My original point stands, God loves but is just/righteous. This is like a spouse who still loves their former wayward marriage partner, but the love is never reciprocated. With that no contact/driven out, but the love is still there.
My original point stands, God loves but is just/righteous. This is like a spouse who still loves their former wayward marriage partner, but the love is never reciprocated. With that no contact/driven out, but the love is still there.
In the case of the lost, they are driven out of God’s presence (destroyed) and no longer a relevance to anything at all. This is how He also treated His enemies in the OT.
It’s why the lost are compared to weeds and chaff to be burned up in the furnace. Any farmer can relate to that. They grow a lot of soy where I live. The soy is harvested and they weeds get another dose of Roundup. They are simply an annoyance to be removed from the field. Nobody laments over them. Nobody talks of their love for them.
This is why I think Jesus uses this kind of analogy. It is clear to anyone who has lived in the world what the analogy means. He keeps the good grain and the weeds, chaff are removed and destroyed.
BTW, speaking of Soy and chaff, the way they harvest it is really interesting. The machine goes over the field like a big lawn mower and a chute drops soy beans in a hopper behind the driver (you can see them falling into the bin) and the chaff is spread over the field from the back like grass out the side of a lawn mower.
Ridiculously efficient.