God is practically, as far as we are concerned, bound by his own revelation of his own character. He has been pleased to tell us that he is just, and that he is the Lord God, merciful and gracious. In a few words, he has given us the sum of himself by saying that “God is love.” When a man says concerning himself, “I have a right to do as I like, but I am generous as well as just,” you feel sure he will exercise the right which he claims in a manner according to, and consistent with, his own statement of what he is, and if he has rightly estimated his own character, he will give bountifully and pay honourably. Rest assured, then, that God’s sovereignty never will prove him to have misrepresented himself, or to have deceived us. When he says that he is just, he neither can nor will act unjustly towards any creature he has made. There was never a pang or a pain inflicted arbitrarily by God. God never pronounced a curse upon any man unless that man had clearly and richly earned it by his sin. No soul was ever cast into hell by sovereignty. God takes counsel with himself, but he stoops not to caprice. How comes the hapless creature, then, to this dread torment? Sin brings the sinner into a ruined state; justice pronounces the sinner’s doom. Sovereignty may let that doom stand. What if it moves not to avert the issue. Justice it is that pronounces the curse. Be assured, man, however much you may kick against the doctrine of election, you have no reason to do so. Whatever that doctrine may involve, it is not possible but that God must, and will, act towards you in a way so strictly just that, when you yourself come to discover it in eternity, you will not be able to cavil, but be compelled to stand speechless. Moreover, God has been pleased to assure you that he is love; that he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. Now, whatever sovereignty may decree, you may rest assured that the decree will be in consonance with the fact that God is full of mercy, grace, and truth. I know some of you set up the decree of God like a huge monster before you. You paint a horrible picture, as though the visage of him that speaketh to you from heaven were cruel and pitiless. But that picture is drawn by your perverse imagination; it is not God’s portrait of himself, for he saith, “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but had rather that he would turn unto me and live.” God mocks not when he says, “Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die, O house of Israel?” That is honest emotion which God feels over a sinner who ruins himself when he cries, “How can I give thee up? How shall I set thee as Admah? How shall I make thee as Zeboim? My bowels are moved; my repentings are kindled together!” God willeth not the death of a sinner, but had rather that he should turn unto him and live. So he himself assures us, and, sovereign as he is, yet he still remains both just and gracious for ever, and let us not doubt it for a moment. The rainbow, the rainbow of his own glorious attributes of mercy, ever surrounds the throne.C. H. Spurgeon, “The Heavenly Rainbow (No. 3,412),” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, 63 vols. (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1914), 60:303–304.
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