This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering — since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
II Thessalonians 1: 5-8 (ESV)
Scripture: Hebrews 10: 19-39
Have you ever had someone tell you they have trouble reconciling a loving God with a vengeful God? They think that because God is love, everyone will be forgiven everything in the end regardless of the choices they have made. Today’s devotion explores two of the facets of God’s character — love and vengeance — and what that will mean for eternity.
People really pick up on the notion that God is love. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (I Jn. 4: 8 ESV). However, they kind of turn the “…who does not love …” part around. They think that God cannot do anything but act in love. Translation — bring on the good stuff!
Also brought up is the fact that a God is merciful and forgiving. “But the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him” (Dan. 9: 9 NIV). It does follow, doesn’t it, because if you love someone, you are going to forgive them even if they don’t deserve it, right?
So, in the end, God will forgive us, right? Even if we haven’t asked forgiveness for sins, He will say, “Come home to paradise.”
That is not true.
God is a vengeful God. “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is fierce in wrath. The LORD takes vengeance against His foes; He is furious with His enemies” (Nah. 1: 2 HCSB). Let’s take a look as some definitions.
We generally think of jealous as being upset because your significant other is pursuing or being pursued by someone else. We usually don’t think about being jealous as being protective.
Vengeance is an act of retaliation against someone. Someone did something to hurt you, and you are getting back at them. Wrath is the complete, extreme anger that is fueling that vengeance.
How does that apply to God? He loves us, but we are pursued by Satan. God wants Satan to just leave us alone, but He knows that isn’t going to happen until all this is over.
God is protective of us. He wants what is best for us. In fact, He has built our plans around our choices to bring about good for His kingdom and us (Rom. 8: 28).
One day, God’s wrath will be unleashed, and His vengeance will be evident. This earth will end, and we will all stand before the judgment seat.
And people think God is going to take our lifetime acts of denying His Lordship and just chuck them out the window? The only way He does that is if we come to Him in complete repentance, asking to have the blood of Jesus redeem us. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (Eph. 1: 7 NIV). That will be the deciding factor.
Do people expect God to say, “Well, I’ve been saying all along that Jesus is the only way (Jn. 14: 6), but I’ve changed my mind.” Do people really expect God to invalidate Jesus’ death by letting in people who have not been redeemed by His blood?
Not going to happen.
God doesn’t change His mind. Numbers 23: 19 says, “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (ESV). God stands firm in His convictions.
Have you ever been in a relationship where the other person changed their mind constantly? That does not promote a stable relationship.
Maybe it was your supervisor who waffled all the time. That made it hard for you to do your job because expectations were constantly changing.
Maybe it was a significant other who’s thoughts and decisions were a moving target. Maybe they didn’t realize they were doing this. Maybe they did this on purpose.
Let’s look what really is the issue. The underlying issue is usually people don’t want to be judged for their actions and beliefs. They don’t want to suffer the consequences of their choices.
People want good stuff and no bad stuff.
Not going to happen, people. “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2: 5 NIV). The choice — and consequences— are ours.
And people are really going to give their loyalty to a god who does that? I don’t think so.
But that is just it, isn’t it? People try to point out all of the inconsistencies that “prove” God is inconsistent. Then people look at those who follow Him and the inconsistent list grows.
People use this to validate as to why they haven’t asked God to be their Lord and Jesus to be their Savior. Then they can keep on doing what they want to be doing!
The last chapter has already been written. Revelations gives us an idea about how it is all going to end.
Jesus also talked about judgment when He was here on earth. Matthew 25 talks about the the dividing that will take place. In verse 46, it ends the description with “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (NKJV). That is what is going to happen at the judgment seat.
That judgment is going to be based on one deciding factor: have we acknowledged God’s lordship and have we asked Jesus to be our Redeemer? It isn’t going to be contingent on how many save the kids, save the animals, save the planet groups we support. It isn’t based on how we treat or mistreat other people. It isn’t based on whether we were at church every time the doors opened.
When we stand at the judgment seat, only one thing will decide if we go to eternal punishment or eternal life. Have we surrendered our lives to God?
Father. You saw long before You created man that we would allow Satan to deceive us. In You infinite love, You devised a plan to redeem us. You give us the choice to accept or reject that salvation. Forgive us when we only want to focus on Your love and not Your judgment. Help us to more fully surrender our lives to You. Lord, we wait for the day when we will stand at the judgment seat and hear “Well done, good and faithful servant. … Enter into the joy of your master” (Mt. 25:21 ESV).
What do you think? How do you reconcile a loving God with a vengeful God? Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
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Hello. I am 17, and as a 17 year old I feel I’ve strayed from God by a lot. I’ve wandered for miles. I’ve been feeling called to return to Him recently, and this entry has helped me reconcile the final piece of my many questions about the nature of God. Thank you for writing this. I’m going to continue on this path as best I can and return under His wing, if He will have me.
I am so glad that God led you to this devotion so that He could talk to you through it. He will coming running to us as we turn and start toward Him. Unfortunately, we will turn from Him — many times — in our lives. We just have to repent and return to Him. He will accept us back when we are genuine and sincere in our repentance. If I can help you in any way, please contact me. Elaine
I’m in my 80th year – the ‘experienced’ end of the spectrum. I came to receive Christ as Saviour at the age of 23 through the witness and friendship of others and their nurture. I was once saved, being saved, and by the Grace of God will be saved.
We are told constantly to run the race and to persevere. In the world we will have tribulation, but Jesus has overcome the world. So, keeping the faith is often a struggle of keeping the mind on course – people offend and do nasty stuff to us and do not apologise. We do nasty things to God, hence He loves a repentant sinner else we will be judged and no unforgiven sin is going to make it to heaven.
Vengeance is mine says the Lord – so we had better watch out when ‘revenge’ is in our hearts.
Christians were torn limb from limb in the past, and the rest shuddered – in comparison our tribulation is light.
Rejection of Christ’s redeeming blood is rejecting God’s love and salvation – He is justified, in my mind, to wreak vengeance on unrepentant sinners as in Hebrews 10 – those who have known God and turned back have trampled on the blood of Christ and are worse off than if they had never known Him.
Thank you for your comment.
God IS love…love is His essence its not merely 1 of His attributes…His justice, wrath all He is flows from His love…love does no ill (1Corinthians 13 )..Hes not angry forever it says in the OT Psalms 103:8-13.
The LORD shows mercy and is kind. He does not become angry quickly, and he has great love. He will not always accuse us, and he will not be angry forever.Therefor He doesnt not punish and torment billions of folks in hell forever.That false teaching slanders God.