July 14, 2022 – Click here to listen
A friend of mine has been feeling awful about a few serious mistakes he made in life, one was a particularly bad one. The Bible warns against his behavior and spells out in no uncertain terms that there are repercussions. I hate to see my friend grieve and have prayed that God would give him some relief from his guilty conscience.
As I prayed, I felt as though God was reassuring me that his sins are forgiven; however, I also was under strong conviction that additionally He was making clear that this is not to say that there will be no consequence for this sin. His guilty conscience tells me two things. One, that he is truly repentant; otherwise, he wouldn’t think twice about it and go his merry way. And two, that at least part of his consequence for this sin is, in fact, his guilty conscience.
I have another friend who thinks that we pretty much have a license to sin with no repercussions due to what Christ did on the cross. That logic is contrary to biblical teachings. The ultimate—and severest—consequence of sin is death. The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death”. This not only refers to physical death, but to eternal separation from God: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” This is the foremost consequence of man’s rebellion against God.
Paul made it abundantly clear that sin has consequences: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” For example, a drug dealer may become a Christian in prison, but that doesn’t mean he will be released from prison the next day—he will still experience the consequences of his past sin. A born-again Christian who falls into adultery may lose his family, his career, etc.—even after he confesses and forsakes his sin, the consequences of his sin remain. Coming to Christ does not erase the temporal effects of sin; rather, our salvation guarantees that we will not face the eternal consequences of sin.
I envision this phenomenon as being like throwing a rock at a big beautiful stained-glass window. I may regret it the instant it leaves my hand, but it still shatters the beautiful window. It’s important to understand that, when the believer in Christ experiences consequences for sin, it is not because he is under God’s condemnation, His wrath, or His retribution. Believers are under God’s grace. Jesus took the wrath of God upon Himself. Sin’s consequences still experienced by believers could be due to:
- Universal consequences. Some of sin’s consequences are experienced perpetually by every human being on earth, because we are all children of Adam. We all have weeds growing in our gardens, we all face natural disasters, we all get sick and grow old, and we all eventually die physically. As sinners living in a sinful world, there’s no avoiding these consequences of original sin.
- Natural consequences. We live in a world of cause and effect, where the law of sowing and reaping is in full effect. Some of sin’s consequences are built-in and practically guaranteed, no matter if the sinner is saved or unsaved. The Bible warns that sexual immorality is a sin committed against one’s own body. “Can a man scoop fire into his lap without his clothes being burned?”. If you steal something, you should expect to get caught and face the natural consequences that follow the sin of theft. If you resist arrest when you get caught, you pile on more consequences. Sowing and reaping. Throw a rock – the glass shatters.
- Instructional consequences. Very likely, God allows some of sin’s consequences to remain in our lives to teach us the heinous nature of sin and to remind us to depend upon God’s grace. Sin is a serious enough problem for God to have sent His Son into the world to die. We dare not take sin lightly. In the face of sin’s consequences, we humble ourselves and seek God’s kingdom and righteousness all the more.
- Disciplinary consequences. Some of sin’s consequences are the result of God’s treating us as a father should his children. There’s a difference between a penalty for sin and discipline for sin. As God’s children, we experience discipline designed to guide us back to the right path. “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son”. Note how many of God’s children undergo discipline: “everyone” (Hebrews 12:8). We are all wayward at times. God’s purpose in allowing us to experience disciplinary consequences of sin, true to His nature, is perfect: “God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness”.
If God never disciplined His straying children, He would not be a good Father. If we were never disciplined or never suffered the consequences for our wrong action, we would never learn right from wrong. We tend to learn from our mistakes more readily than we learn from our successes.
The good Lord allows us to experience the temporal consequences of sin (for our own good). But He has saved us from the eternal consequences of sin. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins so we will never experience the second death, which is the lake of fire. Believers in Christ are promised that the curse and consequences of sin will be completely removed one day, and “nothing will hurt or destroy
Isaiah 11:9
Nothing will hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so the earth will be filled with people who know the Lord.