This is going to be very hard to explain let me give you a scenario:
Say like a Christian backslides and steals money from his church and about a week later his house catches fire it was accidental, no arson, just faulty wiring or some accident. That fire was no way related to the fact the he was stealing money from the church. It was a coincidence.
Could that still be called punishment (chastisement) from God?
What? God doesnât play stupid tricks on people. You said it was a coincidence, so you answered your own question.
God is Totally Just.
Jesus has bourne our punishments for our sins. He paid for every sin.
It is unjust of God to then punish us for something Jesus has taken the punishment for.
However if one has not accepted Jesusâs atoning sacrifice, then when one faces God, one will bare the full responcibility for ones sins.
Hi,
Punishment is different than sending a person to hell for uncovered sin.
It is not unjust for God punish us when we sin.
Hebrews 12:7-8 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. KJV
The writer of Hebrews tells us that if we are not being corrected, because we all sin, then we are not Godâs sons.
Thatâs some heavy stuff.
Just hang in there, and ask God to help you be better.
Remember, He is your Father.
He wants the best for you
On return, He wants the best from you.
Love God, love others, love yourself.
Blessings
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i figured no one would understand what i was trying to express thatâs why iâve been struggling with this for years and recently struggled to express it here⌠please forget the post then.. sorryđ
Although Joe seems to understand a little just going by the first line.. Thanks Joe!
No God does not act in this way.
The reason for this post is i just wanted to make sure that way i ended up today wasnât because i sinnedâŚ(please refer to my other posts for reference, maybe No one really wanted me in a romantic marital relationship⌠)
I admit i did some bad things in my life, i ask Christ for forgiveness but that doesnât mean He doesnât chastise those He loves. I guess i shouldâve ask this in the other thread but i didnât want to confuse anyone by changing topics in one thread. I get confused when 2 topics overlap each other.
I donât have a definitive answer, but here are a few further thoughts. As Joe mentioned, God disciplines His children, which is obviously different from eternal punishment. The point of discipline is to bring believers back to God. Itâs actually an act of mercy on Godâs part -
1 Cor 12:32 When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world.
Pro 3:11 My son, do not despise the Lordâs discipline and do not resent His rebuke, 12 because the Lord disciplines those He loves, as a father the son He delights in.
I can say when Iâve been disciplined, I know the reason. God patiently chastises, warns, and calls us to repentance. We see this pattern throughout the Bible with believers and unbelievers.
One example of Godsâ punishment would be Ananias and Sapphira who stole from the church, lied, were confronted, and struck down on the spot in front of the church [Acts 5:1-10]. There was no delay or mystery as to why this happened. Punishment was immediate and everyone knew why.
What youâre describing in your OP sounds more like an act of random retaliation where itâs a strike out of nowhere and the person doesnât know the reason for it. In this case thereâs no way to tie an accidental fire to a specific act of sin. Biblically thatâs not how I have seen God working.
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There is a difference between being chastened because of sin and being punished for sin.
If you repented then there will be no punishment.
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OK, yes.. please explain the difference this is where I can get confused.
Iâve always believed that but after what Iâve experienced for years.. I just donât know. And that phrase what the pastors son told me âYour family was only responding to what you showed themâ still rings in my head.
I donât know that I can explain any further. Personal retaliation/vengeance is what people do to get back at another person, getting even, returning evil for evil, etc.
Godâs discipline is what He does to correct and restore His children.
Godâs punishment, vengeance and judgment is His perfect justice. I found this and thought it was an excellent description:
âWhile human vengeance seeks to settle personal scores, Godâs judgments are always enacted for the good of His creation. His aim includes the restitution of holiness, the protection of the innocent, and the end of evilâs destructive impact. Thus, these judgments may appear similar to human retaliation, but their motivations and outcomes differ significantly.â
Your first post questioned whether the house burning down was a retaliation from God and you seem to be looking for confirmation. If so, no one here can give you that.
I can only suggest you do a very deep topical study on how God works in our lives today and throughout the Bible historically. Study punishment and discipline. Does god warn? Does God make it clear why people are being punished? Does God call us to repent? Does God retaliate like humans do?
I wish you the very best and sincerely pray youâll pursue study and that Jesus Christ will give you clarity and truth on this issue. I pray you will receive peace in your life.
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No sin will be brought up at the Judgment Seat of Christ or at the Great White Throne. 2 Peter 2.1 says that even the unbelievers have been redeemed. That does not mean they are saved, salvation is a matter of accepting or rejecting Godâs, not whether or not your sins have been paid for. And there is no contingency for oneâs sins to be redeemed. ALL people have had their sins paid for and it is not contingent upon accept Christ as Savior. See also 1 John 2.2 and 2 Corinthians 5.19. If you decide to read these passages, note that in 2 Cor 5.19 says our sins were put on Christâs account. Sins do not accrue to the account of each person in the world. Sins do bring discipline by God for believers during out lives on earth, unbelievers will be judged for sins only in this life, not at the judgment Throne.
Finally, If you look at the two âjudgmentâ passages, you wont find the word sins. And a better translation of the Judgment Seat of Christ is ârewards ceremony.â
@MisterE, how do you interpret Jesusâ description of his final judgment on everyone in Matthew 25?
Mat 25:31 âWhen the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
Mat 25:32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
Mat 25:33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.
Mat 25:34 Then the King will say to those on his right, âCome, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the worldâŚ.
Mat 25:41 âThen he will say to those on his left, âDepart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angelsâŚ.
Mat 25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.â
Jesus points out the good works the âsheepâ did for him and their eternal result and the sins the âgoatsâ did that result in their eternal punishment, doesnât he?
Maybe?
Scripture says, give and it will be given on to you.
The problem is we lack context. We cannot know whether something is a punishment or a part of Godâs plan for another purpose. How do you know whether the fire was meant to put the thief on to the road toward salvation? Or to move him out of the neighborhood where an elderly woman may have been threatened by the thiefâs presence. And some days, the rain falls on both the just and the unjust.
It is not for us to judge but to replace evil deeds with good ones. Our task is to tend to the garden, not to speculate. Undo the damage, heal the wound, do the Lordâs work, save souls, guide others toward what is right.
A kindness shown to one who has suffered loss can grow many fruit if the children behave themselves and respond accordingly as directed by God. But replacing the Gospel with gossip, the Command to Love with condemnation, rejoicing in anotherâs pain or hardship or misfortune instead of showing compassion and mercy- these all lead to further the divide and do the devilâs work of sowing resentment, division, desperation, and destruction.
We create for ourselves the world we want to live in, by every good deed and every bad one, living for ourselves alone or living as one body and caring for the whole even when the rest of the world wants to live for themselves alone.
@Dbay
This is an older topic (April), so Iâm not sure you are even still monitoring this forum and following this topic? In case you are, Iâll offer a couple of ideas anyway; some thoughts that I find have not been already covered in this thread.
From what you are describing, it sounds like what several Eastern religions refer to as karma. Karma, to them is a central doctrine to their religion that relies on a universal principle of cause and effect; natural consequences. Oneâs personal actions, good or bad, have corresponding consequences, and so what is done today influence events in the future. According to âkarmaâ good actions are believed to lead to positive outcomes, while negative actions lead to negative consequences.
Christianity has no such teaching or belief.
Christianity trusts in a Just, and personal God, who knows the hearts of all men, and always expresses Himself in love. When God chastises, He does so in perfect (Holy) Godly love. By Love, donât think Iâm suggesting God might punish with some kind of maternal sentimentality, a soft proclivity to overlook sin, the way my mother would turn a blind eye to my misbehavior, or only punish too gently for any lasting effect. When God chastises, you KNOW He is doing it; His correction is announced, swift, apposite (perfectly appropriate), and measured against the seriousness of the offense. In a well-run loving household, the good father does not punish wayward children arbitrarily, secretly, inappropriately, or after too much time to blur the relationship to the offense. No, the good father speaks to the child immediately, tells the child what the offense was and what the apposite consequence will be. He then immediately exacts that consequence with precision, and love, with the determined expectation that the offence and the punishment will be so tightly connected that the child will learn to not offend in the future.
If good fathers know how to lovingly correct their children, imagine how your Heavenly Holy Father would do so with even greater precision. So no, there is no karma to the Christian. Only an omnipotent living loving Father who is effecting our development into becoming like Jesus.
Go, and sin no more.
KP
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@Dbay, a connection between a personâs huge sin and his suffering as Godâs punishment is the mistaken theology of Job and his three friends. All of them believed that if someone experiences suffering, it must have been caused by his great sins.
Thatâs the reason Job is so angry at and questions God (for example, chapter 10); he knows that he hasnât sinned greatly and has been faithful to Godâs will, the meaning of the adjective âblameless,â though he isnât perfectly sinless.
On the other hand, his three âfriendsâ blame him for his suffering because they think he must have committed great sin to make God punish him.
They are all wrong to judge people by their experiences, as chapters one and two show clearly.
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