hey guys,
i was just confused about something and was wondering whether anyone here could help me out... you know after you commit a sin u must suffer the consequences that are attached with that sin. I heard that God will allow something bad to happen to you for every sin you commit, something about a consequence in heaven and on earth too. When you confess your sin, you are relieved of ur heavenly punishment but what about on earth?
God Bless,
Mariam
Comments
Maria
Your conception of God is wrong - He does not allow something bad to happen us for every sin we commit, He doesnt work like that.
God certainly chastises us, but not simply for the fact we have done something wrong, but out of His infinite love, in order that we may be corrected and change our ways. Read what God has to say in the following passage in the book of Hebrews:
5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 6 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 7 If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 8 But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 11 Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (Epistle to the Hebrews 12:5-11)
Isnt this what we find in the parable of the prodigal son? In that parable, Christ revealed to us that God, in allowing misfortunes to fall upon certain people (i.e. chastising the sinners), is not possessed by creaturely passions (i.e. to take revenge), or an offended sense of honor (for nothing we can do, no matter how evil, takes anything away from God) when punishing, but rather, it is revealed that He truly loves - He loves all. That;s His one and only motive, and we know this because He has told us so.
45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. (St.Matthew 5:45)
The chastisment that one receives, is going to depend entirely on the disposition of the person being chastened. For the stubborn and obstinant, it's going to be misconstrued as the act of a bully, and seen forever as bitter and unfair. On the other hand however, for those blessed with a renewed spirit of humility, it will give them a chance to look at themselves, and remedy their situation for the better of their spiritual life and eternal salvation.
"Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit."
Meaning of Prune:
-To cut off or remove dead or living parts or branches of (a plant, for example) to improve shape or growth.
-Weed out unwanted or unnecessary things
-To remove what is superfluous or undesirable.
In this verse, our Lord tells us that He'll be fixing us up and 'removing unnecssary things' from our lives, character, actions, etc. In order to do that, it might happen in a way that seems to be unfair or seem as a punishment or as a bad thing that we go through, when infact He's simply imprving our shape and growth spiritually.
This is partly the reason why we go through 'hard times' in our life, its God's way of helping us grow.
As for concequences, God always forgives sin, but the earth doesnt always. For example, if someone goes and commits adultry and gets pregnant, but deeply regrets it and confesses it, and changes their ways, God will without a doubt forgive them. The earthly concequence is, the person is pregant and she's stuck with the baby and has to make decisions, and her life is changed because of the baby. God's forgivness wont make the baby disappear. That is one example of a concequence attatched with sin.
That's the reason why sometimes although we confess somthing, we're releaved of the 'heavenly concequence' but are stuck with the 'earthly ones', because some things have obvious and drastic concequences.
Just my 0.5 cents..... hope it wasnt too confusing......
Take Care and God Bless
if u did something, there may be consequences
look at the life of St Moses the Black. First he was a murderer and a thief, and he became a saint. Nonetheless, God was just, and he died by the sword...
We must remember something, and that is, we cannot understand the divine attributes at a human level. For example, from our perspective, if someone was a muderer, it would seem fair that this murderer himself receive capital punishment, so that his life may be cut short as he did to his victim. This is a very human legalistic concept of justice, motivated by the need for vengeance, despite any genuine repentence of the murderer or change of heart.
God's justice however, does not work this way. The verse CrazyCopt brought up demonstrates the very thing the passage I discussed in my post from the book of Hebrews i.e. God chastises out of love, that we may learn from our mistakes and improve our sinful conditions, that we may ultimately be conformed to the perfect image of The Son.
Saint Isaac the Syrian writes: "How can you call God just when you read the passage on the wage given to the workers? 'Friend, I do thee no wrong; I will give unto this last even as unto thee who worked for me from the first hour. Is thine eye evil, because I am good?'" "How can a man call God just", continues Saint Isaac, "when he comes across the passage on the prodigal son, who wasted his wealth in riotous living, and yet only for the contrition which he showed, the father ran and fell upon his neck, and gave him authority over all his wealth? None other but His very Son said these things concerning Him lest we doubt it, and thus He bare witness concerning Him. Where, then, is God's justice, for whilst we were sinners, Christ died for us!"
St Moses' death by the sword, was simply unfortunate, it wasnt God planning his death that way, to bring vengeance upon all St Moses' previous murders. This is not the God who is Love. St Moses repented, and God forgave him. The man lived like a saint, and thus there really was no corrective purpose for chastisement...and obviously punishing him by allowing a brutal death, doesnt achieve anything. God allowed St Moses to be killed in such a manner...not as a punishment out of wrath, but our of perfect love, so that St Moses may receive the crown of martyrdom.
[Post modified in accordance with research pursued later]
St Moses' death by the sword, was simply unfortunate, it wasnt God planning his death that way, to bring vengeance upon all St Moses' previous murders. This is not the God who is Love. St Moses repented, and God forgave him. The man lived like a saint, and thus there really was no corrective purpose for chastisement...and obviously punishing him by allowing a brutal death, doesnt achieve anything. God allowed St Moses to be killed in such a manner...not as a punishment out of wrath, but our of perfect love, so that St Moses may receive the crown of martyrdom.
sorry but i think God deffinetly plans every single step we make, he planned St. Moses' s death of course to make him a martyr as you said, but God deff. allowed it and planned it long time before st. Moses was even born....
Like I said earlier, God only punishes for corrective purposes and NOT simply for “payback�- God doesn't work like this - Hebrews 12:5-11 proves this.
Even Christ Himself made this point in the parable of the prodigal son as St Isaac the Syrian pointed out – If the son disobeyed his father, and ran away from home, whilst the other son stayed in obedience – how is it that upon the disobedient sons return, a feast was prepared for him, and he was made ruler of his fathers wealth??? This doesn't sound like the type of human justice you are arguing for – because from our perspective we would expect the other son who stayed home, to be rewarded, whilst the prodigal son should be punished for running away in disobedience and wasting his money.
If God's justice operated in the sense you describe – then we would not be saved. We are all sinners, and the justice you describe, demands that we all die for our own sins. Yet it was Christ – the innocent lamb, who died instead of us.
So again, God's justice is proven to be beyond our human standards.
[Post slightly modified to reflect views in accordance with research pursued after the creation of this post]
I see ur point though, but that story about St Moses was just one of the many examples used by HH in a book. I can't remember which one, but i'll get back to u at this...maybe i misunderstood the specific part of that book though, but i'll re-check
and thnx for the ifnormation and ur time Iqbal :)
maybe u can (re)-read the whole part and explain the thing, cause i'm very confused about the part about God's mercy vs God's justice
I have this book on pdf, but I dont think the page numbers you gave me from your book, correspond with the page numbers of this pdf document. Could you tell me which part/chapter you are referring to, and i'll read the whole section.
I personally, choose to respectfully disagree with this portrayal of justice, and stick by all that I have said. Since this is not a dogmatic issue, i think its best we leave the discussion at that, and agree to disagree.