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Does God Punish?

At a family get-together yesterday, my father posed the above question to me. I had to pause and think about it for a moment. I knew that sin had entered the world due to man's chosing not to obey God, through the use of free will. By definition, the existence of sin in the world is a direct result of man's failure to chose the good. We began discussing the "natural ramifications" of sin. Let me give an example: If an individual partakes in an active promiscuous lifestyle and then finds out that they have AIDS, it is accurate to say that the temporal reality of AIDS can be viewed as a natural consequence of the individual's life style. Yet to say that this was "strictly" a punishment from God would not be 100% accurate for the reality of "cause and effect" must be taken into consideration. But AIDS itself is a completely different issue. The origins of this disease is still not completely known. Why does such a disease exist in the world? What were the events or actions surrounding its initial appearance on the "human" scene? These were the questions we wrestled with. But then we decided to leave this arena of thought for it involved too many factors and this disease is now too widespread to fault all individuals who have contracted it with some sin.

Therefore, we decided to examine the question from a biblical prespective. Does God punish?

In reviewing Sacred Scripture we found that the answer to our question was an emphatic "yes".

We began in Genesis, in the garden of Eden.

Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" - therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
- Gen 3:22-24

This is an interesting passage for it is obvious that God is the One deciding the ramification for the First Fall. This ramification for the First Sin is not "natural" so to speak but rather "decisively made by God." Let's look at another example:

"But if you will not hearken to me, and will not do all these commandments, if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, I will do this to you: I will appoint sudden terror, consumption and fever that waste the eyes and cause life to pine away. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it; I will set my face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies; those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. And if in spite of this you will not hearken to me, then I will chastise you again sevenfold for your sins....And if by this discipline you are not turned to me, but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will smite you sevenfold for your sins." - Leviticus 26:14-18, 23

This was said by the Lord Himself. I don't think there is a clearer answer to our question than this. One objection that I want to raise here, though not valid, is one that is common among liberals and those who want to insist that God is an "all loving" God (saying this without any real understanding of love). They would say, "Well that was the Old Testament, but Jesus changed all that." The fallacy with this statement is that Jesus is God and God does not change, He is eternal and everlasting. Unlike man, God doesn't make bad decisions. So this passage of Sacred Scripture is, to say the least, striking.

But let us look to the New Testament to see if we find any answers there:

But a man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles feet. But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God." When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died....After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. And Peter said to her, "Tell me whether you sold the land for so much." And she said, "Yes, for so much." But Peter said to her, "How is it that you have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? Hark, the feet of those that have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out." Immediately she fell down at his feet and died. - Acts 5:1-5, 7-10

It is impossible to say that the death of Ananius and Sapphira was a "natural ramification" for their sin, for death is not a "natural" consequence of withholding money from the Church. Though lying is most certainly a sin, does it merit sudden and certain death? This is clearly a living example of what God said in Leviticus, He will "smite" or "punish" for only He knows the heart of man. His justice will not always be understood by us, but I believe that, although, in truth, there are natural ramifications for sin, there are at the same time, moments when God "smites" or punishes certain individuals and/or peoples. It is simply not our place to say that this specific person or that specific group of peoples is being punished by God.

Punishment, as indicated in Leviticus 26:23, is often a "discipline" given by God to turn an individual and/or person back to Him. It is done out of love.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I haven't delved into the Early Church Fathers yet to see what early Christians believed about this, but I do believe it would be worth looking into. Maybe I'll write a second post on punishment as understood by the Early Church (of course, Acts 5 shows us its application in the Early Church). Please let me know if this would be of interest to anyone.

In Christ,
Joe

Posted by Joe at February 22, 2004 08:58 AM | TrackBack