Christianity in the world, part 3: Discipline & Punishment (31/05/08 – 20/08/08)
Some of you guys aren’t going to like this… *Groan*
Christians should be stewards of God’s Word and teach it faithfully. Some of the greatest tragedies of intellect and of human lives in history have occurred because those who were supposed to be stewards taught wrong doctrine, twisting Scripture, the effects of which sin being visible and continuous, still today… When truths of God’s character and words are distorted, the two usual responses in people are the following: superstitious devotion and over-reactionary rejection, neither of which are desirable; let me explain: the superstitious devotion happens in the religious people who think they can please God by following rules, and the wrong teaching taught becomes assumed doctrine; the rejection of the teaching usually happens after seeing the devastating effects on people’s lives that this religious behaviour has and overreacts by rejecting not just the bad teaching, but also anything from the Bible, because glorious truth was being hidden by false doctrine. These two reactions can be seen as the opposing camps of conservatism and liberalism, both of which have messed up attitudes and values.
One value whose core is being completely missed is that of discipline in the family: there are people in the UK lobbying against parents smacking children, trying to get it classed as a penal offense. These people must’ve had some very angry parents, because they believe that when a parent smacks a child, it is always out of unreasonable anger, in fact, in the ads they produce against smacking, the mum is portrayed as a frustrated and exhausted mother who just wants her child to shut up and suddenly jumps in the face of the camera like an enraged velociraptor, letting out the beast within. Now, I don’t doubt that some parents strike their kids unnecessarily, but to be honest with you, the majority shows the opposite. Nowadays in the UK there is a culture of minding one’s own business and indifference towards things that might be troublesome, to the point where this has seeped into the family and parents don’t know how to discipline their own children, to set proper boundaries. The result is that at home and in school, kids do what they want and while parents don’t do anything, teachers can’t do anything, because the laws of the government have robbed them of their disciplinary power, and the students have no concept of authority.
Indeed, the concept of authority is the one in question here: who has the authority to judge an action as right or wrong? If people think that punishment is an unreasoned reaction, of course they will denounce it. But they’re missing the point: good parents who love their children must discipline them, must punish them, to show them that what they did is wrong and that there are consequences for disobedience. Loving parents will reason about what punishment to administer in order that their child will not become spoilt and understand why what he did was wrong. The opposite of loving parents are indifferent ones… But enough of social polemics, that’s not the purpose of this paper.
With a messed up concept of the reason for discipline and punishment, people will naturally misunderstand the character of the originator of such a teaching, e.g. God. God is into discipline; he knows that our natural selves are selfish and lacking in character and for our own good, he tries us so we can grow, learn, become stronger, taller, wiser, more loving and compassionate, more trusting in him. The author of Hebrews puts it better than I ever could:
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives."
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:5-11, quoting Proverbs 3:11-12)
One mustn’t confuse discipline and judgement; although the two share a lot and can be used interchangeably sometimes, there is a clear and immense difference between the discipline to a child and the judgement of a criminal!
No matter how much society gets messed up, there is still an inner sense that there are certain things which go beyond the line of what is wrong, even though the worldview of the postmodern person doesn’t allow for them to believe in right and wrong, since they should be tolerant of everyone, but anyway, that only goes as far as the first person who disagrees with them.* Why do we have an inner morality, no matter how hard we try to kick it out of our fabric? I believe it is because the God who created us is moral and believes in right and wrong. In fact, God is into judging evil! He hates far more than we do all the horrible, heinous, perverted, tragic actions that occur in this world, but he actually has the power and authority to judge them righteously. “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”(Romans 12:19) Judgement is his to make, for he is sinless and he is the Creator, therefore people who wish to judge but are in no authority have nothing to say. That is the reason why each country has a legal and judicial system: so that flawed men can attempt to make right judgements, based on the laws in place and the authority conferred to them by another… The only reason why we are not consumed by his wrath is that he is also a compassionate and merciful God and is patiently waiting, allowing time for more people to repent. (Romans 2:4)
And people long for forgiveness as well as the judging of the evil that occurs. All people want to be forgiven for the mistakes they have made, the horrible things they have thought, said and done which caused pain to their friends, family, others and themselves. We desire mercy, we want acceptance after screwing up. Why do we even hope for it? Maybe God has put inside us that longing for someone who could forgive sins… Maybe that’s why people came to Jesus, weeping between sorrow and joy, for the things they had done and the fact that right there was one who could bring them peace. (cf. Luke 7:36-50) Maybe that’s why a parent who sees their child is sincerely asking for forgiveness after having disobeyed will withhold punishment, acting in mercy and graciously embracing them, because that’s what God does.
In fact, God somehow majestically fulfils both the longing for judgement of what is wrong as well as the longing for forgiveness and acceptance of the repentant, fulfils both the roles of the judge and of the loving father, in two main, and massive ways.
Jesus… YHWH Yeshuah: I AM Saves. In the same book of Hebrews, it says that Jesus, the one perfect and sinless man who ever walked the earth was still nonetheless disciplined and put to the test, in order to show that he indeed shared in every difficulty that men and women have to endure, also making him the perfect person to make a way for man to be reconciled to God, he himself being both totally man and totally God (Hebrews 5:7-10, this is a running theme throughout Hebrews, see 6:16-20, 7:23-28, 9:23-28).Jesus’ sacrifice was a priestly act, where he stood in between man and God and represented each party to the other one, as a perfect mediator; and here’s what happened: the Father, in total agreement with the Son, poured out his wrath on Jesus as if Jesus were all the sinful people in history, who deserve to be punished. Jesus’ death was a sacrifice, a pure and perfect one at that, which God consumed unto death, satisfying the required justice of God, but at the same time, beautifully showing God’s mercy to all by NOT consuming them, withholding the punishment they deserved and instead punishing his Son, who knew no sin, with the consequences of sin. The Cross is this amazing place and event where God’s justice and mercy come spectacularly and masterfully together, in a completely unique way, unprecedented, unrepeated since then and inimitable for the rest of history!
At the end of history, however, there will be another phenomenal, unique and terrible demonstration of the utter mercy, grace, as well as justice and anger at sin that God embodies. God doesn’t take lightly the evil in the world, as previously mentioned, and for those who have accepted Jesus’ sacrifice and lordship over their lives, the punishment has been lifted, the wrath satisfied, but there will be a time when God’s patience towards the rest of man’s unrighteousness ends and Jesus comes with the righteous judgement of the evil of all time. At that time, there will be a glorious acceptance into the Kingdom for those having known and accepted Jesus’ righteousness to cover their sin, and his punishment to pay for theirs, but at the same time a frightening judgement towards those who persisted in sin through their life, not acknowledging the authority of God over their own lives and choosing to be their own god or to worship other gods apart from the true one. That will be the righteous outcome of history, as it is depicted in John’s Revelation... No one will be able to tell God, to tell Jesus, that he isn’t fair, as he will still bear the same scars while he declares the verdicts. And thank God that he is just. I wouldn’t want to worship a God that doesn’t punish sin and evil. And thank him that he is forgiving, otherwise no one would escape his judgement. And thank Him that he’s loving, because otherwise, that’d be a pretty difficult God to please. And thank Him that he’s sovereign, because I need a God that’s mighty to save me from my problems, my enemies, and myself. And thank Him finally, that he finds a way to reconcile all those attributes while I struggle to understand how he works them all together.
My sins are forgiven. My guilt is gone! Honestly. His sacrifice has yielded fruit. I am loved like no other, and this love is patiently changing me to become a better man… I had some great time with God last night, and as I chatted to him I marvelled at the way he turned this whole year round for me, where wasted time has somehow borne fruit, my wrong thinking has been made right and my visionless outlook has been spurred on into great vision for the future. I haven’t got it all together, but I know that he does and he’ll help me work it out as I go along faithfully. His discipline has yielded fruit.
*****
* The postmodern thinking is actually to varying degrees bending people's natural perception of things, coming against what people see as plain normal: I recently met someone who told me they believed that prisons shouldn't exist. When I asked them how else one would punish crime they didn't really answer me, just alluded to the fact that all is relative and judgement is not ours to make... While to some degrees I would say that the prisons that exist aren't necessarily the best places to reform criminals, I don't think this person’s thinking (nor the criminals’) was as civically minded as they thought it was. And thankfully, the government thinks so too. This matter however, is an interesting one, on which I want to stop for a moment. As I said, this thinking bends our natural perception of things, and this extreme happens when one takes all the way the belief that there is no moral basis, no truth and that people should do whatever makes them feel good, believe whatever they want to believe (essentially the foundations of postmodern life). It is also going all the way in the nowadays common thinking that talks about people’s “rights”: “I have the right to do this, the right to do that”, basically the right to sin and not ever face the consequences of my sin. This has already been seen in the liberalising of abortion to frightening degrees. Such thinking always springs out of the self, even if those advocating it genuinely believe they are doing it to help others. They never talk about responsibilities, always rights. In a sense it could be seen as a solidarity towards all those who want to sin, just like me, or, a collective effort of legislation change created by people all involved with self interest in doing something only they want to do (which of course is a tautology, I mean, how often do people lobby for things they don’t want to do? How many people are pro liberalising cannabis who don’t smoke it? From a positive point of view of the argument, real socialists should want to pay taxes, provided that ensured that the public services functioned well). The truth is, the theoretical basis for this thinking is rooted first in the desires of the person and secondly the intellect. It stops right where suddenly someone is wronged and desires justice or vengeance for this terrible sin against them. It doesn’t always work in practice…
In conclusion to this appendix, this kind of thinking, which is founded in postmodern thought, is essentially an outworking of Romans 1 that talks about the unrighteousness of men “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (v.18) and who, “claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” (vv.22-23) Christians who elevate the supremacy of Jesus above all things in the world, live and think differently from this, showing men and women everywhere a higher calling and greater way of living.
