One distinction to make is that God is not justice. God IS love. His dealing with justice is always in line with who He really is. His justice is a manifestation of His great love for us.
As you say..God through our Lord Jesus has taken all the justice on Himself. Receive Him!
I think all justice/wrath/ell talks need to be centered around God's love for us.
here are some of my thoughts on it.
I'll start off with a quote from CS Lewis.
" The doors of hell are locked from the inside." If you are there it's because you chose it...Lewis says the damned are in a sense "successful rebels unto the end."...because hell is their own willful determination to live a selfish, independent existence from Love. People, not God choose hell.
Scripture seems to give men the liberty to pursue their own demand toward self-destruction.
Whatever hell is and to what degree it is populated - the question of utmost importance concerns the nature of the "goodness of God". I will argue that it is God's very Goodness. ..not His hatred for the person that actually tortures people in hell.
Vengeance is not wreaked on God's children, but on sin itself that is in man ( apart from those that have received Christ ) - because of what sin does to destroy mankind. His "wrath remains on those" who refuse to accept that wrath has already been removed. ( John 3:36 )
Ant biblical phrase regarding God's "vengeance" can ultimately interpreted no other way than the sowing and reaping people bring upon themselves by rejecting the mercy already given on the cross. God has already fully dealt with the sin issue on the cross. Yet, some refuse to accept His already given solution - demanding to hold onto a penalty that has already been absolved from His perspective.
If effect they are refusing the grace that is in Christ.
Mercy triumphs over judgment but it doesn't skirt it. The wrath of the Lamb is about wiping out a sin identity that justly demands to be destroyed and that He did destroy in His own death. The wrath of the Lamb is not that God is personally peeved at people.
But to those who refuse to believe...they have been judged and condemned already by the very fact of their refusal to believe in the non-judgment already pronounced!
The wrath of God/Lamb is a manifestation of the love of God. The refusal of the love of God is the very thing that will torment people in whatever hell turns out to look like. Have you ever seen the hatred in some people because they refuse your love for them? It's that very love that torments them.
Im continually amazed at those who claimed to speak as representing the truth of Christ, yet seem to have very little understanding that God is a God of justice. "don't be deceived, whatsoever a man sows so shall he reap" ..."God gives grace to the humble but resist the proud" No one has the right to impute the grace of God to those God has put under the judgment of His Wrath...unless those people humble themselves to the truth of the Cross, in true repentance ..none of us have the biblical authority to impute the grace of God to the wicked or to the ungodly unless they submit to the Cross of Christ. Now can the Spirit of God work in our heart to minister compassion to others ...of course and I think that is the Divine Nature of God working in us to show a sinner Christ...but at no point does that Divine Nature and compassion deny Gods Justice. I have done prison ministry for years, and am amazed at Gods compassion for the worst folks in our society but there is one thing that I always have made clear... "If you continue to work evil, the God who loves you will set Himself against you" God loves the children and the elderly and our society enough to punish those who cause harm against them.
It is love to protect the innocent and weak from the wicked ...we see this truth at work throughout the whole of the New Testament ...God is a just God. God (Christ seated on the right Hand of God) killed people, to protect His Church. God upholds the use of the sword to punish evil doers. That's the bible !
