How can God destroy the wicked and not destroy a part of himself?
This question takes us to Calvary, where in Christ God gave himself for the world. To speak of God destroying himself is misleading, since God is indestructible; but if the question were put this way, "How can sinners die, and God not die?" the answer would necessarily be, They cannot. There was no way possible for God to judge the wicked, and to cleanse the world of sin, but by the sacrifice of himself.
Christ was in the beginning with God, and was God. (John 1:1) He was the out-shining of the Father's glory, and the very impress--character--of His substance. (Hebrews 1:3,RV) He and the Father were so completely one, that in giving Christ God gave himself. This is shown in Paul's exhortation to the elders of Ephesus: "Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood." (Acts 20:28)
We need not now go into a consideration of how and why it was that God must needs give His life; suffice it for the present that He did it, taking the guilt of the world upon themselves; for: "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." (2 Corinthians 5:19)
And as He took the sins of the world upon himself, so He took upon himself the penalty for sin. "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
On the cross Christ, and God in Christ, takes the punishment that is naturally due to sin, suffering all that any sinner, and all sinners together, can possibly suffer in being cut off for their sins. "Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust." (1 Peter 3:18) "He was cut off out of the land of the living," (Isaiah 53:8) and that is the utmost penalty that can be visited upon any sinner.
In the cross we see the judgment and the execution of the penalty against sin: "The soul that sins it shall die." (Ezekiel 18:20)
The cross brings salvation; but salvation is the destruction of sin; and the destruction of sin necessarily involves the destruction of those who will not allow sin to be separated from them. There was the same awful terror at Calvary when Christ offered up His life, that there will be at His second coming. (Compare Matthew 27:50-52; Luke 23:44-45, 48, and Revelation 6:12-17) "In Him we live, and move, and have our being;...For we are also His offspring." (Acts 17:28)
God is still in Christ, bearing the sins of the world, and the cross is as real today as it was the day that Pilate gave judgment against Jesus of Nazareth. Not a soul suffers a pang that God does not feel; for even the fall of a sparrow to the ground sends a vibration to His heart. So it will be until the last great day, when the consummation of the mystery of the cross will be seen. The anguish of Gethsemane and Calvary will be there, and God will be affected the same as before, yea, even as He now is; for it is no light thing for Him to cut off any of His members. In the statement that: "[God] is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish," (2 Peter 3:9) we have the truth set forth that He still suffers for sin; and some know that He will also suffer in the destruction of the wicked. The truth of this, made apparent to all the universe, is what will convince all that God is merciful in His justice, and that: "there is no unrighteousness in Him." (Psalm 92:15)
At the Judgment all the world will see, and the wicked will experience, what God has suffered these six thousand years since sin came into the world.
But God has the power to lay down His life and to take it again. If He had not, the weight of sin upon Him would have crushed Him. "He has ... put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," (Hebrews 9:26) demonstrating by the cross that although He bears it, He has no complicity whatever in it. The life that He gives is perfect and free from sin, and everyone who takes it, having suffered with Christ in the flesh, has ceased from sin.
So when the wicked are destroyed, God will not be destroyed, because He himself has long since passed through the experience, in order that they might be saved from it. No new thing will then be begun, but an end will be put to that which was begun from the foundation of the world.
This truth, that no sinner can be destroyed without causing God pain, and that He suffers all that all men suffer because of sin, is the assurance that in Him is perfect, free and full salvation for all.--Present Truth, October 31, 1901.