2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 – And God will provide rest for you who are being persecuted and also for us when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven. He will come with his mighty angels, ⁸ in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don’t know God and on those who refuse to obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus. ⁹ They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from his glorious power. ¹⁰ When he comes on that day, he will receive glory from his holy people—praise from all who believe. And this includes you, for you believed what we told you about him.

A popular theology today denies the reality of judgment and eternal hell.  It is certainly a much more attractive message than “hell fire and brimstone”.  But it is false.  In the above passage and others, the Bible clearly teaches a judgment to come in which those who have believed in Jesus as Savior are receive eternal life and those who refuse Him receive an eternity of destruction.  Paul says they will be “forever separated from the Lord.”  But if God is love, how can this be?  God truly is love.  It was love for the world that caused Him to send His Son.  But His character doesn’t stop at love.  God is also holy and just.  We must not isolate a single attribute of God and build an entire theology around that one attribute.  We must read the Bible as a whole and listen to what it plainly teaches.  In the end, God and His full character wins.

Here is the rest of today’s Bible reading: Jeremiah 22:1-23:20; 2 Thessalonians 1:1-12; Psalm 83:1-18; Proverbs 25:11-14.