Isaiah 33:14-15 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire?… If you will only remove from that word "anger" the mere human associations which cleave to it, of passion on the one hand, and of a wish to hurl its object on the other, then you cannot, I think, deny to the Divine nature the possession of that passionless and unmalignant wrath without striking a fatal blow at the perfect purity of God. A God that does not hate evil, that does not flame out against it, using all the energies of His being to destroy it, is a God to whose character there cleaves the fatal suspicion of indifference to good, of moral apathy. If I have not a God to trust in that hates evil because He loveth righteousness, then "the pillared firmament itself were rottenness, and earth's base built on stubble"; nor were there any hope that this damnable thing that is killing and sucking the life-blood out of our spirits should ever be destroyed and cast aside. It is short-sighted wisdom, and it is cruel kindness, to tamper with the thought of the wrath of God, the "everlasting burnings" of that eternally pure nature wherewith it wages war against all sin! (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? |
    |