Latest / Reformed Thinking / Why God Must Punish Sin: The Necessity of Divine Justice | John Owen

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Why God Must Punish Sin: The Necessity of Divine Justice | John Owen · Reformed Thinking

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Usually when we think about a judge in a human courtroom,
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there is this expectation of discretion.
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We think of a sliding scale. Right, a bit of flexibility.
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Yeah, flexibility. Like, say you commit a minor
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traffic violation. Maybe you were speeding in a
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school zone because you were running late for a medical
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appointment. Happens to the best of us.
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It does and the judge looks at your record, sees you have never
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had a ticket before and notices you are having a rough week and
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well, he decides to wave it off with a warning.
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And we like that. Oh, we love that.
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Yeah, we build leniency into our justice system because, well,
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human justice is inherently imperfect.
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We want the person behind the bench to have the freedom to
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look at the context and grant mercy right on the spot.
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Yeah, we want to set up where the person in charge can just
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decide to let things slide. Right to pardon someone out of
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the goodness of their heart without demanding any further
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legal satisfaction. And that human desire for a
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flexible courtroom makes perfect sense when you were dealing with
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finite, flawed human beings judging other finite, flawed
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human beings. The judge has the freedom to be
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lenient. But when you step into the world
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of 17th century theology, specifically regarding the
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attributes of God, that sliding scale vanishes entirely.
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It just disappears it really. Does we find ourselves looking
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at a divine courtroom that operates on a completely
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different set of physics? Welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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Today we are taking a massive deep dive into a very specific,
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historically dense piece of source material.
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We are looking at John Owens classic theological treatise A
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Dissertation on divine justice. It is a phenomenal piece of
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work. It is, and the core mission of
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our discussion today is to analyze John Owens arguments
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regarding a concept called the necessary Egress of Vindicatory
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Justice. Which I know sounds like
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incredibly thick academic jargon.
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It really does, but we're going to break it down piece by piece.
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Right out of the gate, though, I want to pose the central
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question to you, the listener. The big question.
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Yeah. Does God punish sin because of
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an absolute necessity of his nature?
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Or is it is it just a free choice of his will?
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I mean, is his justice something he is, or is it something he
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just chooses to do? Framing this debate properly
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requires us to look at the historical and theological
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background, speaking directly to you, listening as Protestant
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Christians who adhere to the Westminster Confession,
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understanding the immutable attributes of God is central to
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the Christian faith. It really is the bedrock.
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Yeah, we confess a God who is without body parts or passions.
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A God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
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Our source material today places us right in the middle of a
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massive theological debate from the 1600s.
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A really heated debate, actually.
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Oh, absolutely. John Owen is responding
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specifically to Doctor William Twist and a few other prominent
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theologians of his day. And we should clarify, Dr. Twist
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was not some fringe radical right.
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Not at all. He was a highly respected
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figure. In fact, he was the prolocutor,
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essentially the chairman of the Westminster Assembly.
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Wow, so he was a major player. A towering intellect, he was
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defending God's absolute sovereignty.
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But Twist suggested something that Owen found completely
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unacceptable. What was it?
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Twist argued that God could, technically speaking, forgive
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sin without requiring any penalty at all.
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Wait, really? Yeah, he argued that punishing
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sin is a free choice of God's will, not an absolute demand of
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God's nature. So Twist is basically saying
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that God is so sovereign, so completely free, that if he
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wanted to he could just look at human rebellion and say I
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forgive you without requiring A sacrifice.
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Yep. Without the cross?
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Without any payment. And Jon Owen looks at that and
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says no, that violates the very nature of who God is.
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Spot on. So we are going to examine this
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text systematically. We will start by looking at the
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pure logic of God's hatred of sin.
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Then we will move into the biblical metaphors, specifically
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looking at the concept of God as a consuming fire.
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That fire metaphor is huge in this book.
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It is. And finally, we are going to
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look at the greatest test case of all time, which is the
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substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross.
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We will look at how Doctor Twist tries to use the cross to prove
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his point. And how John Owen turns that
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argument completely upside down. Right Owen provides A rigorous
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defense of the cross as a divine necessity.
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He is not just fighting about abstract, dusty concepts here,
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he is defending the absolute legal requirement of the
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atonement. Because if twist is right.
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If twist is right, the cross was optional.
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Man, that raises the stakes considerably.
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Before we jump into the first major argument, I want you to
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consider your own view of divine justice.
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Good idea. When you read your Bible, or,
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you know, when you think about your own daily missteps, do you
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view God's justice as a flexible rule He can bend if he's feeling
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particularly gracious, Or do you view it as an unyielding reality
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of his very being? Keep that in the back of your
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mind as we go. OK, let's unpack this logical
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dilemma of nature versus choice. To get our heads around what
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John Owen is saying here, I want you to think about the physical
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act of pulling your hand away from a burning hot stove.
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Ouch, right? Versus the mental act of
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deciding what you are going to eat for lunch today.
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Let us trace the mechanics of that analogy.
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If you accidentally place your hand on a hot stove, your brain
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does not engage in a deliberative process.
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No, you do not. Stand there and weigh the pros
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and cons. I mean precisely, you don't
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activate your prefrontal cortex, think about second degree burns,
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and then freely choose to move your hand.
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It is an instant reaction. Your autonomic nervous system
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takes over instantly. It is a reflex.
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It is a biological necessity. Your hand recoils before you
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even consciously register the pain.
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OK. I am tracking with you.
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That is an example of acting by nature.
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Now contrast that with your lunch break.
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You open the refrigerator, you see a container of leftover
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pizza, and you see the ingredients to make a salad.
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I am probably picking the pizza. Well, sure, but in this scenario
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you possess what theologians call an indifference of will.
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Meaning I'm completely free to pick either one.
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Right. Nothing in your biological
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makeup forces you to choose the pizza over the salad, or vice
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versa. You make a free, conscious
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choice, you deliberate and you act.
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So bringing this back to our source material, John Owen is
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asking a fundamental question about the divine character.
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Where does God's hatred of sin fall?
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Is it the stove or the lunch? Precisely.
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Is it a necessary reflex of his holy nature, comparable to
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recoiling from a hot stove? Or is it a free choice
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comparable to picking what to eat for lunch?
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And Owen's analysis of this dilemma is, frankly, absolutely
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devastating to the people arguing on the other side.
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He really is. He brings up a historical
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reference that we can call the Durandis argument.
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Owen lays out the pure logic very clearly.
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He says if God hates sin, he must hate it, either by nature
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or by choice. Those are the only two logical
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options available. Right now, let us assume for a
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moment, along with Doctor Twist and others, that God hates sin
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purely by choice, OK? Playing devil's advocate.
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Owen says that if God hates sin by choice, it means he possesses
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an indifference of will toward it.
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He would be standing in front of the moral refrigerator, so to
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speak. Yeah, he could go either way.
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If hatred of sin is just a choice of the divine well, and
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not an absolute requirement of the divine nature, then the
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divine will is not in inherently essentially inclined against
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sin. And the staggering logical
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conclusion here, which Owen points out with incredible
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precision, is that if hating sin is a free choice, then God could
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theoretically choose the exact opposite.
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He could choose to love sin. Which is a terrifying thought.
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It is, Owen notes, that theologians like Durandis, who
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was a 14th century thinker who pushed a very extreme version of
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divine free will and even twist to some degree, actually
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conceded this logical possibility.
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They just accepted that. Yeah, they argue that God's will
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is so supreme that he defines what is good purely by willing
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it. Therefore, if you willed to love
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sin, it would be fine. Wow.
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Well, Owen finds this entirely absurd.
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He quotes the poet Horus in the text, saying the sons of
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circumcision may receive the wondrous tale which I shall nare
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believe. That is 17th century trash talk
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right there. It totally is.
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He is basically saying you might be gullible enough to buy that,
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but I absolutely do not. The idea that God could ever, in
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any universe, under any circumstances, choose to love
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sin, considered as sin, breaks the very definition of who God
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is. It makes morality completely
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arbitrary. Right.
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If God could choose to love murder or choose to love
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deception, then God is no longer a standard of infinite purity.
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He's just an omnipotent being making arbitrary rules.
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That arbitrary nature is precisely what Owen is fighting
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against. The term vindicatory justice
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means a justice that defends the honor and holiness of the law
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giver. And if the law giver can just
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change his mind and love the breaking of his own law, there
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is no honor to vindicate. I am tracking with that
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completely, but I want to play devil's advocate for a moment
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here. Go for it, because I can hear
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someone listening right now, raising a very common, very
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intuitive objection. What is that?
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Well, if we say that God acts by nature, if we compare his
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justice to a physical reflex, like pulling a hand off a stove,
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doesn't that make God sound like an unthinking machine?
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I see where you're going. We know God is a personal being.
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He is not a biological algorithm.
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What about verses in the Bible like Psalm 115.3 which says our
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God is in the heavens? He hath done whatsoever he hath
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pleased. That is a great verse to bring
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up. Right, That sounds like free
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will. That sounds like a king making
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choices, not a biological reflex.
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Does Owen address the idea that acting by nature might actually
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limit God's sovereignty? This is where Owen's theological
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brilliance really shines. He completely flips that
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objection on its head. How so?
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What's fascinating here is that Owen argues that God, acting
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according to his nature, is the absolute peak of perfection, not
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a limitation at all. OK, explain that.
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It is true that God's will is entirely free.
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However, a perfect being's will always perfectly aligns with His
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holy nature. God cannot deny Himself.
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So he can't act out of character.
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Precisely. For God to have an indifference
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of will toward evil would actually be a massive flaw, not
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a sign of supreme freedom. Because true freedom isn't the
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ability to do evil. That is a crucial point.
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We often confuse human libertarian free will, which is
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the ability to choose between good and evil, with divine
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freedom. Right.
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For a flawed human, having options might feel like freedom.
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But for an infinitely perfect being, the ability to choose
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evil would be a defect. Owen quotes Habakkuk 1.32 from
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the source material, which says God has purer eyes than to
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behold evil and cannot look on iniquity.
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That phrasing is so vivid. Purer eyes than to behold evil
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it implies like a visual intolerance it.
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Means God cannot but hate it. The purity of his eyes, which
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Owen identifies as his intrinsic holiness, demands this reaction.
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He just can't stomach it. Right.
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No Orthodox Christian ventures to deny God's holiness because
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his nature is infinitely pure. The moment sin is introduced
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into the equation, his nature violently rejects it.
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It is an allergic reaction to evil.
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That is a good way to put it. It's not that he lacks freedom,
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it is that his freedom is always exercised in perfect harmony
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with his infinite purity. OK, that makes sense.
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So to say God necessarily punishes sin does not mean He is
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an insensible machine. It means that on account of the
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rectitude and perfection of His nature, he cannot possess an
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indifference of will toward moral evil.
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He hates it because of who he is.
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OK, but if God's reaction is an automatic reflex of his holy
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nature, we have to ask a really difficult question about how God
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experiences emotion. The whole idea of divine
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passions. Right.
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How does a perfectly happy, unchangeable God actually
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experience a turbulent emotion like hatred?
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This requires us to look at the language of Scripture, which
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frequently uses very strong emotional words applied to God.
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Let's think about the human experience of hatred for a
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second. When we feel hatred, it is
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awful. It is exhausting.
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It really is. It is restless, it is turbulent,
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it is tormenting. If you ever felt intense hatred
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or anger towards someone or something, your body physically
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reacts. Your heart rate goes up, your
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blood pressure spikes. Yeah, you lose sleep.
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Hatred causes bitter sensations. It takes its rise from a
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disagreement with an object, making that object feel
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repugnant to us, which rouses these vehement internal
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commotions. We are totally destabilized by
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it. We are.
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But here is the problem. God is infinitely happy.
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He is completely unchangeable, yes.
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So how could an infinitely happy and unchangeable God be
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described in scripture as feeling hatred?
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The source points to Leviticus 26.30 where God says my soul
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shall abhor you, or Jeremiah 44.4 where sin is called that
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abominable thing. Those are very strong words.
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Extremely strong. How do we reconcile a God who
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has no turbulent passions with a God who abhors?
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The source material provides an extensive analysis here
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regarding the concept of divine accommodation.
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Divine accommodation. Let's unpack that.
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When the Westminster Confession states that God is without
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passions, it means he is far removed from variableness or the
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shadow of change. He does not have bad days.
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He does not wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
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Right. He does not fly off the handle.
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His emotional state is not dictated by external events the
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way ours is. He is impassable, meaning he
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cannot be made to suffer emotional distress by an outside
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force. So nothing we do can emotionally
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damage God? Spot on.
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Therefore, when Scripture frequently attributes the
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emotion of hatred to God, it is using human language to point to
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a constant, immutable reality. It is accommodating our finite
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understanding. It is dumbing it down for us in
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a way. The theologian John Calvin used
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to say that God lists to us baby talking to us the way a nurse
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speaks to a toddler so we can grasp his character.
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Oh, I like that analogy. When the Bible says God hates,
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it points to his supreme unchangeable purpose of
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punishing sin. I want to use another analogy
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here to make this really concrete.
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Let's think about the law of gravity.
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OK, gravity. Gravity does not have angry
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feelings toward a falling object.
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No, it doesn't, right? If you drop a glass on the
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floor, gravity is not enraged at the glass, It is not having a
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turbulent emotional reaction, is not offended.
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It is simply a constant, unyielding rule of the physical
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universe. It acts the same way every
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single time, pulling mass toward mass.
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Exactly. I mean perfectly stated.
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In a similar way, God's hatred of sin is his constant,
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unyielding opposition to moral evil.
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When the Bible says God hates sin, it is translating that
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perfect, unyielding moral gravity into terms our human
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minds can comprehend. It is an objective reality, not
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a subjective mood swing, right? It is just the reality of who he
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is. And we must pull out a crucial
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detail from Owen's text here, something that clarifies the
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entire character of God. The source material states
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explicitly sin is the only thing God hates.
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That is a massive statement. Let's pause right there.
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Sin is the only thing God hates, yes.
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Any other object or person is only liable to God's hatred
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because of sin. Wow, it completely changes the
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paradigm of how many people view God in the Old Testament.
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It really does. If you look at the bigger
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picture, it proves that God's wrath is never arbitrary malice.
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It is never God just being in a bad mood and lashing out at his
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creation because he is easily annoyed.
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He isn't a cosmic hermudgeon. No, not at all.
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His hatred is always a precise, necessary reaction to moral
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impurity. He created humanity to be
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perfectly happy in communion with him, but because his nature
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is absolute holiness, the presence of sin necessitates a
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reaction. Like an immune response?
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Yes. Just as your physical body
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necessarily reacts to a pathogen by raising a fever to destroy
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it, God's holy nature necessarily reacts to sin.
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His hatred is the settled, immutable disposition of His
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infinite goodness against that which would destroy His
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creation. That gravity analogy holds up
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well. God's moral gravity is constant.
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But Doctor Twist, the theologian Owen is debating, tries to find
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a loophole here. He does try to wiggle out of it.
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Twist is desperate to protect the idea that God has the free
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choice to forgive without demanding a penalty.
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So Twist tries to split the difference.
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He looks at this and claims that God can experience a natural
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displeasure towards sin without being absolutely forced to
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punish it. He creates a wedge between
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displeasure and punishment. Let us break down Doctor Twist's
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specific counter argument as it appears in the text.
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Twist is trying very hard to protect the absolute freedom of
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God's will, so he suggests that God's hatred of sin can simply
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be defined as displeasure. Just a mild distaste.
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Well, Twist admits that it is logically necessary that every
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sin displeases God. He grassed that God cannot look
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at sin and be pleased by it. OK, so he concedes that much.
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However, Twist denies that it is necessary that God punishes
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every sin. He argues that God could be
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deeply displeased by his sin, but then freely choose to pardon
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the Sinner without exacting any legal punishment whatsoever.
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So Twist wants a God who can just say, I really don't like
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what you did. It offends my nature, but I am
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going to let you off the hook anyway.
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Which on the surface sounds nice.
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It does. We want a God who can just
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forgive. But Owen points out a massive
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logical contradiction here. If sin naturally displeases God,
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which Twist admits, then that displeasure is eternal and
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immutable. It belongs to God's unchangeable
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nature. Because God doesn't change his
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mind. Right, so imagine a scenario
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where God simply pardons a sin without any punishment, without
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any atonement, He just waves it off.
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OK, what happens then? Under Twist's logic, God would
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be eternally cherishing a Sinner in heaven, bringing them into
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eternal communion while forever harboring an unaddressed,
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immutable displeasure toward the sin that was never punished.
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Oh, that is a profound insight. The text notes that what has
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been sin can never be anything but sin.
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It is a historical fact. The event happened.
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You can't unring the bell. Exactly.
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So if that historical fact of sin is never dealt with, never
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legally punished, God's natural displeasure toward it remains
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forever. It never goes away.
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Think about the psychological dissonance of that, even on a
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human level. Yeah, imagine having a close
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friend who betrayed you terribly.
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Like they stole from you. Yeah, maybe they stole money
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from your business or spread lies about your family.
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You decide to just forgive them without ever addressing the
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betrayal. Just brush it off.
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Right. There is no restitution, no real
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reconciliation, no clearing of the air.
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You just sweep it under the rug. You stay friends, you sit at the
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dinner table together. But there is this underlying
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permanent displeasure regarding what they did that you just
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suppress. That is a fractured
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relationship. It is incredibly tense.
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It is not true peace. Owen is saying that if God
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operates this way, we contradict the entire biblical picture of
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total reconciliation. The Bible promises that we will
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dwell with God in perfect peace. Not walking on egg shells for
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eternity. Precisely how can sinners dwell
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with devouring fire, as the book of Isaiah asks, if that fire of
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displeasure is still quietly burning because the sin was
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never actually punished? The atmosphere of heaven will be
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filled with suppressed divine resentment.
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It would be awful. To defend his position and
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escape that logical trap, Twist offers a very clever retort,
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drawing a comparison between human obedience and human sin.
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Let's hear it. Twist argues like this obedience
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must necessarily please God, but God is not bound by his justice
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necessarily to reward it that. Is.
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Tricky. His logic is that since God can
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be pleased by our obedience without being forced to reward
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us, he can also be displeased by our sin without being forced to
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punish us. He tries to make them perfectly
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parallel categories. This is a brilliant counter
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argument by Twis. I mean, he is saying, look, if
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God's reactions are symmetrical and he doesn't owe us a reward
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for being good, then he doesn't owe us a punishment for being
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bad. It sounds ironclad at first
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glance. Here is where it gets really
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interesting. Owen completely dismantles this
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false equivalence. He shows that trying to equate
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the way God handles human obedience with the way he
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handles human sin is a total misunderstanding of who God is
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and who we are. We need to talk about the
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asymmetry of merit here. Yes, drawing from the text, Owen
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points to Luke 17.10 where Jesus says when ye shall have done all
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those things with or commanded. You say we are unprofitable
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servants. We have done that which was our
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duty to do. That is a humbling verse.
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We also see this in Romans 11.35 who have first given to him, and
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it shall be recompensed unto him again.
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The creature created distinction is absolutely vital to
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understanding Owen's response. We have to define what merit
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actually means in a theological context.
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Let's lay out the reality of our situation.
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Man's obedience is already owed to God by natural right.
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We are created beings. We owe our Creator perfect
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obedience just by virtue of existing.
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We are unprofitable servants. God owes us absolutely nothing
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for doing what we were already supposed to do.
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You don't get a medal for stopping at a red light.
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Right, you are just doing what the law requires.
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You are not putting the city government in your debt by
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driving the speed limit. This is where we need to
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synthesize the math of grace versus justice, as Owen lays it
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out. Owen uses some very stark
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language. Here he really does.
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He describes a human being as an insignificant reptile, almost
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less than nothing. Ouch.
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Tell us how you really feel, John.
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I know that sounds incredibly harsh to modern ears, yeah, but
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he is drawing a philosophical contrast between the finite
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dependent creature and the infinite self-sufficient
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creator. It is about proportion, yes.
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There is 0 proportion, absolutely no mathematical
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equivalent, between a human's tiny finite obedience and the
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eternal fruition of God's glory. So we can't earn it.
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If God rewards our obedience with eternal life, that reward
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is a pure gift of grace. He is not paying off a debt.
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The Creator cannot be put into the creature's debt.
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My goodness extendeth not unto thee.
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As Psalm 16 says, we cannot add anything to God.
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We cannot enrich Him. Spot on.
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However, while there is no absolute requirement for God to
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reward obedience, the relation of sin to punishment is absolute
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and entirely different. Why is that?
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Romans 6.23 states plainly the wages of sin is death.
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While eternal life is a free gift, death is a wage.
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It is earned. It is a legal payout.
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It is the necessary legal consequence of rebellion against
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an infinite sovereign. God is not in our debt for our
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obedience, but His own internal justice demands a reaction to
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our rebellion. The moral dependence of a
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rational creature on its Creator cannot be preserved if sin goes
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completely unpunished. So Twist's attempt to say, well,
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God doesn't have to reward obedience, so he doesn't have to
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punish sin completely falls flat. 1 is a matter of God's
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free grace and condescension. The other is a matter of His
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immutable justice and moral gravity.
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The categories are totally asymmetrical.
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But Doctor Twist does not give up easily.
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He brings out his heaviest theological artillery next.
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This is the big one. He points to the punishment of
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Jesus Christ on the cross to prove his point.
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This is where the debate reaches its absolute highest stakes.
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If Twist wins this point, his entire system stands.
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I want to lay out Twist's most challenging argument for you,
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the listener, and I want you to feel the weight of this because
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it sounds incredibly convincing at first glance.
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It really does. Twist is trying to prove that
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God can hate sin without punishing it and punish sin
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without hating it. To prove this, he points to the
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crucifixion. The central event of history.
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Right Twist states that God can punish where he does not hate
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because he punished his most holy Son.
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And God forbid we ever say the Father hated the Son.
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That would be. Absolute heresy.
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The Father obviously loved the Son with an eternal infinite
24:03
love. Therefore, Twist concludes, if
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God can inflict the most severe punishment on someone he loves
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and does not hate, then the link between hatred and punishment is
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broken. This.
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Is very clever deduction. And if he can punish without
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hating, it logically follows that he can hate without
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punishing. It is a highly sophisticated
24:20
argument. Twist is using the central event
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of the Christian faith to dismantle Owen's premise.
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So how does Omen respond? If we connect this to the bigger
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picture, we see Owen's brilliant defense of Reformed Christology
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and we see the flaw in Twis's logic.
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Owen looks at Twis's argument and essentially says you have
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completely misunderstood the legal mechanics of what happened
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on the cross. He challenges the premise.
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He readily agrees that God did not hate His Son personally.
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Christ, considered purely as the second person of the Trinity,
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was always the beloved of the Father.
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However, Christ on the Cross was acting as our substitute.
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He was standing in our place. He was acting as the surety of
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the covenant. God absolutely hated the sins
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that were laid to the charge of His Son.
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Wait, let's slow down here, because this is the pivot point
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of the whole debate and I want to make sure the terminology is
25:13
crystal clear. Sure, let's break it down.
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Twist is looking at the cross and saying, look, God punished
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Jesus, but he didn't hate Jesus. Therefore, punishment and hatred
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are not essentially linked. But Owen is saying no, you were
25:26
looking at the wrong object. God didn't hate Jesus, but God
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fiercely, naturally, and immutably hated the sins that
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Jesus was carrying. That is the precise distinction
25:37
we have to introduce the concept of federal headship here.
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Yes, define that for the listener, because when we hear
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federal, we usually think of the government in Washington, DC,
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and that is definitely not what 17th century theologians meant
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by it. What exactly is a federal head
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in a theological courtroom setting?
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The word federal comes from the Latin one word fetus.
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Fetus. OK.
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And what does that mean? It means covenant or treaty.
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A federal head is a legal representative.
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Think of ACEO signing a massive financial contract on behalf of
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a corporation. OK, I can picture that.
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The CEO might not have personally incurred the
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company's debt, but as the legal head of the company, when the
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company defaults, the bank comes after the CEO's corporate
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accounts. Because the CEO assumes the
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liability. Right.
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In Reformed theology, Adam was the first federal head of
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humanity. When he sinned, he represented
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all of us, and we fell with him. We all took the hit.
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Christ is the second federal head.
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He steps in as the legal guarantor, the proxy for his
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people. He assumes our liability.
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So when Christ is on the cross, he is acting in that capacity as
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a federal head. He is holding all the liability.
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Correct. The Apostle Paul writes in
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Second Corinthians that God made him to be sin for us who knew no
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sin. Made him to be sin.
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The wrath poured out on the cross was not directed at the
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Sun's personal, internal character.
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It was directed at the massive weight of human guilt that the
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Sun voluntarily shouldered as our legal representative.
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So Twist's argument actually backfires entirely.
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It does. It collapses completely.
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Think about the magnitude of this.
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If God loved His Son with the highest possible love and
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infinite eternal love within the Trinity, yet He still inflicted
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the most severe, crushing punishment upon Him the very
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moment our sins were legally imputed to Him, it proves Owen's
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thesis perfectly. It really is the ultimate proof.
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It shows that God's justice is so unyielding, his hatred of sin
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is so absolute, that even when that sin is found on the person
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he loves most, he cannot let it slide.
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He must punish it. He cannot look the other way.
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It proves God cannot look at sin and just wave it away, not even
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when His own beloved Son is bearing it.
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The moral gravity takes over. This theological conclusion
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anchors the entire doctrine of substitutionary atonement.
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The cross was not just a symbolic display to show us how
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much God loves us. It wasn't just a gesture.
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No, it was not a cosmic pieces street theater, nor was it an
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arbitrary mechanism God chose when He could have easily chosen
28:04
something else. It was a divine necessity driven
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by the unchangeable, vindicatory justice of the Father.
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Because the debt had to be paid. When God laid the sins of the
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world on Christ's sins, which God naturally and necessarily
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hates, He could not but punish Him.
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The vindicatory justice of God had to have its necessary
28:21
egress. The payment had to be made.
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If Twist's argument was right, if God could have just forgiven
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sin by a free choice of his will, then the cross was
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completely unnecessary. Jesus died for technicality.
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It would make the crucifixion A tragic, unnecessary overreaction
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by God. Exactly.
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I mean, spot on. But Owen proves that the cross
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is the ultimate terrifying proof that God's justice cannot be
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bypassed. The law must be satisfied.
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Yes, and this perfectly sets up Owen's second major argument
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from the source material, which relies heavily on biblical
28:53
imagery. The Bible doesn't just use
28:55
courtroom language, it uses elemental language.
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Let's look at the consuming fire metaphor.
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The Scriptures are remarkably consistent in the imagery they
29:03
use to describe God's posture towards sin.
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It is not a passive imagery. Yo, it is aggressive.
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Let's review the scriptural basis Owen uses.
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We see it in Hebrews 12.29, for our God is a consuming fire.
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We see it in Deuteronomy 4.24. Isaiah 33.14 talks about
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dwelling with everlasting burnings.
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It is everywhere in the text. The Bible repeatedly represents
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sin as that abominable thing which she hateth, which he will
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destroy, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame
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consumeth the chaff. We need to analyze the physical
29:34
nature of fire to understand why Owen leaned so heavily on this
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metaphor. Owen uses this natural
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observable phenomenon to illustrate a deep theological
29:45
necessity. How so?
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Just as physical fire naturally and unavoidably consumes
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combustible material when they come into contact.
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God's vindicatory justice naturally consume sin whenever
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it is presented before Him. Think about a roaring campfire.
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If you drop a piece of dry tissue paper into a campfire,
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the fire does not stop. Evaluate the paper, make a
30:06
cognitive choice about whether it is in the mood to burn
30:08
something today, and then freely decide to ignite the paper.
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No, it just burns it. It burns the paper by the
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absolute necessity of his physical nature.
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It cannot do otherwise. In the same way, when sin, which
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the Bible describes as spiritual stubble, comes into the presence
30:22
of God's holy justice, it is necessarily consumed.
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But Doctor Twist has one final rebuttal here, and he pushes
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back on the application of the fire metaphor.
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He just won't let it go. He really won't.
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Twist argues that yes, the Bible calls God a consuming fire, but
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we must remember that God is a rational and intelligent fire,
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not a blind, natural and insensible one like a campfire.
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OK, I see the distinction he is trying to make.
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Tris says that because God has infinite intelligence and
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freeware, he can choose whether or not to burn the stubble, and
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Twis claims to have historical proof for this.
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He says that this divine fire once burned something not
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consumable, namely the sinless Son of God.
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Oh wow. Twis's logic is that if God's
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fire could burn something that wasn't supposed to burn, then he
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can clearly choose not to burn something that is supposed to
31:10
burn. He is arguing that the fire is
31:13
completely subject to God's arbitrary choice.
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We have to dissect Twis's logic carefully here because it sounds
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highly plausible until you look closely at the definitions he is
31:22
using it. Is a sleight of hand.
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Owen readily agrees that God acts with intelligence and will.
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No one in the reforms camp is arguing that God is a blind,
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unthinking force of nature, but Owen refutes the idea that
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acting intelligently means acting against one's own nature.
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To use a human comparison, a perfectly rational and
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intelligent judge in a courtroom still has to act according to
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the law. His intelligence and his ability
31:47
to reason do not give him the right to ignore the statutes of
31:50
the land. God's intelligence means he
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applies his justice with perfect knowledge, perfect wisdom, and
31:57
perfect accuracy. Not that he abandons his justice
31:59
whenever he feels like it. The intelligence of the fire
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means it knows exactly what to burn, not that it stops being
32:05
fire. So what does this all mean for
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Twist's claim about the Son of God being not consumable?
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Let's look at that. Twist says Jesus was not
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consumable, meaning he had no personal sin.
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He wasn't spiritual stubble, yet God's fire burned him anyway.
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Owen looks at this and says Twist is using the wrong
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category again. He is separating things that
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shouldn't be separated. If we consider Christ only as
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the Son of God, without any relation to mankind, without the
32:30
covenant of grace we talked about earlier, then yes, He was
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not consumable by wrath. The Father has no wrath toward
32:37
the pure Son, none at all. But we are not talking about
32:40
Christ in a vacuum. We are talking about Christ as
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our federal head. We're talking about Christ as
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the mediator who stepped forward and legally bore the guilt of
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our sins. The moment he did that, the
32:53
moment that guilt was imputed to him, he became entirely
32:56
combustible. That is the crucial distinction
32:58
that Twist misses. Christ was fully susceptible to
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the fiery effects of divine justice precisely because he
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carried the highly flammable fuel of our sin.
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The text actually quotes the Old Testament saying by fire the
33:11
Lord did plead with him. God didn't arbitrarily burn
33:15
something that wasn't combustible.
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He burned the massive pile of human sin that had been legally
33:19
placed on the shoulders of the mediator.
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So Twist's conclusion falls completely to the ground because
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his premise is built on a false supposition.
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Yes, he separates Christ from the very sin he was actively
33:29
bearing on the cross. He abstracts Jesus from his role
33:33
as the sin bearer. And by systematically addressing
33:35
all of these counter arguments, Owen successfully defends the
33:39
absolute necessity of God's justice.
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The fire metaphor holds perfectly.
33:44
God's holiness must consume sin. The logic is impenetrable once
33:48
you understand the nature of God's purity and the mechanics
33:50
of substitution. It really is an airtight case.
33:53
We have covered a massive amount of theological ground today,
33:56
moving from biological reflexes to medieval scholasticism to the
34:01
legal mechanics of the cross. Let's synthesize this entire
34:04
discussion. Good idea.
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What John Owen proves against William Twist and the proponents
34:09
of absolute arbitrary free will is that God's justice is a
34:13
natural, unyielding attribute of his character.
34:16
It is not a hat he puts on and takes off depending on his mood.
34:19
It is who he. Is it's his essence.
34:21
His hatred of sin guarantees its punishment.
34:24
We saw that if God's hatred of sin were just a choice, he could
34:27
theoretically choose to love sin, which destroys the
34:30
definition of moral perfection. We also saw that God's hatred
34:33
isn't a turbulent human emotion, but a constant, immutable
34:37
opposition to evil, like moral gravity.
34:39
Right. And we saw that Twist's attempt
34:41
to separate displeasure from punishment results in a bizarre
34:44
universe where God eternally cherishes sinners in heaven
34:47
while harboring unaddressed, simmering anger toward their
34:51
unpunished sin. And most significantly, we saw
34:54
that the cross of Christ is not evidence that God can bend the
34:57
rules, but rather the ultimate bloody proof that the rules
35:02
cannot be bent. The cross was legally required.
35:05
Could not simply wave a hand and dismiss human guilt without
35:08
violating his own infinite purity.
35:10
If the wages of sin is death, someone has to pay the wage.
35:14
The fire has to consume the stubble.
35:16
There is no sliding scale. There is no leniency at the
35:19
expense of justice. This raises an important
35:21
question for application, and it is really the final synthesis of
35:25
our time together. Let's hear it.
35:26
Why does this dense 17th century theological debate matter for a
35:30
Christian today? Why should we care about the
35:33
arguments between Owen and Twis? That is the $1,000,000 question.
35:37
Understanding this strict, absolute, unyielding justice is
35:40
actually what makes the gospel of grace make any sense at all.
35:43
If justice is just a flexible rule God can ignore, then grace
35:47
isn't really that amazing. It is just God deciding to be
35:50
nice today. I mean precisely.
35:53
But when you realize the absolute necessity of
35:55
punishment, when you realize that God's own perfect nature
35:59
demands that every single sin be met with infinite wrath, the
36:03
cross becomes breathtakingly beautiful.
36:05
The magnitude of the penalty highlights the absolute
36:07
magnitude of the love shown by the mediator.
36:10
Christ did not save us from a minor inconvenience.
36:13
He saved us from the necessary egress of divine vindicatory
36:17
justice. That puts everything into
36:19
perspective. It takes grace from being a
36:21
casual favor and turns it into a monumental, legally binding
36:25
rescue mission. The cost was astronomical
36:28
because the justice was unyielding.
36:30
It really changes how you read the Bible.
36:32
So as we wrap up this look into John Owens, A dissertation on
36:35
divine justice, I want to turn directly to you, the listener,
36:39
and leave you with the final thought to ponder as you go
36:41
about the rest of your day. Someone to chew on?
36:43
We started by talking about human judges and sliding scales.
36:46
We like leniency. We tend to grate our own sins on
36:49
a curve. We excuse ourselves based on our
36:51
context. We justify a lot of things.
36:53
But if God's justice reacts to every single sin the way a
36:57
roaring fire necessarily reacts to dry stubble, how does this
37:01
reshape your view of the minor infractions you commit every
37:04
day? That is a sobering thought.
37:06
We brush off our little selfish thoughts, our white lies, our
37:09
moments of pride as no big deal. But to an infinitely stir God,
37:13
those are combustible material. They cannot exist in His
37:16
presence. If no sin, no matter how small
37:19
we think it is, can ever slip past the unyielding demands of
37:22
His nature, does this terrifying reality completely change the
37:26
way you read every single promise of grace in your Bible?
37:29
It should change how we read every single word.
37:31
The terror of the law is what gives weight to the promise of
37:33
the gospel. Next time you read that you are
37:35
forgiven, remember what it costs to secure that forgiveness.
37:39
Remember the unyielding reality of the divine courtroom and the
37:42
mediator who stepped in to take the fire on your behalf.
37:46
Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
37:48
Keep thinking critically about the things that matter most.