During the Middle Ages there was a strong tendency to portray God as a severe, punitive Judge. Today the tendency is to describe Him as a loving, permissive Father who never punishes His children. Yet, love without justice will turn into chaos and lawlessness, and justice without love will become oppression and subjugation. God’s judging process is a perfect blend of justice and mercy, both of which derive from His unconditional love.

 The executive judgment is God’s final and irreversible punitive intervention in human history. Limited punitive judgments occurred, for example, in the casting out of Satan and his rebellious angels from heaven (Rev. 12:7-12), the driving out of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3), the Great Flood (Genesis 6-8), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19, Jude 7), the death of the firstborn in Egypt (Exodus 11-12), and the death of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). So it is no surprise that there will be an executive judgment of the wicked also at the end of human history.

 Read 2 Peter 2:4-6 and 2 Peter 3:10-13. How do these texts help us understand the nature of the final executive judgment? How do they imply the idea of the completion of judgment as opposed to its going on forever, which would be a perversion of justice and not an expression of it?

 “God’s goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy exercised to His subjects, will not hinder Him from punishing the sinner who refused to be obedient to His requirements. It is not for a man — a criminal against God’s holy law, pardoned only through the great sacrifice He made in giving His Son to die for the guilty because His law was changeless — to dictate to God.” — Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 208.

 All that God could have done to save humanity from being eternally lost He did, even at a great cost to Himself. Those who are lost ultimately made choices that led them to this unfortunate end. The idea that God’s judgment on the lost, even the annihilation of the lost (as opposed to eternal torment), goes against the character of a loving God is simply wrong. It’s God’s love, and God’s love alone, that demands justice, as well.