Latest / Reformed Thinking / Why God Must Punish Sin | John Owen

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Why God Must Punish Sin | John Owen · Reformed Thinking

0:00
You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis,
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there's this clear expectation of precision, like you break
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your arm, the X-ray shows that jagged white line, and the
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doctor points at the screen and says, well, there is the
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problem. It's clean.
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You know it's binary broken or not broken.
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Yeah, and people find a lot of comfort in that clarity.
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We like things to be visible, to be categorized into neat,
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understandable boxes. But then you step into the world
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of theology, specifically looking at the attributes of God
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and how he deals with human rebellion, and suddenly that
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machine just, I mean, it stops working the way you expect.
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Oh for sure, The diagnostic landscape gets murky for a lot
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of people real fast. Welcome to reformed thinking.
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Today we are taking a massive theological magnifying glass to
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a dense, absolutely fascinating 17th century debate.
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We're doing a complete deep dive into the source material of John
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Owen's work. Specifically, Chapter 15 of his
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dissertation on divine justice. Right.
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The setup here is that Owen is stepping into the ring to defend
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the views of a Protestant theologian named Sabrandis
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Lubertus, and he is defending him against the heavy critiques
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of a learned antagonist named Twis.
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And look, this is not just some academic squabble over
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semantics. The mission of our analysis
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today is to parse out a disagreement that has massive
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implications for how we understand the divine.
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The core question on the table is this.
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Does God punish sin simply because He freely chooses to do
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so, or is He required to punish sin because it is an unavoidable
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aspect of his very nature? And you might be wondering why a
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debate from the 1600s matters for your life right now.
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Well, understanding whether God's justice is a choice or a
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natural necessity alters how you view every single action of God.
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It does. It completely shifts how you
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comprehend the concept of mercy, and it redefines the mechanics
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of salvation. Because if God's justice is just
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a lever he can pull or ignore, it will.
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The cross means one thing, but if his justice is an
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unchangeable fire that must consume what is contrary to his
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nature, then the cross means something entirely different.
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Spot on. So let's introduce the figures
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in this historical theological drama.
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We have Sabrandis Lybertus, a Protestant theologian from
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Friesland, and he wrote extensively against various
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theological opponents of his day.
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On the other side, we have Twis, who Owen describes as a learned
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antagonist. Now Twis and Libertus actually
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agree on a starting premise, which is interesting.
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Yeah, they do. Twis agrees with Libertus that,
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quote, corrective justice is essential to God.
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He approves of that specific statement.
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But here is where the split happens.
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Twist denies Libertus's second assertion, which is the
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assertion that quote, It is natural to God to hate and
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punish sin. OK.
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I have to push back on Twist's logic right out of the gate
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here. Go for it.
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Think about this logically. If water is essentially wet, can
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it choose not to make things wet when it touches them?
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No, it can't. Right.
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If corrective justice is essential to God, if it is part
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of His very essence, how can punishing sin not be natural to
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Him? It feels like saying the sun is
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essentially hot, but it is not natural for the sun to burn
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things. It feels like a massive
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contradiction to affirm the first statement but deny the
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second. That is a highly perceptive way
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to frame it, and John Owen notices that exact clearing
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discrepancy. Owen writes that the nicety of
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Twis's discrimination here is truly astonishing.
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Yeah, I bet. Twis gets hung up on the
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terminology, specifically the word hatred.
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Twist has a philosophical hesitation because he believes
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hatred is not a proper emotion for God to possess.
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He operates from a framework that wants to protect God from
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being associated with base volatile human passions.
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He assumes hatred implies a lack of control.
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Which makes sense on the surface.
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We do not want to project our own petty reactive anger onto
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the Creator. I mean, human hatred is often
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irrational and destructive. Precisely, however, O encounters
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this by stripping away the human emotional baggage of the Word,
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Owen asks a brilliant rhetorical question.
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What is God's hatred against sin but his corrective justice?
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He defines God's hatred of sin as nothing less than the
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constant will of punishing sin. He argues that vindicatory
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justice is the absolute same thing as the hatred of sin.
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You cannot separate the 2. And because if you admit God has
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corrective justice, essentially you must admit he has a constant
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will to punish sin naturally. And here is where the argument
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gets incredibly intense. Owen does not just point out a
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logical flaw. He follows Twist's argument down
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to its terrifying conclusion. If punishing sin is not natural
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to God, then it is a free and indifferent choice.
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He can take it or leave it. Yeah, and this brings in the
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SCOTUS implication. Duns SCOTUS was a medieval
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philosopher and theologian, and Twist approved of SCOTUS's line
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of reasoning in this area. OK, Owen highlights the shocking
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theological conclusion. If God's hatred of sin is just a
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free choice, then God could theoretically will the absolute
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opposite. He could choose to love and
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approve of sin. Man, let that sink in for a
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second. The logic is that if God is not
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bound by his nature to hate sin, if it is just a completely free
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choice on a whim, then there is a universe where God looks at
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rebellion, cruelty and wickedness and says, well I
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approve of this. That contradicts everything we
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know about the character of God. The scriptures say he is of
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purer eyes than to behold iniquity.
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A God who could theoretically love sin is a horrifying
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concept. It destabilizes the entire moral
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universe. You cannot trust a judge who
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might wake up 1 morning and decide that perjury is highly
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commendable. It removes any objective moral
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anchor. If God's reaction to sin is
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arbitrary, then morality itself is arbitrary.
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This is why Owen fights with such intense rigor, for justice
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being a natural necessity. For Owen, God's justice is not a
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hat he puts on when he feels like it.
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It is the very fabric of who he is.
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He cannot deny himself. So Owen locks down the idea that
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justice is a natural necessity. But making God's actions
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necessary opens Libertus up to a fierce attack from Twist.
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Oh, he does. Twist goes on the offensive with
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a massive accusation. He launches a very heavy attack.
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Twist calls Libertus's proposition A spreading gangrene
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and charges him with atheism. Atheism.
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I mean, that is the nuclear option in a theological debate.
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Calling a Protestant theologian an atheist is not a light
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accusation. It was the ultimate insult.
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Twist argues that if God must punish sin if he is bound by
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natural necessity to do so, then it makes God a necessary agent
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rather than a free agent. OK, unpack that.
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In Twist's mind, a necessary agent is a blind mechanical
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force, much like gravity. Gravity does not choose to pull
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objects, it just does it automatically without thought or
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will. Twist believes that suggesting
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God acts by necessity strips him of divine free will, reducing
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the Creator to a mindless mechanism.
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Hence the charge of atheist because a mindless mechanism is
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not the Christian God. But looking at Tris's own
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theology, doesn't he have a glaring inconsistency regarding
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this? He really does, because if we
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look at Twis's view of God's decrees, doesn't he believe that
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once God makes a decree like deciding to create the world, he
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must act in conformity with it? John Owen exposes that hypocrisy
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rapidly. Owen points out that theologians
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generally agree, without any risk of atheism, that God is a
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necessary agent in respect to his operations within himself.
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But more pointedly, Owen shows that no one makes God more of a
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necessary agent than Twist himself does.
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Right. Twist maintains that upon the
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supposition of a decree, it is necessary that God should do all
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things in conformity to it. Right.
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So if God freely decrees to create the universe, once that
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decree is established, God necessarily follows through.
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He cannot contradict his own plan or suddenly back out
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because he is immutable. Yes.
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So. Owen asks, is God to be called a
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necessary agent in the creation of the world?
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By no means the decree flowed from his free will, but once
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supposed it was necessary to the divine nature, which is
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immutable, that the world be created.
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It makes total sense. Owen then takes this exact same
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framework and applies it to the punishment of sin.
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He outlines a specific 2 step process of necessity.
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Let's break down that two step sequence because this is the key
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to resolving the tension between God's free will and God's
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absolute justice. Step one is complete freedom.
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God freely chose to create rational creatures.
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He was under no compulsion to make humanity or angels.
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Furthermore, He created bound to render him obedience liable to
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His right and dominion. And crucially, He freely willed
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to permit these creatures to transgress the law of their
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creation. All these foundational actions
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flowed entirely from his sovereign free will.
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So. He sets the stage completely
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freely and nothing forced him to build the theater or cast the
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actors. He wasn't lonely or lacking
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anything. But then we hit Step 2.
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Step 2 is natural necessity. Once those free conditions are
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set and the rational creature sins against the Creator, it
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necessarily belongs to the divine nature, as it is just to
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punish those who so transgress. The necessity only kicks in
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after the condition is met. Think of a judge in our legal
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system. A lawyer goes to law school,
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builds a career and freely chooses to accept an appointment
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to the bench. No one forces them to become a
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judge. It is an exercise of their free
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will. But once they are seated as a
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judge and they are wearing the robe and a severe crime is
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committed in their jurisdiction, they are bound by the very
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nature of their office to issue a sentence.
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If someone is proven guilty of a severe crime, the judge cannot
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simply shrug and say, well, I freely choose to let this go.
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No, they can't. If they do, they are a corrupt
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judge. They do not lose their free will
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as a human being. Rather, they are acting
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according to the necessary nature of their chosen office.
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The judge is bound by the requirements of justice
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precisely because of the offline they hold in a similar but
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infinitely greater way. God, having freely established
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the moral universe, is bound by his own righteous nature to
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punish the violation of it. But Owen introduces another
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crucial layer here to protect God's freedom.
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What's that? The concepts of concomitant
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liberty. Concomitant liberty?
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That sounds like a phrase you need a seminary degree to use in
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casual conversation. What does it actually mean in
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practice? It means that while God must
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punish sin by a necessity of His nature, He retains total freedom
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and liberty regarding how and when He executes that
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punishment. The necessity dictates that sin
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will receive its wage. But the concomitant liberty
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means God is not a blind machine reacting instantly.
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He can delay the punishment. He can determine the specific
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manner of the punishment. He is a free agent carrying out
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a necessary consequence. So the gangrene charge from
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Twist completely falls apart. Libertus and Owen are protecting
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the immutability of God's justice without taking away his
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free will at all. But Twist tries another angle.
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He sets a logical trap, comparing justice to mercy,
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trying to force Owen into a corner.
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Twist thinks he's found a fatal flaw in Nolan's argument.
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Twis asks. Well, if God is bound by his
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nature to manifest his justice, isn't He equally bound to
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manifest his mercy, His munificence, and his liberality?
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Oh, I see. Twis is arguing if you claim God
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must show justice, then to be consistent you must claim God
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must show mercy to everyone. I see the trap because if God is
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forced by his nature to show mercy to everyone then you end
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up with universalism, meaning everyone gets saved regardless
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of their sin. And if he is forced to be
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merciful then mercy isn't really mercy anymore, it is an
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obligation. A forced gift is an oxymoron.
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Twist is utilizing what Owen bluntly calls sophistical
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reasoning. Twist is trying to weigh down
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Owen's opinion with prejudice by making it seem absurd, but Owen
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dismisses this argument completely.
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He clarifies that God is not absolutely bound to manifest any
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property of his nature. He did not have to create the
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universe to show his capability. He did not have to create beings
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to show His goodness. He is totally self-sufficient
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within himself, yes. The critical distinction Owen
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makes, and this was agreed upon by the civil lawyers of the
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time, is the massive difference between the nature of justice
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and the nature of liberality. The definition of justice is the
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eternal will of God to give to everyone his own.
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It is giving what I strictly do. Think about it in financial
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terms. If I borrow $20 from you, paying
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you back that $20 is an act of justice.
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I owe it to you. You have a legal and moral right
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to demand it, Absolutely. But if I am walking down the
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street and I decide to hand a crisp $20 bill to a random
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stranger, that is bounty. That is liberality. 1 is
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required by right. The other is a free, unsolicited
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gift. You cannot conflate the two
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categories. The objects themselves are
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totally different. Giving someone what is theirs by
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right is vastly different from giving someone something beyond
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their right, Owen states. That anyone would acknowledge it
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depends on the mere good pleasure of the Deity whether He
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wills to be bounteous towards any right.
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But He says, who but an impious Wretch would dispute whether He
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may will to be just towards any. And this ties back to the
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concept of God's dominion. Why is justice required but
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mercy optional? Why does God have to balance the
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Ledger of justice but not the Ledger of bounty?
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Because God owes it to himself. He owes it to himself to
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preserve his own natural right and dominion over rational
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creatures. When a creature sins, it rebels
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against God's dominion. It is an attempt to usurp His
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throne. Enforcing justice, giving that
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sin it's due wage, is required to uphold God's own right as the
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supreme Ruler. Showing mercy is a completely
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free choice, but rendering justice is an absolute
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requirement to maintain the integrity of the moral universe
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He created. You cannot compare the necessity
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of paying a debt to the freedom of giving a gift.
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They are entirely different categories of action.
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So having dismantled the philosophical arguments,
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Libertus points to the biblical text.
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He brings up Romans chapter one verse 32 to prove his point.
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He does. Libertus quotes the Apostle Paul
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in Romans chapter one, verse 32. The text says that those who
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commit such things, knowing the righteous judgement of God, are
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worthy of death. For Libertas, the phrase worthy
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of death combined with righteous judgement proves that punishment
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is naturally required by God's. Justice is not an arbitrary
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decision, it's a righteous judgement based on worthiness of
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penalty. Twist is backed into a corner
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here by a direct scripture quote.
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How does he try to dodge it? Twist uses a 2 prong rebuttal,
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and it is a rather frantic attempt to evade the clear
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meaning. First, Twist says the elect are
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worthy of death because of their sin, but they aren't punished at
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all, much less necessarily. Second Twist argues that if
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sinners must be punished forever, God loses the ability
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to annihilate a creature, meaning he loses the capability
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to wipe them completely out of existence.
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I have to say, it seems like Twist is just throwing 2
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incredibly strange arguments at the wall to see what sticks
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instead of answering the core point about God's righteous
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judgement. The annihilation point feels
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like a massive distraction. Owen shares your sentiment.
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He calls Twist's first argument captious and not at all solid,
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and the second argument too nice and curious.
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Let's look at the annihilation argument first.
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Yeah, let's Twist is arguing that an eternal punishment
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requires an eternally existing creature, which limits God's
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might to simply delete a creature from.
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Existence. But God created everything out
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of nothing. Can he return a creature back to
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nothing? Owen readily admits that God is
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absolutely capable of reducing any creature back to nothing.
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He has the raw ability to do so physically, so to speak.
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However, Owen introduces the caveat of justice again.
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Once a creature becomes guilty of sin, and that sin, according
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to the right and justice of God, deserves eternal death, God
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cannot reduce it to nothing. Because to annihilate the
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creature would be to let the sin go unpunished.
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It would be sweeping the dirt under the cosmic rug.
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It would be an evasion of justice.
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Precisely because God cannot deny himself, He cannot simply
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erase the creature to avoid administering the justice His
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own nature demands. Annihilation would be an escape
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hatch from justice, and God's nature does not allow for
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unresolved guilt. The moral debt remains even if
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you destroy the debtor without extracting payment.
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That makes total sense. Yeah.
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Now pivoting back to Twist, his first point.
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Because this is where the entire theological framework reaches
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its highest peak. Oh, yes.
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Twist argued that the elect, those who are saved, deserve
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death but are not punished, claiming God doesn't have to
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punish sin. This forces Owen to explain the
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true mechanism of pardon. This is indeed the most vital
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theological mechanism in the text.
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Twist operates on the assumption that when God saves someone, he
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simply drops the charges. He assumes God looks at the
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elect, waves a divine hand and says, well, I forgive you, let's
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forget the whole thing A. Pardon without a penalty, Just
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wiping the slate clean and moving on.
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Yes, but Owen violently corrects this assumption.
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Owen argues that the elector punished God does not simply
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wave a magic wand and pardon sin without satisfaction.
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That would violate everything we just established about His
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necessary justice. God's justice is an unyielding
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requirement. Wait, how can the elect be
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punished if they are saved and going to heaven?
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If they're in glory, they're clearly not experiencing the
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eternal wrath of God. This is where the concept of
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concomitant liberty shines in all its brilliance.
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God must punish sin, but He has the liberty to determine how.
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God utilizes this liberty to inflict the punishment due to
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one person onto another. He utilizes A surety based on
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his own supreme right and critically, based on the willing
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consent of that surety, the punishment is transferred.
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And that surety is Christ, the willing substitute who steps
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into the line of fire. Yes, but to explain how it is
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legally and morally valid to punish an innocent person for
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the crimes of the guilty, Owen brings in the concept of the one
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mystical body. He references First Corinthians
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chapter 12. He argues that Christ and the
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elect are not viewed as entirely separate, distinct individuals
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in the eyes of divine justice. Rather, they are one mystical
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Christ. Christ is the Head, and those
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represented by Him are the members.
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Imagine a massive corporation. This corporation has committed
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severe environmental violations. The regulatory agencies come in,
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investigate and levy a massive multi $1,000,000 fine against
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the corporate entity. Now the CEO of that corporation,
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out of their own vast personal wealth, steps forward and pays
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the entire fine out of their own pocket on behalf of the company.
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When that happens, the legal entity, the corporation, has
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officially paid the penalty. The law is completely satisfied.
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The Regulatory agency doesn't care that the money came from
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the CE OS personal bank account. They care that the corporate
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body met the demand of the law. When the head pays the price,
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the body is considered to have paid the price.
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Owen writes a sentence that is vital to understand this legal
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transfer. He says that although Christ was
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properly and personally innocent, he was imputatively
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and substitutively guilty. Imputatively guilty, meaning the
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guilt was legally reckoned or assigned to his account.
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He didn't commit the crimes, but the Ledger of debt was
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transferred to his name. God made him to be sin for us.
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He laid on him the iniquity of us all.
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So when Twist says the elector not punished, he is entirely
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wrong. When the head was punished, the
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members were punished. The justice of God was not set
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aside. It was violently and completely
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poured out onto the surety. This changes everything about
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how you view grace. Grace is not God ignoring the
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rules. Grace is God fulfilling the
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rules Himself at infinite cost. This brings us to the final
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piece of the puzzle. Libertus brings up two more
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scriptures to seal the argument. Libertus brings up Exodus 34
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verses 6 and seven, which famously declares that God will
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by no means clear the guilty. He also points to Psalm 5, which
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states God hates all workers of iniquity.
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Now Twist, stubbornly holding his ground, again claims that
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God does clear the guilty, namely the elect, without
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punishing them. It feels like Twist is just
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ignoring the entire concept of the surety that Owen just laid
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out. He is sticking to his original
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flawed premise. He is, and Owen dismantles this
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claim with finality. Owen clarifies that God clears
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absolutely no one unpunished. No one, because punitory justice
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is in no name of God, a revelation of His essential
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glory. Clearing someone without a
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punishment being exacted would mean God delivering His glory to
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another. He would be denying His own
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name. He would be acting against His
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own stated nature. I want to ask a vital question
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here because this can mess with your head if you don't get the
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wording right. If Christ paid the debt as the
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surety, are the elect still considered guilty before God
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today? If the law was broken, does the
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label of guilty remain even after the fine is paid?
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That is a brilliant clarification to make, and the
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answer is a resounding no. Owen concludes that for those
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whose justice was satisfied by Christ, the obligation to
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punishment, which is the very definition of the guilt of sin,
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is taken away entirely. The dead is zeroed out, the
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Ledger is clean. More than zeroed out because the
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punishment was fully borne by the head, it is now actually
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just with God to deliver them from wrath.
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It would be unjust to demand payment twice, right?
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Therefore, they are allowed to have true lasting peace with
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God, because justice is no longer hunting them.
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It has been perfectly satisfied by the surety.
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So it isn't just mercy that saves the elect, it is justice
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that demands their freedom once the surety has paid.
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That is a staggering thought. God's justice becomes the very
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thing that guarantees the believer's safety.
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It leads omen to form an unbreakable syllogism derived
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from these three scriptures. A syllogism is a logical
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argument that draws a necessary conclusion from 2 premises.
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OK, let's hear it. Cohen's syllogism is this First,
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if righteous judgment is natural to God.
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Second, if you will by no means clear the guilty.
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Third, if he hates sin and will destroy workers of iniquity,
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then the unavoidable conclusion is that punishing sin is
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entirely natural to God, and he can do nothing contrary to his
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natural attributes. Boom, the argument is locked.
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Twist objections are totally leveled by a combination of
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logical necessity and scriptural clarity.
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Let's pull all of these thirds together as we wrap up this deep
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dive into the source material. We have covered a massive amount
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of theological ground today. We certainly have.
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We began by asking if God's justice is an arbitrary choice
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or an essential trait. To synthesize the main
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takeaways, we saw the absolute necessity of divine justice.
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God's hatred of sin isn't an unpredictable human emotion.
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It is His constant, unchanging will to give sin its due
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punishment. We saw the stark difference
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between rendering justice and giving freely.
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Yeah, justice is paying a debt required by the nature of the
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universe. God spoke into existence, while
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bounty is a free gift. And we saw how Owen protected
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God's freedom without compromising his justice.
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God freely chose to create, freely chose to permit the
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conditions of the fall, but having done so, acts by natural
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necessity to punish transgression.
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And finally we saw the brilliant, awe inspiring
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mechanism of the mystical union, the head suffering for the
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members, the innocent becoming imputatively guilty so that the
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guilty could be declared perfectly clear.
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Justice was not ignored, it was satisfied.
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Which leaves us with a final thought to ponder.
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Consider what we covered regarding God owing it to
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Himself to uphold his justice. If God's justice is an
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immovable, unavoidable reality of his very nature, how does
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that reframe the way you view the sheer magnitude of the grace
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provided in the substitution of the surety It's.
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A huge question. Think about what it means that
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Divine Mercy didn't bypass the demands of justice, but actually
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absorb them completely. The X-ray machine might seem
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break in when you first look at the murky waters of theology,
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but once you see the mystical union, the bones of the the
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gospel are cleanly set, the precision is there, the justice
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is real, and the grace is bought with a price.
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Thank you for joining us on this deep dive into the source
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material. We will see you next time.