Does God Punish Sin?

There is no doctrine more scandalous in the Western world today than the idea that God punishes sin. The attributes of God’s justice and holiness are constantly called into question. The general belief of our culture is that God is a loving God who will not punish sin. Even if some do acknowledge that there is such a thing as sin, they believe that God will forgive everyone’s sins and especially their own.

In spite of the popularity of such a view, even on the surface of things, this view is highly questionable. If we just step outside and take a look around, we can easily see that there is little evidence for the idea that God does not punish sin. Indeed, if we examine the evidence around us, we might conclude that God does not show mercy at all. What we observe is that people die and die terrible deaths. Young and old, rich and poor, male and female, they are all subject to the miseries of this world and the dread end of death. Martin Luther spoke eloquently on this point:

All the creatures are against us, prepared and armed to bring about, if possible, our destruction. How many are those whom fire and water destroy? How much peril threatens us from wild and venomous beasts, which harm not only our bodies but also our food, intended for our nourishment? Not to mention that we ourselves fall upon each other and murder each other, just as if there were not enough pestilence and other calamities to threaten us…What are thorns, thistles, water, fire caterpillars, flies, fleas, lice, bugs, etc. what are all these, jointly and severally, but messengers which preach to us of sin and of the wrath of God? Therefore, though we know better and our eyes see it, we are living in a more than Egyptian darkness. Though all creatures ever remind us of the wrath of God, so that we cannot avoid seeing it, yet we do not pay any attention to it (cited in Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 1:536-537).

Why is that we are so blind that we do not see it? Martin Luther answered, “[We] love this earthly life and cling to it as our only delight” (Ibid.). In other words, we don’t see the wrath of God all around us because we are willfully blind.

We tend to want to ignore God’s wrath against sin, and our culture continually reinforces this belief. Though our culture does not want to see the evidence of God’s wrath, not all cultures have been equally blind. Many other cultures have believed that God is a God of wrath and tried to placate him with all sorts of sacrifices and good deeds. Timothy Keller in his recent book, Reason for God, recounts a conversation that he had with a woman who was offended with the idea of a God of wrath. He responded, “Why aren’t you offended by the idea of a forgiving God?” He then went on to tell here that many cultures were offended by the idea of such a God. He then said, “Why, I concluded, should Western cultural sensibilities be the final court in which to judge whether Christianity is valid? I asked the woman gently whether she thought her culture superior to non-Western ones.” Many other cultures have drawn a sounder conclusion from the phenomena of death and suffering than we have.

Of course, many people will respond by saying that the Bible teaches us that God is a loving God who forgives sin. This is true. However, if we are going to take the Bible as a source for knowledge about God, then we cannot simply arbitrarily decide what we will and will not take from the Bible. The Bible also teaches that God is a just God who hates and punishes sin. If we cannot believe the Bible when it speaks of God’s wrath against sin, then why should we believe it when it speaks about God’s love?

But does the Bible really teach that God is a God who punishes sin? Even a cursory reading of Scripture can teach us this. Consider three classes of Scripture text that teach this. First, there are those Scripture passages that teach that sin brings punishment. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). “Cursed is anyone who does not continue in all the things that are written in the book of the law to do them” (Dt. 27:26, cf. Gal. 3:10). The Bible teaches that breaking God’s law brings the punishment of eternal death.

Second, there are texts that speak of God’s anger against sin. “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness” (Hab. 1:13). “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (Jn. 3:36). “Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (Rev. 19:15). “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Ps. 7:11). These texts could be multiplied many times over.

Third, there are those texts that state explicitly that God will judge and punish sin and will not clear the guilty. “God is jealous, and the LORD avenges; the LORD avenges and is furious. The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; the LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked” (Nah. 1:2-3). Ex. 34:7 declares that God is a God who “by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34:7). Thus, God will not simply pass over the sins we have committed.

From all these verses, we might think that God is not merciful at all. We might think that we are all doomed. If this is the type of God that He is, how can anyone of us have hope? Isn’t God also a good God? Wilhelmus a Brakel responded to that point long ago. “You have heard that God is gracious, which is true. You are guilty, however, of distorting the essential meaning of the grace of God by interpreting it to refer to remission of sin and absolution apart from satisfaction. Such, however, is not grace” (emphasis mine, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, 1:129). What Brakel means is that God always punishes our sins. We either receive the punishment ourselves, or Christ takes it for us. God is a just God, and He never simply forgives sin. The only reason that He forgives sin is because His justice has been satisfied by the death of Christ.

The conclusion that we should draw from all this is that the only way that we can avoid the punishment of sin is by entrusting ourselves to Jesus Christ. The Bible is plain. Either you go to Jesus admitting your sin and seeking His grace and death to cover your sin, or you will bear the punishment of your sin to all eternity. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mk. 16:16). God is a God of wrath. We must not let our culture or sentiments blind us to that reality. The only way that we can escape God’s wrath is through Jesus Christ who delivers us from the day of God’s wrath (1 Thess. 1:10).