Kevin J Youngblood
8 Your hand will find out all your enemies; your right hand will find out those who hate you.
9 You will make them as a blazing oven when you appear.
The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and fire will consume them.
10 You will destroy their descendants from the earth, and their offspring from among the children of man.
11 Though they plan evil against you, though they devise mischief, they will not succeed.
12 For you will put them to flight; you will aim at their faces with your bows.
13 Be exalted, O Lord, in your strength! We will sing and praise your power.
(Psalm 21:8-13)
While teaching the Book of Nahum this past week, I found myself saying something to my students that surprised me. I said, “We need to recognize that God’s judgment and punishment of the wicked is an integral part of the gospel. That God confronts, defeats, and destroys injustice along with those who insist on committing it is in fact good news.” I don’t think that I had planned to say this. It was spur of the moment and my own words (if they were in fact my own words) have haunted me ever since.
I have long struggled with the severity of certain biblical accounts of divine judgment and have seldom included them in my preaching of the gospel. They have, in fact, become something of an embarrassment to me, something to be explained away, apologized for, and then ignored while moving on to happier thoughts of grace, forgiveness, and eternal bliss. I needed to hear those words that I spoke this past week. Perhaps it was an instance of the Spirit giving me words when mine were so terribly inadequate.
Today’s reading from the Daily Office seems to confirm my suspicions. God is confronting me again this morning with this uncomfortable truth. Divine judgment, the punishment of the wicked is an integral part of the good news. Why am I ashamed of it? When Paul said in Romans 1 that he is not ashamed of the gospel he was clearly including that part of the gospel that highlights God’s justice, God’s determination to hold the wicked accountable. Of course, biblical imagery of judgment in terms of fire and torment, weeping and gnashing of teeth must be seen for what they are – culturally conditioned imagery serving as vehicles of transcendent truth. They must not, however, be dismissed or underestimated. I fear that I have been guilty of this.
Here is yet another example of one of those delicate balances that Christian faith requires. I must confess that in many respects I am a very imbalanced persons (No, I don’t mean that in its popular sense. I’m not crazy, at least not yet). On the one hand, we must never delight in the thought of another human being’s deserved suffering, or gloat over instances where an enemy receives his just desserts (Obad. 12). On the other hand, we should express gratitude for and rejoice in divine justice. We should include it in our summations of the gospel. Without this, the gospel itself becomes unjust and dissolves into mere sentimentality. Remember that it is in the apostle Paul’s most grace saturated letter that he affirms this basic principle: “Whatever a person sows that will he also reap. He who sows to the flesh will from the flesh reap corruption but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Gal 6:8)
Father,
Forgive my sentimental aversion to your judgment and your justice. Forgive my embarrassment over the biblical witness to your swift and severe punishment of all that defiles your cosmos. I stand in awe of your holiness and I wish to share your intolerance of wickedness, especially my own. Lord Jesus, thank you for not hesitating to talk about hell and for insisting on an affirmation of God’s law and order. Your perfect balance of justice and mercy is sorely lacking in my presentation of the Gospel. Forgive me and help me to do better. Holy Spirit, thank you for giving me words that I needed to hear this week. I pray to be ever more open to your guidance as you lead me to that perfect balance that I am never able to achieve in my flesh.
AMEN
