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No.9.
"Behold . . . . . the goodness and the severity of God."
pp. 178 - 180
Let us turn aside for a while, from the direct examination of the terms `righteousness'
and `justification' to the consideration of the Lord's attitude to sin as set forth by the use
of one word `spare' Greek pheidomai. `Both therefore the goodness and severity of God'
said the Apostle as he reviewed the repudiation of Israel by the Lord, and the continued
expression of goodness to the Gentile (Rom. 11: 22).
A false sentimentalism has obscured some of the characteristics of God, and has
magnified His love at the expense of His holiness and holiness can be `a consuming fire'.
In the course of His dealings with His creatures, God is said to have `spared not' three
classes, and the fourth is warned `take heed lest He also spares not thee' (Rom. 11: 21).
(1)
He spared not the angels that sinned.
The sum total of what is revealed in the whole of the Scriptures concerning the fall of
the angels would probably be less in extent that occupied by the briefest of the minor
prophets Obadiah, or the epistle of Jude, and it is to the epistle of Jude and to the parallel
passage in II Peter that we instinctively turn to learn something of the nature of their sin
and its punishment.
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and
delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment" (II Pet. 2: 4).
Peter is evidently in the midst of an argument, and he reverts back to the past to warn
the present false prophets and their dupes of `damnation that slumbereth not'.
Jude omits the reference to `hell' or, as the reference here is, to "Tartarus", the place
named in Greek mythology for the incarceration of the Titans, the giants who attempted
to storm heaven. He repeats however the reference to being "reserved", to "chains", to
"darkness" and to future judgment.
(2)
He spared not the world in the time of Noah.
Again specific knowledge concerning the actual corruption that brought about the
deluge is limited to a few difficult passages of Scripture. Gen. 6: speaks of the
corruption that followed the union of the `sons of God' and the `daughters of men' with
the result that in the pregnant words of II Pet. 2: 5 `bringing in the flood upon the world
of the ungodly' He spared not the old world.
Here we have the fall and judgment of angels and the destruction of the world with the
exception of eight souls. While the actual words `spared not' are not employed in the
continued argument of II Pet. 2:, the overthrow of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah as