Against Heresies: Book V

IF THE FATHER DOES NOT EXERCISE JUDGMENT: then it follows that judgment does not belong to Him, or He agrees with everything that happens. If He does not judge, then everyone will be equal and considered in the same state. The coming of Christ would then be pointless, even absurd, because He would have no judicial power. For “He came to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;” and when two are in one bed, He will take one and leave the other; and of two women grinding at the mill, He will take one and leave the other.

At the end time, He will tell the reapers to gather the tares first, bind them in bundles, and burn them with unquenchable fire, but to collect the wheat into the barn, and to invite the lambs into the kingdom prepared for them, but to send the goats into everlasting fire, which has been prepared by His Father for the devil and his angels. And why is this? Has the Word come for the downfall and resurrection of many? Certainly for the downfall of those who do not believe Him, to whom He has warned of a greater damnation on judgment-day than that of Sodom and Gomorrah; but for the resurrection of believers, and those who do the will of His Father in heaven.

If the coming of the Son comes indeed to all, but with the purpose of judging and separating the believing from the unbelieving, since those who believe do His will by their own choice, and the disobedient do not agree with His doctrine by their own choice, it is clear that His Father has made everyone in the same state, each person having a choice of their own and a free understanding, and that He cares for all things and oversees everything, “making His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sending rain on the just and the unjust.”

TO EVERYONE WHO CONTINUES IN THEIR LOVE FOR GOD: He grants communion with Him. Communion with God is life and light and the enjoyment of all the benefits He has in store.

But to those who choose to depart from God, He enforces the separation they have willingly chosen. Separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness; it means losing all the benefits He offers. Those who abandon these things through apostasy, finding themselves without any good, experience every kind of punishment.

God does not punish them directly, but the punishment comes upon them because they lack all that is good. Good things are eternal and endless with God, so losing these is eternal and never-ending. It's like the case of a flood of light: those who have blinded themselves, or been blinded by others, are forever deprived of the enjoyment of light. The light hasn't caused their blindness; their blindness has brought disaster upon them. That's why the Lord said, “He who believes in Me is not condemned,” meaning they are not separated from God, because they are united with God through faith.

On the other hand, He says, “He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God,” meaning he has separated himself from God by choice. “This is the condemnation: light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light. Everyone who does evil hates the light and doesn't come to the light, so their deeds won't be exposed.

But whoever does truth comes to the light, so their deeds can be seen as being done in God.”