![]() ![]() He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. John 5:21–25įor as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. “Justified” here means “shown to be righteous.” This verse does not use “justified” in the Pauline sense of “declared righteous by God.” Similarly, evil people’s evil words will be evidence by which they will be condemned. By your words you will be justified means people’s words will be outward evidence of their inward character. Read MoreĮternal judgment awaits any who attempt to turn the people against Jesus by slanderous accusations of blasphemy. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. The former is God’s direct action of sending, and the latter results in condemnation due to a person’s rejecting of Christ.This article is part of the Key Bible Verses series. ![]() It all depends on the sense in which the action of sending is understood as it relates to God’s righteous judgment or as it relates to man’s rejection of God. So, in one sense, God sends people to hell and, in another sense, people send themselves there. 11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name,” (Rev. ![]() “he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment,” (2 Peter 2:4).“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels,'” (Matthew 25: 41).There are too many verses that show God’s active involvement in executing judgment upon people. It is biblically true that God sends people to hell. But this is a completely different sense from that of the preceding paragraph. In this sense, they are sending themselves to hell. They are emphasizing the rejection of Christ by unbelievers and in not believing they are sentencing themselves to eternal damnation. When Christians say that God does not send people to hell but that sinners send themselves, they are ignoring the sense in which God is the judge and are putting the emphasis upon the sinner instead of God. So in this sense, we must acknowledge that God actually sends people to hell. He is performing the action of sending them. In this sense, God is the one who is sending people to hell because he is acting as the righteous judge. Instead, it’s the judge who passes judgment and sends the person to prison. The guilty man does not send himself there in the sense of driving a car to the prison and walking in. An analogy would be when a judge sends a person to prison. All who have not trusted in Christ to deliver them from judgment will be sent to hell by God. God is the Righteous King who executes judgment upon the lawbreaker. It is because of their lack of commitment to Christ that the judgment of God will fall upon them. But generally speaking, since God is the judge, he is the one who sentences people to hell for their rejection of Christ and their continued pursuit of sin. Does God send people to hell, or do people send themselves to hell? The question can be answered differently depending on what sense the concepts within the question are understood. ![]()
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