{"id":17581,"date":"2013-03-30T09:29:04","date_gmt":"2013-03-30T17:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=17581"},"modified":"2017-06-09T18:52:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T01:52:21","slug":"punishment-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/punishment-of-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Rethinking the Punishment of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheIn response to a great question from Chuck McKnight<\/a>\u00a0on my post Why God Never Punishes Sin<\/a>, I decided I had better write a short post about the Greek words kolazo<\/em> and kolasis,<\/em> specifically in reference to some of the New Testament uses of the word “punishment.” This post is not exactly a word study of those words, but a general theological clarification for how to deal with some of these tough texts in the Bible that deal with the topic of punishment.<\/p>\n

In my previous post, Why God Never Punishes Sin<\/a>,\u00a0and then in a follow-up post, More Reasons Why God Never Punishes Sin<\/a>, I stated my belief that God never punishes sin.<\/p>\n

Instead of punishing sin, I suggested that God disciplines and judges instead. Most of the words in the Old and New Testaments which are frequently translated as “punish” can be translated as “discipline” or “judge” instead. Maybe it is splitting hairs, but for me, the concept of punishment seems to imply the inflicting of pain upon someone else for something bad they did to you. I just don’t see that Jesus reveals this kind of God, a God that is vindictive toward His enemies, who inflicts pain and punishment on people because they go against His will.<\/p>\n

Although … I suppose their can be painful consequences of discipline. I have been disciplined a lot in life, and as I look back, many of those times were quite painful.<\/p>\n

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This picture makes fun (and rightly so!) of some of the bad theology we hear from some churches about why hurricanes happen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So maybe I should be even more precise…. When I think of “punishment” I am thinking of floods, earthquakes, famines, hurricanes, asteroids, pestilence, and other natural disasters. It is quite common in some Christian circles to say that when a city is flattened by a hurricane, or when an earthquake strikes, or when a tsunami kills thousands, that this is “divine punishment” upon that area and those people.<\/p>\n

I couldn’t disagree more.<\/p>\n

The same goes for when a house burns down, a child dies, a person gets a terminal disease, or any other such disaster that can happen in life. None of these should ever be understood as God’s punishment. He doesn’t do these things.<\/p>\n

These sorts of things happen in the kind of world God has created, especially in the one that has been skewed so terribly by sin. So in a way, these bad things that happen\u00a0are a result of sin<\/em>, but not because God is reaching down with his finger and squashing people like bugs because they took His name in vain, or broke one of His other commandments. This is not the kind of God we serve, or the kind of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

So my basic argument is this:<\/p>\n