Will God no longer judge sin because of the cross?
In Part 1, we defined apostasy and debunked a few heresies. Now we’ll look into the heretical view that God will never judge sin.
To help us refute these heresies, we’ve invited one of Lamb & Lion Ministries’ friends, Dennis Pollock, to this week’s episode of Christ in Prophecy. Dennis served as Dr. David Reagan’s Assistant Evangelist for almost 12 years, from 1993 to 2005, at which time he formed his own ministry called Spirit of Grace.
SEE ALL FIVE PARTS HERE
Heresy #5: God Will Never Judge Sin
Tim Moore: Some major evangelical pastors are claiming that the Old Testament has been replaced by the New and so has no relevance to modern-day Christianity. One of the best-known teachers recently said that he has discovered that God is no longer upset or angry with anybody because Jesus took the wrath of God for the whole world onto Himself, and so, therefore, God is no longer mad about anything. Since the New Testament, God has no reason then to ever pour out His wrath. Dennis, why is this thinking unbiblical?
Dennis Pollock: This pastor has been on TV for years. He’s even got his own Bible college! What Bible is he reading? The wrath of God doesn’t disappear once you’ve flipped from Malachi to Matthew. Has he even read the book of Revelation?
One of the statements this pastor made was, “If God ever judges America He’s going to have to apologize to Jesus.” In other words, this man now believes that Jesus took everybody’s sins to the cross so that it would now be a sin against Jesus for God to judge any nation or any group of people. Well, that is ridiculous! The whole book of Revelation concerns the pouring out of God’s wrath. And, not only that, but the Apostle Paul accused the sinner of storing up wrath. It will be in the day of God’s wrath as revealed in the book of Revelation when the righteous judgments of God will be meted out. Paul says, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11). We could give scripture after scripture that proves that God continues to judge sin after the cross.
Tim Moore: John the Baptist said in John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Believe in the Son or one day you will experience God’s wrath. If you reject Jesus Christ, the wrath of God abides on you. It couldn’t be stated any clearer.
Dennis Pollock: Yes, the word “abide” means “remain.” So, what that means is if you are not going to receive Christ, then when you get up in the morning the wrath of God is on you. And, when you go to bed at night, the wrath of God is on you. You are living under the wrath of God when you die, and you’ll pay the price for it at the Great White Throne Judgment.
It’s shocking to me to see how far people drift away theologically. The only thing I can conclude is that they have learned a pet set of doctrines that are not even right, and they hang around other preachers who preach those false doctrines. They don’t really dig into the Word, and so they come to believe in their heresies with certainty. It’s because they’ve heard these lies so many times from so many people, who also heard it from the same group of people, who heard it from the same group of people, and so on.
Just open the Bible and find out what the Bible says, and you can easily dispel false doctrines. With the Bible by your side, you don’t even have to be a theologian to see what’s wrong. Anybody can just open the Bible and read through the New Testament one time. Take out a notebook and start writing down how many times it refers to God’s wrath, God’s judgment, and God being upset with sin.
In Revelation 2 and 3, Jesus says to the Church generally: “I don’t like what you are doing. If you don’t repent I’m going to take your lampstand away. If you don’t repent I’m going to kill some of the people in your church.” Jesus is hot! He’s upset in Revelation 2 and 3 with some of the churches, though not all.
Some people think with the New Testament Jesus they’ve got this Jesus shield. You hold it up over you and then you drink your whiskey and you do all of the evil stuff you desire to do, and all God can see is Jesus, all because you’ve got your Jesus shield up. But, then you read Revelation 2 and 3 where Jesus says, “I don’t like this. I don’t like that. You better repent.” Every time when He writes to those churches, the very first statement He makes is, “I know your works.” In other words, I can see right through your Jesus shield, and I know what evil you are doing.
Tim Moore: Jesus is not a shield so much as He comes within us and transforms our hearts, which permeates our entire being. That is how we are to live out our faith.
Nathan Jones: Plus, our sins are what put Jesus on the cross. So, why would we want to continue living in sin? That would be like you marrying your wife because you love her, but then you cheat on her, you apologize, but you keep doing it over and over again. You take the grace that she gave you and keep throwing it back in her face. Well, these heretics treat Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and His grace with the same level of contempt.
Dennis Pollock: Yes, they sure do.
In the fifth and last part of this discussion about major apostasies, we’ll next look into the heretical belief that denies the Bible as the very Word of God.
SOURCE: LAMB AND LION MINISTRIES
