Someone told me last year that, while God is LOVE, He is also “just and holy,” and therefore is justified in giving out any kind of punishment He seems fit, even if that means He sends someone to a literal and real eternity in hell simply for not believing in Him. Really? Is that really what He does? Let's talk about that. Another term for 'just' could be the word 'fair'. Therefore, "just-ice" could also be synonymous with the word "fair-ness." If I'm fair to you, but un-fair to another person, I would argue that I cannot be called "just," as that is not a fair act that I just did. And I’m only a human. What kind of justice does our God have? Is it retributive or is it corrective? For what purpose does God punish? Does He punish at all – and to what end?? There are two Greek words that are used for the word “punishment” in the New Testament. The first one, τιμωρία or timória (Strong’s G 5098) means “retribution, vengeance, avenge.” The second is κόλασις or kolasis (Strong’s G 2851) and means “correction, chastisement, penalty.” The former is never used in terms of God punishing unbelievers. The latter is used in connection with punishing someone so that their walk may be “corrected” to better serve the Lord. Let’s take just two examples of this:
Mt 25:46 – “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (that is in the NIV… let’s see what it says in a more literal translation)
“And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during” (Young’s Literal Translation)
1Jn 4:18 – “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love” (NIV).
Let’s take the first one, the verse everyone loves to quote to prove the existence of an eternal hell. With this verse translated correctly, the punishment being “eternal” makes no sense! What is the purpose of a “correction” that goes on and on “forever and ever”?? You’re telling me that God will hand this person over to be “spanked” for all eternity without end? Why??? The whole purpose of “spanking” a child is to correct that child’s misbehavior, not to vindictively keep doing it because you “show him/her who’s boss” and do it to YOUR satisfaction. The Lord does not do such a thing! And neither would a loving earthly parent. At some point or another, ANY non-abusive parent would say “enough is enough” and let off. Why do you think they made the law of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’? It was a way of exacting revenge on your neighbor and not letting things go too far. This, by the way, was a revolutionary law, as prior to this, if a man lost a tooth, he would go and kill the other man that was to blame. If a man was killed, even by accident, the clan of the deceased man would then go and kill, not only the man, but would kill or enslave that man’s family. This way, only the man who committed these offenses was punished. Again, are you going to tell me that God, who gave this law through Moses, is going to not do this exact thing? More than that, His Son Jesus tells us to forgive seventy times seven in one day. Paul says that love keeps no record of wrongs. And if – IF – God is that LOVE, would He not also honor and keep His own words and also not forgive freely, as He commands us to do?
It may surprise you that I no longer believe in a literal “hell,” and that it was “forced” upon the words of Scripture by biased translators. I ask again, is that really what God does? Punishing someone endlessly without mercy is not in keeping with the character of Who God is! He will punish, not infinitely, but “until the last penny has been paid” (Mt 5:26)! And His punishments are actually fair and just! If the doctrine of eternal torture is true, that would be worse than a man being arrested for jaywalking and the judge sentencing him to life imprisonment hard labor without the possibility of parole! He would stay there until he died. But at least he would die. In contrast, the Christian “god” keeps him alive just for the sake of torturing this poor fellow’s soul in literal flames for, not just for a long time, but “forever and ever,” a phrase that really makes no sense whatsoever – only in the depraved minds of evil people does it make any sense at all! With such an excessively harsh sentence, the average person upon hearing it, would become enraged and incensed at such an unjust ruling! But…when it comes to God, most give Him a pass, because you know, He’s God, right? Anyway, for now, let us look at what some people have had to say on the subject of God’s Justice. In fact, the first article we will read from is called “Justice,” a sermon by the late Scottish minister George MacDonald,
“Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy; for thou renderest to every man according to his work.--PSALM lxii. 12.
Let us endeavour to see plainly what we mean when we use the word justice, and whether we mean what we ought to mean when we use it--especially with reference to God. Let us come nearer to knowing what we ought to understand by justice, that is, the justice of God; for his justice is the live, active justice, giving existence to the idea of justice in our minds and hearts. Because he is just, we are capable of knowing justice; it is because he is just, that we have the idea of justice so deeply imbedded in us.
What do we oftenest mean by justice? Is it not the carrying out of the law, the infliction of penalty assigned to offence? By a just judge we mean a man who administers the law without prejudice, without favour or dislike; and where guilt is manifest, punishes as much as, and no more than, the law has in the case laid down. It may not be that justice has therefore been done. The law itself may be unjust, and the judge may mistake; or, which is more likely, the working of the law may be foiled by the parasites of law for their own gain. But even if the law be good, and thoroughly administered, it does not necessarily follow that justice is done.
Suppose my watch has been taken from my pocket; I lay hold of the thief; he is dragged before the magistrate, proved guilty, and sentenced to a just imprisonment: must I walk home satisfied with the result? Have I had justice done me? The thief may have had justice done him--but where is my watch? That is gone, and I remain a man wronged. Who has done me the wrong? The thief. Who can set right the wrong? The thief, and only the thief; nobody but the man that did the wrong. God may be able to move the man to right the wrong, but God himself cannot right it without the man. Suppose my watch found and restored, is the account settled between me and the thief? I may forgive him, but is the wrong removed? By no means. But suppose the thief to bethink himself, to repent. He has, we shall say, put it out of his power to return the watch, but he comes to me and says he is sorry he stole it and begs me to accept for the present what little he is able to bring, as a beginning of atonement: how should I then regard the matter? Should I not feel that he had gone far to make atonement--done more to make up for the injury he had inflicted upon me, than the mere restoration of the watch, even by himself, could reach to? Would there not lie, in the thief's confession and submission and initial restoration, an appeal to the divinest in me--to the eternal brotherhood? Would it not indeed amount to a sufficing atonement as between man and man? If he offered to bear what I chose to lay upon him, should I feel it necessary, for the sake of justice, to inflict some certain suffering as demanded by righteousness? I should still have a claim upon him for my watch, but should I not be apt to forget it? He who commits the offence can make up for it--and he alone.
One thing must surely be plain--that the punishment of the wrong-doer makes no atonement for the wrong done. How could it make up to me for the stealing of my watch that the man was punished? The wrong would be there all the same. I am not saying the man ought not to be punished--far from it; I am only saying that the punishment nowise makes up to the man wronged. Suppose the man, with the watch in his pocket, were to inflict the severest flagellation on himself: would that lessen my sense of injury? Would it set anything right? Would it anyway atone? Would it give him a right to the watch? Punishment may do good to the man who does the wrong, but that is a thing as different as important…
'Mercy may be against justice.' Never--if you mean by justice what I mean by justice. If anything be against justice, it cannot be called mercy, for it is cruelty. 'To thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his work.' There is no opposition, no strife whatever, between mercy and justice. Those who say justice means the punishing of sin, and mercy the not punishing of sin, and attribute both to God, would make a schism in the very idea of God. And this brings me to the question, What is meant by divine justice?
Human justice may be a poor distortion of justice, a mere shadow of it; but the justice of God must be perfect…
'But no one ever doubts that God gives fair play!'
'That may be--but does not go for much, if you say that God does this or that which is not fair.'
'If he does it, you may be sure it is fair.'
'Doubtless, or he could not be God--except to devils. But you say he does so and so, and is just; I say, he does not do so and so, and is just. You say he does, for the Bible says so. I say, if the Bible said so, the Bible would lie; but the Bible does not say so. The lord of life complains of men for not judging right. To say on the authority of the Bible that God does a thing no honourable man would do, is to lie against God; to say that it is therefore right, is to lie against the very spirit of God. To uphold a lie for God's sake is to be against God, not for him. God cannot be lied for. He is the truth. The truth alone is on his side…
The common idea, then, is, that the justice of God consists in punishing sin: it is in the hope of giving a larger idea of the justice of God in punishing sin that I ask, 'Why is God bound to punish sin?'
'How could he be a just God and not punish sin?'
'Mercy is a good and right thing,' I answer, 'and but for sin there could be no mercy. We are enjoined to forgive, to be merciful, to be as our father in heaven. Two rights cannot possibly be opposed to each other. If God punish sin, it must be merciful to punish sin; and if God forgive sin, it must be just to forgive sin. We are required to forgive, with the argument that our father forgives. It must, I say, be right to forgive. Every attribute of God must be infinite as himself. He cannot be sometimes merciful, and not always merciful. He cannot be just, and not always just. Mercy belongs to him, and needs no contrivance of theologic chicanery to justify it.'
'Then you mean that it is wrong to punish sin, therefore God does not punish sin?'
'By no means; God does punish sin, but there is no opposition between punishment and forgiveness. The one may be essential to the possibility of the other. Why, I repeat, does God punish sin? That is my point.'
'Because in itself sin deserves punishment.'
'Then how can he tell us to forgive it?'
'He punishes, and having punished he forgives?'
'That will hardly do. If sin demands punishment, and the righteous punishment is given, then the man is free. Why should he be forgiven?'
Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin. If he were not the Maker, he might not be bound to destroy sin--I do not know; but seeing he has created creatures who have sinned, and therefore sin has, by the creating act of God, come into the world, God is, in his own righteousness, bound to destroy sin.
'But that is to have no mercy.'
You mistake. God does destroy sin; he is always destroying sin. In him I trust that he is destroying sin in me. He is always saving the sinner from his sins, and that is destroying sin. But vengeance on the sinner, the law of a tooth for a tooth, is not in the heart of God, neither in his hand. If the sinner and the sin in him, are the concrete object of the divine wrath, then indeed there can be no mercy. Then indeed there will be an end put to sin by the destruction of the sin and the sinner together. But thus would no atonement be wrought--nothing be done to make up for the wrong God has allowed to come into being by creating man. There must be an atonement, a making-up, a bringing together--an atonement which, I say, cannot be made except by the man who has sinned.”
(Source: “Justice” by George MacDonald, the full version can be found at https://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons/31/)
You may be thinking, “Yeah, that’s great if you offended (sinned) against a mere human – but this is an infinite GOD we are talking about! He says we need to be perfect as He is!” Well, if that was the requirement, we are all screwed then, aren’t we? This whole infinite God = infinite payment argument came from the medieval period (big surprise there, right?) with “Anselm of Canterbury, an 11th-Century Roman Catholic theologian and Benedictine monk.” According to a book,
“Anselm left a very strong legacy. He was later canonized as a saint and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church through a bull passed by Pope Clement XI in 1720. He is perhaps best known as the inventor of the ontological argument for God, and in this capacity, as well as through his argument that sin against an infinite being merits infinite torment, he has come to be quite a prominent source of inspiration for modern Evangelicals when debating God’s existence or justifying the very Latin-rooted doctrine of eternal punishment, which Protestantism inherited from Rome.
Anselm’s background is important, because it was so quintessentially medieval. Medieval society was deeply stratified, with complex parallel hierarchies across the secular and ecclesiastical spheres. At the top of the social pyramid sat the king; beneath whom sat nobles who would report to him and send taxes or military aid when called upon; beneath whom were knights who were granted land in return for that military service; beneath whom were pages and squires who would carry a knight’s equipment and do petty tasks for him; beneath whom were various craftsmen and artisans who held coveted positions in tightly-controlled guilds; beneath whom were the peasant masses, which themselves could be sub-divided by wealth, from comparatively wealthy yeoman freeholders right down to the lowliest serfs who had an almost slave-like status. The modern notion of national sovereignty did not exist in the medieval world: the king of any given kingdom would often himself be a vassal of another more powerful king, to whom he made obeisance, and paid tribute and military service. A parallel hierarchy existed in the church; from the Pope down to cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, and so on. It was a world where status mattered, and money couldn’t buy it like it does today.
This is the context in which Anselm developed his argument that any
sin against God merits infinite punishment. Specifically, he argued
that man’s failure to give God the complete, perfect and total
honour he was due merited eternal torment, because it was a
transgression against an infinitely superior being. It wasn’t the
severity of the offence itself that mattered, but the status of the
one whom it offended (and more specifically, the gap in status
between the transgressor and the transgressed-against). Anselm
presented this argument in Cur Deus Homo, ‘Why God Became
a Man’, which he wrote in the final decade of the 11th
Century, just a few years after the death of William the Conqueror.
Within the medieval hierarchy, a king or a lord could brutalise a peasant with little or no consequence. However, a peasant who picked a quarrel with even a squire or a page could find himself in a spot of bother. Were he to pick a fight with a knight, he would be in very hot water indeed. Of course, if he showed the least disrespect to a lord or a king, he could expect to lose his head. It wasn’t the transgression – the sin – that mattered, but the status of the one who was transgressed against…
“The ‘common sense’ appeal of Anselm’s argument further loses
its shine when one really starts to think about the particulars. The
argument is based on a strict, logical legalism: sin against an
infinitely greater being merits infinite punishment; any failure to
render him the total honour and obedience he is due, and to follow
his commands, will render this fate. Very well; but let’s consider
how that works in practice, and how well it sits both with ‘common
sense’ and biblical concepts of justice. Firstly, a genocidal
maniac murders millions of people; a vast transgression against God
and his creation, and one that merits infinite punishment. Secondly,
a murderer kills his neighbour following a rage-filled argument; a
gross violation against his fellow man and their maker, and that
merits infinite punishment. Now, without conceding that such crimes
do truly merit infinite punishment, I can grant that many
will be comfortable enough with such a penalty in these cases.
But Anselm’s logic doesn’t stop there. Let’s consider a third
example: a busy single mother neglects to attend church and rarely
prays, thus failing to honour God. Well, according to Anselm’s
logic, her failure to render due honour to an infinitely greater
being means she has merited infinite, ultimate punishment. Or a
fourth example: an otherwise kind and well-behaved twelve-year-old
child gets overexcited, and in a deeply out-of-character moment,
steals a chocolate bar from a shop. Well, that’s a transgression
against God’s moral order; the act of theft certainly dishonours
God. Should that child die in a car accident the following day, he
will go to the very same eternal, ultimate punishment as the
genocidal dictator and the murderer; all three will burn with the
same intensity.
And this is where any common-sense appeal of Anselm’s argument collapses. Its logic is so strict, legalistic and extreme that it completely removes all gradations of justice. It renders every single crime as bad as the other. Stealing a chocolate bar becomes equivalent to genocide and results in the same sentence. This makes it a useless argument, and in fact makes it the very negation of justice, because a central concept of justice is that it is proportional. Justice is the weighing up of careful and complex considerations – taking the whole person and their circumstances into account – in order to reach a just judgment. Look at the complexity of the laws which God gave to Moses on Sinai, with a huge and varied mixture of crimes and penalties. They range from having to make token sacrifices at the Temple, to giving financial restitution to those wronged, to death by stoning; all depending upon the severity of the offence. Jesus talks about gradations of reward in heaven according to one’s works (Matt 5:19); and likewise warns of gradations of punishment. If you are angry against your brother, you are in danger of judgment; if you insult him, you are in danger of the court; but if you call him a fool, you shall be in danger of Gehenna! (Matt 5:22). In another parable, Jesus contrasts the servant who commits a great and wilful transgression and is beaten with many blows, against the servant who commits a lesser transgression in ignorance, and is beaten only with few blows (the “master” in this parable is surely God or the Lord Jesus; Luke 12:47-48). Anselm’s argument for infinite torment for any finite transgression utterly obliterates the central biblical theme of justice as inherently proportional. By definition, justice, without proportionality, ceases to be justice.”
(Source: The Purest Gospel: The Good News that Everyone Will be Saved, excerpt found here: https://thepurestgospel.wordpress.com/2023/03/05/the-injustice-of-infinite-punishment/, bold and underline mine)
To conclude this post, we will look at one more article, this one by Logan Barone,
“Our brains have been programmed to intuitively respond to malevolence with retribution, vengeance, counterblow, and payback. In order for the ego to have any absolute gratification, success, or victory, there has to be a defeated foe who gets what they deserve. We remain dissatisfied until the wrongdoer is harshly penalized.
On top of always having to be the winner or the best, the ego must earn what it receives. It will settle for nothing less than what it worked for — nothing less than what it believes it deserves according to its own merit. The idea of a free gift, unmerited favor, or restorative justice is a direct blow to the heart of ego, bringing utter humiliation and disgrace
Jesus presents us with a counterculture of compassion that is fundamentally antithetical to the system of egocentric vengeance the world has calibrated us to. Furthermore, Paul encourages us not to be conformed to the patterns of reciprocation (eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth) but to be transformed by the rewiring of our minds — changing how we respond to injustice, hatred, and vengeful attacks. (Romans 12:2). Divine transformation occurs when we respond with mercy instead of judgment, peace instead of revenge, and love instead of hatred.
“God’s judgment” invariably comes from a place of restoration, not retribution. Retributive judgment is to punish just for the sake of punishing. Jesus’ perfect reflection of the Father reveals an alternative way of restorative justice that consist of healing rather than punitive chastisement. Before the Western influence of Augustine, Calvin, and Luther infiltrated the church, God's judgment was solely understood from a hospital setting rather than a punitive courtroom. God is not a cosmic arbiter who slams his gavel and sentences people to damnation; He is a surgeon who extracts the self-destructive toxins from our life — saving us from death — which results in vitality and wholeness. This rejuvenating pruning ultimately causes us to conform to the image of love hidden deep within our hearts.
In a mystical way, God's mercy becomes his justice, and his justice becomes his mercy…
“Consider the parable of the Prodigal Son. A rich man has two sons; the younger son runs away from home with his dad's money to splurge with the ramblers and gamblers. Eventually, the nightlife drains him of everything he owns. Hungry and homeless, he decides to return back home.
How does the father respond to his son's return?
Does he lock his gates and forbid him from coming back in?
Does he make him work all day and night in the fields as punishment?
When the father sees his long-lost son walking down the driveway, he sprints out the door and embraces him (full of tears) with the biggest bear hug of all time! The son, full of fear, guilt, and shame, says, "I'm no longer worthy of being called your son." The father, utterly perplexed, chuckles and says, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Nothing can separate my love for you. You will always be mine!" The father then throws a huge shindig with an all-you-can-eat buffet and open bar to celebrate his son's homecoming.
The older brother, who had been working in the field, hears the music and decides to walk over to see what is going on. He discovers that his Father is throwing a banquet for the younger brother, who has just run away. This fills the older brother with extreme infuriation. Then, the father comes out to greet the older son. The older son breaks out into a tantrum and says, "For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you never gave me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him" (Luke 15:29-30).
(Source: https://www.loganbarone.com/post/does-god-punish)
So, what about you? Are you going to be like the older son in this story, who is kind of like the early morning vineyard workers who were upset at the master’s generosity towards those that unfairly received much more (actually, the opposite) of what they worked for? The older son, representing a Pharisaical attitude, strongly resented people making a big deal of his younger brother being thrown a party after he had come home from the consequences of wild living. “It’s not fair!” he whined to his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ (Lk 15:29, ESV). Ironically, most Christians today, without even realizing it, might agree with this older brother. But how does the father in this story respond? He says to his son gently, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” I believe that Grace shows us a higher way of viewing things. When we have grace towards ourselves and others, we view everyone as the sinners that we are, in desperate need of God’s grace, which He gives in abundance! Good thing, too, as none of us are able to stand on our own, for it is written, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23, ESV). We all need His grace daily for our lives. And, day by day, we will receive it and be perfected in and by Christ, for the verse goes on to say, “and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Amen.
And that, dear friends, is true justice. Not punishment for the sake of satisfying the requirements of some law (as the legalism of the older son shows), but restoring and rehabilitating that sinner back into communion and service in the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, as shown by the all-loving father in this parable. Yes, the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son all show this central theme of restoration back to the Source of all life. Eventually, all of those who died in Adam will be made alive in Christ and ultimately will be led back to God, “but each in their own order” (1 Cor15:23). I pray that we see the Day soon when our faith shall be sight.
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