We All Crave Justice—Until It Comes

Lessons from Angels, Flood, and Fire

Why do even the smallest injustices bother us so much? We long for justice—but do we still want it when it’s perfect? And final? Peter takes us back in time and shows us a kind of justice that reaches higher, wider, and deeper than we ever imagined. And it forces us to wrestle with what we really want.

What Does 2 Peter 2:5-9 Mean?

2 Peter 2:5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to annihilation by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

Peter ended verse 4 with the claim that the false teachers will be condemned. The purpose of verses 5-9 is to support that statement by showing that condemnation is consistent with what God has done in the past. God set angels to hell despite their high status, destroyed the world of Noah’s time despite the large number, and annihilated Sodom and Gomorrah with an inescapable, fiery cataclysm. Given all that, he certainly won’t spare the false teachers.

But there is an escape for the righteous (defined by having in God, not by a clean track record or certain amount of victory). Our response should be to rebuke wickedness and maintain a love for holiness that brings us to great distress over evil.

2 Peter 2:3 … Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction has not been sleeping. 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into pits of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to annihilation by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.

Introduction

We All Want Justice … Until We Don’t

Exodus 23:22 … do not pervert justice”

Do you know anyone who would disagree with that sentence? Democrats, Republicans, young people, old people, people in every country, every tribe, and every age for all of human history—everyone is in favor of justice. And not just in favor of it. The desire for justice is one of the deepest and most visceral of all human drives. Think about it. I raised three kids and now I have 13 grandkids and never once did I ever teach any of them to say, “That’s not fair.” I never had to explain to any of them, “If someone does this to you, that’s unfairness.” You never have to teach that to any kid. Very soon after they learn how to speak, they speak those words: “That’s not fair!”

Kids hate being treated unfairly—has anyone here outgrown that yet? I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t hate injustice—almost in a disproportionate way. Even something as small as getting chewed out by your boss for something that wasn’t your fault—it can dominate your thoughts for days, like you suffered some terrible loss. You can hear a story about a volcano that kills 1000 people, and it won’t affect your emotions as much as hearing about some innocent person who is falsely accused of something and get sentenced to life in prison. You can watch a movie or read a novel where people suffer terribly or die, but the real angst of the story comes where there is some injustice that happens. And nothing is more satisfying than when the bad guy gets what he deserves.

The desire for justice and hatred of injustice runs so deep it’s visceral. Why would that affect us even more than things you would expect to be much bigger? I did a little research and it sounds to me like psychologists have no tenable way of explaining this in naturalistic terms. I think it’s because God is a just God and so we’re programmed this way.

But whatever explanation you might have, you can’t deny the universal desire for justice. God gave us governments—rulers and police and law courts to keep us from total anarchy and gang rule. That’s a wonderful gift God gave us—human government, but we all know that human government is far from perfect. When we look at our justice system, even as we thank God for it, we also say, “That can’t be all there is.” There’s got to be more justice than that. People who do horrific things and are never held accountable—they just get rich and live in luxury and die in comfort and never pay a price. And people who are abused, stolen from, unjustly imprisoned—all these terrible injustices that happen to people and those wrongs are never set right. Is that really the way things are? Humanity has this deep, visceral craving for justice and the whole thing is a fantasy? It never actually happens?

That’s what the people who deny Judgment Day would have us believe. We live in a world completely characterized by ultimate injustice. And this dominating drive the human race has for justice is just a fantasy we dreamed up that will never happen.

Too Much Justice? The Troubling Doctrine of Hell

But Scripture speaks of God on his throne. When you see the word “throne,” that’s talking about the divine government. The ultimate government that will bring perfect justice.

And what’s God’s answer to the universal craving and need for ultimate, final justice? He says, “Let me tell you about a place called hell.” And all of humanity says, “Whoa. Hold on, God. That’s a little much. We said we wanted justice, but not that much justice.

If God gave the human race (including Christians) the option of voting one doctrine out of the Bible, it would probably be the doctrine of hell. People who otherwise have a high view of Jesus and his teachings often hate what Jesus taught about hell. They hate it for three reasons. If we are to take Jesus at his word, hell is objectionable because:

• It’s too harsh.

The fiery torment that is described, and especially the fact that it’s eternal—it just doesn’t seem right that people who have a finite amount of guilt should suffer an infinite punishment.

• Too many people go there.

If only those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ go to heaven, that means the vast majority of people go to hell. That just doesn’t seem right. Surely God would never set the bar so high that almost everyone fails. And many Christians will say, “Maybe I need to rethink my understanding of the gospel and salvation and who gets in and who doesn’t.”

That reasoning is extremely common. Even some of our best preachers, like Billy Graham, have said this. God is so merciful, maybe devout Muslims and Hindus and tribal people in remote jungles who never had a chance to hear about Jesus…. —maybe there’s a way God will let those people into heaven. (I will add that Billy Graham’s sermons didn’t reflect that idea, as he spent decades calling people to faith in Christ, so I’m thankful for that. But it does show how pervasive this kind of thinking is.)

It’s hard to accept the severity of hell, the proportion of the population that would go there, one more objection: the fact that relatively good people get sent there.

• Relatively good people go there.

Obviously, nobody is perfect. But there are unbelievers who are wonderful people—honest, friendly, kind, generous. Would God really send someone like that to hell on Judgment Day? People are okay with Hitler going to hell, and maybe rapists and murderers. But my friendly neighbor?

And people often feel this way about false teachers because, as we found in v.1, false teachers tend to be so personable and winsome and likable. And very often, they are impressive individuals. They seem like VIPs. You see a guy get out of a limo wearing a suit that cost more than your car, and he’s got a whole entourage around him… , important people want to interview him on national TV—would God really send a big shot like that to hell?

Peter’s goal in today’s passage is to prove to us that Judgment Day is indeed coming, there will be final, ultimate justice, and exhibit A of those who are going to get what’s coming to them is the false teachers.

Review

You’ll remember that was the last thing Peter said in v.3.

2 Peter 2:3 … Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

There will be final justice, and the next word is “for,” which means, “Let me support what I just said. And the whole next section from vv.4-9 is Peter’s effort to prove what he said about the condemnation and punishment of the false teachers being an absolute certainty.

Proof From Scripture

Now, let me tell you up front that Peter’s defense of the doctrine of hell won’t be satisfying to a lot of people because it’s not philosophical. What we want are philosophical answers—tell me something about hell that makes it more palatable, less objectionable, easier to accept. And when you hear Christian apologists who are asked about hell, they usually take that route. They try to say something to make hell seem more reasonable. “Well, all hell is is God giving people what they really want. They want separation from him, God is a gentleman, he doesn’t force himself on anyone, so he grants them what they wish.”

That’s one example. There are various philosophical answers that make the doctrine of eternal judgment seem more reasonable. But that’s not what Peter does at all. Just the opposite. If anything, his proofs make the whole thing even more uncomfortable.

Here’s what we need to understand: there are two issues at hand:

• Is the doctrine of hell true?
• If it is true, how is it reasonable?

And what people don’t seem to realize is that #2 has nothing to do with #1. If you can figure out a way that it sounds reasonable or you can’t figure a way that it sounds reasonable—that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether it’s true.

Facing Reality

If hell is real and it really is perfect justice (and I realize I haven’t proven that yet, but if Peter is able to prove that it’s true) , then when people say, “I could never accept a God who would condemn people to hell”—that would just be a denial of reality. It’s like a person who finds out how hot the sun is and says, “That’s way too hot. I could never accept a sun that hot.” You know what happens to people who can’t accept a sun that hot? They spend the whole day on the beach without putting on sunscreen. And even though they can’t bring themselves to believe in such a hot sun They still end up looking like a lobster at the end of the day.

Even if you could prove in a court of law that the sun is in the wrong for being that hot , you’re still going to find out that reality doesn’t conform itself to what you think it ought to be. You might think gravity is totally unfair, but that opinion won’t help you if you walk off a building. And if God’s way of meting out justice and punishment for sin isn’t to your liking, that doesn’t make it any less real.

And even if we grant for the sake of argument that God’s judgment is too harsh , it seems to me that would make rejecting him all the more irrational. If I’m up against a God who is overly harsh with his enemies, that seems like a good reason not to be his enemy.

So all that to say, it’s irrational to adjust your beliefs about reality just because you think it shouldn’t be the way it is. Peter’s goal in this passage is not to make the doctrine of hell sound more reasonable. His goal is to establish whether or not it’s true.

And how can he do that? If you were here when we studied the end of chapter 1, you know Peter’s answer to that. The end of chapter 1 was all about how the Scriptures are the Word of God. The question of whether the doctrine of Judgment Day is true depends on one thing: is it supported by Scripture? And that’s the approach Peter takes. Nothing philosophical—just does it align with what Scripture says or not? If Scripture says it, it’s true and we have to find a way to align our hearts with God’s.

I’ll try to help you with that at the end, but first, let’s see what Peter says about whether this is biblical. I mentioned three objections. The doctrine of hell is hard to believe because:

• The kind of people who would go there—we all know relatively good people who aren’t believers.
• The number of people who would go there—most of the human race.
• The severity of the punishment. It seems way too harsh.

Peter is going to address all three of those, all from the book of Genesis.

No One Is too Good for Judgment

He starts with the question of which people—which kind of people are at risk of being sent to hell.

2 Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment

The emphasis in the grammar is on the word angels. Imagine that word in italics. God sent angels to hell—can you imagine? Angels?

Peter’s point is that there’s no upper limit to the kind of person God will send to hell. However high and lofty and beautiful and glorious these false teachers are, they aren’t as high as angels. Psalm 8:5 says man is lower than the angels. Angels are glorious, exalted beings. When people see angels in their glory, their natural response is to fall down and worship them. So if not even those high, glorious, important, exalted beings could escape being sent to hell, that means no one is too high or too important or too glorious to be sent to hell.

In fact, the higher the station, the greater the judgment. The more privilege you’ve been given and the more knowledge you have access to, the greater your accountability. And so not only did God not spare the angels, he sent them to the deepest, darkest, hottest hell—Tartarus. Don’t think for a second that the false teachers will get a break because of who they are—they will get it worse because of who they are.

James 3:1 Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

So don’t ever adjust your understanding of hell because of who might get sent there. God has sent the most glorious of his creatures there in the past.

No Majority Is too Large to Avoid Judgment

The next objection: the number of people who will be condemned. Is it consistent with God’s character to destroy a disproportionately large percentage of the population?

2 Peter 2:5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought[1] the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah … and seven others

The point of mentioning the number is to highlight how small it is compared to the whole population of the world. Peter isn’t embarrassed about that lopsided ratio. He intentionally brings our attention to it.

Don’t ever worry that you need to rethink your understanding of the gospel because of how many people it excludes. Truth is a matter of hermeneutics, not mathematics. Whatever the Bible says is true, and we adjust our perspective to that.

Yes, it’s a lopsided ratio—but isn’t that exactly what Jesus told us to expect?

Matthew 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

No person or position is so high that it exempts a person from judgment, and no majority so broad that God would say, “That’s just too many. I’ll lower my standards.” That addresses the first two objections.

No Judgment Is too Harsh

Now the biggest objection of all: the severity and inescapability of hell. It’s too hot, too long, too painful, and there’s no way out. There’s no escape. Peter addresses that by bringing up another judgment from history.

And this one was a judgment God carried out for the express purpose of serving as a prototype and example of God’s judgment on sinners for all time. Over and over, New Testament and Old, this incident is held up as a model of how God wants us to think about Judgment Day. And that’s exactly what Peter says here. Look at the end of v.6.

2 Peter 2:6 … he made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly

So what historical event stands as a model for the final judgment?

2 Peter 2:6 he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes

Instead of water, it will be fire. If you judge how angry God is by what sort of instrument he uses for punishment , I think burning sulfur raining down from heaven and obliterating entire cities is about as extreme as it gets.

Anger

And God was angry. Deuteronomy 29:23 refers to the “destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah … which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.” Last week someone posted on my Bible Question and Answers page a rant about Noah’s flood. “Many Bible stories in Genesis paint God as angry-punishing. I don’t see God that way–he’s LOVING & CARING. That’s why I rewrote this passage about NOAH & the GREAT FLOOD.” Then he went on to rewrite the story of the flood in a version where nobody dies. Everyone survives on makeshift boats.

This guy thought that was an improvement on Genesis 6 because he believes God is loving, not angry. What people like that miss is that love and anger are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go together. You can’t have love without anger because you’ll be angry when someone hurts the ones you love. If someone tortures my child and it doesn’t bother me, would you believe me when I say I love my child? When you hear about horrific injustices that are done to people, if you just laugh that off, you don’t love those people. Not only do love and anger go together, but the deeper the love, the hotter the anger when your beloved is harmed. The more you love your child, the more upset you’ll be when people hurt your child.

And that’s how the Bible describes God when people hurt his people.

Zechariah 2:8 For this is what the Lord Almighty says: “… whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye 9 I will surely raise my hand against them”

When you stick your finger in God’s pupil, it irritates him. And if you think God’s response is emotionless, listen to how God reacted when people were hurting his servant David.

2 Samuel 22:7 In my distress I called to the Lord … my cry came to his ears. 8 “The earth trembled and quaked, the foundations of the heavens shook; they trembled because he was angry. 9 Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. 10 He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. 11 He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. 12 He made darkness his canopy around him– the dark rain clouds of the sky. 13 Out of the brightness of his presence bolts of lightning blazed forth. 14 The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. 15 He shot arrows and scattered [the enemies], bolts of lightning and routed them. 16 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of breath from his nostrils.

Sounds to me like he’s pretty upset. The greater your love for someone, the greater your anger when someone hurts them. And God loves you more than you love your child or anyone loves any child.

So if you believe in a loving God, you have to believe in a wrathful God. You can’t have one without the other. The more loving God is, the hotter hell has to be.

It’s hard for some people to accept because their dad or someone in their life had sinful, ungodly forms of anger. But don’t pin that on God.

James 1:20 man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.

Just because man’s anger tends to be mixed up with lots of evil, that doesn’t mean God’s anger is. Never try to erase an attribute of God just because humans tend to foul it up. God’s anger is perfect, and when you see fire raining down from heaven on a whole city, you know God’s anger is white hot. That’s the point Peter is making when he says Sodom and Gomorrah were not just judged—they were burned to ashes. That illustrates the fury that was involved.

Inescapable

Another thing it illustrates is the inescapability of the judgment. No one escapes.

Isaiah 1:9 Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.

In other words, if you’re like Sodom and Gomorrah—no one escapes. No way out.

Now, some people take that to mean in hell, everyone will die and just go out of existence altogether. Since the same language is used to describe people dying as is used for the destruction they face in hell, many have suggested that in hell, people are just annihilated and there is no ongoing punishment.

We might conclude that if all we had were this one verse. But in the parallel passage in Jude, we find out that’s not the case.

Jude 1:6 And the angels … he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains … 7 Sodom and Gomorrah … serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

The punishment is eternal. We know the word “eternal” in the Bible sometimes means forever and other times it is used to describe a really long time, but not forever. So which is it here? Jesus made it clear that eternal punishment is the same kind of eternal as eternal life.

Matthew 25:46 Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

There are faithful evangelical brothers who hold to the annihilation view, and I don’t have time to deal with each of their arguments here. They say things like, “The effects of the judgment are permanent, but the torment itself is not.” I’m not convinced by those arguments. I’ll just say whatever view you take, make sure it comes from a desire to understand what Scripture says rather than from a desire to make Scripture fit our sensibilities.

So Peter has addressed all three objections. You can see just from the book of Genesis, no station is too high to avoid judgment. No majority is too large to avoid it. And no punishment is too severe or too long. If you think any of those are somehow opposed to the nature of God, you need to reread the book of Genesis.

Do False Teachers Deserve This Much Punishment?

Okay, so Peter has made his point. Everything he’s saying in this chapter about the condemnation coming on the false teachers is consistent with the nature of God and what God has done in the past. It’s consistent with his nature, but … is it really fitting for false teachers? The fallen angels and the people of Noah’s time and Sodom and Gomorrah were on the extreme end of the scale of good and evil. They really deserved a lot of punishment. But false teachers? Are they in that same category?

If you ask the average person who deserves punishment from God, you’ll get the typical list of really bad sins—usually sins that involve violence or criminal activity. Who deserves to go to hell? Probably the same people who deserve life in prison. That’s what we’d naturally think. But false teachers? Is their sin really that bad?

Well, it all depends on how important truth about God is. I made that point in a previous session. We learned at the very beginning of 2 Peter that knowledge of God is the key to every kind of blessing from God. Knowing God is the key to everything, so what sin could be worse than lying to people about God? When you lie about God, you cut people off from spiritual life. And you dishonor God in the greatest way possible.

Repeatedly in Scripture, God identifies himself as “the God of truth.”[2] Satan is the father of lies because he knows the biggest way to oppose God is through perverting truth. In Proverbs 6, God lists seven things he hates. Of all the sins God really hates, these are the big seven. And in that list, two of them are lying–#2 and #7. God hates that and God punishes people who do it.

Proverbs 19:5 A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who pours out lies will not go free.

If you want to know who deserves to go to hell, just look on the last page of the Bible.

Revelation 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars–their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”

Telling a lie is really a big deal. Teaching a lie is even worse. Teaching lies about God is worse yet. And worst of all is teaching lies about God and convincing people it’s from the Bible. So yes, false teaching belongs in the list of sins that are most deserving of punishment.

We think of people like Hitler as the most deserving of punishment because Hitler hurt and killed people, and we value people above all. But what if we valued the glory of God and his honor above all? Then what sins would we think of as the worst?

You’d think the most obvious fact in the universe is that the Creator is greater and more important than his creatures. And yet, it doesn’t seem that way to us. To us, it seems like we’re the most important thing.

And if we’re that far off in the way things seem to us, are we in any position to pass judgment on God’s judgment? Are we really in position to tell God he’s being too harsh or too anything with people when all those people did was commit cosmic treason and dishonor God’s name? Is it our place to decide how much punishment sin against God deserves? The more worthy someone is of honor, the greater the evil in dishonoring him.

The Hall of Justice

If you find it hard to swallow the idea of hell, how about we don’t call it hell? Let’s call it something else. There’s nothing magical about the English word hell, so let’s think of something a little more descriptive. We’re all in favor of justice, right? Let’s call it God’s hall of justice. Or maybe something like “the room of consequences,” since we all believe there should be consequences for doing evil, right?

So at this point, no one should object to the idea. Hall of justice, room of consequences—no problem so far.

The problem comes when the punishment is too much. We all agree with the idea of hell in principle so long as the punishment fits the crime and isn’t too much.

So suppose God sets up his hall of justice, and Joe Schmo from down the street is standing before the Judge. And God turns to you and says, “Tell me—what is the exact punishment this guy deserves for all the evil things he has done?” This includes all his words, all his thoughts, attitudes, things he loves too much, things he doesn’t love enough, things he did wrong, good things he should have done but chose not to. And take into consideration how much privilege God gave him, how much help God provided for his soul—everything. God says, “Tell me exactly what his punishment should be in order for there to be perfect justice.” What would you say?

Is it possible you’d say, “I’m not sure, exactly”? Or maybe, “I don’t have the slightest clue”? I’m quite certain that’s what I would say.

So God says, “That’s okay. Lucky for you, I don’t need man’s testimony about man, because I know what’s in a man. I have searched this man and known him. I have seen every time he sat down and rose up. I discern his thoughts. I’ve known his going out and lying down and I’m acquainted with all his ways. Even before a word was on his tongue, I knew it completely. My understanding is beyond measure. No creature is hidden from my sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom you must give account. My eyes are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good. So I can bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”

God says all that, and so you say, “Okay, Lord. I’ll let you take this one.” Then God passes his judgment. Can you picture yourself standing up and say, “Wrong! With all due respect God, you got this one wrong. Your judgment is too harsh”?

Would you do that? Suppose you did, and God said, “Okay, tell me—what’s the correct consequence?” What would you say?

Between you and God, who do you think probably has the most accurate understanding of what each sinner deserves?

Would it be God, who has infinite wisdom, knows everything, and has a perfectly righteous, pure heart, and who understands exactly how important his own glory is in relation to how important people are?

Or would it be one of the people who deserves judgment, who has very limited knowledge, who has values that aren’t perfect, who doesn’t fully grasp the importance of the holiness of God, and whose life contributes to the evil in the world?

Wouldn’t the most rational position be to just trust God with that call?

And if you find it hard to accept the goodness of a God who would make that call differently than you would, wouldn’t it be even harder to accept the goodness of a God who would let injustice prevail?

Given how much we all long for justice, why is it that people are so quick to judge God for being too harsh, but they never say, “I could never accept a God who allows injustice to stand”?

The sun is not too hot. It feels like it sometimes, but if it were any cooler, we’d all be dead. And God’s judgment is not too harsh. It’s exactly right.

Conclusion

 Here’s Where the Whole Argument Turns

So why does it seem so wrong? Could part of it be the fact that our driving desire for justice and our being in favor of consequences for evil deeds short circuits and malfunctions the moment we do something wrong and deserve some consequences? As much as we desperately crave justice, when we’re guilty, suddenly we hate the idea of justice. Fairness and justice and getting what we deserve is the last thing we want. All we want at that point is mercy.

The One Way Out

Well, God has you covered there too. How does God’s mercy work? We want him to just lower his standards, sweep our wrongs under the rug, wink at our sin, pretend we’re not guilty. Basically what we want is for God to stop being just. Which means we want God to stop being perfect.

But God’s solution is much better than that. Peter makes it very clear that as comprehensive and inescapable as God’s judgment is, there is a way to be rescued from it. Noah’s family was rescued from the flood judgment and Lot’s family was rescued from the Sodom judgment. In our next session, we’ll see how that happened and what the implications are for us and our guilt and our understanding of God’s mercy.

But for now, Peter says in v.4 that God did not spare angels when they sinned. Then he says God did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood. You know who else he didn’t spare?

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Because God didn’t spare his own Son, we can be the only people in the world who never have to worry about the downside of justice. God will make all wrongs done against us right, and all the wrongs we’ve done that call for justice are covered by the cross. So we receive justice when we’re wronged, and mercy when we’re in the wrong. And when we read about hell, the worse it sounds, the more we trust in God’s love, his holiness, and his justice.

Summary

We have an innate, driving desire for justice, yet we recoil at God’s promised justice on Judgment Day because of three concerns: which people will be sent to hell, how many people will be sent to hell, and the degree of punishment in hell. Peter addresses the first by pointing to the angels who were sent to hell, the second by the lopsided proportion of those judged in the flood, and the third by the example of Sodom and Gomorrah. Only God knows how much punishment people deserve, and we’re not in a place to question that. But there is mercy available through Jesus, who took punishment in our place.

[1] “brought on” is the same word as in v.1, where the false teacher brought destruction on themselves.

[2] Psalm 31:5; Isaiah 65:16.

 

[1] The reason Israel turned away from God was because of a memory problem. God warned them over and over—Don’t forget what it was like to be slaves, and don’t forget what I did to deliver you.” And what happened?Psalm 78:11 They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them. They forgot everything God told them to remember. But they did remember one thing. Numbers 11:5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost– also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. They forgot the misery of their bondage. But they remembered the food.

[2] From ch.7.