The Terror of the Lord.
By Independent
“God is love,” says the apostle John. “For God so loved the world,” says Christ, “that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.” The gospel of Jesus Christ, which is entitled “the glorious gospel of the blessed God” and also “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,” is, beyond all question, the gospel of love, and, as such, the best acquisition earth ever gained from Heaven. God, considered simply in his benevolence and mercy as thus manifested, lays the foundation for all our hopes. There is, however, another view of God found in the same Bible, equally true, and not at all inconsistent with his love and mercy. God is said to be “angry with the wicked every day.” Isaiah says: “Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him.” Christ says: “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” “Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish” constitute the Bible picture of what God will render “to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness.” “It is a fearful thing,” says Paul, “to fall into the hands of the living God.” “For our God is a consuming fire.” The same apostle tells us that “the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” Peter speaks of “the day of Judgment and perdition of ungodly men,” Christ, when judging the world in righteousness, is represented as saying to the wicked: “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Of the wicked it is said that they shall “go away into everlasting punishment.” These and like passages, found in the same Bible, that speaks so fully and emphatically of the love and mercy of God, reveal “the terror of the Lord.” The God of the Bible is not so benevolent or merciful that he ceases to be holy and just. The severities of his justice are not malevolent in the evil sense. It is not more certain that he is benevolent and gracious than it is that he “will render to every man according to his deeds,” and that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”—Independent.