Is God a punishing God?

[Norman70]

I have found a thread with a title very similar to mine, I have read it completely, but still feel I want to start my own.By opening in this forum I am avoiding inappropriate discussion in the Deeper Fellowship forum where this subject came up. The existing thread is:

God does not punish anyone

Of course my position is that God is not a punishing God. He administers justice, but it is a totally loving justice , it cannot involve punishment. If we love someone there is no way we could punish them, not from retribution, revenge nor even to defer them from behaving badly in the future. Philosophically there are many variants on the interpretation of justice. God is love.

 

[Tolworth John]

my position is that God is not a punishing God.

Well God in the OT talks of punishing people and Jesus talks about punishment so your position is biblically unsound.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

I have found a thread with a title very similar to mine, I have read it completely, but still feel I want to start my own.By opening in this forum I am avoiding inappropriate discussion in the Deeper Fellowship forum where this subject came up. The existing thread is:

God does not punish anyone

Of course my position is that God is not a punishing God. He administers justice, but it is a totally loving justice , it cannot involve punishment. If we love someone there is no way we could punish them, not from retribution, revenge nor even to defer them from behaving badly in the future. Philosophically there are many variants on the interpretation of justice. God is love.

And I Will PUNISH The World For Their Evil, And The Wicked For Their Iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

• Isaiah 13:11

 

[Dave-W]

Hebrews 12:6
For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.

A scourge was like the cat o nine tails, a whip with multiple straps and embedded bone and metal pieces which ripped flesh from bone.

Sounds like punishment to me.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

It shall come to pass in that day That The Lord Will PUNISH On High The Host Of Exalted Ones (Fallen Angels), And On The Earth The Kings Of The Earth. They will be gathered together, As prisoners are gathered in the pit, And will be shut up in the prison; After many days They Will Be PUNISHED.

• Isaiah 24:21-22

 

[Norman70]

Of course the Bible abounds with references to God's punishments, and we do not have to separate what Jesus says because Jesus is God.
I do not believe we have to go to church to be a Christian, neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian. Philosophy has just as much to say about justice as theology, and our search for the Word of God (Jesus) is a spiritual search where we engage all of our thoughts, readings of anything relevant, and talking and listening with other Christians.
The interpretation of the Scriptures is a fascinating exercise. My wife and myself cannot believe God is a punishing God.

 

[Call me Nic]

Of course the Bible abounds with references to God's punishments, and we do not have to separate what Jesus says because Jesus is God.
I do not believe we have to go to church to be a Christian, neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian. Philosophy has just as much to say about justice as theology, and our search for the Word of God (Jesus) is a spiritual search where we engage all of our thoughts, readings of anything relevant, and talking and listening with other Christians.
The interpretation of the Scriptures is a fascinating exercise. My wife and myself cannot believe God is a punishing God.

Do you not believe God is a punishing God because you do not believe the literal parts of the Bible? You say, "neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian." Well, what parts? There are some symbolic parts, yes, some metaphorical parts, yes. However, do you not believe in a literal death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? Do you not believe in a literal heaven, or a literal hell? Do you not believe in a literal payment for sins, or a literal justification of life?

What can you say is literal, and what can you say is not? If God doesn't punish, then how did he punish his Son Jesus upon the cross for the sins of the world? Jesus satisfied the wrath of God by being beaten, tortured, and dying an agonizing death, even suffering three days and nights in the heart of the earth, and you say that God is not a God of punishment?

Friend, he butchered his own Son, the only one who never deserved anything evil done to him. That tells me that God is indeed a God of punishment.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

For behold, The LORD Is About To Come Out From His Place To PUNISH The Inhabitants Of The Earth For Their Iniquity; And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain.

• Isaiah 26:21

 

[Call me Nic]

Of course the Bible abounds with references to God's punishments, and we do not have to separate what Jesus says because Jesus is God.
I do not believe we have to go to church to be a Christian, neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian. Philosophy has just as much to say about justice as theology, and our search for the Word of God (Jesus) is a spiritual search where we engage all of our thoughts, readings of anything relevant, and talking and listening with other Christians.
The interpretation of the Scriptures is a fascinating exercise. My wife and myself cannot believe God is a punishing God.

If you do not believe that God is a God of punishment, you must by default prove that with the scriptures. If your argument rests in believing that the scriptures don't have to be taken literal, then your argument and way of thinking is totally invalid. We determine that God is a wrathful God, a consuming fire, holy and righteous, from what the scriptures say: philosophy, human thinking, logic, and morality do not reveal this truth to us: only God through his Word does. If you choose not to believe it, that's on you, but don't say that God isn't a wrathful God according to the scriptures by saying scripture mustn't be taken literal.

 

[BarWi]

I have found a thread with a title very similar to mine, I have read it completely, but still feel I want to start my own.By opening in this forum I am avoiding inappropriate discussion in the Deeper Fellowship forum where this subject came up. The existing thread is:

God does not punish anyone

Of course my position is that God is not a punishing God. He administers justice, but it is a totally loving justice , it cannot involve punishment. If we love someone there is no way we could punish them, not from retribution, revenge nor even to defer them from behaving badly in the future. Philosophically there are many variants on the interpretation of justice. God is love.

I agree, God does not punish. His loving cleansing of the human spirit feels like--and is thus appropriately referred to as--wrath, but the fire that burns away the dross in human spirit feels thus [like fire; affliction] to us. Wrath is just tough love.

I've come to the conclusion that God doesn't violate our will. He lets us kill ourselves with our sin, but steps in and restores those who believe to faith in time to a "morally operational" state when we do. In other words, we kill ourselves and He resurrects. This satisfies Rom 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Unbelievers suffer a more robust cleansning (as opposed to ongoing [sanctification] in time for believers) before entering eternity. None are lost, all are cleansed:
"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive." (1Cor 15:22)

This is how I see it anyway.

 

[Norman70]

My, my, my, I have opened a bag of controversy, but at least I hope and pray that I am in the correct forum. Also, of course, we are all Christians here, and my first priority as a Christian is to believe in the supernatural. C. S. Lewis brought me to that belief, not Jesus nor the Bible. His acceptance of Christianity was very similar to my own.
Therefore I believe in God (of course), that Jesus was, and is, God, in Heaven, in an after-life, and the devil is responsible for all evil. The devil punished the human form of God by using his wickedness to influence other mortal human beings. God did not punish Himself, that would have been self-flaggellation.
Jesus arose from death because He was God, thwarting the devil's machinations.

 

[Call me Nic]

My, my, my, I have opened a bag of controversy, but at least I hope and pray that I am in the correct forum. Also, of course, we are all Christians here, and my first priority as a Christian is to believe in the supernatural. C. S. Lewis brought me to that belief, not Jesus nor the Bible. His acceptance of Christianity was very similar to my own.
Therefore I believe in God (of course), that Jesus was, and is, God, in Heaven, in an after-life, and the devil is responsible for all evil. The devil punished the human form of God by using his wickedness to influence other mortal human beings. God did not punish Himself, that would have been self-flaggellation.
Jesus arose from death because He was God, thwarting the devil's machinations.

The Father used Satan to accomplish the task of sacrificing his Son, but Jesus was sent into the world for the entire purpose of being given for the sins of the world. God’s redemptive plan always included the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

 

[Norman70]

@Nicolaus Mourer. As a fellow Christian I fully respect your position, but I must beg to differ from your apparent understanding of Jesus. I agree The Holy Trinity will always be beyond our understanding but I cannot accept that Jesus was not fully God, not just the Son of God as if He was separate from God. That appears to be your position.
You say Jesus was sent into the world, I would say God came into His own created world as Jesus.
He did this so that mortal men could relate to Him as a man (because they could not nor did not relate to Him as God), then they could relate to Him through Jesus. The phrase "the Son of God" was used by the writers of the Scriptures to further assist ordinary men and women to relate to the one and only God.

 

[eleos1954]

Do you not believe God is a punishing God because you do not believe the literal parts of the Bible? You say, "neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian." Well, what parts? There are some symbolic parts, yes, some metaphorical parts, yes. However, do you not believe in a literal death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? Do you not believe in a literal heaven, or a literal hell? Do you not believe in a literal payment for sins, or a literal justification of life?

What can you say is literal, and what can you say is not? If God doesn't punish, then how did he punish his Son Jesus upon the cross for the sins of the world? Jesus satisfied the wrath of God by being beaten, tortured, and dying an agonizing death, even suffering three days and nights in the heart of the earth, and you say that God is not a God of punishment?

Friend, he butchered his own Son, the only one who never deserved anything evil done to him. That tells me that God is indeed a God of punishment.

***

John 10 - Jesus speaking

17 The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.”

Jesus didn't look at His suffering and earthly death as punishment, He looked at it as Love.

Gods law defines what sin is ... and sin (breaking it) has consequences. Ultimately without Jesus, one will not receive eternal life.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say, then? Is the law (Gods eternal Law - 10 commandments)
sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

If .... IF ... mankind was capable of living according to the law .... there would not be sin. And one day, in the very very end ... we will be in complete harmony with those laws (laws of love) and it will not take any effort to abide by them. It will be our natural way of life, living with God completely sinless in love.

Jesus was completely sinless ... He took upon Himself the punishment and/or consequences that all of mankind deserves. He paid all of mankind's "sin debt" by willingly giving up His life ... that is how much Jesus loves us.

So, God did not "slaughter His son", His son Jesus willingly laid down His life out of Love (for mankind providing the way) knowing what the consequences (earthly suffering & crucifixion etc.) would be ... and that through Him would be the only way to reconcile mankind with God Almighty by accepting Jesus great suffering and sacrifice He did so willingly.

Thank you Jesus for loving us so much. Amen

 

[Call me Nic]

***

John 10 - Jesus speaking

17 The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life in order to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from My Father.”

Jesus didn't look at His suffering and earthly death as punishment, He looked at it as Love.

Gods law defines what sin is ... and sin (breaking it) has consequences. Ultimately without Jesus, one will not receive eternal life.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say, then? Is the law (Gods eternal Law - 10 commandments)
sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

If .... IF ... mankind was capable of living according to the law .... there would not be sin. And one day, in the very very end ... we will be in complete harmony with those laws (laws of love) and it will not take any effort to abide by them. It will be our natural way of life, living with God completely sinless in love.

Jesus was completely sinless ... He took upon Himself the punishment and/or consequences that all of mankind deserves. He paid all of mankind's "sin debt" by willingly giving up His life ... that is how much Jesus loves us.

So, God did not "slaughter His son", His son Jesus willingly laid down His life out of Love (for mankind providing the way) knowing what the consequences (earthly suffering & crucifixion etc.) would be ... and that through Him would be the only way to reconcile mankind with God Almighty by accepting Jesus great suffering and sacrifice He did so willingly.

Thank you Jesus for loving us so much. Amen

My entire point was that God's plan was to die on the cross for our sins. You proved my point. Thank you.

 

[Call me Nic]

@Nicolaus Mourer. As a fellow Christian I fully respect your position, but I must beg to differ from your apparent understanding of Jesus. I agree The Holy Trinity will always be beyond our understanding but I cannot accept that Jesus was not fully God, not just the Son of God as if He was separate from God. That appears to be your position.
You say Jesus was sent into the world, I would say God came into His own created world as Jesus.
He did this so that mortal men could relate to Him as a man (because they could not nor did not relate to Him as God), then they could relate to Him through Jesus. The phrase "the Son of God" was used by the writers of the Scriptures to further assist ordinary men and women to relate to the one and only God.

I never once said that Jesus is not God, I am just saying that the Father sent the Son into the world to die on the cross for our sins, to be buried, and rise again from the grave, and that the wrath of God was satisfied upon Christ. John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." You are making an assumption about my position on the Godhead when I have stated no such position; assuming is not a good thing.

 

[Norman70]

I very much appreciate your post, eleos1954, but again you seem to draw a distinction between God and Jesus. I am sure that is not your position, but we all use words by talking and writing which can lead to misunderstandings. I am not sure that the man Jesus did willingly accept his (lower case now) impending death. His prayer in Gethsemene asks God (Himself) to take the cup from him. His prayer was not answered, a common experience for all of us with our petitionary prayers.
@Nicolaus Mourer. My apologies if you think I was suggesting that you said Jesus was not God. I deliberately used the word apparently to give you the understanding that I could not really believe that of you. Such is language - mere words!

 

[BarWi]

Do you not believe God is a punishing God because you do not believe the literal parts of the Bible? You say, "neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian." Well, what parts? There are some symbolic parts, yes, some metaphorical parts, yes. However, do you not believe in a literal death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? Do you not believe in a literal heaven, or a literal hell? Do you not believe in a literal payment for sins, or a literal justification of life?

I don't pretend to speak for Norman70 but will offer some food for thought to your questions.
1. Do you not believe God is a punishing God because you do not believe the literal parts of the Bible?
Many of the literal parts of the Bible can and should be interpreted metaphorically. (Using terms loosley in the sense common to discussion.) Much of the Bible is plainly figurative, yet most evangelical and fundamentalist leaders insist we must understand things literally. The prophets, once inspired by the Spirit, spoke virtually always in metaphor. Jesus spoke almost exclusively in metaphor or a variation of it. Many books of the Bible are recognized to be entirely or almost entirely figurative in nature. Do you not see a discrepancy between what God has provided us and the literalist interpretive methodology we are told by men to adhere to?

2. You say, "neither do I believe we have to take the Bible literally to be a Christian." Well, what parts? There are some symbolic parts, yes, some metaphorical parts, yes.
A fair question. The parts that contain deeper symbolic meaning will show forth God's work in Scripture. Interpretation of the symbolic, if it is true, can be judged by the same truth criteria [allegedly] used to authenticate the literal meaning. Obviously, symbolic interpretations of single passages or a few of them should be suspect. They might hold true for the individual, but unless a symbolic interpretation can be comprehensively and cogently read from Scripture, symbolism is not objective and should be mistrusted. If large parts of the Bible are metaphorical, why is it bad to look there for further [symbolic] meaning?

3. do you not believe in a literal death, burial, and resurrection of Christ? Do you not believe in a literal heaven, or a literal hell? Do you not believe in a literal payment for sins, or a literal justification of life?
Every metaphor necessarily has a literal meaning or ending in sight....it's just often not the same meaning as the literal reading that precedes it, or more accurately symbolic meaning includes the base literal meaning but relegates it to its proper domain. This sometimes places the literal meaning in a less important light. Jesus gives us an example of this when He said, "..."Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God." (Luk 9:60) I believe Jesus is instructing us in the symbolic methodology, i.e., symbolism often involves dual interpretive conventions--here, a physical/spiritual duality--that bear simultaneous meaning. The spiritual death is of more import than the literal [physical] one. There are also eternal/temporal, true/false and other such conventions in metaphoric meaning of the Bible. It doesn't automatically follow that if one sees symbolism in one part of Scripture one must abandon all literal meaning.

If God doesn't punish, then how did he punish his Son Jesus upon the cross for the sins of the world? Jesus satisfied the wrath of God by being beaten, tortured, and dying an agonizing death, even suffering three days and nights in the heart of the earth, and you say that God is not a God of punishment?

Don't know about Norman70, but this is the only punishment I see in Scripture. Jesus bore punishment for all mankind: "and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." (1Jn 2:2)

Friend, he butchered his own Son, the only one who never deserved anything evil done to him. That tells me that God is indeed a God of punishment.

Amen to the first sentence. I gently suggest that the "literal only" doctrine is the manmade power of control that forces the punishment meaning on Scripture. God designed, for reasons I can't fathom, to hide His love within the wrath of the literal reading. I assume He has a good plan and will bring His love to fruition in His own good time.

 

[DennisTate]

I have found a thread with a title very similar to mine, I have read it completely, but still feel I want to start my own.By opening in this forum I am avoiding inappropriate discussion in the Deeper Fellowship forum where this subject came up. The existing thread is:

God does not punish anyone

Of course my position is that God is not a punishing God. He administers justice, but it is a totally loving justice , it cannot involve punishment. If we love someone there is no way we could punish them, not from retribution, revenge nor even to defer them from behaving badly in the future. Philosophically there are many variants on the interpretation of justice. God is love.

Near death experiencer and former Atheist Howard Storm reported having a Life Review
but he did not think of all the things he was shown as punishment.......... but for the purpose of
informing him and humbling him so that he would get to the place where he depended on God
for victory during every moment of every day for the rest of his life.

Reverend Howard Storm's Near-Death Experience

3. The Life Review of Howard Storm

 

[Sabertooth]

Given God's loving nature, I see His Judgment attribute as being largely an incidental response of Sinners to His Holiness.

If you reach into a high-voltage transformer without proper preparation, you are certain to be electrocuted. The electricity does not hate you. It is just how electricity works.

If you come into God's unshielded Presence without proper preparation, you are certain to die there, too, by His overwhelming Holiness. Unlike electricity, God Loved you enough to create a means to have your Sin washed away, so that you would be able to stand in His Holy Presence.