Is God Judging Us or Disciplining Us? - Part 2

In part 1, we discussed the first of two erroneous ideas many Christ-followers have: I must pay for certain sins in spite of what the Bible says to the contrary. In part 2, we will look at the opposite side of the spectrum, where many do not fully understand the full weightiness of their sins, and in return make an equally dangerous mistake.

Erroneous Idea #2: 

I do not sin in spite of what the Bible says to the contrary.

Listen to these scriptures that show how people actually declare that they do no wrong.

Proverbs 30:20: “This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, and says, ‘I have done no wrong.’"

Proverbs 28:24: “He who robs his father or his mother and says, ‘It is not a transgression,’ is the companion of a man who destroys.”

In the cases of the adulterous woman and the thieving son, both would claim they have done nothing sinful. Yet, the apostle John would say to them, which we read in 1 John 1:8, "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us."

Why would we say we have no sin? Simply, we want to do the sin and do not want anyone to tell us that it is wrong. 

For example, a Christian husband divorces his wife for another woman. He does not interpret his conduct as sinful. For years he espouses a cavalier position that says God favored the new marriage since he found his true soul mate. He trumpets, “God led us together.”

Yet, negative things ensue. For example, this man could no longer seek God in prayer like he had for many years before this. His guilt bothered his conscience and his confidence before God waned. The Bible says in 1 John 3:21, "Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.” In other words, this man’s heart condemned him. He may disguise this inner condemnation from others, but he knows the truth when he seeks to be alone before God. The Lord does not respond to him. Years later this type of person tells me that he justified everything in his own mind though deep within he knew he was wrong.

Or, a Christian woman moves in with her boyfriend. She does so to demonstrate to him that she loves him. The guy, on the other hand, moved in with her to determine whether he loved her. There is a huge difference between these motivations. After she started living with the guy, a couple things evolved. For one thing, she avoided anyone who expressed disapproval of her living with this fellow. She called them judgmental. Also, her longing for love and marriage eclipsed her relationship with Christ. She put her relationship with Jesus on the backburner. She blocked Him out. For a while she tried to convince herself that Jesus approved of the pre-marital sex because she was trying to show her love to the man. She felt God made an exception in her case, but she gave up that idea and instead busied herself with activities so she didn’t have to think about the Lord. Two years later when her boyfriend dropped her for another woman, she faced the foolishness and sinfulness of her decision.

Of course, all along she knew living together met with the Lord’s disapproval. She knew because those various times when she tried to read the Bible or share her faith with someone, as she had done regularly prior to moving in with her boyfriend, she found no joy in doing these things as she had for many years before. She felt empty.

Why did these two believers encounter such voids?

Hebrews 13:4 gives us a clue: "Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge.”  

If I could say this any other way, I would. God judges adultery and fornication. Though we claim such a view is old-fashioned or that God led us to our soul mate, the Lord’s truth remains the same. None of us is an exception here, and it makes no difference that this is the twenty-first century. God’s truth is timeless.

“But Emerson, I thought you said in part I that God does not judge the believer, that there is no punishment for the sin?"

That’s exactly what I said. For this reason we must understand what the word “judge” means under the new covenant. 

A New Kind of Judgment

Here’s the answer for the believer in Jesus Christ: judgment is now defined as God’s discipline, not God’s punishment. 

Paul explains a new kind of judgment that the believer in Christ encounters. In 1 Corinthians 11:32 we read, "But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world."

There it all is in one verse! We are judged in the sense that we are disciplined. Paul defines judgment under the new covenant as God’s discipline. We are not judged in the sense that we are condemned along with the world; rather, we are judged, or disciplined, “so that we will not be condemned along with the world”! 

What a joy this should bring to each of us!

God’s Motive

This discipline is based on God’s love, not His vindictiveness. Revelation 3:19 says, “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent."

Under the new covenant with the Christ-follower, God’s discipline is His judgment. His judgment is His discipline. This is why in my opening examples of that man who left his wife for another woman and the woman who moved in with her boyfriend, I reveal that God will judge them as Hebrews 13:4 reveals, but that judgment must be understood as God’s loving discipline.

Whatever else judgment means in Hebrews 13:4 for the believers in Jesus Christ, it does not mean that God vindictively punishes us for our sins. Rather, as we discover in Hebrews 12, God disciplines us because He loves us!

And you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews 12:5-11)

When we place Hebrews 13:4—“for fornicators and adulterers God will judge”—in the context of Hebrews 12, it means that the adulterer and fornicator will be disciplined based on God’s love in order for this person to experience holiness.

As is commonly expressed, God loves us just as we are but loves us too much to leave us in that condition! God is not indifferent to what we do wrong. He does not turn a blind eye to our bad choices. Discipline means that He will do what He needs to do as a loving heavenly Father. He intends to stop us from sinning and start us on a new and righteous path. 

Wake-Up Call!

What if we are not committing adultery or living with someone? Has God provided some wake-up calls that make clearer to us that we may currently be under His discipline?

Yes. I believe that out of God’s grace, He will fill His child whom He is lovingly disciplining with an overwhelming, habitual feeling of spiritual emptiness and powerlessness. Here are six signs that God may be giving someone a wake-up call:

1. There is no sense of peace and joy deep in the heart.

2. There is no confidence when praying and worshiping since the conscience is unclear.

3. There is no meaningful reading of Scripture or application of God's Word.

4. There is no authentic fellowship with other believers.

5. There is no power when ministering to others nor desire to minister to others.

6.  There is no boldness in challenging others to live for Christ.

People who encounter God’s loving discipline enter a very hollow spiritual condition. Not all who experience the dark night of the soul are being disciplined, but those who are under God’s discipline will encounter these six things for a long period of time until they change course.

Physical Problems

Is there anything else that evidences God’s discipline? Yes, when we become physically weak or sick, this can be a sign of God’s discipline. At Corinth some even died. Paul indicates that God’s discipline kicks in with those who remain in sin while taking communion.

We read in 1 Corinthians 11:29-31, "For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.”

Paul then says in 1 Corinthians 11:32 what he means by “judgment,” which we quoted earlier: "But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world."

This is the Lord’s Supper, with bread and wine.  

Each time we gather to remember what Christ accomplished for us on the cross, if we are living in sin and do not examine ourselves, confess our sin, and make a decision to turn from that sin, God will lovingly discipline us.

As a pastor, during communion, this is why I encouraged people in sin to let the elements pass but then said, “If you do let the cup and bread pass, this serves as a clear wake-up call to you to change directions.”

What about Good Folks Who Are Sick?

The problem of course is that righteous people can be weak, get sick, and even die. God does not put a big letter “D” on the forehead so we can all know who is under God’s discipline. 

A man asks, "How does one tell if circumstances are a chastening from God?” The only way we can know is when we are clearly, consciously, and willfully sinning against Christ, and that is confirmed by the Bible, the godly-wise, and our conscience. God disciplines us then. He cares too much to ignore us. 

Apart from these things, you may not know. Some things are due to the common trials all believers encounter in a fallen world. And, all of us are under the curse of death. We will all die. Our death does not mean we were actively sinning. 

Nonetheless, we must ask ourselves: “Is there any serious sin in my life that I am lying to myself and others about? Am I refusing to examine myself? Am I refusing to confess and do the will of God?”

A person wrote to me, "My heart aches, and as you said, I am living with the loving discipline of Abba for living my life 20 years ago by ignoring what He said was the way I should live. I have been forgiven by God and others (I have confessed my sin), but I feel I still must live with the consequences that I have brought on myself."

This man is honest and humble. God honors this. 

What I find interesting is that some people do not see themselves in this light. For instance, many people have written to me about their blended family that formed on the heels of their adultery and divorces, which they acknowledged. However, I recall few who confessed that they believed their problems in the blended family stemmed from their adultery and the subsequent loving discipline of God.

Few write to ask, “Do you think I'm having problems in my blended family because I sinned against God and He is disciplining me until I humbly acknowledge and confess my wrongdoing?”

Interestingly and sadly, some folks in a blended family who read such words get defensive and verbally attack this very illustration. Most everyone claims innocence and where there is guilt there is a reason. Beyond that, the problems now experienced in the blended family fall squarely on their new spouse. Typically, a wife writes to me and assigns blame on her husband for not loving her daughter. She tells me that her husband blames her for not making sure her daughter shows him respect. They are now in crisis and this marriage may not make it.

Few humbly ask, “Emerson, do you think the fact that we both walked out on our spouses by having a full-blown affair with each other and then divorced our spouses and married each other is contributing to our problems in that God is lovingly disciplining us for our sin?"

For some of us the wheels are coming off but we suppress the idea of God’s loving but firm discipline. After all, this is the twenty-first century. Who in their right mind would make such a claim that God is disciplining us? Their problems have nothing to do with the judgment of God under the new covenant. God is full of grace and mercy and invites the person to put all of that behind them. However, such folks have never confessed their wrongdoing, humbled themselves before God, sought the forgiveness of others, and received counsel on their sin. Instead, they block out all of that because it makes them feel uncomfortable, and they claim that others, like Emerson, are just judgmental. 

However, a thinking Christian knows the ordinances of God do not change simply because they block them out of their minds. I think of the cartoon of two animals surrounded by water as they look at Noah’s ark floating away. The one animal says, “Oh, shoot! Was that today?"  

May I invite you to experience this verse? “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Oh, the joy of being cleansed and forgiven. May I invite you to confess your sins?

Why would a believer not confess? Because of what John said before this verse and what he said right after this verse: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. . . . If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10).

Child of God, do not deceive yourself with the erroneous idea that you no longer sin. For “there is none righteous; not even one” (Romans 3:10). But thanks be to God that He loves us too much to leave us in our sin, and though Jesus took the punishment for our sin when He climbed up on the cross, God still lovingly disciplines us so that we would agree with Him on the seriousness of our sin.