CHAPTER II: The first sort of proofs from Scriptures
souls and consciences, that is intended in these and other scriptures.
This is the subject of the first section of this discourse.
And let it be noticed now at the entrance, that the same scriptures and reasons that shall be brought to prove this in this first section, will be found again to serve as new arguments by way of inference, to set out and infer the latter also; that is, the dreadfulness of it, as will appear in the second section.
CHAPTER II
The first sort of proofs from Scriptures: first, those three prefixed as the texts
Let us first see what the Scriptures speak more directly to this great point.
Heb. 10:28–31, He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
In order to the proofs from hence, observe the occasion of the apostle's mention of this punishment here, to be his having treated of the highest sin and kind of sinners, the sin against the Holy Ghost.
By the occasion of which, he gives us to understand what for the substance is indeed the recompence of all manner of other actual sins, small and great; the punishment being in solido, one and the same to all, though with a vast difference of degrees. And therefore it
is said unto all that are found wicked at that day, whether of greater or lesser proportions and sizes of wickedness, 'Go into fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' The devil is the greatest of sinners, yet all go with him into the same torment, that is, for substance the same. And upon the like ground, what is here spoken by way of eminency concerning the punishment of these, the highest sort of sinners of the sons of men, is true of all others, there being but one common fire or punishment, in the substance of it, for all.
2. Observe the manner of his setting forth the dreadfulness of that punishment to us. It is only by way of insinuation; for seeing he could not express the soreness of it, he thought fit to suggest only who is the immediate author and inflicter of it, and so leaves it to our thoughts to infer how dreadful it is! This is general.
To argue the point in hand out of this text, let us take these things along with us.
1. You see he here brings in the great God, as an enraged enemy, challenging the execution hereof to himself. This 'vengeance belongeth to me,' or, as Rom. 12:19, 'Vengeance is mine, I will recompense;' as if he had said, Let me alone with it.
2. In that when he would set out the severeness of this punishment (which is his professed aim, ver. 29) as infinitely exceeding all those kinds of corporal deaths in Moses' law, he inferreth the soreness of this from God himself as the avenger. 'We know him that hath thus said, Vengeance is mine,' that is, what a great and powerful God he is. The saints only know God by faith in himself and his greatness, as Heb. 11, and that so as no other men in this life do. And by what we know of him, and the apprehensions we have of him, we cannot but forewarn what that punishment must needs be, when God himself shall thus solemnly profess himself to be the avenger. It is argued, you see, both from what this God is, and from that knowledge the saints have of him. They, and they alone, know him in his love, and have tasted and found that his immediate 'loving-kindness is better
than life;' and from the law of countraries, they know that his wrath must be more bitter than death. They are able to measure what he is in his wrath, by what he is in his love. And some of the primitive saints, especially the apostles, who 'had the first fruits of the Spirit,' knew and had tasted how good the Lord is in his love, by immediate impressions of it on their souls, in communion with himself. The like tenor of speech has that in 2 Cor. 5:11, 'We knowing the terror of the Lord.' It is termed his terror, as noting out that which is proper to him and his greatness, in his being able to punish and destroy sinners.
Moses, who in the Old Testament had seen the glory of God the most immediately of any man (and was therein a type of Christ), was thereby made sensible of this very thing as touching this punishment, and therefore complains in the very like language, Ps.
90, 'Who knows the power of thine anger?' lamenting how the generality of men did not know it, because indeed they knew not God. But we, says the apostle, have known him, &c.
3. And thereupon he further calls this punishment a falling into God's hands. That very phrase often notes out immediate execution, as in ordinary speech it doth. When a father or a master threatens a child or a young servant, already corrected by other hands at their appointment, yet when either would threaten more severely, they will say, Take heed how you fall into my hands, or come under my fingers, when they mean to correct them themselves.
4. And then that the apostle thereupon infers from this the dreadfulness thereof even from this, 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God.' Reason tells us that the soreness of any torment, the fearfulness of any death, ariseth from the power, force, violence, or efficacy of that which is the immediate agent or cause inflicting it.
As why do we argue burning or dying by fire a more terrible death is respect of torment than drowning in water? But that fire, being the immediate agent or instrument applied to that execution, hath a more fierce and violent working than water hath, which despatcheth
a man more easily. Now, therefore, the fearfulness and soreness of this punishment (and that with difference from that by creatures, compare for this vers. 28, 29) being here argued, that it is a falling into God's hands; and we knowing this withal, that he is in himself able to work by his fierce wrath more powerfully and exquisitely upon the reasonable soul of man sinful than all created agents whatever, and the soul itself being also capable of such a working upon by him; this doth strongly argue his own immediate execution by his own hands to have been intended.
5. In ver. 27, he termeth the immediate cause inflicting this punishment a 'fiery indignation devouring the adversaries.'
Indignation or wrath is of some intelligent nature provoked. And whom should this refer to? or whose indignation can it be supposed but of this God, 'who himself' (as the apostle expounds, and comments upon it) 'hath said, Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord'?
And this indignation is called fiery, because it works as fire; is in tormenting like to fire; or as a flaming sword, red hot, when it is made the instrument of one's death, which wounds and kills, and doth torment with a superadded anguish. For the further opening of which I shall at present only say two things.
(1.) That God compares himself in this respect unto a devouring or consuming fire in this very epistle: Heb. 12:29, 'Our God is a consuming fire.' There are two creatures which God assimilates himself unto in contrary respects. 1. To light, as often, and 'God is love,' 1 John 4; and both these are spoken of him in respect of what he is to the saints in glory. Light is of all creatures the most comfortable, and 'in his light it is we see light.' And the state of glory is therefore termed 'the inheritance of the saints in light,' Col. 1. The second is to fire, and this on the contrary in relation to what he is to men in hell. And the parallel runs upon what he is immediately unto both, by analogy of reason. Of all creatures, fire is the most dreadful, the most raging, subtle, and piercing in its operation; and so God in his wrath must be understood under that similitude to be, and therefore it is his wrath is termed 'fiery indignation.'
(2.) Those words in their coherence are an allusion to those extraordinary punishments executed under the old law. For in ver.
28 he enforceth his argument (the scope of which was to aggravate this punishment as à minori) from the instances of those punishments that did befall men that died for despising Moses's law.
Some of them we read were destroyed by fire, and therein he more especially refers us to those examples of Nadab and Abihu, who 'perished through fire,' Lev. 10:1, 2, where the very words the apostle here used to set out this punishment by are used by Moses, and so more evidently shew the allusion to be made thereunto. 'There went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them,' says that text; and yet he argues from thence the surpassing soreness of this punishment above that from that fire, though it were a fire even from heaven itself that killed them. But more of this hereafter.
I come, secondly, to that other scripture, 2 Thes. 1:8, 9, 'in flaming fire, taking vengeance of them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.' Where it is to be observed, that though he mentions 'flaming fire,' and the ministry of his mighty angels, which accompany Christ's appearing, yet he clearly resolves the ultimate and immediate cause of wicked men's destruction into the immediate presence and glory of Christ's power: ver. 9, 'Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.' So as herein is set forth,
First, The punishment.
Secondly, The causes of that punishment.
1. For the punishment, there is, 1st, the nature of it; it is termed destruction; 2dly, the duration of it, everlasting destruction.
2. The causes of it; from or by 'the presence of the Lord, and the glory of his power.' That particle ἀπὸ, which we translate from, is causal,
imports the efficient cause, as in all those salutations, 'grace and peace from the Father, and from Jesus Christ,' it doth, Rom. 1:7, 2
Cor. 1:2, that is, as from the fountain, the principal and sole authors and efficients of grace and peace. And thus the word is used in multitudes of places else. And accordingly we find in other scriptures also that God and Christ are the immediate causes of peace. Thus 2
Thes. 3:16, 'Now the Lord of peace himself give you peace,' &c., and chap. 2:16, 17, 'The Lord Jesus himself comfort your hearts.' Now, on the contrary, when in like manner he says, 'Everlasting destruction from his face, presence, and the glory of his power,' it may and is to be understood the Lord himself, personally by his own mere presence, and by the strength of his own power, inflicteth their destruction forever: they die by no other hand. This particle from (as in speech we often use it) hath led some from the true intent of the apostle. They thereupon supposing this the meaning, that they are punished with destruction from the presence, that is, out of the presence of Christ; as if this were the fulfilling that speech of Christ,
'Depart from me, into everlasting torment.' This, though it be true of this destruction spoken of here, in respect of Christ's local presence, consider him as he is man; yet, as Slater upon the place well says, to him that attentively considers the words, the causes of destruction are held forth herein. For, 1st, he says not simply, or alone, that they are punished from his presence, but further adds, from the glory of his power, the same particle ἀπὸ, or from, being therefore in common to be applied to the one as well as the other. Now the intent of the latter, from his glorious power, cannot note forth that they were punished out of, or from without his glorious power, as in respect of absence, but the contrary, that the presence and efficacy of it is to be that which is the author of their punishment, so that it imports nothing less than absence, or a withdrawment by God, or a throwing them out of his presence; but positively an efficiency or energy put forth by him, and so carries with it the relation and influence of an efficient cause. If indeed he had added, instead hereof, either from his glory, or from his blessedness, unto that other from his presence, it might have carried both unto pœna damni, the punishment of loss; that is, to note out what they had lost, and
wanted the communication of, and so their exclusion from the participation of God's face and blessedness (which is more ordinarily termed his presence), and together therewith had noted out an exclusion also of this sense which I argue for; but his saying also from the glory of his power, manifestly notes power put forth in execution, and inflicting that destruction, and glorifying himself on them thereby.
And, 2, further know that the word here used is not potestas, as of a judge, that is, authority, whereof John 5:27, 'The Father hath given the Son of man authority to execute judgment;' and in relation unto which, in ver. 5 of this chapter, he had termed it, 'The righteous judgment of God;' but the word is ἰσχὺς, which signifies inward personal strength, vigour, robur, such as a giant hath in his own limbs.* And, therefore, when their destruction is said to be from his power, as thus denoting personal strength, the intendment must needs be to denote a putting forth of that strength which is in himself to destroy them. Parallel with that in Rom. 9:22, 'What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and make his power known, on the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction;' of which anon.
Yea, and 3, even this other phrase, destroyed from his presence, doth likewise as fully close with this sense, to note the efficient cause of their destruction. The word in the original is, from his face, ἀπὸ τοῦ προσώπου: now God's anger and wrath is as well, and very frequently expressed by his face in Scripture, as his favour useth to be; for the face as well holds forth anger and wrath, as favour and grace. Thus Lev. 20:6, 'I will set my face against that soul, and will cut him off;' that is, I will put forth mine anger to destroy him. And Lam. 4:16, where it is translated 'the anger of the Lord,' in the Hebrew, and in your margins it is, 'the face of the Lord.' As there is
'the light of God's countenance,' in which 'is life,' so the 'rebuke of God's countenance, at which we perish,' Ps. 80:16, even as the wax is said to melt 'at the presence of the fire,' Ps. 68:2, and often elsewhere.
So, then, to be destroyed from his face and presence, is all one as to say, from his anger and wrath. And we have both exegetically met in one scripture: Rev. 6:16, 'They said to the mountains, Fall on us, to hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb;' and suitably this destruction here, in 2 Thes. 1, is said to be both from God and Christ, even as the happiness of heaven is immediately from the presence of God and Christ: Rev. 21:23, 'And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.'
Thus, on the contrary, is it in hell; and so at the day of judgment it is 'the face of God,' and 'the face of the Lamb,' that the wicked most of all do dread, as that which is the inflicter of their torment.
As for any objection from those words, 'in flaming fire,' &c., I shall answer it afterwards.