Making the Theological Understandable
The final week of our Lent Devotional Series “Seeing His Love with New Eyes” resumes tomorrow after today’s Palm Sunday Sabbath rest to meditate and worship. Today, reflect on the majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is eternally Love and He is forever King of our hearts.
Yesterday, we said that this Judgment at the Great White Throne is a tale of two books and two outcomes. The redeemed will look upon Jesus who is seated for judgment upon mankind and they will be filled with inexpressible joy, infinite love, and gratitude for His mercy and grace at their being included in the Book of Life.
There is another outcome here though. This is the wide road for those who don’t choose the narrow road of salvation. The sad part is that it will have been their choice.
Revelation 20:11 Then I saw a Great White Throne and Him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from His presence, and there was no place for them.
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire.
The devastating side of the story is that the unrepentant will want to run and hide. Their outcome is not happy and filled with the love of Christ precisely because it’s His love they rejected over and over. The Book of Life is there, but their names are not in it.
Jesus Christ’s infinite love, mercy, and righteousness made visible provides the deepest destruction of any self-justification they crafted for themselves. Now they see His infinite love and they panic. They panic because they are not covered by forgiveness, mercy, and grace, but with fig leaves of their own making that they’d been told would never be enough. Therefore, only condemnation is left. They are left as not belonging to life, even though at any time during their lives, they could have accepted Him and been accepted by Him.
Exercise: Ponder this reality: Love is displayed in both outcomes and both books. God judges justly. Ask yourself, “If unrepentant evil is not destroyed by the only One who can legitimately destroy it, is His love any good? If He lets unmitigated, utter, and total evil get the same outcome of righteousness He had to die to give the repentant, is He still purity in Love, and is He still good?” Evil cannot exist in heaven.
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Recorded in the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John had a vision of the Final Judgment, what is sometimes called the Great White Throne Judgment. It can be divided by two books: The book of deeds and the Book of Life.
Revelation 20:11 Then I saw a Great White Throne and Him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from His presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life.
It’s a tale of two outcomes, and the good news is the Book of Life records all those who have been forgiven by the blood of Christ, having asked for His forgiveness, mercy, and grace. When the book of deeds is opened and contrasted with the Book of Life, the redeemed all have “Paid in Full” stamped over the record of their deeds by being in the Book of Life.
Because their sins were paid by Jesus, they will look upon Him who is seated on the Great White Throne of purity in Judgment (Jesus) and see infinite love and mercy and grace. Their hearts will be filled beyond overflowing with full knowledge of what their redemption meant in infinite, eternal love.
Exercise: Think about all the acts of your life as recorded in the book of deeds.
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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:
It’s easy to see the Image of God that He placed in us is of tremendous worth by this undeniable fact: God sacrificed all to save it. He did that in Jesus Christ and His shed blood. But that wasn’t the first sacrifice, in a sense; it simply confirmed it. The first sacrifice was God’s humility and love to instill mankind with such dignity as to place His Image upon us and within us from the moment of our creation.
God didn’t do that with any other member of the Animal Kingdom.
Only mankind.
But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that You are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; You crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet. (Hebrews 2:6-8)
Exercise: Read the following Scripture and reflect on the humility of God and the sacrifice He made in making mankind in His Image. Consider how this gives Him the right to judge us and the sacrifice He made to judge us with love and justice.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in Our image, in Our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created mankind in His own image, in the Image of God He created them; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”…
God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:26-28, 31)
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God is with us in both suffering and joy. He feels our circumstances deeply.
Matthew 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and invite You in, or needing clothes and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick or in prison and go to visit You?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me.'”
Reading that passage from the perspective of Jesus, whatever we did for others, we did for Him. Reading that passage from the perspective of the person who is hurting, we can see that Jesus feels it when we’re the ones who are hurting. When we’re in pain, He feels it because He is Love, and we bear His Image. He grieves with us, suffers with us, and rejoices with us when others minister to us in our pain.
Exercise: Is there anyone in your circle of acquaintances that could use a friend right now? Looking at your life and circumstances, what types of things make it difficult in modern culture to “do for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine?” Do financial donations to organizations minister to others as a stand-in when circumstances are too remote for our personal involvement? What about danger? To what extent is the admonition to be “shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16) applicable here? Helping others is not a one-size-fits-all program but we each do what we can for the sake of Christ.
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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:
A God who judges justly would be a deathly dangerous combination (all-powerful God, all wise and knowing even what’s hidden in our hearts, and perfectly just in His judgments) were it not for grace.
Grace is available to all but accepted by only a few.
Therefore, the deathly dangerous combination will still exist for many.
Because they just don’t believe it.
The Ten Commandments were not suggestions … or His Truth vs. our truth … or antiquated ideas for unenlightened people. They were commands for how best to live … in love toward God and toward our fellow man. Our culture is filled with people who don’t know (or even want to know) how to live that way, honoring God: to be freely choosing love, knowing grace, and receiving the power of forgiveness.
The Ten Commandments were intended to be an impossible standard to achieve with total perfection … apart from God. They were designed to draw us closer to God and receive His grace for when we fail (which is inevitable and unavoidable in a fallen world).
Exercise: Read this Scripture and reflect upon the impossibly high standard of living in love. Experience gratitude for His grace for when we fail.
“Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are– yet He did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16).
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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:
Yes, God could condemn us, and yes, He knows all about us, but He chooses to love anyway. It’s the nature of love to feel deeply, and God’s Image is so important to Him that He went to the most extreme lengths to rescue it. He sent Jesus.
For us, as Image-bearers, it is the nature of love within us to feel, to know, and to choose. It’s why Adam and Eve weren’t created to be puppets and slaves. They had been given a glorious gift by God of freedom to feel, freedom to know, and freedom to choose.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then,
and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
(Galatians 5:1)
God’s nature of love gave us freedom because that’s what love does. Love doesn’t command. Love invites. But isn’t that the problem of freedom? That some people will choose to use it in ways we hate? Or maybe we recognize that we use it in ways we will hate someday?
Exercise: Think back over how you’ve used your freedom. Acting upon your desire to feel something, or know something, or choose something, and whether willful or in ignorance of what the consequences would be someday, would you have done it anyway? Then you know something of what Adam and Eve felt when they judged for themselves instead of relying on the love and grace of our God who judges justly. There are people who want to take away the freedom God gave you. What does that do to the nature of love?
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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:
This year’s Lent Devotional Series “Seeing His Love with New Eyes” resumes tomorrow after today’s Sabbath rest to meditate and worship. Today, reflect on the great mercy of God shown in His love for us!
God may be angry at sin, but He is Love and desires every human to be saved if only they’ll willingly cross over from death to life. He has done everything necessary for us to freely make that journey of faith.
If God’s pure and selfless love is itself pure life, but sin’s selfishness leads only to death, why would anyone choose sin and death over salvation by God’s selfless love? Could it be they just don’t believe Him when He outlines life and death?
John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. Yes, and He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent Him.
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
Exercise: Imagine a road before you that splits in two directions. One branch is clearly labeled as a path to “Life” and the other labeled as the way to “Death.” Now picture it labeled “Live by the God’s Grace” and “Do What You Want.” It forms the classic meme of “It’s the same picture.” Everything has been done so you can cross over now. Believe.
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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time:
Fire and brimstone preaching at its most classic form is found in “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” a sermon written in 1741 by renowned theologian Jonathan Edwards during the First Great Awakening.
There are modern people who hate the idea that God is angry at sin. A while back, prolific women’s ministry writer Beth Moore attacked Jonathan Edwards for his style on Twitter (now X) and was ratioed, even seemingly “Community Noted” to the nth degree before they were called Community Notes.
In particular she hated, “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 so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful venomous Serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn Rebel did his Prince: and yet ‘tis nothing but his Hand that holds you from falling into the Fire every Moment.”
She tried to explain her way out of it. “Yes, Jesus who could warn the ever-living fire out of you,” Moore added, “but Jesus who could tell you everything you’d ever done yet somehow, in doing so, be alight with such holy love toward you, that his confrontation gives you dignity you need to feel like maybe, in him—in his eyes—you’re worth saving. And you run into town and tell everyone you can find, Come and meet who I have met!”
Her warm and fuzzy lovey God who could be “alright” loving you, giving you dignity as a sinner, and that YOU are “worth saving” is precisely the kind of Christian-Lite Barneyesque, “I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family” that totally misses how truly condemnable we all are on account of our sin. Yes, Beth, condemnable… in God’s eyes.
In further trying to rescue her earlier tweet, she digs a deeper hole writing, “I’m no big theologian, but I just don’t think you’re a spider. And I don’t think God abhors you.”
Seriously, why does Hell exist if God only sees pretty good people in simple need of dignity? Why would any experience Hell? Doesn’t the mere existence of Hell speak to how God feels about sin in rebellious, rejecting, reviling sinners? Or does she deny the existence of Hell as some theologians do? Big mistake to underestimate how much God hates sin.
He hates sin enough to punish it and banish it from His presence (Psalm 5:4-6, 9-10). Eternally. But He loves His Image in us to have done everything (not just everything in His power implying it’s insufficient for the task), but everything necessary so that we would never have to experience Hell. His favor is upon the righteous (Psalm 5:7-8,11-12). That’s the eternal, infinite power of grace.
Exercise: A story came out recently about various car brands (GM, Ford, Subaru, Honda…) sending driving data to LexisNexis which reports it to your insurance companies which raise your rates depending on what it reports. God doesn’t need an electronic tattler to report our infractions. What if all of us lived such good lives that our infractions were nearly non-existent? We’d still need the covering of Christ to avoid Hell because falling at any one point in our lives is enough sin to make us sinners.
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If you’re already signed up on my Home Page sidebar to receive posts, you’ll get the 2024 Lent Devotionals automatically. Or you can “Like” Seminary Gal on Facebook and they’ll be delivered to your Facebook news feed. If you haven’t signed up, today is a great day to do so. Advent and Lenten devotionals remain among my most popular offerings. You don’t want to miss this encounter with God to prepare your heart for Easter! Understanding that prior years’ devotionals continue to minister, you may want to have access to a full series ahead of time: