The Fiery Wrath of God

                                Exodus 19:1-25

In the third month of their liberation from slavery in Egypt, the Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai. God called Moses to climb the mountain so that God could tell him that which God wanted the Israelites to know. God informed Moses that the Israelites did not have to do anything to earn God's approval or His acceptance. God had already liberated them from slavery in Egypt, and they could simply rest in their faith in the shed blood of the lamb that God had commanded them to apply to their doorposts so that the death angel would pass over them. The death angel killed all of the first born in every family in Egypt. This was the covenant that the Israelites already had with God. Exodus 12:1-13 (KJB). God told Moses to tell the Israelites that if they would just keep that covenant, then they would be God's "peculiar treasure," and God would make every individual Israelite a priest which meant every individual would have a personal and spiritual relationship with God. In other words, every individual Israelite would be saved by God's grace.

God has extended His covenant of grace to His Church composed of both Jews and Gentiles. Christ purchased His Church with His own blood as the Lamb of God, and every Christian simply believes that Christ alone liberated them from slavery to sin, evil, and the Devil. Acts 20:28; Hebrews 1:1-3 (KJB). To these believers who have accepted God's covenant of grace by their faith, God has made them a "peculiar people" and a "royal priesthood" with a personal and spiritual relationship with God through the presence of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. I Peter 2:9-10; I Corinthians 6:9-11 (KJB).

Humans happen to be totally helpless to save themselves from the power of sin, evil, and the Devil. Romans 5:5-8 (KJB). But humans also suffer from the sin of pride, and that pride tells them that surely they must be able to do something that will at least partially save them from sin, evil, the Devil, and eternal death. They feel that they must do something to make God accept them and the Devil to reject them. They cannot believe that God has completely saved them through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son. I Corinthians 15:1-4 (KJB).

So the Israelites could not believe that God had already saved them, and in their pride, they demanded that Moses ask God to give them His Commandments which they thought they could obey and thereby make themselves acceptable with God. In other words, they demanded that God allow them to participate in their own salvation. But when they adopted this attitude, they immediately encountered God's wrath against evil. God began to speak to the people from the mountain in thunder and fire. God gave them His Commandments which He knew they could not keep because of their sin which made them to weak to be able to obey them. God also wanted them to know that He must judge sinful people with His fiery wrath against evil.

So if God ever desired to save all of His living humans whom He creates and loves from eternal death, then He must bring them to the realization that only Christ can save them. Habakkuk 2:4 (KJB). God saves some of His living humans by His grace when they come to Christ their Savior while they are still alive in the flesh. John 5:24 (KJB). But God never meant that His fiery wrath against evil would ever utterly destroy forever any of His living humans that He creates and loves. God never cursed Adam and Eve or any of their descendants. God gave them only temporary punishments for their sins and evil, but He did curse the Devil and the ground that holds the regions of death. Genesis 3:14-21 (KJB). Whenever God kills any human with His fiery wrath, He makes that only a temporary punishment. God consigns all living humans not saved by grace to one of the regions of death when they die, but God made Eve the mother of all living, and when Christ appears to their living natures in the end of the world, and they all see His Majesty and His great Love for them, then they will realize without a doubt that only Christ the Lamb of God can save them, and He will. Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their beings to separate their repentant, living natures from their dead and evil natures so that He can recreate their living natures with new bodies to live forever on His recreated earth, and He will cast their dead and evil natures into the eternal lake of fire. Psalm 75:1-3; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5 (KJB).

Every personality of every human happens to be determined by a combination of their good and living natures with their dead and evil natures. So when the Bible states that unbelieving sinners will perish, it simply means that God will dissolve their personalities to purge their evil natures and recreate their good and living natures. Exodus 19:21; John 3:16; John 12:25 (KJB). In the case of believers saved by grace, God can recreate most of their personalities in such a way that they remain the same persons, and they do not perish. But when God uses His fiery wrath to dissolve the personalities of sinners confined to the regions of death, then their personalities do perish, but God recreates their living natures to be completely righteous, and therefore, different persons. John 12:25; Matthew 10:39; Matthew 16:24-25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; Luke 17:33 (KJB).