Does God punish us when we sin?

So it is with our heavenly Father. When we sin we are still His children. It is also true that Christ already took the judgment for that sin; it has been put away by His sacrifice on the cross. But fellowship with our Father and with our Savior is broken and the Holy Spirit is grieved. The Father has to rebuke us for our disobedience and perhaps even chasten us, especially if we continue in it.

Suppose one day your child and servant have together been guilty of some terrible piece of wickedness, so much so that you have to take instant and stern measures about it. What do you do? Give your servant a month’s notice, and, rather than tolerate her presence another month in the house, pay her her wages, and send her about her business. Do you give your child a month’s notice? No. Why? Because of the relationship existing between you. What do you do then? You take that child upstairs, shut the bedroom door, and do what you could not with the servant. You lay your hands upon that child, and chastise it soundly for its wickedness. That is what God does with us. If a believer goes on in carelessness of walk or sin, what does God do? He takes that child in hand, and chastises him in order that he might not be condemned with the world, even so far as sometimes causing him to fall asleep, to die, and pass away to glory. See 1 Corinthians 11:26-32. He is

If however the Christian, when he sins, does not confess to God, but goes on in his sin, then what happens? Well the Father cannot cast him off, because he is His child, and the Father has given him to Christ, and is pledged therefore to bring him home in safety; for "whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified." (Rom. 8:30.) He cannot therefore cast him off, but being a holy God, neither can He let him go on in sin. Therefore He must chasten him down here; "for if we would judge ourselves we should not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world." (1 Cor. 11:31-32.) If we are bastards and not sons, then we may go on without chastisement, because there is the judgment to come; but if we are really sons, then He must deal with us now, because, as we have before seen, we shall not come into judgment for salvation at all (see Heb. 12:5-11; also John 5:24).

How then are we using the grace thus shown us? Is it Christ or our own thoughts that we bring in as a standard to judge whatever comes before us? Now had the friends turned, I will not say to such a revelation of God as we possess, but to what is given in the very first communication of God, that third chapter of Genesis to which we have referred, what would have been the result? How does God speak of Him there, and how would it have applied to the case in hand? Would it not have kept them from unrighteous judgment in this way? There surely, if anywhere, is the pattern of all perfection in this world. Was He to pass through without suffering? Would the serpent spare Him? Before his own head should be bruised he was to bruise His heel. The first revelation of God then about the Seed of the woman, the coming Deliverer, ought to have guarded them, like others, from the sad mistake which the book of Job is designed to correct. It is a bruised One that is to bruise Satan finally. He must suffer many things, whatever the glories that should follow. And what believer could think of evil in His case? Does suffering, if unequalled, suppose evil in Him? In no wise. The theory therefore, that the sole cause of suffering for a man in this world is the evil of which God sees him guilty, is false, and not the less but the more mischievous a falsehood, because of a certain measure of truth in it. A narrow view may be most pernicious.

For it is untrue, on the other hand, that evil has nothing to do with man's suffering in this world. If there were no evil, there had been no suffering. Sin then, no doubt, has an immense deal to do with it as the general rule. Take man here below; take any one indulging in any evil: does he not suffer? Of course he does. Thus it is a positive principle of God's righteous government that evil never can be indulged in without entailing the solemn dealing of His hand, though room be left for the distinct working and even suffering of grace. It is true, not only in the future, but also in the present, that one reaps as one sows. But is it the sole or the whole truth? Is God limited to His government? In no way. There was where Eliphaz and his companions were wrong; and Satan knows well how to bend to his own purposes that particular side of truth which we either choose or overlook.

We learn this lesson surely from this, that in the discipline of the Lord we cannot detect the cause of the chastisement from the nature of the chastisement. Trouble may come, and this may be governmental for some positive sin allowed, as at Ai. So the famine in David's reign. So sickness and death on Christians for the state of the assembly (1 Cor. 11), or for personal sin (1 John 5:16). But the same thing may fall upon him, and yet the saint be able to say with the apostle, "I know nothing against myself." Doubtless there is a reason for the suffering. If we think of the defeats of righteous Israel by sinful Benjamin, in Judges 20, we can see there was a reason for Israel's repeated humiliation, yet it was not want of integrity. I suppose the loose state of the nation had made the sin of Benjamin possible, and Israel was probably self-righteously indignant. They certainly got into a humbler spirit before God, and a softer one towards Benjamin, under their defeats; but they did not turn back from what they were about; namely, the judgment of the sinful tribe in which they, were right in the main. This is instructive, as showing us that the Lord may have our general state before Him, which needs correction by chastisement, while there may be perfect integrity of heart, and the path that one is in when one meets the suffering may be the right one. This I suppose will be true of Israel in the latter day, and to which I believe this psalm prophetically points.

While God uses sickness, accidents, and other trying situations to chasten His children, we must never conclude that God is disciplining us only because of sin. (This was the mistake Job's friends made regarding his suffering.) The Lord often uses sufferings and trials to draw us closer to Him. He may seek to strengthen our faith by putting us in situations where we have to depend upon Him.

It would be a very grave mistake indeed to say “that all the trials and sufferings of Christians are punishments for some particular sin.” Very often these things are sent as a preventive and to draw the heart nearer to Christ. Who would presume to say that the sickness of Epaphroditus in Philippians 2 was a punishment for some particular sin? The apostle expressly tells us that “for the work of Christ, he was nigh to death.” Were Timothy's frequent infirmities sent as a punishment for some particular sin?

In the controversy of the three friends we have a unity of thought, based on a common principle. That principle is that all suffering is of a punitive rather than of an instructive nature; that it is based on God's justice rather than on His love — though these are ever combined in all His ways. Such a principle necessarily fails to distinguish between the sufferings of the righteous and those of the wicked. Carried, as the friends did carry it, to its legitimate conclusion, this principle meant that Job's sufferings were for sin, hitherto undetected, and that his only hope for relief was in a confession of his sin in order to obtain mercy.

Suppose one day your child and servant have together been guilty of some terrible piece of wickedness, so much so that you have to take instant and stern measures about it. What do you do? Give your servant a month’s notice, and, rather than tolerate her presence another month in the house, pay her her wages, and send her about her business. Do you give your child a month’s notice? No. Why? Because of the relationship existing between you. What do you do then? You take that child upstairs, shut the bedroom door, and do what you could not with the servant. You lay your hands upon that child, and chastise it soundly for its wickedness. That is what God does with us. If a believer goes on in carelessness of walk or sin, what does God do? He takes that child in hand, and chastises him in order that he might not be condemned with the world, even so far as sometimes causing him to fall asleep, to die, and pass away to glory. See 1 Corinthians 11:26-32. He is

God hates sin; He can neither have fellowship with it, nor make a believer happy when he goes on with it. How could God walk with him in such a path? Further, as a Father who loves His child, God is obliged to discipline and correct him for his own good when he is disobedient; and such chastening is not joyous, but grievous. Afterwards however, it yields peaceable fruit to those who learn by it to hate and forsake sin. (See Hebrews 12:4-11.)