For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, The year of recompense for the cause of Zion. 9 Its streams shall be turned into pitch, And its dust into brimstone; Its land shall become burning pitch.
If we ask what determines where we spend eternity, the only answer Scripture gives is the electing love of God. No good works of ours, no turning to God, no exercise of faith in Christ, none of these are the ultimate cause of our deliverance. All these things must be present but that are all ultimately the effects not the cause of election. They are all the gifts of God who has already determined to love us. Knowing these things we view the smoke ascending from hell with awe. We do not say, ‘I am not there because I had the good sense to believe in Christ, while those others continued in their stubbornness’. Instead we say, ‘He alone knows why I am not there. He has done everything to deliver me from that place. He saw what would happen to me and he intervened. In myself there is nothing any different to those who have gone to that place. What an amazing difference the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ has made to my life!’ There is of course an asymmetry between those who perish in hell and those who go to heaven. The first are there by the law while the second are delivered by grace. The first are there because they are being punished for their sins. The second are in heaven in spite of their sins. The first are there because of what they have done, the second are with Christ because of what someone else has done.
Are we happy that our eternal security should rest on something outside of ourselves? Does this make us feel uncomfortable? There is no other way it can be. We need not fear, for though the choices of God are a mystery to us, they are unchangeable choices. Not all the waywardness that follows conversion can put him off or cause him to cease to love us. Are we happy to accept his love when we know that he saw nothing in us to deserve that love? It is not for us to say why another should love us.