Thoughts On The Judgment Of God

A large part of Christianity does not understand the holiness of God and because they fail to understand His majesty, they have a very difficult time with God's judgment against sinners. What aggravates the problem even more is when people only talk about the love of God as if His wrath is outdated and wrong. I present that we will never truly understand nor appreciate just how much God does indeed love His people unless we understand how "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY" HE is which includes vindicating His name in pouring out His judgment on sinners. The beautiful thing about the Gospel is this: "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him"(Heb 9:27–28). How's that for love and grace!

The cross is not only a demonstration of God's love but also His judgment in wrath. God has not ceased to be holy because of the cross, no, rather the cross is also a demonstration of His holiness. I have no favorite verse but if I did 2 Corinthians 5:21 might be close to being it: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

The modern understanding of Calvary seems to be that it was simply a sentimental gesture of God. But without understanding God's judgment in wrath, the cross is meaningless. Were there sentiments involved at the cross? Of course. I don't think the Father was a Stoic without any type of emotion. However, we must not confuse our emotions with God's. We tend to be controlled by ours where God is not controlled by anything. He is perfectly and completely in control of all things. At Calvary God was both pouring out His wrath on Christ and at the same time, in love, He was saving His people. There is not one iota of wrath left for God's children. It was fully expended on Christ. We are no longer under the curse but rather blessed, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree'— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith"(Ga 3:13–14).

As I have been reading through Ezekiel what has caught my attention is that thus far every chapter (I could be mistaken) and I'm up to 22, has mentioned God's judgment on nations. Take this pronouncement [sic] on the Ammonites for example: "And I will pour out my indignation upon you; I will blow upon you with the fire of my wrath, and I will deliver you into the hands of brutish men, skillful to destroy. You shall be fuel for the fire. Your blood shall be in the midst of the land. You shall be no more remembered, for I the LORD have spoken”(Eze 21:31–32). What is it that the author of Hebrews said- "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God"(Heb 10:31).

The judgment of God is still on the heads of the Christ rejecters. The New Testament verifies this in John 3:36- "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." This is why when we proclaim the Gospel we must never avoid mentioning God's wrath. It is a present reality for the unrepentant.

Finally [sic], in order to have salvation you must have condemnation but to preach condemnation without the offer of salvation is just cruel. This is why we love Christ because He alone is our salvation and there is no escaping God's judgment apart from Him. He not only freed us from the curse of the law but He freed us from our bondage to sin. Soli Deo Gloria!

This is really a "ho-hum" argument that is often brought up by our Catholic friends. Are you going to tell me that the Eastern Orthodox is a Protestant denomination? Are they Roman Catholic? Are they a Catholic denomination? And there are far more of these Catholic "denominations". It is a slippery slope.

But I took your advice and Googled "how many protestant denominations?". If you were to do so you will find a number of articles that pop up on the first page that refutes the claim of so many Protestants denominations. There were so many but this is one from "Just for Catholics".

30,000 Protestant Denominations?

Question: If one thing is clear, it's that there is one, single, visible Church that Jesus founded. This multitude of competing, conflicting denominations is no sign of God's work; therefore, it must be the work of the Evil One. Somewhere in the midst of these 30,000 denominations, there is one true church, and the rest are in sin and rebellion.

Answer: The "thousands-of-denominations" argument is very often employed to prove all sorts of things. Here are some citations from letters received from other Catholics:

How can all these denominations claim to follow the Bible yet all come to different conclusions? How can I possibly know which one of those above teach the truth when they can't even agree on what the Bible says? The Bible alone has created so much havoc in this world.

If there is only one Church, why are there so many Protestant denominations? Possibly many thousands throughout the world, as compared to only one Catholic Church? I do see it as a sign of God's judgment that there are close to 30,000 Protestant denominations.

The Bible alone can be dangerous. In fact, the Bible alone IS dangerous. Look at Protestantism: 100,000 different interpretation of the Bible, 100,000 contradictions, 100,000 different denominations claiming to have the key.

Peter said that no prophecy of the Scripture is for private interpretation. This is why you have 30,000 different Protestant denominations that all believe differently from one another. This alone should give you a clue that Protestantism is not the true Church of Jesus Christ.

So, the existence of many Protestant denominations supposedly proves that the Sola Scriptura is dangerous, that we should not try to understand the Bible for ourselves, that the church of Rome is the one true church, and of course, all the other churches are false.

Elsewhere I have written on the significance of the heterogeneity among Christians. (See That They May Be One and Disagreement among Protestants). Here I simply want to make one important addition, namely, that the allegation so often repeated by Catholic apologists that there are 20,000 to 30,000 Protestant denominations is simply FALSE . . . not to mention the double standard employed, for the Roman Church is not exactly united. There are untold factions and divisions, and diverse understanding of doctrine within Catholic groups and by different Catholic theologians and individuals.

In an article entitled "30,000 Protestant Denominations?", Evangelical apologist Eric Svendsen exposes the falsehood of this fabrication. Briefly:

•Barrett cites a figure of 20,780 denominations. However not all of them are Protestants. According to Barrett, Protestants account for 8,196 (and incidentally, Roman Catholics account for 223).

•However, even this figure of eight thousand Protestant denominations is misleading, for Barrett defines "distinct denominations" as any group that might have a slightly different emphasis than another group. The distinction is made on the basis of jurisdiction, rather than differing beliefs and practices.

•Barrett breaks down the Protestant bloc into twenty-one major "traditions" which are much closer to what we usually mean by the word "denominations." It is interesting that Roman Catholics are subdivided into sixteen such "traditions."

•Svendsen concludes, "In short, Roman Catholic apologists have hurriedly, carelessly - and, as a result, irresponsibly - glanced at Barrett's work, found a large number (22,189), and arrived at all sorts of absurdities that Barrett never concluded."

I won't post the link. You can google it for yourself.

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