Four Dreadful Judgments

“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says...I send against Jerusalem my four dreadful judgments—sword and famine and wild beasts and plague—to kill its men and their animals!" (Ezekiel 14:21)

DEATH by various natural phenomenon are God's four dreadful judgments. Note that there was not even a hint of eternal conscious torment after death.God has and will continue to send those four judgments ending in death during this present evil again which we live.

At the Cross, however, God through Christ Jesus revealed His plan to save all from the DEATH caused by His judgments. This salvation is the result of the LOVE of God for the "ungodly", all of whom are "powerless" to save themselves from His "wrath" - DEATH.

”You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life…” (Romans 5:6-11)

In the days of Ezekiel the Jewish religious teachers were falsely testifying that God IS NOT ANGRY and will not bring judgment. And now, after the Cross, religious leaders of all professions are saying God IS ANGRY and in His wrath He will not only bring DEATH through His Judgments, but will add ETERNAL conscious torment in hell thereafter.

Religious men are getting worse.  They have always been wrong about what God has said, adding to what God actually says, or denying what God says. Jesus might say - "of what Spirit" are they?

"And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him...his disciples James and John...said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them...But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save." (Luke 9:54-56)

God has "justified" sinners to Himself by the "blood" of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his death "we were reconciled" to God. That is the gospel...the good news...the opinions of religious men notwithstanding.

The Faith OF Jesus Christ

”Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who is of the faith of Jesus.” (Romans 3:24-26)

Our righteousness is not based on OUR faith, but the faith OF Jesus. And the only way to be “justified” (declared righteous) is to be a recipient of the “faith OF Jesus”.

“...the righteousness of God is through the faith of Jesus Christ to all...(Romans 3:22)

If your version of the Bible says "faith IN Jesus", it is wrong.  Any honest translator with a Greek Interlinear will clearly see the proper translation is "faith OF Jesus". Nothing wrong with having faith IN Jesus, but that is not the context in the above verses which are talking about the faith that Jesus had, not our faith.

For it is by Grace you have been saved, through FAITH - and that NOT OF YOURSELVES, it is the GIFT OF GOD...we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men...Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of FAITH, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Ephesians 2:8; 1 Timothy 4:10; Hebrews 12:2-3)

Jesus had faith that His suffering and death on the Cross was the RIGHT thing for God to do in order to save all mankind.  His death was the only sacrifice that could do so, and therefore Jesus "endured the cross" because he knew that...

"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll - I have come to do your will, my God....and by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once FOR ALL...when this priest had offered FOR ALL TIME one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy..." and God says that "their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." (Hebrews 10:5-17)

And what is it that God "wills" and therefore sent Jesus to do?

"This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who WILLS all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom FOR ALL, the testimony given at the proper time." (1 Timothy 2:3-7)