Maybe I Like Irony Because God Does?

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Our Tuesday night ladies' Bible study group has been studying about false prophets in 2 Peter and now in Jude. In doing so, we have read of the judgment to come for those who choose rebellion and apostasy. 

One of the things I have noticed is the appropriately ironic judgment of the fallen angels. Peter writes that God "committed them to pits of darkness reserved for judgment" (2 Peter 2:4); likewise, Jude wrote that the "angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day" (1:6).  The irony lies that in trying to take God's throne, these stars of the heavens cast down after their rebellion are locked under darkness in pits void of light. Can you imagine their livid despair? They were created to shine brightly and bring God glory, yet they chose to seek their own glory, and in doing so cast away their ability to reflect God's glory at all--much less to shine! They didn't realize where their ability to shine came from, and in trying to wrest God's glory for themselves, they condemned themselves to the harshest judgment for a being who craves more light--utter darkness. They destroyed themselves instead of getting to share and bask in the glory of the One who designed them with a specific purpose and for His glory. 

God's ways are not like ours, but we are made in His image, and I cannot help but appreciate His appropriately ironic judgment.  At the same time, I have to heed the warning there, lest I too forget my purpose, my Creator, and His plans for my own life. I want to prove myself to be a "blameless and innocent, [child] of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom [I] appear as light in the world" (Philippians 2:15), and avoid any such justly ironic judgment as these faced. 

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