When sin is a consequence of sin
Posted at Reformation Scotland:
While the ultimate terror for sinners is the day of judgment itself, there are terrifying things which we can unleash on ourselves during our lives on this earth because of our sin. Sometimes these are the obvious consequences of sinful folly, like having to go short of essentials because we have blown the budget on trivialities. But sometimes indulging in a particular sin leads on to committing worse sin of the same kind, in a way which is its own punishment. For example, wilful ignorance of the truth can lead to someone eagerly embracing pernicious delusion, remaining impervious to any attempts to help them see sense. In an epistle to the Thessalonians Paul refers to this outcome as God’s punishment for that sin (2 Thess. 2:11; another example is in Rom. 1:23–24). We might recognise this as a kind of “poetic justice,” or proverbially, “what goes around comes around.” But the special terribleness of it comes from the fact that it is God’s righteous judgment meted out to individuals personally and for which they remain themselves entirely responsible. Thomas Manton discusses God’s part in the judgment in the following updated extract from his sermon on 2 Thessalonians 2:11. The only way to avoid this terrible, self-inflicted judgment is to heed the gospel call to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth (2 Thess. 2:13–14).By God’s just judgment, those who follow and promote a distortion of the gospel become infatuated in such a way that they swallow the grossest errors, to their own destruction. “For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (2 Thess. 2:11).
But here a difficulty arises, for God is not, and cannot be, the author of sin. He who is essentially good cannot be the cause of evil. He who is the avenger of sin cannot be the author of sin. If He were to cause someone to sin, how would His punishment of it be just?
The answer to this difficulty is that, as it is a sin, God has no hand in it; but as it is a punishment of sin, God does have something to do in it.
God judges us
He who is the supreme lord and governor of His creatures is also their judge, for legislation and judgment belong to the same authority. This is why God is sometimes called our king, and sometimes our judge (Gen. 18:25; Rom. 3:5–6).
