The following is an excerpt from Joel Beeke’s amazing book, Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism. If you’ve not read this volume, it’s certain to be a classic in its own time – one of the best (if not the best!) books on Calvinism ever published. I cannot recommend it too highly. Here’s a sample:
If you serve sin, you will receive the wages of sin. This is a moral universe. We live and move and have our being in God. Every breath of our lives is in His hands. Sow a seed of sin and you will reap the harvest of judgment. Sow the wind of unbelief and you will reap the whirlwind of destruction. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Heb. 9:27).
Hell is the cesspool of the universe. It is that appalling cosmic incinerator into which one day God Almighty will gather the refuse of the world, that place that is ever under His undiluted wrath, where the worm of memory dies not, where the false prophet is, where the Dragon and the Beast are (see Rev. 12-13), and where everyone will be unless they deal with their sin.
Hell is the logic behind sin. It is the divine response to persistent impenitence and final disobedience. Pollution is the forerunner of perdition. And hell is what God ultimately thinks of impenitent sin and total depravity.
Additional Reading on Calvinism
- Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism by Joel Beeke
- Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented
- The Five Points of Calvinism: A Study Guide by Edwin H. Palmer
Additional Reading on Sin & Eternal Punishment
