Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Remembering all God's attributes



The effeminate and sentimental talkers of this boastful age represent God as though he had no attribute but that of gentleness, no virtue but that of indifference to evil; but the God of the Bible is glorious in holiness, he will by no means spare the guilty, at his bar every transgression is meted out its just recompense of reward. Even in the New Testament, wherein stands that golden sentence, “God is love,” his other attributes are by no means cast into the shade. Read the burning words of Peter, or James, or Jude, and see how the God of Sabaoth abhorreth evil! As the God who must do right, the Lord cannot shut his eyes to the iniquities of man; he must visit transgression with its punishment. He has done it, has done it terribly, and he will do it; even to all eternity he will show himself the God that hateth iniquity and sin. What, then, is to become of man? “All we like sheep have gone astray;” sin must be punished; what, then, can become of us? Infinite love has devised the expedient of representation and substitution.

From a sermon entitled "Individual Sin Laid On Jesus," delivered April 10, 1870. Image by Steve Jurvetson on flickr under Creative Commons License.

No comments: