For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16–17)
Many of the more careless sort, using the lovingkindness of God to increase the magnitude of their sins and the excess of their disregard, speak in this way, saying: There is no hell, no future punishment. God forgives all our sins. To stop whose mouths a wise man says, “Do not say, ‘His compassion is great, He will atone for the multitude of my sins,’ for both mercy and wrath are with Him, and His anger rests on sinners” (Ecclus. 5:6); and again, “As great as His mercy, so great is also His reproof” (Ecclus. 16:12). “Where then,” says one, “is His lovingkindness, if we shall receive for our sins according to our desserts?” That we shall indeed receive “according to our desserts,” hear both the Prophet and Paul declare; one says, “You shall render to every man according to his work” (Ps. 62:12, LXX); the other, “Who will render to every man according to his work” (Rom. 2:6). And yet we may see that even so the lovingkindness of God is great. In dividing our existence into two periods, the present life and that which is to come, and making the first to be an appointment of trial, the second a place of crowning, even in this He has shown great lovingkindness.
“How and in what way?” Because when we had committed many and grievous sins, and had not ceased from youth to extreme old age to defile our souls with ten thousand evil deeds, for none of these sins did He demand from us a reckoning, but granted us remission of them by the washing of regeneration, and freely gave us righteousness and sanctification. “What then,” says one, “if a man who from his earliest age has been deemed worthy of the mysteries after this commits ten thousand sins?” Such a one deserves a severer punishment. For we do not pay the same penalties for the same sins, if we do wrong after initiation. And this Paul declares, saying, “Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:28–29). Such a one then is worthy of severer punishment. Yet even for him God has opened doors of repentance and has granted him many means for the washing away his transgressions, if he will. Think then what proofs of lovingkindness these are: by grace to remit sins, and not to punish him who after grace has sinned and deserves punishment, but to give him a season and appointed space for his clearing. For all these reasons Christ said to Nicodemus, “God did not send His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world.”
For there are two advents of Christ, one past, the other to come. The first was not to judge but to pardon us; the second will be not to pardon but to judge us. It is of the first that he says, “I have not come to judge the world but to save the world.” But of the second he says, “When the Son shall come in the glory of his Father, He will set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His left.” And the sheep will go into life and the goats into eternal punishment. Yet His former coming was for judgment, according to the rule of justice. Why? Because before His coming there was a law of nature, and the prophets, and moreover a written Law, and doctrine, and ten thousand promises, and manifestations of signs, and chastisements, and vengeances, and many other things which might have set men right, and it followed that for all these things He would demand account; but because he is merciful, for a time he pardons instead of making enquiry. For if He had judged immediately, everyone would have been rushed into perdition, for “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Do you not see the unspeakable surplus of His lovingkindness?
Many of the more careless sort, using the lovingkindness of God to increase the magnitude of their sins and the excess of their disregard, speak in this way, saying: There is no hell, no future punishment. God forgives all our sins. To stop whose mouths a wise man says, “Do not say, ‘His compassion is great, He will atone for the multitude of my sins,’ for both mercy and wrath are with Him, and His anger rests on sinners” (Ecclus. 5:6); and again, “As great as His mercy, so great is also His reproof” (Ecclus. 16:12). “Where then,” says one, “is His lovingkindness, if we shall receive for our sins according to our desserts?” That we shall indeed receive “according to our desserts,” hear both the Prophet and Paul declare; one says, “You shall render to every man according to his work” (Ps. 62:12, LXX); the other, “Who will render to every man according to his work” (Rom. 2:6). And yet we may see that even so the lovingkindness of God is great. In dividing our existence into two periods, the present life and that which is to come, and making the first to be an appointment of trial, the second a place of crowning, even in this He has shown great lovingkindness.
For there are two advents of Christ, one past, the other to come. The first was not to judge but to pardon us; the second will be not to pardon but to judge us. It is of the first that he says, “I have not come to judge the world but to save the world.” But of the second he says, “When the Son shall come in the glory of his Father, He will set the sheep on His right hand and the goats on His left.” And the sheep will go into life and the goats into eternal punishment. Yet His former coming was for judgment, according to the rule of justice. Why? Because before His coming there was a law of nature, and the prophets, and moreover a written Law, and doctrine, and ten thousand promises, and manifestations of signs, and chastisements, and vengeances, and many other things which might have set men right, and it followed that for all these things He would demand account; but because he is merciful, for a time he pardons instead of making enquiry. For if He had judged immediately, everyone would have been rushed into perdition, for “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Do you not see the unspeakable surplus of His lovingkindness?
John Chrysostom, Homilies on John 28.1
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