Homilies on the Gospel of John — Homily 28

St. John Chrysostom

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2

Many of the more careless sort of persons, using the lovingkindness of God to increase the magnitude of their sins and the excess of their disregard, speak in this way, There is no hell, there is no future punishment, God forgives us all sins. To stop whose mouths a wise man says, Say not, His mercy is great, He will be pacified for the multitude of my sins; for mercy and wrath come from Him, and His indignation rests upon sinners [[Sirach 5.6]]: and again, As His mercy is great, so is His correction also. [[Sirach 16.12]] Where then, says one, is His lovingkindness, if we shall receive for our sins according to our deserts? That we shall indeed receive according to our deserts, hear both the Prophet and Paul declare; one says, You shall render to every man according to his work Psalm 62:12, Septuagint; the other, Who will render to every man according to his work. [[Romans 2.6]] And yet we may see that even so the lovingkindness of God is great; in dividing our existence into two periods, the present life and that which is to come, and making the first to be an appointment of trial, the second a place of crowning, even in this He has shown great lovingkindness.

How and in what way? Because when we had committed many and grievous sins, and had not ceased from youth to extreme old age to defile our souls with ten thousand evil deeds, for none of these sins did He demand from us a reckoning, but granted us remission of them by the washing of Regeneration, and freely gave us Righteousness and Sanctification. What then, says one, if a man who from his earliest age has been deemed worthy of the mysteries, after this commits ten thousand sins? Such an one deserves a severer punishment. For we do not pay the same penalties for the same sins, if we do wrong after Initiation. And this Paul declares, saying, He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, do you suppose, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the Covenant an unholy thing, and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace? [[Hebrews 10.28]]-29 Such an one then is worthy of severer punishment. Yet even for him God has opened doors of repentance, and has granted him many means for the washing away his transgressions, if he will. Think then what proofs of lovingkindness these are; by Grace to remit sins, and not to punish him who after grace has sinned and deserves punishment, but to give him a season and appointed space for his clearing. For all these reasons Christ said to Nicodemus, God sent not His Son to condemn the world, but to save the world.

For there are two Advents of Christ, that which has been, and that which is to be; and the two are not for the same purpose; the first came to pass not that He might search into our actions, but that He might remit; the object of the second will be not to remit, but to enquire. Therefore of the first He says, I came not to condemn