‘Your Impenitent Heart’

And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:15

But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “will render to each one according to his deeds.”

Romans 2:5-6

As we continue to consider the question, ‘why a Last Judgment,’ we come to consider that the reason for it does not rest merely upon the Character of Christ. There is another reason which arises out of the total depravity of humanity. Paul makes a case for this depravity and the consequence of it when he declares, ‘who “will render to each one according to his deeds:” an eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness-indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil….’ God grants forgiveness on the basis of repentance. Those whom He condemns at the last are reflecting, ‘hardness and…(an) impenitent heart.’ What we want to appreciate from this knowledge, is that God has been overwhelmingly gracious to us. Our natural depravity is every bit as deep and wretched as the worst example of which we could think. We lack nothing of what a mass murderer, or serial adulterer has by way of depravity. It is only by the transforming Grace of God that we are not just as hard against Christ as they are. Having said that, this inveterate hardness and impenitence justifies and necessitates a Last Judgment. God could, if He so willed, save everyone. For His Own purposes, incomprehensible to us, He does not. So He does, without obligation to any, save some, and condemn others. Let us fall upon His Mercy, and faithfully warn against His Wrath.

O, ‘Judge of all the earth,’
we praise You, that You are Just.
We rejoice that You will ‘do right,’
rendering unto every one of us, according to our deeds.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning