Basic HTML Version
246
other hand, that He hates and punishes evil-doers, Ps. 5:5; 7:11; Nah. 1:2; Rom. 1:18; 2:5,6; 11
Thess. 1:6; Heb. 10:26,27. Moreover, a punishment must be recognized as just, that is, as
according to justice, in order to be reformatory. According to this theory a sinner who has
already reformed could no more be punished; nor could one beyond the possibility of
reformation, so that there could be no punishment for Satan; the death penalty would have to
be abolished, and eternal punishment would have no reason for existence.
3. TO DETER MEN FROM SIN.
Another theory rather prevalent in our day is that the sinner must
be punished for the protection of society, by deterring others from the commission of similar
offenses. There can be no doubt about it that this end is often secured in the family, in the
state, and in the moral government of the world, but this is an incidental result which God
graciously effects by the infliction of the penalty. It certainly cannot be the ground for the
infliction of the penalty. There is no justice whatever in punishing an individual simply for the
good of society. As a matter of fact the sinner is always punished for his sin, and incidentally
this may be for the good of society. And here again it may be said that no punishment will have
a deterring effect, if it is not just and right in itself. Punishment has a good effect only when it is
evident that the person on whom it is afflicted really deserves punishment. If this theory were
true, a criminal might at once be set free, if it were not for the possibility that others might be
deterred from sin by his punishment. Moreover, a man might rightly commit a crime, if he were
only willing to bear the penalty. According to this view punishment is in no sense grounded in
the past, but is wholly prospective. But on that supposition it is very hard to explain how it
invariably causes the repentant sinner to look back and to confess with contrite heart the sins
of the past, as we notice in such passages as the following: Gen. 42:21; Num. 21:7; I Sam.
15:24,25; II Sam. 12:13; 24:10; Ezra 9:6,10, 13; Neh. 9:33-35; Job 7:21; Ps. 51:1-4; Jer. 3:25.
These examples might easily be multiplied. In opposition to both of the theories considered it
must be maintained that the punishment of sin is wholly retrospective in its primary aim,
though the infliction of the penalty may have beneficial consequences both for the individual
and for society.
C. THE ACTUAL PENALTY OF SIN.
The penalty with which God threatened man in paradise was the penalty of death. The death
here intended is not the death of the body, but the death of man as a whole, death in the
Scriptural sense of the word. The Bible does not know the distinction, so common among us,
between a physical, a spiritual, and an eternal death; it has a synthetic view of death and
regards it as separation from God. The penalty was also actually executed on the day that man
sinned, though the full execution of it was temporarily stayed by the grace of God. In a rather
un-Scriptural way some carry their distinction into the Bible, and maintain that physical death