I have decided to add some clarifications and closing thoughts to this post. As we grow in our Christian life, we need to distinguish between punishment and discipline. You may ask, why is this important? Because it goes to the heart of what we can expect from God as Christians. Does our heavenly Father punish us for our failures and sins, or does He discipline us? This distinction matters because a false understanding persists among believers that God punishes His children. If that were true, it would mean the cross was insufficient — that Christ’s sacrifice left something unpaid. But as we will see, the Scriptures tell a very different story.
What does it mean to punish?
Punish 1. To subject to a penalty for an offense, sin, or fault. Punishment has a direct correlation with sin and its penalty. The 1953 Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines it even more harshly, stating it is to afflict with pain, loss, or suffering for a sin or fault.
The Bible goes further because in Romans 6:23a it says, “For the wages of sin is death.” When you examine the meaning of this death, it is more than just physically dying. It includes the second death, which is eternal separation from God. Matthew 13:49-50 discusses this. “So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Those who remain in their sin or think they can balance out their wickedness with ‘good deeds’ are those who will reap their wages for that sin. There is no scale in heaven weighing your good against your evil. The debt cannot be offset by your efforts. It is absolute. As to anyone thinking to rely on their good works, we need to remember what the prophet said in Isaiah 64:6, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” We cannot use these rags to pay our sin debt before God.
Is there any hope for us?
We find our only hope in the second half of that same verse, Romans 6:23: “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” He paid the debt that we cannot. Only God could be the perfect sacrifice, but to pay the debt of men, He had to become a man. As John 1:1 says, “the Word [the eternal Son] was God.” A few verses later, John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” The eternal Word became a man to pay the debt of men.
For this to matter in your life, it requires more than mere assent to facts. Paul tells us in Romans 10:9-11, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
Notice you are required to confess that Jesus is Lord. That has important depth that cannot be avoided. Accepting Him as Savior is not enough. You have to make Him LORD of your life! You may rightfully ask, “What does that mean?” It is an outward expression of your inward heartfelt trust in the Lordship of Christ over every aspect of your life. As 2 Corinthians 4:5 says, “For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” We are servants to our Lord, subject to what He demands of us. The fight we fight against the old man still alive within us is to bow our knees to Christ so we can say with Paul, Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” As it makes clear in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” We are to be a living sacrifice, continually offering our lives to God, always accepting Him as Lord of our lives.
Then what is godly discipline?
The 1953 Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines the applicable discipline to our argument as “training which corrects, molds, strengthens, or perfects.” If you have become a Christian and made Jesus Christ your Lord as well as your Savior, then the punishment for your sin has been paid by Jesus through his shed blood on the cross. However, that doesn’t mean you no longer sin. 1 John 1:8-10 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” We must be willing to continually assess our lives and admit and confess our sin.
Paul goes further into this in Romans 7:19-21, 25b “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good…So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
This is the critical point. Even after we become Christians, we will continue to sin, but now God’s reaction to us is radically different. The author of Hebrews shows us how this works in our lives and what godly discipline means. Hebrews 12:5-8, “And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.” All His children, which we now claim to be, are chastened.
This is where so many who have heard the good news stumble. This is a hard saying. Rebuke, chasten, and scourge — those words are beyond difficult. They cut against everything our flesh — the old man — desires: comfort, affirmation, and ease, not correction. So many today will tell you that you are a King’s Kid and with Jesus, we should be living the abundant life, citing John 10:10, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” This creates a tension between dealing with our ongoing sin, which brings God’s discipline (not His condemnation), and the promise of a more abundant life. Navigating that tension boils down to whether we trust God, which is the foundation of all true faith. Do we demand the abundance now, or do we instead trust God and submit to being freed from our ongoing sin so we can stand righteous before the Lord? So the real question is, who is Lord here? You or Christ? Do you demand what you want, or do you walk the path He has laid out for you? Remember the promise of Romans 8:28, which says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Hard Decisions
In the end, we have to ask ourselves the hard question. Who is the Lord of our life? Is it us or Jesus Christ? That is the question on which our eternal destiny turns. Scripture demands that it be Jesus. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5, ‘Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you? — unless indeed you are disqualified.’ It is the most honest question you will ever face. Choose rightly. Be in the faith. Choose Christ as the Lord of your life.
