Responses to Divine Judgment

On responding rightly to God’s judgments:

The judgments of God serve many purposes. They are not just something that take place at the end of the age, but are his ongoing means even today of doing various things. In God’s Judgments by Steven Keillor (IVP, 2007) we have this point briefly stated early on:

[W]e must define what we mean by judgment, and this book focuses intently on the meaning of the word mishpat—especially the one meaning of a “sifting out.” Thus, judgment is not only a final, curtain-dropping event but also a lengthy process with God as an active investigator testing people’s hearts, giving the wicked a chance to repent and the righteous to fall away. This meaning helps to bridge the gap between judgment as a scriptural doctrine that most believers do not question and specific events they may be reluctant to identify as judgments.

And divine judgment is not just about punishing evil and righting wrongs – it also has salvific purposes. That is the theme of the important 2010 volume by James Hamilton, God’s Glory in Salvation Through Judgment: A Biblical Theology (Crossway) – a book I have discussed in previous articles. Just one quote from his opening chapter:

The transformation the church needs is the kind that results from beholding the glory of God in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18-4:6). This glory of God is a saving and judging glory — an aroma of life to those being saved and death to those perishing (2 Cor. 2:15-16), and this saving and judging glory is at the center of biblical theology. If there is to be a renewal, it will be a renewal that grows out of the blazing center that is the glory of God in the face of Christ. This saving and judging glory, I contend, is the center of biblical theology.

Both quotes emphasise the truth that God’s judgments involve a weeding-out process. How we respond determines where we are really at. Do we drop to our knees and repent, or do we simply harden our hearts and turn against God even more?

It is that latter response I want to focus on here. And I mention all this because I am again reading in the book of Exodus, and have once more seen the ways – in this case, the wrong ways – that Pharaoh responds to Yahweh and the ten plagues of judgment on him and Egypt.

The plagues momentarily get Pharaoh to seemingly relent of his ways, but just as soon as there was an easing up of the plague, Pharaoh went right back to shaking his fist at God. In at least three passages we see how Pharaoh turned against God even more.

Just after the 2^nd plague we read this: “But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them, as the Lord had said” (Ex. 8:15). After the 7^th plague we find a similar reaction: “But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again and hardened his heart, he and his servants” (Ex. 9:34).

And after all 10 plagues, with the Israelites hightailing it out of Egypt, we find this:

For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.” And they did so. When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, the mind of Pharaoh and his servants was changed toward the people, and they said, “What is this we have done, that we have let Israel go from serving us?” So he made ready his chariot and took his army with him, and took six hundred chosen chariots and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them. (Ex. 14:3-7)

We find this response elsewhere in Scripture. And sadly, God’s own people often behave this way. Consider Jeremiah 5:3:

O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth?
You have struck them down,
    but they felt no anguish;
you have consumed them,
    but they refused to take correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
    they have refused to repent.

The longer passage of Amos 4:6-13 gives us much the same. Another shorter example is Haggai 2:17: “I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord.”

And three passages from Revelation give us the same sort of reaction:

-The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Rev. 9:20-21)

-The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds. (Rev. 16:8-11)

-And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe. (Rev. 16:21)

So you should be getting the picture by now. One would think that when God severely judges a person or a nation, the sensible thing to do would be to repent and turn from the grievous sin that has resulted in this judgment. But too often the opposite is just the response: people get even more hardened and rebellious.

I close with some words from Craig Keener. In his commentary on Revelation, he speaks of “Divine judgment and its purpose” as found in Rev. 16:

This passage announces that God’s judgments are just; the world oppresses God’s children and then wonders why it must suffer so much. Many people today do not like to talk about divine judgment; in their view, that is not what a god is for. But Santa Claus theology “cannot cope with the reality of evil” or seemingly senseless sufferings. To make God kind but never firm (as many liberals have done) is “to deny his omnipotence and lordship over” a world full of sufferings; facing such hardships without assurance that God has a purpose in them leads to fatalism. A God who never inflicts corporate judgments on the world is not the God of Scripture, but an idol of our own making. As A. W. Tozer observed, “when God acts justly He is not doing so to conform to an independent criterion, but simply acting like Himself in a given situation.”

 

This is not to say that each of those sufferings on an individual level constitutes a judgment; one person may experience a particular kind of suffering as judgment whereas another experiences the same kind of suffering as a test of faith. The sufferings themselves do not reveal their purpose, but they do summon our attention to the God who can give us understanding of their purposes.

 

God sends judgments not only to vindicate his oppressed people (6:9-11; 8:3-6), but also to get the world’s attention and offer them the opportunity for repentance (16:9, 11, 21). That many people do not repent when they face judgment is not too surprising (16:9). One survivor of a plane crash recounts that he always expected people who were dying to cry out to God for mercy in their final moments, but noted that he heard many respond with cursing, following the habits they had spent their lives developing. Whether God acts with justice or mercy, some refuse to believe (16:9). They are like the wicked who took Lot’s admonitions about impending judgment as jesting (Gen. 19:14), and when Lot tried to prevent homosexual rape, he was accused of being judgmental (19:9).

 

That the world dies unrepentant in the face of God’s judgments (16:9, 11, 21) reveals their obduracy and the depth of human rebellion against God. Seeking to illustrate the same sort of point, C. S. Lewis hypothesized that those committed to sin throughout their life might not choose life even after they have been banished to eternal alienation from God. While this perspective does not match literally what we read about hell in Scripture, it does illustrate the point about those who seek to be alienated from God in this life.

Friends, be very careful how you respond to the hand of God. His mercy will not extend to us forever.

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