“I remember sitting in prison, contemplating and even planning my suicide. I began to pray for the first time in a long time. I prayed that God would do something. I had lost everything. I got involved in AA and various drug programs and became substance-free. But I knew that still was not enough.”

I was brought up in a typical middle-class home on Long Island, NY. It was at about age 13 that I had my first gay sexual experience. Although at that time it seemed an innocent and isolated occurrence, little did I know the devastating effect it would have on my life.
Those early experiences led to 15 years of guilt and confusion. A move to the West Coast to attend college brought new freedoms that were damaging. The move enabled me to seek out gay bars and begin involvement in the gay life. This was something the small farming community from which I had come had not afforded me.
Never willing to face the loneliness of my life for very long, I found temporary peace in new surroundings. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, South Florida, and a year in Europe only enabled me to keep running away. I thought that I could find happiness in a constant stream of new people, new places, and new things. Although I was getting more involved in the gay life, I was still conscious of enough confusion to seek out psychiatrists. I found out that the psychiatrists often needed psychiatrists.
During this time, I also tried to push myself into heterosexual relationships, at times getting serious enough to come through with promises and diamond rings. I never could go through with it. Those years were characterized by guilt and misery.
By the age of 28, I just gave in. I rationalized and made the necessary excuses. I said, “Well, this is the way God made me and wants me. I’m gay, and I’ll have to live with that for the rest of my life.” So I dove into that for the next 15 years. Along the way I learned that alcohol dulled the pain (and hidden guilt). Alcohol enabled me to not feel, and a continual stream of brief relationships that meant nothing gave temporary relief.
Still looking for that ultimate “pain killer” at age 40, I got into crack, one of the most deadly drugs on the market. I don’t know how, but I did find success in business and money. I had all the material trappings of a successful yuppie. I was making a ton of money.
Then the bottom fell out. I was arrested for coke possession, spent one night in jail, and was released in the morning. Within a month I was arrested for possession of crack again. This time it hit the headlines of the newspaper in the small South Florida town in which I lived and worked. I was fired from my job and began a prison term.
I remember sitting in prison, contemplating and even planning my suicide. I began to pray for the first time in a long time. I prayed that God would do something. I had lost everything. I got involved in AA and various drug programs and became substance-free. But I knew that still was not enough.
As part of my parole, I landed a job in the Philadelphia area. I began to frequent gay bars again, but something wasn’t the same. I didn’t drink, but I would just sit there and look at all those lonely people. Only, somehow, I now couldn’t relate. Now I felt completely lost. I kept thinking, this is the only thing I’ve known. What am I going to do now? It was about this time that I read an ad in the newspaper for Harvest USA, which said there was help and hope for people like me!
Thank the Lord I found that ad. I called the number and went in and talked with John Freeman. He listened for a long time and then told me about Christ and how Jesus really cared about me and my problems. During that first appointment, I accepted Christ into my life.
It’s hard for me to understand and explain, but after that, my life changed dramatically. I began reading the Bible, praying, and developing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had always known deep down that there must be some purpose to my life. Now I knew! Perhaps the biggest change has been that the loneliness and insecurity that plagued my life are gone. I’m a new man in Christ, and the Lord is my personal friend. It’s really unbelievable. No crack or cocaine can come near it.
In January 1989, about six months after giving my life to Christ, I faced a new problem. That month I went to the dermatologist to check out a patch of skin on my face. It turned out to be Kaposi’s sarcoma. I have AIDS. I have since begun the AZT treatment and the whole medication thing.
The Lord may heal me or he may not. That’s not in my control. The important thing is that the Lord is enabling me to deal with this. Even my own family has been extremely supportive. On a recent trip back home, my parents, though not Christians, perhaps summed it up best when they told me, “Steve, it really doesn’t matter if the Lord heals you or not. The crucial thing is that you’re healed in your heart!”
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Suffering speaks to us of our sin and our need to repent of it. Suffering tells us that God is patient, and that He is warning us and waking us and giving us time before it’s too late. Suffering tells us that we need a Saviour to rescue us from final judgement.

In part 2 of this series we saw that physical suffering is a part of God’s response to human sin, deliberately designed to demonstrate the tragedy that exists within each of our own hearts.
We might ask whether this is fair of God, or at least something of an overreaction. Did a bite from a fruit really warrant all of the pain and bloodshed in the world?
To answer that question, it’s helpful to consider what would have happened if Adam and Eve had got what they actually deserved. “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). God would not have been unjust to respond to our first parent’s sin with instant, eternal punishment. That what sin deserves, because every sin—even the smallest bite from a fruit—is an offence against a Person of infinite worth and majesty.1 Thus, even the smallest sin is a crime of infinite offence.
But Adam and Eve did not get what they deserved. They kept breathing. They kept living. They awoke to fresh sunrises and the sound of a baby’s cry and the taste of good food and refreshment of rest after work and the love of one another. And all around them was this universe—still beautiful, still showing God’s glory—but constantly reminding them of their sin.
There is a word for this: grace. God could have dealt with sin immediately by giving them their just deserts. But instead He extended grace, giving them life while showing them their sin, and therefore offering every opportunity to return to Him. Being alive on a cursed earth is a lot better than any one of us deserves, and when we see it like this, we begin to grasp that pain and suffering are gifts that summon us to repent before it’s too late.
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Written by Gregory K. Beale |
Thursday, December 15, 2022
Christ’s justifying penal substitutionary death is the price paid “once for all” (Heb. 9:12; see 9:26–28), and the good works done within the context of Christian faith become the inevitable evidence of such faith at the final judicial evaluation, when the believer is openly acknowledged and acquitted before all. Christ’s work (both His death and His perfect obedience) is the “necessary causal condition” for justification, and the believer’s works are a “necessary (but not ultimately causal) condition’” for “acquittal” before other men.

The Bible features multiple references to the final judgment. Matthew 25 is probably the longest such passage in all of Scripture. In verses 31–46, Christ “separates the sheep from the goats,” with the former rewarded with a kingdom inheritance and the latter told to “depart . . . into the eternal fire.” Other extended discussions of the end-time judgment include Luke 19:12–27; Romans 2:5–16; Hebrews 10:26–30; 2 Peter 3:7–14; and Jude 6, 14–15, 24.

The book of Revelation has more extended presentations of the last judgment than any other biblical book. These passages either make no explicit mention of the basis of the judgment (Rev. 6:12–17; 16:17–21) or mention idolatry, sin, or works as a basis of judgment (Rev. 14:6–11, 14–20; 18:4–24; 19:11–21; 20:11–15). Revelation 20:11–15 is perhaps the most explicit text about people’s receiving final judgment based on their deeds. God judges the dead “by what was written in the books, according to what they had done . . . , and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. . . . And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Those whose names were “written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Rev. 13:8; 21:27) are not judged, since the slain Lamb’s blood is the penal satisfaction for their sinful works. The Lamb suffered their judgment on their behalf. They enjoy their justification (God’s declaration that they are righteous) in Him.
The question needs to be posed about how the believer’s justification in Christ is related to (1) God’s final judgment and (2) the requirement that believers must show their good works to pass through the judgment. Then we need to look at (3) how the final judgment relates to non-Christians.
First, when a person believes that Christ died on his behalf, Romans 3:24–25 says that the person is “justified” by Christ’s “blood,” which means that He took the final judgment and wrath of God that we deserved for our sin. Consequently, believers are “redeemed” from that final penalty (see also Romans 5:9).

But if this is the case, we need to ask why the New Testament can say elsewhere that “works” are necessary for passing unscathed through the final judgment. For example, Romans 2:13 says, “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified [or, better, “vindicated”].” There will be a judicial evaluation of the works of all people. God “will render to each one according to his works” at the time of the judgment (Rom. 2:6). Some who do good, though not perfect, will obtain “eternal life” (Rom. 1:7). On the other hand, others will be found wanting and undergo judgment.

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