Christians cannot begin to approach maturity as Christians unless they approach maturity in grasping something of the dimensions of God's love.

And the many facets of God's love has transformed and will continue to transform us as we dwell on them and understand them so that we inevitable perceive the sheer rightness of the first commandment: to love the LORD our God with heart and soul and mind and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment.)

Unrequited Love, Jonathan Edwards and the Doctrine of Hell

Because after a night of being proactive citizens of Martini Innercity thereafter bopping to Daara J at Attica Too too many overnighters couped up in boardrooms, escaping only to admire

the faux English-country-gent-meets-OTT Ah Beng office decor and

interact with some furniture,

cheesy conversation ensues in polite D&D style:

The moon was already high in the night sky when we clambered up the breakwater and sat talking.

"Sing us some songs", he said. And I sang of lush green valleys, of streams meandering to the sea, of love and good deeds, of love true and faithful and love eternal.

"You sing of happy love", he cried bitterly,"you sing of the happiness of streams embracing the ocean. But here, we sit watching the ocean smashing herself fruitlessly against the wall, cold and unyielding. Sing, therefore, songs of fruitless love, love unreturned, love unrequited."

"Alas my friend", I said,"I know of no such songs."

"Indeed", he sighed,"then you know not of hell."

which is not too far from the Biblical concept of hell. Evangelicals are loathe to talk about hell these days. All this scare-mongering and emotionalism is a bit dated, a bit embarrassing, perhaps. But the Bible has no such qualms. And the Puritan preachers did not shy away from the fire and brimstone.

The Doctrine of Hell
From the Bible, hell is an explicitly clear reality. There will be a final judgement with God as judge. All persons will be judged (2 Timothy 4:1). There will be only 2 possible outcomes to that judgement: (1) acquittal; and (2) condemnation (Matthew 13:39-43, John 5:28 ff).

The common biblical word for the destination of those who do not get acquitted but are under the condemnation of God is hell.

What is hell?
1. Hell is punishment
It is punishment at the hands of God. It is being condemned by God (John 5:29) as just payback for sinning against him (2 Thessalonians 1:6), for not acknowledging God as God. So God will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9).

2. The suffering of hell is beyond any experience of misery found in this world.
If heaven is a place of experiencing the great blessings of God, including an intimate relationships with the true and living God (Revelation 21), and with each other, then conversely, hell must be a place where there people will be separated from all the blessings of God.

Some people think hell will be a great place where they and their mates will drink and smoke, enjoying each others' company for all eternity, without puritans and naggy wives telling them to quit it. But there is no mateship in hell. There is no friendship, no love, no loyalty, no truthfulness, no other-person-ness. For all these are the blessings of God and will only be found in heaven. If we find unrequited love, or heartbreak, or loneliness, or abuse of our trust excruciating, it will be a mere ant-bite compare to the horrible alienation between people in hell.

Jesus described hell as the fiery furnace (Matthew 13:40-42), the eternal fire (Matthew 25:41), the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12). Hell is the blackest darkness (Jude 13). Revelation calls it the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15). These are images of extreme suffering and great personal pain, beyond any experience of misery found in this world.

2. If the Biblical descriptions of hell are symbols, then the reality will be worse than the symbols.
All this fire, torture, blood and gore sounds a bit horror snuff movie and kitschy Haw Par Villa. Surely the language in the Bible is merely symbolic?

No doubt some of the language used is necessarily symbolic, as is the language describing heaven, for God speaks to our human culture. However, the presence of symbolism does not devalue the fact of hell. And if the Biblical descriptions of hell are symbols, then it is because the human mind cannot comprehend the far greater terrible reality. The function of symbols is to point beyond themselves to a higher or more intense state of actuality than the symbol itself can contain. That Jesus used the most awful symbols imaginable to describe hell is no comfort to those who see them simply as symbols.

So it is probable that the sinner in hell would prefer a literal lake of fire as his eternal abode to the reality of hell represented in the lake of fire image.

3. Hell is the presence of God in His wrath and judgment...
The guilty "will be tormented in burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever" (Revelation 14:10-11). The Lamb in Revelation is Jesus. Hell is not so much eternal separation from God as it is the eternal presence of God in unmitigated wrath and fury. Hell is separation from God in the sense of being separated from his blessings and fellowship (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Hell is where we must "drink the wine of God’s fury which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath" (Revelation 14:10).

...and so hell will be unbearable
Explains Jonathan Edwards:

[Impenitent sinners who do not trust God will not be able to bear God's punishment in hell.] Neither will their hands be strong to deliver themselves from it, nor will their hearts be able to endure it. It is common with men, when they meet with calamities in this world, in the first place to endeavor to shun them. But if they find, that they cannot shun them, then after they are come, they endeavour to deliver themselves from them as soon as they can; or at least, to order things so, as to deliver themselves in some degree. But if they find that they can by no means deliver themselves, and see that the case is so that they must bear them; then they set themselves to bear them: they fortify their spirits, and take up a resolution, that they will support themselves under them as well as they can.

But it will be utterly in vain for impenitent sinners to think to do thus with respect to the torments of hell. They will not be able to endure them, or at all to support themselves under them: the torment will be immensely beyond their strength. What will it signify for a worm, which is about to be pressed under the weight of some great rock, to be let fall with its whole weight upon it, to collect its strength, to set itself to bear up the weight of the rock, and to preserve itself from being crushed by it? Much more in vain will it be for a poor damned soul, to endeavor to support itself under the weight of the wrath of Almighty God. What is the strength of man, who is but a worm, to support himself against the power of Jehovah, and against the fierceness of his wrath? What is man's strength, when set to bear up against the exertions of infinite power? Matt. xxi. 44, "Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder."

When sinners hear of hell torments, they sometimes think with themselves: Well, if it shall come to that, that I must go to hell, I will bear it as well as I can: as if by clothing themselves with resolution and firmness of mind, they would be able to support themselves in some measure; when, alas! they will have no resolution, no courage at all. However they shall have prepared themselves, and collected their strength; yet as soon as they shall begin to feel that wrath, their hearts will melt and be as water. However before they may seem to harden their hearts, in order to prepare themselves to bear, yet the first moment they feel it, their hearts will become like wax before the furnace. Their courage and resolution will be all gone in an instant; it will vanish away like a shadow in the twinkling of an eye. The stoutest and most sturdy will have no more courage than the feeblest infant: let a man be an infant, or a giant, it will be all one. They will not be able to keep alive any courage, any strength, any comfort, any hope at all.

4. Hell is eternal. There is no escape through either repentance or annihilation.
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of hell is its eternality. People can endure the greatest agony if they know it will ultimately stop. In hell there is no such hope. The Bible clearly teaches that the punishment is eternal. The same word is used for both eternal life and eternal death. Punishment implies pain. Mere annihilation, which some have lobbied for, involves no pain. Those who are condemned to hell will earnestly wish to be turned to nothing and forever cease to be that they may escape the wrath of God. Countinues Jonathan Edwards:

impenitent sinners cannot shun the threatened punishment; so neither can they do any thing to deliver themselves from it, or to relieve themselves under it. This is implied in those words of the text, Can thine hand. be strong? It is with our hands that we make and accomplish things for ourselves. But the wicked in hell will have no strength of hand to accomplish any thing at all for themselves, or to bring to pass any deliverance, or any degree of relief.

1. They will not he able in that conflict to overcome their enemy, and so to deliver themselves. God, who will then undertake to deal with them, and will gird himself with might to execute wrath, will be their enemy, and will act the part of an enemy with a witness; and they will have no strength to oppose him. Those who live negligent of their souls under the light of the gospel, act as if they supposed, that they should be able here after to make their part good with God. 1 Cor. x. 22. "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he ?"...But they will have no power, no might to resist that omnipotence, which will be engaged against them.

2. They will have no strength in their hands to do any thing to appease God, or in the least to abate the fierceness of his wrath. They will not be able to offer any satisfaction: they will not be able to procure God's pity. Though they cry, God will not hear them. They will find no price to offer to God, in order to purchase any favor, or to pay any part of their debt.

3. They will not be able to find any to befriend them, and intercede with God for them. They had the offer of a mediator often made them in this world; but they will have no offers of such a nature in hell. None will befriend them. They will have no friend in HELL; all there will be their enemies. They will have no friend in heaven: 'None of the saints or angels will befriend them; or if they should, it would be to no purpose. There will be no creature that will have any power to dellver them, nor will any ever pity them.

4. Nor will they ever be able to make their escape. They will find no means to break prison and flee. In hell, they will be reserved in chains of darkness for ever and ever. Malefactors have often found means to break prison, and escape the hand of, civil justice. But none ever escaped out of the prison of hell, which is God's prison. It is a strong prison: it is beyond any finite power, or the united strength of all wicked men and devils, to unlock, or break open the door of that prison. Christ hath the key of hell; "he shuts and no man opens."

5. Nor will they ever be able to find any thing to relieve them in hell. They will never find any resting place there; any place of respite; any secret corner, which will be cooler than the rest, where they may have a little respite, a small abatement of the extremity of their torment. They never will be able to find any cooling stream or fountain, in any part of that world of torment; no, nor so much as a drop of water to cool their tongues. They will find no company to give them any comfort, or to do them the least good. They will find no place, where they can remain, and rest, and take breath for one minute: For they will be tormented with fire and brimstone; and will have no rest day nor night for ever and ever.

Thus impenitent sinners will be able neither to shun the punishment threatened, nor to deliver themselves from it, nor to find any relief under it.

They will wholly sink down into eternal death. There will be that sinking of heart, of which we now cannot conceive. We see how it is with the body when in extreme pain. The nature of the body will support itself for a considerable time under very great pain, so as to keep from wholly sinking. There will be great struggles, lamentable groans and panting, and it may be convulsions. These are the strugglings of nature to support itself under the extremity of the pain. There is, as it were, a great lothness in nature to yield to it; it cannot bear wholly to sink.

But yet sometimes pain of body is so very extreme and exquisite, that the nature of the body cannot support itself under it; however loth it may be to sink, yet it cannot bear the pain; there are a few struggles, and throes, and pantings, and it may be a shriek or two, and then nature yields to the violence of the torments, sinks down, and the body dies. This is the death of the body. So it will be with the soul in hell; it will have no strength or power to deliver itself and its torment and horror will be so great, so mighty, so vastly disproportioned to its strength, that having no strength in the least to support itself, although it be infinitely contrary to the nature and inclination of the soul utterly to sink; yet it will sink, it will utterly and totally sink, without the least degree of remaining comfort, or strength, or courage, or hope. And though it will never be annihilated, its being and perception will never be abolished, yet such will be the infinite depth of gloominess that it will sink into, that it will be in a state of death, eternal death.

The nature of man desires happiness; it is the nature of the soul to crave and thirst after well-being; and if it be under misery, it eagerly pants after relief; and the greater the misery is, the more eagerly doth it struggle for help. But if all relief be withholden, all strength overborne, all support utterly gone; then it sinks into the darkness of death.

We can conceive but little of the matter; we cannot conceive what that sinking of the soul in such a case is. But to help your conception, imagine yourself to be cast into a fiery oven, or of a great furnace, where your pain would be as much greater than that occasioned by accidentally touching a coal of fire, as the heat is greater. Imagine also that your body were to lie there for a quarter of an hour, all the while full of quick sense; what horror would you feel at the entrance of such a furnace! And how long would that quarter of an hour seem to you! And after you had endured it for one minute, how overbearing would it be to you to think that you had it to endure the other fourteen!

But what would be the effect on your soul, if you knew you must lie there enduring that torment to the full for twenty-four hours! And how much greater would be the effect, if you knew you must endure it for a whole year; and how vastly greater still, if you knew you must endure it for a thousand years! O then, how would your heart sink, if you thought, if you knew, that you must bear it forever and ever! That there would be no end! That after millions of millions of ages, your torment would be no nearer to an end, than ever it was; and that you never, never should be delivered!

But your torment in hell will be immensely greater than this illustration represents. How then will the heart of a poor creature sink under it! How utterly inexpressible and inconceivable must the sinking of the soul be in such a case!

This is the death threatened in the law. This is dying in the highest sense of the word. This is to die sensibly; to die and know it; to be sensible of the gloom of death. This is to be undone; this is worthy of the name of destruction. This sinking of the soul under an infinite weight, which it cannot bear, is the gloom of hell. We read in Scripture of the blackness of darkness; this is it, this is the very thing. We read in Scripture of sinners being lost, and of their losing their souls: this is the thing intended; this is to lose the soul: they that are the subjects of this are utterly lost.

5. There is no cruelty in hell. Hell will be a place of perfect justice.
Hell sounds like a place of cruel and unsual punishment. But there will be no cruelty there. It is impossible for God to be cruel. Cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that is more severe or harsh than the crime. Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at his hand.

Unfortunately,
Who goes to hell?
Everyone deserves to go to hell
Jesus Christ and those "in Christ" are the only exceptions. All who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ are sent to hell (2 Thessalonians 1:8). Only those who turn to God and trust in the substitutionary death of his Son in our place will be saved. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life... Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already" (John 3:16, 18).

In fact, there is no reason why God should not cast unbelievers into hell at this very instant. His withholding of his judgement is a merciful opportunity to repent and turn to him before it is too late.

Why is a good doctrine of hell necessary for Christians?
It is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach His gospel: the only way of salvation from the wrath of God and condemnation to hell.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

To end us off, here's Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon on "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". It was based on the verse:

-Their foot shall slide in due time- Deut. 32:35

In this verse is threatened the vengeance of God on the wicked unbelieving Israelites, who were God's visible people, and who lived under the means of grace; but who, notwithstanding all God's wonderful works towards them, remained (as ver. 28.) void of counsel, having no understanding in them. Under all the cultivations of heaven, they brought forth bitter and poisonous fruit; as in the two verses next preceding the text. The expression I have chosen for my text, Their foot shall slide in due time, seems to imply the following doings, relating to the punishment and destruction to which these wicked Israelites were exposed.

1. That they were always exposed to destruction; as one that stands or walks in slippery places is always exposed to fall. This is implied in the manner of their destruction coming upon them, being represented by their foot sliding. The same is expressed, Psalm 73:18. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction."

2. It implies, that they were always exposed to sudden unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall, he falls at once without warning: Which is also expressed in Psalm 73:18, 19. "Surely thou didst set them in slippery places; thou castedst them down into destruction: How are they brought into desolation as in a moment!"

3. Another thing implied is, that they are liable to fall of themselves, without being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to throw him down.

4. That the reason why they are not fallen already, and do not fall now, is only that God's appointed time is not come. For it is said, that when that due time, or appointed time comes, their foot shall slide. Then they shall be left to fall, as they are inclined by their own weight. God will not hold them up in these slippery places any longer, but will let them go; and then at that very instant, they shall fall into destruction; as he that stands on such slippery declining ground, on the edge of a pit, he cannot stand alone, when he is let go he immediately falls and is lost.

The observation from the words that I would now insist upon is this. "There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God." By the mere pleasure of God, I mean his sovereign pleasure, his arbitrary will, restrained by no obligation, hindered by no manner of difficulty, any more than if nothing else but God's mere will had in the least degree, or in any respect whatsoever, any hand in the preservation of wicked men one moment.
The truth of this observation may appear by the following considerations.

1. There is no want of power in God to cast wicked men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot be strong when God rises up. The strongest have no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out of his hands.-He is not only able to cast wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do it. Sometimes an earthly prince meets with a great deal of difficulty to subdue a rebel, who has found means to fortify himself, and has made himself strong by the numbers of his followers. But it is not so with God. There is no fortress that is any defense from the power of God. Though hand join in hand, and vast multitudes of God's enemies combine and associate themselves, they are easily broken in pieces. They are as great heaps of light chaff before the whirlwind; or large quantities of dry stubble before devouring flames. We find it easy to tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth; so it is easy for us to cut or singe a slender thread that any thing hangs by: thus easy is it for God, when he pleases, to cast his enemies down to hell. What are we, that we should think to stand before him, at whose rebuke the earth trembles, and before whom the rocks are thrown down?

2. They deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to destroy them. Yea, on the contrary, justice calls aloud for an infinite punishment of their sins. Divine justice says of the tree that brings forth such grapes of Sodom, "Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground?" Luke xiii. 7. The sword of divine justice is every moment brandished over their heads, and it is nothing but the hand of arbitrary mercy, and God's mere will, that holds it back.

3. They are already under a sentence of condemnation to hell. They do not only justly deserve to be cast down thither, but the sentence of the law of God, that eternal and immutable rule of righteousness that God has fixed between him and mankind, is gone out against them, and stands against them; so that they are bound over already to hell. John iii. 18. "He that believeth not is condemned already." So that every unconverted man properly belongs to hell; that is his place; from thence he is, John viii. 23. "Ye are from beneath." And thither be is bound; it is the place that justice, and God's word, and the sentence of his unchangeable law assign to him.

4. They are now the objects of that very same anger and wrath of God, that is expressed in the torments of hell. And the reason why they do not go down to hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose power they are, is not then very angry with them; as he is with many miserable creatures now tormented in hell, who there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea, God is a great deal more angry with great numbers that are now on earth: yea, doubtless, with many that are now in this congregation, who it may be are at ease, than he is with many of those who are now in the flames of hell.
So that it is not because God is unmindful of their wickedness, and does not resent it, that he does not let loose his hand and cut them off. God is not altogether such an one as themselves, though they may imagine him to be so. The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them.

5. The devil stands ready to fall upon them, and seize them as his own, at what moment God shall permit him. They belong to him; he has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion. The scripture represents them as his goods, Luke 11:12. The devils watch them; they are ever by them at their right hand; they stand waiting for them, like greedy hungry lions that see their prey, and expect to have it, but are for the present kept back. If God should withdraw his hand, by which they are restrained, they would in one moment fly upon their poor souls. The old serpent is gaping for them; hell opens its mouth wide to receive them; and if God should permit it, they would be hastily swallowed up and lost.

6. There are in the souls of wicked men those hellish principles reigning, that would presently kindle and flame out into hell fire, if it were not for God's restraints. There is laid in the very nature of carnal men, a foundation for the torments of hell. There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire. These principles are active and powerful, exceeding violent in their nature, and if it were not for the restraining hand of God upon them, they would soon break out, they would flame out after the same manner as the same corruptions, the same enmity does in the hearts of damned souls, and would beget the same torments as they do in them. The souls of the wicked are in scripture compared to the troubled sea, Isa. 57:20. For the present, God restrains their wickedness by his mighty power, as he does the raging waves of the troubled sea, saying, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;" but if God should withdraw that restraining power, it would soon carry all before it. Sin is the ruin and misery of the soul; it is destructive in its nature; and if God should leave it without restraint, there would need nothing else to make the soul perfectly miserable. The corruption of the heart of man is immoderate and boundless in its fury; and while wicked men live here, it is like fire pent up by God's restraints, whereas if it were let loose, it would set on fire the course of nature; and as the heart is now a sink of sin, so if sin was not restrained, it would immediately turn the soul into a fiery oven, or a furnace of fire and brimstone.

7. It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noon-day; the sharpest sight cannot discern them. God has so many different unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear, that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man, at any moment. All the means that there are of sinners going out of the world, are so in God's hands, and so universally and absolutely subject to his power and determination, that it does not depend at all the less on the mere will of God, whether sinners shall at any moment go to hell, than if means were never made use of, or at all concerned in the case.

8. Natural men's prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment. To this, divine providence and universal experience do also bear testimony. There is this clear evidence that men's own wisdom is no security to them from death; that if it were otherwise we should see some difference between the wise and politic men of the world, and others, with regard to their liableness to early and unexpected death: but how is it in fact? Eccles. ii. 16. "How dieth the wise man? even as the fool."

9. All wicked men's pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do. Every one lays out matters in his own mind how he shall avoid damnation, and flatters himself that he contrives well for himself, and that his schemes will not fail. They hear indeed that there are but few saved, and that the greater part of men that have died heretofore are gone to hell; but each one imagines that he lays out matters better for his own escape than others have done. He does not intend to come to that place of torment; he says within himself, that he intends to take effectual care, and to order matters so for himself as not to fail.

But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear about hell ever to be the subjects of that misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, "No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself: I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner; it came as a thief: Death outwitted me: God's wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then suddenly destruction came upon me.

10. God has laid himself under no obligation, by any promise to keep any natural man out of hell one moment. God certainly has made no promises either of eternal life, or of any deliverance or preservation from eternal death, but what are contained in the covenant of grace, the promises that are given in Christ, in whom all the promises are yea and amen. But surely they have no interest in the promises of the covenant of grace who are not the children of the covenant, who do not believe in any of the promises, and have no interest in the Mediator of the covenant.

So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men's earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.

So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them, and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out: and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of, all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.

APPLICATION
The use of this awful subject may be for awakening unconverted persons in this congregation. This that you have heard is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ.-That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell's wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of, there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

You probably are not sensible of this; you find you are kept out of hell, but do not see the hand of God in it; but look at other things, as the good state of your bodily constitution, your care of your own life, and the means you use for your own preservation. But indeed these things are nothing; if God should withdraw his band, they would avail no more to keep you from falling, than the thin air to hold up a person that is suspended in it.

Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately sink and swiftly descend and plunge into the bottomless gulf, and your healthy constitution, and your own care and prudence, and best contrivance, and all your righteousness, would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock. Were it not for the sovereign pleasure of God, the earth would not bear you one moment; for you are a burden to it; the creation groans with you; the creature is made subject to the bondage of your corruption, not willingly; the sun does not willingly shine upon you to give you light to serve sin and Satan; the earth does not willingly yield her increase to satisfy your lusts; nor is it willingly a stage for your wickedness to be acted upon; the air does not willingly serve you for breath to maintain the flame of life in your vitals, while you spend your life in the service of God's enemies. God's creatures are good, and were made for men to serve God with, and do not willingly subserve to any other purpose, and groan when they are abused to purposes so directly contrary to their nature and end. And the world would spew you out, were it not for the sovereign hand of him who hath subjected it in hope. There are black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you. The sovereign pleasure of God, for the present, stays his rough wind; otherwise it would come with fury, and your destruction would come like a whirlwind, and you would be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor.

The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given; and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand or endure it.

The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Thus all you that never passed under a great change of heart, by the mighty power of the Spirit of God upon your souls; all you that were never born again, and made new creatures, and raised from being dead in sin, to a state of new, and before altogether unexperienced light and life, are in the hands of an angry God. However you may have reformed your life in many things, and may have had religious affections, and may keep up a form of religion in your families and closets, and in the house of God, it is nothing but his mere pleasure that keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction. However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being in the like circumstances with you, see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of it, and while they were saying, Peace and safety: now they see, that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but thin air and empty shadows.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. And consider here more particularly

1. Whose wrath it is: it is the wrath of the infinite God. If it were only the wrath of man, though it were of the most potent prince, it would be comparatively little to be regarded. The wrath of kings is very much dreaded, especially of absolute monarchs, who have the possessions and lives of their subjects wholly in their power, to be disposed of at their mere will. Prov. 20:2. "The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion: Whoso provoketh him to anger, sinneth against his own soul." The subject that very much enrages an arbitrary prince, is liable to suffer the most extreme torments that human art can invent, or human power can inflict. But the greatest earthly potentates in their greatest majesty and strength, and when clothed in their greatest terrors, are but feeble, despicable worms of the dust, in comparison of the great and almighty Creator and King of heaven and earth. It is but little that they can do, when most enraged, and when they have exerted the utmost of their fury. All the kings of the earth, before God, are as grasshoppers; they are nothing, and less than nothing: both their love and their hatred is to be despised. The wrath of the great King of kings, is as much more terrible than theirs, as his majesty is greater. Luke 12:4, 5. "And I say unto you, my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom you shall fear: fear him, which after he hath killed, hath power to cast into hell: yea, I say unto you, Fear him."

2. It is the fierceness of his wrath that you are exposed to. We often read of the fury of God; as in Isaiah lix. 18. "According to their deeds, accordingly he will repay fury to his adversaries." So Isaiah 66:15. "For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire." And in many other places. So, Rev. 19:15, we read of "the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." The words are exceeding terrible. If it had only been said, "the wrath of God," the words would have implied that which is infinitely dreadful: but it is "the fierceness and wrath of God." The fury of God! the fierceness of Jehovah! Oh, how dreadful must that be! Who can utter or conceive what such expressions carry in them! But it is also "the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." As though there would be a very great manifestation of his almighty power in what the fierceness of his wrath should inflict, as though omnipotence should be as it were enraged, and exerted, as men are wont to exert their strength in the fierceness of their wrath. Oh! then, what will be the consequence! What will become of the poor worms that shall suffer it! Whose hands can be strong? And whose heart can endure? To what a dreadful, inexpressible, inconceivable depth of misery must the poor creature be sunk who shall be the subject of this!

Consider this, you that are here present, that yet remain in an unregenerate state. That God will execute the fierceness of his anger, implies, that he will inflict wrath without any pity. When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the executions of his wrath, or in the least lighten his hand; there shall be no moderation or mercy, nor will God then at all stay his rough wind; he will have no regard to your welfare, nor be at all careful lest you should suffer too much in any other sense, than only that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires. Nothing shall be withheld, because it is so hard for you to bear. Ezek. viii. 18. "Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet I will not hear them." Now God stands ready to pity you; this is a day of mercy; you may cry now with some encouragement of obtaining mercy. But when once the day of mercy is past, your most lamentable and dolorous cries and shrieks will be in vain; you will be wholly lost and thrown away of God, as to any regard to your welfare. God will have no other use to put you to, but to suffer misery; you shall be continued in being to no other end; for you will be a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction; and there will be no other use of this vessel, but to be filled full of wrath. God will be so far from pitying you when you cry to him, that it is said he will only "laugh and mock," Prov. 1:25, 26, &c.

How awful are those words, Isa. 63:3, which are the words of the great God. "I will tread them in mine anger, and will trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment." It is perhaps impossible to conceive of words that carry in them greater manifestations of these three things, vis. contempt, and hatred, and fierceness of indignation. If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you, in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

The misery you are exposed to is that which God will inflict to that end, that he might show what that wrath of Jehovah is. God hath had it on his heart to show to angels and men, both how excellent his love is, and also how terrible his wrath is. Sometimes earthly kings have a mind to show how terrible their wrath is, by the extreme punishments they would execute on those that would provoke them. Nebuchadnezzar, that mighty and haughty monarch of the Chaldean empire, was willing to show his wrath when enraged with Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego; and accordingly gave orders that the burning fiery furnace should be heated seven times hotter than it was before; doubtless, it was raised to the utmost degree of fierceness that human art could raise it. But the great God is also willing to show his wrath, and magnify his awful majesty and mighty power in the extreme sufferings of his enemies. Rom. 9:22. "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endure with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?" And seeing this is his design, and what he has determined, even to show how terrible the unrestrained wrath, the fury and fierceness of Jehovah is, he will do it to effect. There will be something accomplished and brought to pass that will be dreadful with a witness. When the great and angry God hath risen up and executed his awful vengeance on the poor sinner, and the wretch is actually suffering the infinite weight and power of his indignation, then will God call upon the whole universe to behold that awful majesty and mighty power that is to be seen in it. Isa. 33:12-14. "And the people shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut up shall they be burnt in the fire. Hear ye that are far off, what I have done; and ye that are near, acknowledge my might. The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites," &c.

Thus it will be with you that are in an unconverted state, if you continue in it; the infinite might, and majesty, and terribleness of the omnipotent God shall be magnified upon you, in the ineffable strength of your torments. You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great power and majesty. Isa. lxvi. 23, 24. "And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched, and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh."
4. It is everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery. When you look forward, you shall see a long for ever, a boundless duration before you, which will swallow up your thoughts, and amaze your soul; and you will absolutely despair of ever having any deliverance, any end, any mitigation, any rest at all. You will know certainly that you must wear out long ages, millions of millions of ages, in wrestling and conflicting with this almighty merciless vengeance; and then when you have so done, when so many ages have actually been spent by you in this manner, you will know that all is but a point to what remains. So that your punishment will indeed be infinite. Oh, who can express what the state of a soul in such circumstances is! All that we can possibly say about it, gives but a very feeble, faint representation of it; it is inexpressible and inconceivable: For "who knows the power of God's anger?"

How dreadful is the state of those that are daily and hourly in the danger of this great wrath and infinite misery! But this is the dismal case of every soul in this congregation that has not been born again, however moral and strict, sober and religious, they may otherwise be. Oh that you would consider it, whether you be young or old! There is reason to think, that there are many in this congregation now hearing this discourse, that will actually be the subjects of this very misery to all eternity. We know not who they are, or in what seats they sit, or what thoughts they now have. It may be they are now at ease, and hear all these things without much disturbance, and are now flattering themselves that they are not the persons, promising themselves that they shall escape. If we knew that there was one person, and but one, in the whole congregation, that was to be the subject of this misery, what an awful thing would it be to think of! If we knew who it was, what an awful sight would it be to see such a person! How might all the rest of the congregation lift up a lamentable and bitter cry over him! But, alas! instead of one, how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell? And it would be a wonder, if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time, even before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here, in some seats of this meeting-house, in health, quiet and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning. Those of you that finally continue in a natural condition, that shall keep out of hell longest will be there in a little time! your damnation does not slumber; it will come swiftly, and, in all probability, very suddenly upon many of you. You have reason to wonder that you are not already in hell. It is doubtless the case of some whom you have seen and known, that never deserved hell more than you, and that heretofore appeared as likely to have been now alive as you. Their case is past all hope; they are crying in extreme misery and perfect despair; but here you are in the land of the living and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would not those poor damned hopeless souls give for one day's opportunity such as you now enjoy!

And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners; a day wherein many are flocking to him, and pressing into the kingdom of God. Many are daily coming from the east, west, north and south; many that were very lately in the same miserable condition that you are in, are now in a happy state, with their hearts filled with love to him who has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. How awful is it to be left behind at such a day! To see so many others feasting, while you are pining and perishing! To see so many rejoicing and singing for joy of heart, while you have cause to mourn for sorrow of heart, and howl for vexation of spirit! How can you rest one moment in such a condition? Are not your souls as precious as the souls of the people at Suffield, where they are flocking from day to day to Christ?

Are there not many here who have lived long in the world, and are not to this day born again? and so are aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and have done nothing ever since they have lived, but treasure up wrath against the day of wrath? Oh, sirs, your case, in an especial manner, is extremely dangerous. Your guilt and hardness of heart is extremely great. Do you not see how generally persons of your years are passed over and left, in the present remarkable and wonderful dispensation of God's mercy? You had need to consider yourselves, and awake thoroughly out of sleep. You cannot bear the fierceness and wrath of the infinite God.-And you, young men, and young women, will you neglect this precious season which you now enjoy, when so many others of your age are renouncing all youthful vanities, and flocking to Christ? You especially have now an extraordinary opportunity; but if you neglect it, it will soon be with you as with those persons who spent all the precious days of youth in sin, and are now come to such a dreadful pass in blindness and hardness. And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God, who is now angry with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children of the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are become the holy and happy children of the King of kings?

And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the pit of hell, whether they be old men and women, or middle aged, or young people, or little children, now harken to the loud calls of God's word and providence. This acceptable year of the Lord, a day of such great favours to some, will doubtless be a day of as remarkable vengeance to others. Men's hearts harden, and their guilt increases apace at such a day as this, if they neglect their souls; and never was there so great danger of such persons being given up to hardness of heart and blindness of mind. God seems now to be hastily gathering in his elect in all parts of the land; and probably the greater part of adult persons that ever shall be saved, will be brought in now in a little time, and that it will be as it was on the great out-pouring of the Spirit upon the Jews in the apostles' days; the election will obtain, and the rest will be blinded. If this should be the case with you, you will eternally curse this day, and will curse the day that ever you was born, to see such a season of the pouring out of God's Spirit, and will wish that you had died and gone to hell before you had seen it. Now undoubtedly it is, as it was in the days of John the Baptist, the axe is in an extraordinary manner laid at the root of the trees, that every tree which brings not forth good fruit, may be hewn down and cast into the fire.

Therefore, let every one that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come. The wrath of Almighty God is now undoubtedly hanging over a great part of this congregation: Let every one fly out of Sodom: "Haste and escape for your lives, look not behind you, escape to the mountain, lest you be consumed."

Resources:
Hell, Wrath and God's Judgement