Why Does Sin Have to be Punished?

[Hammster]

No proof of the fulness of sin, after all, is so overwhelming and unanswerable as the cross and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and the whole doctrine of His substitution and atonement. Terribly black must that guilt be for which nothing but the blood of the Son of God could make satisfaction. Heavy must that weight of human sin be which made Jesus groan and sweat drops of blood in agony at Gethsemane and cry at Golgotha, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ (Matthew 27: 46). Nothing, I am convinced, will astonish us so much, when we awake in the resurrection day, as the view we shall have of sin and the retrospect we shall take of our own countless shortcomings and defects. Never till the hour when Christ comes the second time shall we fully realize the ‘sinfulness of sin’.

J. C. Ryle

 

[jimmyjimmy]

If God were an impersonal force, there'd be no sin.

I'm stealing that.

 

[SkyWriting]

1. What is death? Before sin entered the world, did nothing "biologically" die? Just think about how many fruit flies or rabbits there would be today without this type of death.
2. Is it our individual sin that causes this death or just Adam's? Jesus died and was sinless.
3. Spacial separation or relational separation? God is omnipresent, you can never be spatially "distant" from Him.

God creates and God creates perfectly. The only example of this is the Garden of Eden. There was a tree of life, a tree of knowledge, God walked there, and a talking serpent. As you can read, this was not normal earth. God directly created man and woman.
Adam had the choice to be in communion with God forever, or to go his own direction.
His choice not to walk with God forever created a rift.
His choice opened a gulf not just between God and Man but between God and the whole of creation.

22 We know that the whole creation
has been groaning together in the
pains of childbirth until the present time.
23 Not only so, but we ourselves,
who have the first fruits of the Spirit,
groan inwardly as we wait eagerly
for our adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies.



If you were standing alongside Jesus, you may have seen Him change water to wine. This is what the Garden of Eden was like. God could just think things into existence.

Sin is separation from God:

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world
through one man, and death through sin,
so also death was passed on to all men,
because all sinned.

Adam was immortal until Sin. But his sin changed the Cosmos into a place of decay rather than perfect creation. So now, all children are born, in pain, into a sin environment where God does not walk:

16 To the woman He said, "I will greatly
multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain
you will bring forth children; Yet your
desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you."


To fix this rift, God also provided a solution to bridge the gap:
Romans 5:8 But God demonstrates
his own love for us in this: While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us

Physically, God is not here as He was in Eden. (If Eden was physical at all, as we define it)

Jesus also provided a solution for the fact that He cannot be here after His death:
25 “I have told you this while I’m still
with you.
26 However, the helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything. He will
remind you of everything that I have
ever told you.

Did I miss anything?

 

[jimmyjimmy]

If God were an impersonal force, there'd be no sin.

That fits well together with one of my favorite Tim Keller quotes: "Before there was a broken law, there was a broken relationship".

 

[Noxot]

Can't God grade on a curve? Must He be so stringent, when it comes to sin?

sin is it's own punishment and that is why God hates it

 

[Anguspure]

sin is it's own punishment and that is why God hates it

Yes, a broken relationship with the Creator and Sustainer of the light that is the life of men is death.

He values each one of us more than Himself, as shown to us by Christ Jesus, and so the loss of each one of us is to Him as though He has lost something more valuable than His own life.

The loss of even one person to sin is a greater tragedy than the loss of all of the rest of creation put together.

 

[hedrick]

...for the wages of sin is death....(Romans 6).

I claim that God punishes sin as a dominant orientation, but in one of his followers individual sins are normally dealt with by forgiveness, not punishment.

If you look at occurrences of “sin” in the Gospels, Jesus speaks of sinners and sin in aggregate, but except for the hyperbole in Mat 5, he doesn’t speak of individual sins. "Sinner" is the opposite of follower, not someone who commits an individual sin but is repentant (as followers are, by definition).

In Paul, sin is spoken of as a force opposed to Christ. Rom 6:23 is a good example. Sin is spoken of as a master. The wages he pays his followers is death. He is contrasted to Christ, who brings his followers eternal life. Or Rom 7:8: "But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment..."

I don’t believe God necessarily has to punish individual sins, but people who are fundamentally opposed to him can’t be members of the eternal Kingdom, because if you don’t submit to Christ, you can’t be regenerated. If we had “sinners” in that sense in heaven, it would be no improvement over earth.

I think this fundamental orientation is what Jesus calls being a follower and what Paul calls faith.

 

[Anguspure]

I claim that God punishes sin as a dominant orientation, but in one of his followers individual sins are normally dealt with by forgiveness, not punishment.

If you look at occurrences of “sin” in the Gospels, Jesus speaks of sinners and sin in aggregate, but except for the hyperbole in Mat 5, he doesn’t speak of individual sins. "Sinner" is the opposite of follower, not someone who commits an individual sin but is repentant (as followers are, by definition).

In Paul, sin is spoken of as a force opposed to Christ. Rom 6:23 is a good example. Sin is spoken of as a master. The wages he pays his followers is death. He is contrasted to Christ, who brings his followers eternal life. Or Rom 7:8: "But sin, seizing an opportunity in the commandment..."

I don’t believe God necessarily has to punish individual sins, but people who are fundamentally opposed to him can’t be members of the eternal Kingdom, because if you don’t submit to Christ, you can’t be regenerated. If we had “sinners” in that sense in heaven, it would be no improvement over earth.

I think this fundamental orientation is what Jesus calls being a follower and what Paul calls faith.

I think I can see where you're going here, and the verse I quoted would serve just as well in that context where the word sin is considered in the singular and not in the plural. The wages of sin is death.
TBH as a believer in relationship with Christ, and as I think you allude to, the whole thing is a moot point because we are saved from any of this (in the 2nd death, eternal sense). In any case those who are lost are promised one punishment for sin and that is eternal death so it won't really matter to them whether they are dead for looking the wrong way at the wrong time or guilty of the slaughter of millions, dead is dead.

 

[hedrick]

I think I can see where you're going here, and the verse I quoted would serve just as well in that context where the word sin is considered in the singular and not in the plural. The wages of sin is death.
TBH as a believer in relationship with Christ, and as I think you allude to, the whole thing is a moot point because we are saved from any of this (in the 2nd death, eternal sense). In any case those who are lost are promised one punishment for sin and that is eternal death so it won't really matter to them whether they are dead for looking the wrong way at the wrong time or guilty of the slaughter of millions, dead is dead.

Right. But no one is sent to hell for looking the wrong way at the wrong time. They're sent to hell for rejecting God. Of course in practice that will show in their lives. But even if someone managed to avoid any actual sins, if they rejected God it would only be a matter of time before they caused unacceptable problems in the Kingdom. (Of course I don't accept that it would actually be possible for anyone to avoid actual sins.)

 

[Anguspure]

Right. But no one is sent to hell for looking the wrong way at the wrong time. They're sent to hell for rejecting God's authority to perfect them. Even if someone managed to avoid any actual sins, if they rejected God it would only be a matter of time before they caused unacceptable problems in the Kingdom. (Of course I don't accept that it would actually be possible for anyone to avoid actual sins.)

Yes.
This is why the requirement for salvation lies in relationship with God and not in mere acquiescence to a religious mantra.
When we believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, this is an act of personal trust in God, and when we declare Him Lord we are declaring the special nature of the relationship that we have with Him to anyone who will listen.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

They're sent to hell for rejecting God

Is "rejecting God" a sin?

 

[hedrick]

Is "rejecting God" a sin?

I guess so, but it's not the kind of thing people typically mean.

 

[jimmyjimmy]

I guess so, but it's not the kind of thing people typically mean.

The punishment for sin is death.

 

[Anguspure]

Is "rejecting God" a sin?

Everything that does not come from faith in Him is sin.

 

[Apex]

Did I miss anything?

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you actually answered any of my questions.

 

[SkyWriting]

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you actually answered any of my questions.

1. What is death? Before sin entered the world, did nothing "biologically" die?

God creates and God creates perfectly. The only example of this is the Garden of Eden. There was a tree of life, a tree of knowledge, God walked there, and a talking serpent. As you can read, this was not normal earth. God directly created man and woman. They were both immortal when created.
There was no death, no decay. No "natural reproduction."

2. Is it our individual sin that causes this death or just Adam's?

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world
through one man (Adam), and death through sin,
so also death was passed on to all men,
because all sinned.

3. Spacial separation or relational separation?

Both.
23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

 

[Apex]

God creates and God creates perfectly. The only example of this is the Garden of Eden. There was a tree of life, a tree of knowledge, God walked there, and a talking serpent. As you can read, this was not normal earth. God directly created man and woman. They were both immortal when created.
There was no death, no decay. No "natural reproduction."

I'm not trying to be overly semantic here, but can you define these terms: death, life, decay?

I mean, surely you believe that when Adam ate food it decomposed in his stomach and was expelled as waste. Or do you believe Adam did not defecate? And if not, do you also believe he didn't have an anus? What about discarded and inedible parts of Adam's food? Did it not decay and rot? This process is important for the survival of millions of microorganisms. Or do you believe bacteria and fungi didn't exist before the fall?

Also, there was natural reproduction before the fall. Genesis 1:22

Both.
23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

By definition, an omnipresent Being must be present in all possible locations. How do you reconcile this irrefutable attribute of God with your interpretation of that passage?

 

[hedrick]

Calvin's exegesis of this is interesting. He says people were never intended to live on earth forever. Without the fall, we would have passed peacefully into the next life. The result of the fall is that this becomes a matter of fear and pain.

I don't think it makes sense to think of our bodies being designed to live forever.

Of course this assumes that the creation story is literal history, which I don't. But based on the traditional reading, I think Calvin makes a lot of sense.

 

[SkyWriting]

I'm not trying to be overly semantic here, but can you define these terms: death, life, decay?

God Creates matter and life. Originally, it did not decay and was likely similar to
Jesus after His resurrection. Matter and Spirit were not separated.

I mean, surely you believe that when Adam ate food it decomposed in his stomach and was expelled as waste.

That's the same as asking if Jesus pooped. It's not my place to answer.

Also, there was natural reproduction before the fall.

Death entered the world through Adam. I don't know additional biological imaginings.

By definition, an omnipresent Being must be present in all possible locations. How do you reconcile this irrefutable attribute of God with your interpretation of that passage?

Evidently, Jesus and the Father are in some place we call Heaven and both are not here:
26 When the Advocate comes, whom I will send you
from the Father —
the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father —
He will testify about Me.
27 And you also must testify, because you have
been with Me from the beginning.

Bible Search: father in heaven

What Does the Bible Say About Heaven? - OpenBible.info

 

[SkyWriting]

By definition, an omnipresent Being must be present in all possible locations.

I'm not aware of your source on that.