Post
by steve » Fri Apr 26, 2013 1:48 pm
I think the problem many have in seeing God as He is depicted in judgment passages of scripture is in our ascribing too much importance to earthly longevity. "Why would God kill so-and-so [that is, cut their lives on earth short], if He is a loving God?" is the question we hear so often. We could as easily ask, "Why would Jesus, if He loves His disciples, encourage them to lay down their lives [cut their earthly lives short] to die as martyrs?" For that matter, why does God let babies die of disease, which is in His power to heal? In all such cases, God is either causing, encouraging, or refusing to prevent premature death. Is this loving?
In the case of martyrs, we immediately know the answer: There is a reward in the next life for Christians (Matt.16:24-26/ Rev.2:10), so the duration of their earthy pilgrimage, whether long or short, matters little in the light of eternity. This is an entirely satisfying answer, it seems to me. So why can't we apply the same principle more universally—namely, that all people face an eternity of such significance that the length of their earthly lives, by comparison, is of little consequence?
This life is short (though not equally so) for all humans, and eternity is long (and equally so) for all. If a baby and a 100-year-old man die together in an accident, and both find themselves in heaven, the respective lengths of their earthly lives will not be a matter of concern to them. The difference of a hundred years, from an eternal perspective, is imperceptibly small.
Likewise, if one sinner dies and goes to hell after living 25 years, and another experiences the same fate after a life of 100 years, this disparity will mean nothing at all to them in their ultimate circumstances. It is the nature of these ultimate circumstances that provides the milieu for our assessment of the value of such things as earthly longevity, comfort, prosperity, happiness, etc. In scripture, godly people are often urged to sacrifice the latter for the former. Why should it be otherwise for sinners?
Since all have sinned, all die. It is appointed to all. It is God's to decide when, and under what circumstances, each person will fulfill his appointment. In many wars, natural disasters and national judgments, righteous and relatively righteous folks have perished alongside the wicked. This is sad to the survivors, but it hardly makes any difference to the victims. For the righteous, any day is a good day to meet God. To the wicked, one day is as bad as any other to be the last.
God has an eternal plan. It is a good plan. In the resurrection, we will all be happy with what God has in store—even for the lost (which is one reason to doubt the traditional view of hell). Between here and there lies the dark valley of death, which all must traverse. Every sinner killed by God in Sodom and Gomorrah, or any other Old Testament judgment, if they had been spared that fate, would nonetheless have long since perished in some other manner. To die by the sword in the year 1400 BC is a gory end for the sinner. Dying in 2013 of prostate cancer may be much worse. Many a saint, while trusting God, has died more painfully than did Agag or Sisera—but never in circumstances that God could not have remedied. In their cases, despite their prayers, the loving God withheld His hand.
Passing through death may be a more or less painful ordeal, but it is a universal and finite one. Only those who do not calibrate their judgments with reference to eternity are likely to stumble over God striking Ananias and Saphira or Herod dead (in the New Testament) or the Canaanites, Nadab and Abihu and Uzza in the Old. A thousand (or a billion) years from now, it will not be the matter of when, or by what means, any given person has died that will matter. It will be whether they died prepared or unprepared to meet God.
