Archive: It is a Fearful Thing to Fall into the Hands of the Living God

by Antonio da Rosa

The Following is an excerpt from a longer post with the same name

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Regenerate man has a free will that is regulated by two opposing capacities within his ontological being. The old man is powered by his pride, selfishness, and wordly passions. The new man MUST BE empowered by the Holy Spirit through active yieldedness. What does this say? That unless regenerate man, by an act of his will, mortifies the old man, and actively yields himself to the indwelling Holy Spirit, he will not have victory nor necessitated progressive and experiential sanctification.

God has positive and negative means by which to affect His children apart from coercion, force, necessity, and imposition. The object of this post is not to get into the positive aspects of God’s relationship to the regenerate one. I may in the future outline the glorious nature of God’s encouragement, leading, guiding, teaching, prompting, and acts of love and kindness.

The assessment of the Traditionalist against the Free Gracer is folly.

The Free Gracer has a sober view of God’s holiness and loathe of sin. God demands holiness. God hates sin. He will not tolerate or wink at the evil machinations of His children. God requires that His servants be holy and abide by His commandments.

At His discretion, God will employ His discipline and judgement against the sinful acts of His children. These may take the form of temporal consequences or eternal ones. In either respect, they are serious and sobering.

Following is a list of God’s punitive disciplinary actions against believers, whether they be temporal or eternal.

Within God’s discretionary model of accountability, the believer may be:

1. Cast out (Mt 5:13).
2. Called least (Mt 5:19)
3. Thrown into prison (Mt 5:25)
4. Not forgiven (Mt 6:15)
5. Judged in like manner (Mt 7:1-2)
6. Cast away from the table into the darkness outside (Mt 8:11-12)
7. Denied before the Father (Mt 10:33)
8. Counted unworthy of Jesus (Mt 10:37-38)
9. Condemned on the basis of their words (Mt 12:36-37)
10. Paid back with the loss of their souls (Mt 16:24-27)
11. Handed over to tortures (Mt 18:34-35)
12. Last (Mt 19:30)
13. Last (Mt 20:16)
14. Bound hand and foot (Mt 22:13)
15. Cast outside the wedding feast into the darkness outside (Mt 22:13)
16. Pictured as weeping and gnashing their teeth (Mt 22:13)
17. Not chosen (Mt 22:14)
18. Humbled rather than exalted (Mt 23:12)
19. Whipped (Mt 24:51)
20. Assigned a place with the hypocrites (Mt 24:51)
21. Pictured as weeping and gnashing their teeth (Mt 24:51)
22. Denied entrance into the wedding feast and left in the darkness outside (Mt 25:12)
23. Rebuked (Mt 25:26)
24. Penalized (Mt 25:28)
25. Cast into the darkness outside (Mt 25:30)
26. Pictured as weeping and gnashing their teeth (Mt 25:30)
27. Pictured as losing their lives (Mk 8:35)
28. Made objects of shame (Mt 8:38)
29. Last (Mk 10:31)
30. Ruined (Lk 6:49)
31. Exposed (Lk 8:17)
32. Warned of losing their souls when Jesus returns (Lk 9:24-26)
33. Made objects of shame (Lk 9:26)
34. Not fit for the kingdom (Lk 9:62)
35. Exposed (Lk 12:2)
36. Told to fear God who casts people into hell (Lk 12:5)
37. Publicly denied by Jesus (Lk 12:9)
38. Called fools in the loss of their souls (Lk 12:20)
39. Whipped (Lk 12:46)
40. Assigned a place with the unfaithful (Lk 12:46)
41. Subject to many lashes rather than just a few (Lk 12:47-48)
42. Thrown into prison (Lk 12:58)
43. Last (Lk 13:30)
44. Publicly disgraced and humbled by being put in last place (Lk 13:9-11)
45. Thrown out as worthless (Lk 14:35)
46. Humbled rather than exalted (Lk 18:14)
47. Penalized (Lk 20:24-26)
48. Cast into the fire and burned (Jn 15:6)
49. Killed (Acts 5:5-10)
50. Threatened with death (Acts 8:20)
51. Unforgiven (Acts 8:22)
52. Rewarded with God’s wrath and indignation (Rom 2:6)
53. Subject to death (Rom 8:13)
54. Severely cut off (Rom 11:22)
55. Condemned (Rom 13:2)
56. Subject to wrath (Rom 13:4)
57. Condemned (Rom 14:22-23)
58. Revealed for the negative they do (1Cor 3:13)
59. Punished with loss (1Cor 3:15)
60. Destroyed (1Cor 3:17)
61. Revealed for the negative they think (1Cor 4:5)
62. Delivered over to Satan for physical destruction (1Cor 5:5)
63. Rejected as kingdom heirs (1Cor 6:9-10)
64. Rejected as losers (1Cor 9:24-27)
65. Afflicted with God’s judgment of weakness and sickness (1Cor 11:30-31)
66. Judged and disciplined (1Cor 11:32-34)
67. Accursed (1Cor 16:22)
68. Punished (2Cor 2:6)
69. Paid back with evil for the evil they do (2Cor 5:10)
70. Punished with suffering loss (2Cor 7:9)
71. Not benefited by Christ (Gal 5:2)
72. Severed from Christ (Gal 5:4)
73. Fallen from grace (Gal 5:4)
74. Rejected as kingdom heirs (Gal 5:21)
75. Reapers of corruption rather than eternal life (Gal 6:8)
76. Rejected as kingdom heirs (Eph 5:5)
77. Partakers of God’s wrath (Eph 5:6-7)
78. Considered unholy objects of blame and reproach [at the bema] (Col 1:22-23)
79. Rewarded with harm rather than the inheritance (Col 3:24-25)
80. Objects of God’s vengeance (1Thess 4:6)
81. Put to shame (2Thess 3:14)
82. Condemned (1Tim 5:12)
83. Publicly rebuked (1Tim 5:20)
84. Plunged into ruin and destruction (1Tim 6:9-10)
85. Denied (2Tim 2:12)
86. Ruined (2Tim 2:14)
87. Dishonored (2Tim 2:20)
88. Self-condemned (Tit 3:11)
89. Subject to a negative payback (Heb 2:2-3)
90. Objects of God’s wrath and anger (Heb 3:11-17)
91. Rejected from God’s rest (Heb 3:18-4:11)
92. Burned (Heb 6:8)
93. Subject to a terrifying fiery judgment (Heb 10:27)
94. Subject to server punishment (Heb 10:29)
95. Subject to God’s vengeance (Heb 10:30)
96. Subject to God’s judgment (Heb 10:30)
97. Subject to a terrifying experience at God’s hands (Heb 10:31)
98. Subject to God’s displeasure (Heb 10:38)
99. Subject to destruction (Heb 10:39)
100. Subject to God’s discipline (Heb 12:5-8)
101. Subject to God’s reproving (Heb 12:5)
102. Subject to God’s whipping (Heb 12:6)
103. Consider illegitimate children (Heb 12:8)
104. Rejected concerning the inheritance (Heb 12:17)
105. Unable to escape God’s fiery judgment (Heb 12:25-29)
106. Subject to potentially harmful or detrimental consequences (Heb 12:17)
107. Subject to God’s judgment (Heb 13:4)
108. Susceptible to merciless judgment (Jam 2:13)
109. Not be saved from this merciless judgment (Jam 2:14)
110. Susceptible to strict judgment (Jam 3:1)
111. Opposed by God (Jam 4:6)
112. Susceptible to miseries on judgment day (Jam 5:1)
113. Susceptible to being burned with fire (Jam 5:3)
114. Susceptible to condemnation when the Lord returns (Jam 5:9)
115. Susceptible to judgment (Jam 5:12)
116. Susceptible to premature death (Jam 5:20)
117. Justifiably afraid of God’s judgment (1Pet 1:17)
118. Opposed by God (1Pet 3:12)
119. Opposed by God (1Pet 5:5)
120. Worse off because they are believers (2Pet 2:20-21)
121. Fallen from grace (2Pet 3:17-18)
122. Out of fellowship with God (1Jn 1:6)
123. Put to shame by Jesus (1Jn 2:28)
124. Subject to premature death (1Jn 5:16)
125. Removed (Rev 2:5)
126. Subject to having his crown taken away (Rev 3:11)
127. Punished with sickness (Rev 2:22)
128. Cast into great tribulation (Rev 2:22)
129. Killed (Rev 2:23)
130. Spit out (Rev 3:16)
131. Reproved (Rev 3:19)
132. Disciplined by God (Rev 3:19)
133. Plagued by God (Rev 22:18)
134. Subject to having God take away his portion in the tree of life (Rev 22:29)
135. Subject to having God take away his portion in the holy city (Rev 22:29)
(Credit for this list goes to Marty Cauley, Sylva N.C., friend and GES member. Thank you, Marty!)

I realize that the readers, even those who ally themselves in proximity to my position, may not agree with some of these disciplinary actions.

It must be noted that many, if not most of these disciplinary actions are within the context of parabolic structures, and as such, are not to be taken literally, but the accounts within the metaphorical contructs correspond to spiritual truths.

For sake of clarity and argumentation: Any one who would oppose my use of these references of negative consequences in specific relation to the regenerate one, I have a request. If you take issue with any of these references, please give me your observational, exegetical, and contextual exposition of the verse that would cause you to arrive at your interpretation. Just to merely assert and froth is of no benefit.

Prove by your exegetical and expositional skills that these references are not with the regenerate one in mind.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

God does not trifle with sin, not even the sin of His children.

Heb 10:30-31
"The LORD will judge His people." It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.