A longing for justice is ingrained in the heart of every human being. We feel angry and aggrieved if someone gets away with wrongdoing and is not punished. We are also indignant if we feel someone has not been punished sufficiently when compared to others who have committed the same crime. This sense of injustice is further increased when the malefactor is rich and powerful or has important political connections. Perhaps this accounts for the disproportionate fascination and interest in the current court case involving the murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu in Malaysia or the recent convictions of celebrities Paris Hilton and Christopher Lee for drink driving.
However, if we are the wrongdoer, we have a tendency to look at justice quite differently. There is a deep sense of unfairness and injustice if we only are caught and punished while those equally or more culpable are let off scot-free. If our punishment is more severe than others, we again complain of the travesty of justice and the unfairness of the legal system.
This strong sense of justice in every human breast reflects the altogether higher and purer justice of God. Justice is one of the communicable attributes of God which man possesses. However, unlike mankind, God’s justice arises from His perfect holiness and His abhorrence of all that is sinful and vile. He cannot tolerate sin. Neither can he accommodate it in His presence. His holy nature therefore requires sin to be punished. Hence there is a coming “day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God: who will render to every man according to his deeds.” (Rom 2: 5-6 )
While Christians may accept that sins have to be punished and the reality of hell, many of them may still find it difficult to understand or accept how a just God can punish sinners indefinitely for all eternity for the finite number of sins committed here on earth. This issue has perplexed theologians through the centuries. They have come up with 3 main lines of reasoning to help resolve this difficulty.
The first suggestion, as D Clotfelter puts it, “is that the lost are punished not only for the sins they committed in this life but also for their ongoing rebellion in hell, and since they never cease to sin, they are never able to pay for their sins through their punishment.” Each new sin committed brings on new punishment and so on ad infinitum. Hence the lost will never be able to catch up with paying fully for their sins.
While this argument appears reasonable at first glance, it does not seem to gel with the biblical position that eternal punishment is only imposed for the sins done in this life and not for the life to come. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”(2 Cor 5:10 )
A second suggestion advocated by W Shedd is that punishment lasts forever because guilt lasts forever. He argues that while it is right and proper for human courts to punish lawbreakers with finite punishments, this very practice obscures the reality of the permanence of guilt. For example, the criminal who has been imprisoned for five years is no less guilty at the end of his sentence than he was at the beginning. Hence, neither the length of his sentence nor the greatness of his suffering during incarceration actually works to remit or diminish his guilt. The permanence of guilt therefore requires endless punishment.
Shedd’s argument is impressive. However, one problem with it is that if punishment has no power whatsoever to expiate guilt, how can Jesus’ death on the cross then achieve atonement for our sins? If guilt is inherently eternal, it would appear that even the death of the guiltless Christ would not be sufficient to take away our guilt away from us.
The third view, first advanced by Anselm of Canterbury and most clearly expressed by Jonathan Edwards, says that because God is a Being of infinite worth, sin against God is an infinite evil requiring an infinite punishment. Since the punishment in hell cannot be infinite in intensity as this would violate the biblical position that the lost are punished according to their deeds, it then follows that the punishment has to be infinite in duration.
We humans are hardly the ones capable of assessing the enormity of our own sins in an objective manner. As DA Carson says, “Is the magnitude of our sin established by our own status, or by the degree of offense against the sovereign, transcendent God?” John Piper adds: “The essential thing is that degrees of blameworthiness come not from how long you offend dignity, but from how high the dignity is that you offend.” In other words, our sin is deserving of infinite punishment because of the infinite glory of the One against whom it is perpetrated. Jonathan Edwards explains it this way:
“The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is
proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to obey him.
And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligation to love, and honor, and
obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty.
Our obligation to love, honour and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness,
honourableness, and authority. . . . But God is a Being infinitely lovely, because
he hath infinite excellency and beauty. . . .
So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely
heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment. . . . The eternity of the punishment of
ungodly men renders it infinite . . . and therefore renders it no more than proportionable to
the heinousness of what they are guilty of.”
This third view seems to be the most satisfactory as it not only explains the reason why the finite sins of man on earth require eternal punishment but also why Christ’s atonement for our sins is so efficacious as it is the punishment of a Being who is Himself of endless worth. This view also focuses our attention that sin is not simply a violation of the law, but more importantly is an affront to an infinitely wise, holy and good God. It is evil and damnable because it is rebellion against our Creator and a rejection of His love and His will.
May we therefore take heed of the infinite evil of sin and flee from it. In addition, let us redouble our efforts to tell others that Jesus saves that they too might not spend an eternity in hell being punished for their sins on earth. For those who have still not accepted Christ as their Saviour and Lord, resolve to come to Him now without any further delay.