The Discipline of God and What Our Sins Deserve
Below is an email that awaited me in my box when I returned to my office today. Along with it is a brief response. What do you all think?
Hey Pastor Tim,
I have some scripture that I'm a little confused on, and I'm not sure if I will be able to express my confusion correctly but here it goes; Act 5:1-11 tells the story of a married couple who die because they witheld the truth (from God) on the amount of money they received when selling their property. They kept some for themselves while giving the rest to the apostles. Now I understand the deception and greed they had. What I don't understand is why they had to die. This type of scripture seems to be very common in the Old Testament, when man tests God they lose, and sometimes in very disturbing ways. What makes this disturbing to me is that this happened in the New Testament, after Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. Could they not have repented and asked for forgiveness? To me, Peter comes off as arrogant or that he himself killed the wife after telling her to look at the feet of the men who just carried her dead husband out. I don't know I might be totally missing the message on this one. Could you help to clarify this for me.
Thanks,
______
My response:
Hey _____________,
To give a short answer to your good question let me say this:
1. First, Peter was simply relaying God's perspective on this situation; he wasn't killing them or being arrogant. He was telling them what God thought about their sin, and simply carrying out God's sentence against them for it.
2. The truth is that what happens here reveals how God views all sin. Remember that all the way back to Genesis 2 we're told that if we sin any sin, death is the natural and divinely ordained judgment for it. All sin deserves death (Romans 6:23; James 1:14, 15) because no matter how small it seems or trivial it might appear, it is an offence against a holy God.
3. Since God is unchangingly holy and just, God's view of sin is no different in the New Testament than in the Old. In fact some of the most frightening descriptions of God's attitudes toward all sin (including lying, see Rev. 21:8; 22:14, 15) are found in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament. Few seem to realize that no one in the Bible spoke more about hell the consequences of sin more scarily than did Jesus!
4. In the Bible we have instances like these in both Testaments to remind us of just how bad sin is, and of what all sin deserves. For example in 1 Corinthians 11:28-30 we see that God actually put some to death because they partook of the Lord's Supper without careful preparation of heart! And there’s no reason to think (as far as I know) that He doesn’t still do this today.
You are right in saying that "when man tests God, he loses, and some times in very disturbing ways." I think that is exactly the point of these occasions in Scripture: God is reminding us of what our every sin deserves and of what He could justly do to us every time we test Him by doing things we know to be wrong.
The real mystery here is why people aren't dying for these types of things more often, since God could kill us fairly for them. The fact that these things are rare speaks of the amazing patience of God toward us.
5. Regarding the question of God's forgiveness, I'd say that it may well be that Ananias and Sapphira were forgiven of their sins (if in fact they were true believers which I think they were) but still had to face certain earthly consequences for those sins.
Forgiveness does not erase certain consequences on earth. It erases the eternal consequence of hell but not all earthly consequences in this life. (Think of the murderer who later comes to faith in Christ. He is forgiven of his sin but he still has to be punished on earth for it.
There's a lot more to your questions bro, than what can be unfolded in a short email reply. For this reason I'm going to post your letter and my reply (without your name of course) on my blog, so others can speak into the question and a conversation can begin. I’d encourage you to follow up there!
Thanks so much for your very thoughtful and humble questions brother. It speaks well of God's grace at work in you that you are thinking carefully about the reading of the Word of God!
Yours in Him,
Tim
Hey Pastor Tim,
I have some scripture that I'm a little confused on, and I'm not sure if I will be able to express my confusion correctly but here it goes; Act 5:1-11 tells the story of a married couple who die because they witheld the truth (from God) on the amount of money they received when selling their property. They kept some for themselves while giving the rest to the apostles. Now I understand the deception and greed they had. What I don't understand is why they had to die. This type of scripture seems to be very common in the Old Testament, when man tests God they lose, and sometimes in very disturbing ways. What makes this disturbing to me is that this happened in the New Testament, after Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. Could they not have repented and asked for forgiveness? To me, Peter comes off as arrogant or that he himself killed the wife after telling her to look at the feet of the men who just carried her dead husband out. I don't know I might be totally missing the message on this one. Could you help to clarify this for me.
Thanks,
______
My response:
Hey _____________,
To give a short answer to your good question let me say this:
1. First, Peter was simply relaying God's perspective on this situation; he wasn't killing them or being arrogant. He was telling them what God thought about their sin, and simply carrying out God's sentence against them for it.
2. The truth is that what happens here reveals how God views all sin. Remember that all the way back to Genesis 2 we're told that if we sin any sin, death is the natural and divinely ordained judgment for it. All sin deserves death (Romans 6:23; James 1:14, 15) because no matter how small it seems or trivial it might appear, it is an offence against a holy God.
3. Since God is unchangingly holy and just, God's view of sin is no different in the New Testament than in the Old. In fact some of the most frightening descriptions of God's attitudes toward all sin (including lying, see Rev. 21:8; 22:14, 15) are found in the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament. Few seem to realize that no one in the Bible spoke more about hell the consequences of sin more scarily than did Jesus!
4. In the Bible we have instances like these in both Testaments to remind us of just how bad sin is, and of what all sin deserves. For example in 1 Corinthians 11:28-30 we see that God actually put some to death because they partook of the Lord's Supper without careful preparation of heart! And there’s no reason to think (as far as I know) that He doesn’t still do this today.
You are right in saying that "when man tests God, he loses, and some times in very disturbing ways." I think that is exactly the point of these occasions in Scripture: God is reminding us of what our every sin deserves and of what He could justly do to us every time we test Him by doing things we know to be wrong.
The real mystery here is why people aren't dying for these types of things more often, since God could kill us fairly for them. The fact that these things are rare speaks of the amazing patience of God toward us.
5. Regarding the question of God's forgiveness, I'd say that it may well be that Ananias and Sapphira were forgiven of their sins (if in fact they were true believers which I think they were) but still had to face certain earthly consequences for those sins.
Forgiveness does not erase certain consequences on earth. It erases the eternal consequence of hell but not all earthly consequences in this life. (Think of the murderer who later comes to faith in Christ. He is forgiven of his sin but he still has to be punished on earth for it.
There's a lot more to your questions bro, than what can be unfolded in a short email reply. For this reason I'm going to post your letter and my reply (without your name of course) on my blog, so others can speak into the question and a conversation can begin. I’d encourage you to follow up there!
Thanks so much for your very thoughtful and humble questions brother. It speaks well of God's grace at work in you that you are thinking carefully about the reading of the Word of God!
Yours in Him,
Tim
Labels: Chastisement, God's Discipline
posted by Tim Shorey at
9:37 AM
Share: 
5 Comments
