The Promise of the Gospel Part 4

4) Those who will call upon the Name of the Lord Must Recognize the Implications of not inheriting the kingdom of God

Having seen in the previous posts that all men are inherently sinful and that sin is serious in the eyes of God [with respect to His standard of righteousness] and that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, we now need to address ourselves to what God will do with the unrighteous or where will the unrighteous be. Paul answers our question in Rom. 6:23 in these words, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul here implies that the reward that you get by sinning is death. Of course, this stretches far beyond the physical death―which is the separation of the body from the soul. In other words, there is more than the physical death. There is spiritual death which is what Paul implies in this passage when he contrasts death with life that is eternal. This the death that comes after the physical death and is the most dreadful form of death that is characterized by [1] suffering away from the presence of God, and [2] suffering the torment of hell forever. 

i.             Suffering away from the presence of God forever

No unrighteous person can inherit the kingdom of God who is so holy and so pure to behold evil (Hab. 1:13). There is no way God―being light―can dwell with darkness (1 John 5:2; 2 Cor. 6:14). For this reason, believers are admonished to cast aside the works of darkness and walk as children of light (Eph. 5:11; Rom. 13:12). The implication is that the unrighteous will eternally bear the wrath of God away from His presence having lived in disobedience to Him (2 Thess. 1:9; Eph. 2:1-3). Being away from the presence God means being but off from the comfort that believers will eternally enjoy having suffered here on earth. It means the unrighteous will be eternally cut off from God’s grace and mercy. It also means that they will not enjoy the eternal peace of God that the righteous will enjoy in glory. In other words, the unrighteous will be cut off from hope of any form of help in their eternal state of suffering.  This is a dreadful thing to envisage!    

ii.            Suffering the torment of hell forever

The Scriptures not only say that unrighteous will be away from the presence of the Lord as they suffer, but also that this form of suffering will be eternally agonizing in the lake of fire as John states in Rev. 21:8, “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”  This is the place where they will eternally bear the wrath of God due to their sinfulness. This sad reality should make the unrighteous tremble and turn his eyes to the cross of Christ and heed the call of the gospel. We get glimpses of the horrors of hell in the account of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man―upon death―is said to be in anguish; suffering the torments of the flame of eternal life while Lazarus is being comforted in Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:23-24). Again, this is such a horrifying reality!

The Promise of the Gospel Part 3

3) Those who will call upon the Name of the Lord Must Understand that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God

Paul, in his letter to the church of God that is in Corinth, poses a question that causes the unrighteous to tremble in so far as the call to the promise of the gospel in concerned. He asks in 1 Cor. 6:9, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? [emphasis mine]. He goes on to enumerate some of the many ways in which unrighteousness manifests in v. 10 when he says “Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). He adds, elsewhere in Galatians 5:19-21, some of the manifestations of unrighteousness as follows, “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,  idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,  envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” [emphasis mine]. The idea of failing to inherit the kingdom of God is something that Paul repeats in other places other than the passages we have considered. In Eph. 5:5 for example, he further corroborates this fact in these words “For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”  On the contrary, the righteous will enjoy the presence of the Lord in all eternity (1 Thess. 4:17).