There are many passages in the Bible that talk about God’s punishment. Today’s passage is one of them. I have to admit that I don’t like the idea of a God who punishes. Especially considering that there are loads of other passages in Scripture that talk about God’s love. “God is love,” John writes (1 John 4:7–8), and God lavishes that love on us (1 John 3:1).
So God is a loving God, and at the same time, he sometimes punishes people. The classic passage that brings these two ideas together is Exodus 34:6–7, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
What does it mean that God sometimes punishes? In Exodus 34, we learn that God punishes, but we do not learn how.
In 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8, Paul has been teaching about how Christians are to pursue purity, and he focuses on sexuality. To demonstrate how serious he is about this, take a look at what he writes in verses 6–8,
“The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.”
Clearly there are Christians who commit sexual immorality who never seem to be punished by God in any discernible way. So we should not interpret Paul’s words as meaning that when you commit a sexual sin, you will automatically and instantly be zapped by God.
So what is Paul saying about God punishing people? There are options for how to interpret this passage and others that mention God punishing humans.
One option is to suggest that God removes his blessing. In the Old Testament, God said the if the Israelites disobeyed him, they would be cursed, which was a removal of protection or blessing (for example, see my post on Deuteronomy 26–28). The Israelites did in fact rebel against God many times, and God allowed them to be attacked and defeated and even exiled by other nations.
Another option is that God allows us to face the natural consequences of the sin. In Romans 1:24–32, Paul repeats the phrase, “God gave them over,” referring to his people who sinned facing consequences. He doesn’t keep us from those consequences. Perhaps, even, the sin itself is part of the consequence, because our sinful behavior so often affects us, our guilt, our brokenness, shame, and all the hurt that comes from it. Like the domino picture above. We set something in motion when we sin, and God allows it to play out till the end.
Notice, though, in 1 Thessalonians 4:6–8, that Paul does not specify what he means when he refers to God’s punishment. Therefore I think it is important that we also admit that we are speculating here, and we really don’t know how Paul envisions God’s punishment in this passage.
Even though we don’t have a clear idea of what God’s punishment means, Paul also does not say, “The Lord will be happy when you commit such sins.” Obviously, when we sin, it is the opposite of what God desires. It is not his will.
What is God’s will? We heard it already in verse 3 (in this post), and Paul mentions it again now in verse 7: God’s will is for us to be holy. His will is for us to avoid sin.
Paul concludes in verse 8 with a reminder. This is God we are talking about here. Not a human. Think about God. The very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. When we choose to behave out of line with God’s heart, we know that it grieves the Holy Spirit, which Paul will write in Ephesians 4:30, and when we grieve the Spirit, it seems that we are not fully filled with the power of the Spirit, which Paul writes about in Ephesians 5:18. That lack of filling could hint at the punishment for sin. When we sin, we have less access to the Spirit.
But there is always forgiveness and grace. No matter how much or how severely you have sinned, God is like the father in Jesus’ Prodigal Son parable (Luke 15), waiting with arms wide open to welcome you and forgive you. If your sin is sexual in nature, he wants to restore you. As Rob Bell once said in a Nooma video, “There is nothing you can do to make God love you less.”
So clean out those temples. Clean out your bodies, your minds. Make your body and mind places of holiness, the home of God. Do you need to make a change in your thinking? Do you need to make a change in your viewing habits? Men, do you need to apologize to women? Do you need accountability software on your devices?
Remember the context of this passage. Paul was telling a group of Christ who were already doing good work in following Jesus that they needed to go deeper, to follow Jesus more closely. And this is one of those ways.
How about you? My guess is that most of you are doing a good job following Jesus. But how might you need to go deeper?
Photo by Bradyn Trollip on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 