“Fire” is a big deal within the biblical narrative, figuring prominently into its vision of who God is and how God is encountered by created beings. No clear comprehension of the final demise of the wicked can be achieved without a serious grasp of what Scripture says about “fire.” 

I will here suggest the following: 

• Scripture speaks of a fire that will consume, in an instant, the physical bodies of the wicked,

• and Scripture also speaks of a psychological kind of “fire” that will be ignited within the realm of the unrepentant sinner’s conscience, as a revelatory event of moral reckoning, that will precede the physical destruction of the wicked by literal fire.   

First of all, Scripture clearly states that literal fire will be employed in the final destruction of the wicked.

Fire will “come down from God out of heaven and devour them” (Rev 20). 

“The heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. . . The elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Pet 3). 

“For behold the day is coming, burning like and oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up” (Mal 4).

For those of us who hold the position of annihilationism, these passages and many others clearly demonstrate that the wicked will be utterly destroyed by means of fire and thus will thus cease to exist. 

But there is more to the Bible’s view of fire than this.    

While the Bible does repeatedly uses the word “fire” to describe the conflagration that will devour to ashes the bodies of the wicked, it also uses the word “fire” to describe the radiant reality of God’s perfect character and the internal process of reckoning that will occur in the conscience of each lost soul when they face God’s perfection in contrast to their sinfulness. Said another way, the Bible speaks of fire as somehow constituting the very reality of God’s identity and of human beings processing that reality either to their eternal healing or to their eternal destruction.

God’s Law is described as fiery:

“The LORD came from Sinai, and dawned on them from Seir; He shone forth from Mount Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand came a fiery law for them. Yes, He loves the people” (Deuteronomy 33:2-3). 

One must ask, in what sense is the moral law of God fiery? The answer will become clear as we proceed. 

God’s glory is described as fire in the way it is seen or perceived by sinful humans: 

“The sight of the glory of the LORD was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel” (Exodus 24:17). 

God’s glory appeared “like” a fire “in the eyes of” the people. Why? What were they seeing and experiencing?

God’s passionate, jealous, self-giving love is described as fire: 

“Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the LORD. Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised” (Song of Solomon 8:6-7, NASB). 

In what sense is the passionate strength and severe jealousy of love like the fire of Yahweh? 

God Himself is described as fire: 

“Our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). 

Are we to believe that God is literally composed of flames, or does this mean something deeper? 

All of these biblical “fire” associations are positive realities. God’s law, His glory, His love, and His very presence all equate to a kind of fire. What does this mean? Well, let’s dig a little deeper and the answer will become evident. 

Next, it will be illuminating to notice the effect the fire of God (law/glory/love/presence) has on those who encounter it.   

Daniel saw a vision of God in which His glory flowed from Him like a river of fire. The odd thing is—or not so odd once the point dawns on us—is that angels are described as living and serving in the fire, while the diabolical “little horn” kingdom is destroyed by the same fire:

“I watched till thrones were put in place, and the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, its wheels a burning fire; a fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him. A thousand thousands ministered to Him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated, and the books were opened. I watched then because of the sound of the pompous words which the horn was speaking; I watched till the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame” (Daniel 7:9-11). 

The fire exerts two different net effects, depending on the moral condition of those encountering it. The fire in which the angels worship God has the effect of destruction upon the little horn. Why?

Malachi communicates the same idea: one fire, two different effects. He depicts the coming Messiah as the “Sun,” which is a raging fire. As such, the rays of light that emit from Him are healing to the righteous and destructive to the wicked: 

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day that is coming shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, that will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings [rays or beams, literally]… You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this, says the LORD of hosts” (Malachi 4:1-3). 

Isaiah clearly describes the ultimate encounter every human being will have with God, both the righteous and the wicked, as an encounter with fire—an encounter that will yield two distinct outcomes for the respective groups:

“‘Now I will rise,’ says the LORD; ‘now I will be exalted, now I will lift Myself up. You shall conceive chaff, you shall bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you. And the people shall be like the burnings of lime; like thorns cut up they shall be burned in the fire. Hear, you who are afar off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge My might.’ The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’ He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, he who despises the gain of oppressions, who gestures with his hands, refusing bribes, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed, and shuts his eyes from seeing evil: He will dwell on high; his place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; bread will be given him, his water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in His beauty” (Isaiah 33:10-18).

Notice the question posed and the answer given. 

Who will dwell within the eternal fire? 

The righteous will, that’s who! 

According to this insightful passage, a point will come when God will exalt Himself to the full view of humanity. When He does, one category of humans will burn up like chaff while another category will “dwell” in the everlasting fire of God’s presence. One group is seized by terror when they see God, while the other group sees nothing but beauty. Isaiah informs us that all human beings are destined for full, undimmed, face-to-face encounter with God. Some will perish in that encounter and other will survive and thrive forever in the eternal fire.

According to David, God’s presence is a fire that melts the wicked, but not the righteous: 

“As wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God; yes, let them rejoice exceedingly” (Ps 68:2-3). 

“The wicked will see it and be grieved; he will gnash his teeth and melt away; the desire [sinful passions] of the wicked shall perish” (Ps 112:10). 

David says that the “glory” of God’s “presence” is the melting agent:

“The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the LORD, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory” (Ps 97:5-6). 

The Bible is replete with this idea of God’s presence, glory, law, love constituting a fiery reality that destroys the wicked and sustains the righteous. But what, exactly does this mean? In what sense is God’s presence, glory, law, love a fire? Let’s dig a little deeper.   

Both the wicked and righteous will meet the fire of God. The difference is that the righteous will voluntarily undergo a fiery burning process prior to the day of final reckoning: 

“It shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning” (Isa 4:3-4). 

“The spirit of judgment and of burning”? What is this? Evidently, a judgment process unfolds for God’s people that involves a kind of “burning” that purges them of sin. For God’s children, the “judgment” transpires as an experience of moral cleansing, and fire is the cleansing agent, which is to say, God’s law/glory/love is the cleansing agent. The judgment process is described by Isaiah as sin burning away from the heart by means of a self-awareness process that is induced by a progressively deepening encounter with God.  

The prophet Malachi made the same association between fire and moral cleansing:

“Who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness” (Mal. 3:2-3). 

Apparently, the judgment is a disclosure process that occurs within the mental realm of each believer’s conscience. In our contemporary English, a more understandable synonym for the word “judgment” is discernment. When we say someone has good judgment we mean they have good discernment, that they see things as they really are. In the most practical terms, that’s what the judgment is. Judgment occurs when the truth of a person’s character is made known to them. The guilty party discerns his guilt and his conscience bears witness against him, at which point he or she makes a choice to confess and repent and thus offload their guilt, or else resist and self-justify and thus retain their guilt.  

When Paul say that “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Timothy 5:24), he means that believers, through the experiential process of repentance, have their sins opened to their awareness prior to the final day of reckoning, whereas the lost choose to not allow their sins to come to light in the preliminary judgment and must face them later on, once they are irrevocably settled into their guilt. Those who submit to the judgment prior to the final day of reckoning effectively offload their guilt from the conscience so that it is not there in the subconscious mind to rise up and crush them in the final judgment. The wicked, on the other hand, retain their guilt by means of impenitence, self-justification and blame-casting, so that when they finally stand before God they must bear the whole psychological weight of their shame.         

As David contemplated his moral position before God, he described the internal workings of his conscience as a burning process:

“I was mute with silence, I held my peace even from good; and my sorrow was stirred up. My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire burned… When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity, You make his beauty melt away like a moth” (Ps 39:2-3, 11). 

In the light of God’s pardoning love, we can see our sins and not be crushed their by their attending guilt. In the light of God grace, we can repent of our sins and allow them to be judged for what they are. We lay them aside and come into deeper and yet deeper harmony with God’s good character. The judgment is, therefore, a “burning” experience in the sense that it awakens the conscience. Those who believe the revelation of God’s love in Christ turn from their sins. But those who resist His love retain their sins, only to face them in the final reckoning. This is what Jude was talking about when he said: 

”Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds” (Jude 14, 15). 

Notice the judgment will involve God convincing, or persuading, or revealing to the wicked the true content of their characters. Sin lies within them as a reservoir of unresolved psychological shame, and the day of final reckoning will bring all it to the surface.  

We are seeing a consistent picture emerge: 

1. Every person, the righteous and the wicked alike, are headed for the same place—full, immediate, undimmed encounter with God. 

2. Each of us will arrive to that encounter in one of two moral conditions: either we will have passed through a redemptive judgement process beforehand and thereby been purged of guilt by God’s forgiving love, or we will have retained our sin and repressed our guilt. 

3. If we arrive in God’s presence in the latter condition, the encounter will lay bare all the hidden depths of our guilt and thrust our minds into a state of total self-awareness in contrast to His perfect holiness. His law, His glory, His love, His very presence, will react in our souls like the hottest fire imaginable. 

4. If we arrive in God’s presence in the former condition, the encounter will be one of ultimate affirmation, acceptance, and seamless moral harmony with God. His law, His glory, His love, His very presence, will induce in us the most exhilarating sense of joy and pleasure imaginable. 

In yet more concrete, experiential terms, what does this mean? 

The short answer is that perfection exposes imperfection, righteousness exposes sin, self-giving love exposes selfishness. It is not possible for a sinner with unresolved guilt to encounter God in all His unveiled glory of perfect love, and not simultaneously experience absolute self-awareness.  

God’s law is a transcript of His character. His law is His selfless love expressed in codified form as a tool of conviction for sinners. “Love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom 13:10). “The law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners” (1 Tim 1:8-9). In relation to sinners, the law operates as a mirror to show us ourselves as we are by contrast to its righteous standard. James says that as we come to know the word of God it operated in us “like a man observing his natural face in a mirror” (James 1:23). This is why Moses likens the law of God to fire, because it is an agent of exposure, illumination, and conviction. 

The book of Romans offers perhaps the most comprehensive explanation of the function of God’s law, the nature of sin, and the manner in which God’s wrath operates in relation to both the law and sin. 

In chapter one Paul points out that the sinner deals with his guilt by rationalizing it in such a manner as to “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (1:18). Suppression of truth is our default mode as fallen human beings. We do not want to face ourselves as we really are. Paul points out that the chief ways that we seek to preserve ourselves against the truth is by (1) concocting false pictures of God that make Him appear like us rather than having to face the fact that He is utterly unlike us, in which case we would feel condemned by the stark contrast; (2) by “exchang[ing] the truth of God for a lie,” allowing the conscience to freely sin without the mental obstruction the truth would impose; and (3) by judging others for their sins as a psychological evasion tactic, thus creating in our conscience the illusion that we are somehow not as bad as the other guy (1:21-25; 2:1). In these ways we “suppress the truth” and thus avoid having to face our guilt. But Paul points out that the truth of God’s existence and character is abundantly obvious because God is continually revealing Himself in creation and in the inner workings of the human conscience, and this constant revelatory initiative on God’s part renders our excuses for sin groundless (1:19-21).  

In this context, Paul explains that a temporal example of God’s wrath is on display in what happens to people when they sin with impunity and try to take refuge in their lies about God and their blaming of others. As God speaks to their hearts in creation and in their consciences, and as they persist in excusing and rationalizing their sin, a deep darkness overtakes the mind so that they cease to discern the most obvious cause and effect relationships (1:21). As God monitors the situation, of necessity His posture must at some point change toward them: whereas He has all along been intervening to suspend the effects of their sin, now He has no choice but to honor their choice by turning them over to experience the effects of their sin. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven,” Paul says, in that “God also gave them up to uncleanness… God gave them up to vile passions… God gave them over to a debased mind” (1:24-25, 28). And this Paul calls “the penalty” of their sin (1:27). The “penalty” in Paul’s theology is God giving people over to the effects of their sins.   

Three times Paul points out that God gives them over to the process that is transpiring in their minds through the commission of sin and the suppression of the light of God’s goodness. Sin is described by Paul as humans acting “against nature.” Wrath is then described as “receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.” The New King James Version renders it, “receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” 

The physical disease, the psychological derangement, the shame and ruin of self-respect that results from the sin of homosexuality is merely an example Paul is citing to describe the inherently self-destructive nature of all sin if allowed to run its course. And those results, which are directly derived from sin itself, are understood by Paul to be the “penalty” for sin. Occurring under the umbrella of mercy, this is the first phase or manifestation of the wrath of God Paul introduces to us. 

Then things get real scary. 

The result of God stepping aside and ceasing to restrain sinners is that they become “filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful” (1:29-31). 

In other words, sin becomes their full, total, pervasive reality and has its way with them. 

Notice that once sinners have fully believed their self-imposed lies about the character of God, they become void of discernment, trust, love, forgiveness and mercy. The mental and emotional ability to know and reflect God’s character is voided from their souls. The very capacity for love is gone. This condition of mind is the prelude to the final judgment and destruction of the wicked, which Paul goes on to address in chapter two.

The Apostle now deals with the second and final phase of God’s wrath, when sin runs its full gamut and sinners encounter the full truth of God’s character in stark contrast to their own evil characters. 

First, in verses one and two, Paul warns about judging or condemning others. Then he warns that we should not be found despising the goodness and long-suffering of God toward sinners, for to do so blocks our own ability to perceive God’s mercy toward ourselves. If we condemn others for their sins and thereby erode our ability to perceive God’s goodness toward us, Paul warns that we are hardening our emotional sensibilities and becoming incapable of penitence, which is a word for change. 

Then Paul returns to the topic of God’s wrath, which he began to discuss in chapter one. He warns that by engaging in impenitence and condemnation of others, you “treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (2:5). This idea that wrath is in some sense treasured up is a totally foreign idea to most Christian’s. But Paul’s warning is crucial and enlightening. He wants us to understand that as the goodness of God is rejected in favor of a harsh, condemnatory view of His character, a hardening process occurs in the soul that not only destroys the capacity for repentance before God, but also stores up in the soul a reservoir of wrath to burst forth in “the day” of God’s righteous revelation, or the final judgement. Please note that the day of judgment is called the day of revelation, that is, the day of full disclosure. The judgment is a truth-telling event, an event in which all lies are negated, all self-justifications are void of credibility, and all sin is fully exposed. In Paul’s understanding, wrath is ignited by means of God’s final and ultimate revelation or judgment. Paul is describing the final day of reckoning when the whole reality of the great controversy between good and evil, along with the part that each one has played, and the part God has played in Christ, will be brought to the forefront of every mind in blazing, undimmed consciousness.

Then Paul goes on to describe this wrath in more graphic terms: those who “obey unrighteousness,” the Apostle says, will experience “indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul [psyche] of man that does evil” (2:8-9). The wrath of God is played out as a psychological reality that occurs when the soul comes face to face with the undimmed truth of God’s selfless love and perfect holiness in contrast to ones own truly repulsive selfishness and sin. 

Paul further builds up his understanding of how wrath transpires when, in verses 14 and 15, he describes the activity of the law in human “hearts” and “conscience” as a process of “bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.” God created the faculty of conscience to discern the difference between actual right and actual wrong, between self-centeredness and other-centered love. While He is the architect and designer of conscience, He is not the source of accusation. He does not need to be. The accusing occurs when the heart and conscience bear witness against self.

Can you imagine what this will be like? Perfect consciousness of every sin you have ever committed! And there, looming in infinite contrast, is the wonderful display of God’s perfect love—the Cross of Christ! Every wicked, self-centered mind will immediately enter a desperate fight of resistance and self-preservation. Every heart will strive with every ounce of energy to evade the reality of their guilt. Ah, yes, some will, indeed, suffer longer than other!   

Returning to Romans, Paul explains the relation between God’s law and wrath:

“The law worketh wrath” (4:15). 

This is an odd statement if we understand wrath to merely be God torturing the bodies of the wicked for varying lengths of time. Paul is pointing to something far more mechanistic and intrinsic, to the nature of God’s law itself and the effect it “worketh” upon the sinner. He is indicating a direct relation between the law and the final demise of the lost. Previously he laid the conceptual groundwork for this idea by informing us that the primary work of the law is to arouse the conscience to its guilt: 

“By the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20).

That is, the law exposes sin to the conscious mind.

Then in chapter seven Paul says this about the law: 

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said,  ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good” (7:7-12). 

This is a rather complex statement, which is characteristic of Paul. But the point, taken into view within the whole context of Romans, is very simple. Paul wants us to understand that the law itself is not a death-dealing engine, but rather sin is. The law, which, by God’s intent, “was to bring life,” is hijacked by sin as an instrument of death. “Sin…by it [the law] killed me,” Paul says. The function of the law is simply to stand as the immutable declaration of the only standard of life—perfect righteousness. Being what it is, the law causes us to know our sin, and that condemnation is the force inherent in sin that destroys the sinner if allowed to run its course. Destruction is the product of sin delivering the sinner over to the reality of his condemnation in the light of the law. Destruction occurs by means of the psychological clash between the law/love and sin/selfishness, when the sinner holds onto sin and is therefore crushed by the law under his guilt. 

Sin is a blinding force. God doesn’t change through the process of our cherishing of evil, but sin does change us. It erodes the very capacity to discern God’s love and goodness, and it finally ruins the soul. Only those who are first psychologically destroyed by their full identification with sin will be destroyed physically by God. God will destroy the physical persons of the wicked, but He does not destroy the heart, the mind, and the will of any human being. That is achieved by the choices made by the sinner himself. Sin is a reality of complete disharmony with the character of God. Sin cannot endure the holy presence of God for the simple reason that suppressed guilt surfaces to the forefront of mind in the light of God’s perfection. It is a very simple equation: you see God, you see yourself. And if all you see in yourself is sin and selfishness and shame, then the mind will be violently thrown into a horrific process of meltdown, varying in intensity and duration according to each ones level of guilt and resistance. 

Does all of this mean that there is no literal fire involved in the destruction of the wicked?

No. 

Revelation 20 bears out that literal fire will descend from God and consume the wicked to ashes (Revelation 20:9). The Apostle Peter says that the elements shall melt with fervent heat. I don’t see how we can understand such Scriptures to indicate anything other than literal fire. But my point is that one biblical truth does not negate another. What we often fail to understand is the far more significant moral fire that is the prelude to the literal fire. Prior to the literal fire descending from heaven, Revelation 20 describes the wicked standing before God, His face exposed to the gaze of all, bringing into full consciousness all sin in contrast to His righteous character:

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books” (Revelation 20:11-12).

When John describes the final demise of the wicked, he says it will involve a face-to-face encounter with God, an opening of books, resulting in an overwhelming sense of total unbelonging and disharmony, horrific terror, and the impulse to run from God. 

Scripture is clear, as we have seen, that to every sin there is attached a measure of guilt. Hence, the commission of sin builds up in the soul a reservoir of potential suffering proportional to the guilt and impenitence of the individual. The greater the guilt, the greater is the potential for suffering. As the wicked finally encounter the full reality of their individual guilt in contrast to God’s righteousness. Only then, after an encounter with God that opens their consciousness to their entire mental storage of guilt, only then does fire come down from God out of heaven to devour them.

Jesus tells us that the second death is a psychological event as well as a physical one:

“Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul [psyche in the Greek] and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

Jesus used the same language when speaking of His own death: 

“He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, ‘My soul [again psyche, the word Jesus used to define the second death] is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death’” (Matthew 26:36-38). 

Isaiah 53 is a the premiere Old Testament prophecy of the sufferings of the Messiah, and it makes no mention of physical suffering, but rather locates the Savior’s suffering in His soul: 

“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities…and the Lord [the Father] has laid on Him [the Son] the iniquity of us all… For the transgressions of My people He was stricken… His soul [was] an offering for sin… He shall see [experience] the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities… Because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53).   

As previously noted, when speaking of the final demise of the wicked Paul say the ordeal will involve “anguish on every soul [psyche] of man who does evil” (Rom 2:9). It would require much more consideration of Scripture to probe the meaning of the death Jesus endured for us. For the purpose of our present topic, I will merely point out the obvious: 

The Cross of Christ is the only example we have of the final demise of the wicked. 

He alone in history experienced the full and horrific reality to which unrepentant sinners are tending. It should, therefore, be massively significant to us that the experience of Jesus in Gethsemane and at Calvary was first and foremost a psychological bearing of sin and guilt before the reality of the Father’s infinitely holy character. What happened in the psyche of Jesus tells us the truth about hell with absolute clarity.   

The essential concept we have been considering ought to be self-evident to us because, on a small scale, all of us have experienced the mental trauma that sin imposes on us. We all know that wrong-doing torments us unless we can effectively tell ourselves lies to ease our guilt, or effectively blame others for our deeds, or somehow make ourselves focus on the sins of others so we become elevated in our own eyes. The only other option is to take responsibility, tell the truth to ourselves and to God, and repent, in which case we experience the deeply healing psychological wonder of forgiveness. Then we can face God, others, and ourselves with a clear conscience. No excuses. No fear. No burning necessary! 

As an example in microcosm, imagine that a little boy just slapped his younger brother upside the head, gave him a terrible wedgey, and grabbed his toy away him, only to turn around and see that his dad was standing there as a witness to the whole prepubescent crime. 

Now imagine that the father just looks at the boy. Steady the father stares. What will happen in the psyche of the little criminal? First, he will likely try to evade his guilt with some diversion tactics. He will perhaps laugh to try and evoke a corresponding laugh from dad. If dad also laughs, he will feel relieved. But dad does not laugh. He just stares on. So the boy will then try to shift blame: “I had it first,” he’ll say probing for approval. But dad just keeps looking at him. So the boy then throws the toy at the feet of his brother, “Here, you can have it back.” But this does not erase the dastardly deed that still has a presence in his conscience, and dad just continues staring.

Then what? 

The boy will run from dad’s presence into his room and throw himself on his bed. Dad follows and stands over the bed staring him in the face. What then? There is no escape. The boy will either repent and find resolve of his guilt, or will persist in self-protective mode and refuse to own his guilt. If he repents, the father will smile and embrace him and the matter is eliminated from the conscience. But if the boy refuses to repent, the agony of conscience will deepen and become more acute as the father stares on into his eyes, until he hates his father and flees from the house. 

What is happening here? 

The guilt in the boy is meeting the truth in the father. The boy is moving through a process of resistance by means of self-justification and blame-casting, resulting is an intensifying agony of conscience as he finds the truth inescapable in the unchanging demeanor of his father. The father embodies what the boy’s conscience tells him is right and true and good. Dad stands in complete and immovable contrast to the selfish act of the boy. The father is the representative of righteousness over against the truth of the boy’s sin. The father’s very presence can only serve to awaken the boy’s conscience. The father’s eyes starring into the boy’s eyes penetrate his soul and arouse self-awareness. The father’s silence speaks louder than any words and causes the boy to feel the magnitude of his shame. 

It is easy to see that the degree to which the boy is resistant to the truth is the degree to which the boy will suffer. This is a simple example that involves relatively low levels of guilt and a low level of contrast. 

It is also easy to see that if we increase the guilt to an adult level that involves an entire lifetime of sin, and if we increase the contrast level by introducing the guilt-laden sinner into the infinitely holy presence of God, and if we increase the desperation of the sinner’s psychological efforts to evade the truth by means of self-justification and blame-casting, well, it becomes evident that there will be, indeed, difference degrees of suffering form one lost soul to another. 

Whereas one sinner will enter God’s presence and encounter His holiness with a life of mere unbelief and self-will, another will face God with numerous heinous acts of self-serving and cruelty upon the conscience. As God looks upon each one, the level of agony will correspond to the level of guilt stored in the conscience and to the level of resistance to the truth. Two revelations will be made as the wicked stand before the Lord: (1) the law of God and (2) the cross of Christ. With undimmed clarity all will face the standard of right and the reality of God’s selfless love. And in the light of the truth, every deed of their lives will be brought to the forefront of their minds with blazing consciousness. Each one will reveal by their stubborn resistance that they are lost by their own choice and not by an arbitrary or unjust decree of God. The suffering of each will be “according to their deed,” or proportional to their actual level of guilt and resistance.

The idea of an arbitrarily inflicted bodily torture of the lost finds no counterpart at the Cross. But the concept of sin and guilt imposing upon the conscience an excruciating sense of shame and a terrifying sense of eternal separation from God is seen in the experience of Jesus in Gethsemane and at Calvary. 

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning?… My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me” (Ps 22:1, 14). 

Ty Gibson

Speaker/Director at Light Bearers

Ty is a speaker/director of Light Bearers. A passionate communicator with a message that opens minds and moves hearts, Ty teaches on a variety of topics, emphasizing God’s unfailing love as the central theme of the Bible. Ty and his wife Sue have three adult children and two grandsons.