Does God punish the sinner?

(Written by Tassos Kioulachoglou)
Many have created in their minds - with the help of religion - the image of an angry God, a God that is ready to throw fire from heaven and burn the sinners, punishing them for their sins. Similarly others, if something bad happens in the world, in their lives or in the life of somebody they know, attribute this to God with such words as: “the judgment of God fell on him”, “he did something bad and God punishes him”, “this evil is the punishment of God for their sins”. In other words they more or less attribute to God the evil that is happening in this world with the justification that this allegedly is the judgment, the punishment of God for the sin that is in the world. Is however this view right? Τhe answer is NO! I believe that in the age of grace in which we live, God does not condemn, punish the sinners. Be careful, I’m not saying that it is right for somebody to sin. I’m not saying that sin is not actually sin. I’m not saying that we do not need to confess our sins to the Lord and repent. What I’m saying is that the Lord does not condemn, does not punish people for sin, at least not in the age of grace we are living in. This of course does not mean that whoever sins will not also receive the respective awful results. The wages, the results, of sin is death (Romans 6:23) says the Word! However, these awful results are NOT the judgment, the punishment of God in the life of the sinner but the results, the fruit, of his own acts, of his sin. For example, let’s assume that somebody is an alcoholic, he does not get rid of his addiction, he is diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver and dies. Is this the judgment, the punishment of God in his life? Did God cause this, punishing him for his doings? NO! He caused this to himself. Presenting this as punishment, as judgment of God for the acts of this man and attributing his death to God has no relation whatsoever to reality. God never did this and never wanted this!

But let us see the above with an example from the Bible. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the perfect representation of the Father. He is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15). Whoever saw Him saw the Father (John 14:9) and He only did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19). What therefore we will see Jesus doing, God would be doing the same today too. Let’s go then to John 8. There we see the Pharisees bringing to Jesus a woman that was caught during the act of adultery and asking Him what they should do to this woman. According to the law of Moses, this woman should have been stoned to death for her act. Her sin was punishable by death, no exceptions. But see here what answer Jesus gave to them:

John 8:7, 9-11
“So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."


What Jesus did here for this woman whose sin, according to the law of Moses, was punishable by death, he does also today. This is the heart of God brothers and sisters. The heart of God is forgiveness not judgment. The heart of God is long suffering not short temper. Jesus during His earthly life went around visiting sinners, eating with them and staying in their houses, causing the religious people of his time, the Pharisees, to get mad at him. They were thinking, like some of us today, that these sinners should have been isolated and punished for their sins. But this is not why Jesus came for. See here what the Word tells us:
John 3:17
“For God did not sent His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
Luke 19:10
“The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Matthew 9:12-13
“They who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But you go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice”. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

God did not send His Son to condemn the world. He did not send him to punish the sinners but to save the sinners. This is the age of grace. This is the age where God has extended His hand to the whole world and says “please be reconciled with me” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21). Indeed a day will come in which God will judge the world and those to whom He extended His invitation but they rejected Him. This is “the day of wrath” (Romans 2:5), the day in which God will judge those that denied the truth of the gospel and will be to them “tribulation and anguish” (Romans 2:9). This is the day in which those “that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ .. shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). But this day has not come yet! Today is NOT the day of wrath and punishment but the age of grace; the age in which, God, by giving His Son, has extended a hand of friendship to all and wants all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). It is the day of reconciliation and not the day of judgment and punishment.

Returning to the woman that sinned: was what she did a sin? Of course it was and as such Jesus faced it. However, did Jesus punish her, judge her, condemn her for this? NO. Instead He told her: “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” If you are of those that think that God is an angry God that condemns and punishes the sinners with calamities and judgments you make a very big error. What you believe you most probably take it from the Old Testament, ignoring that the Old Testament though indeed it is useful, it is also OLD! It may also be that you take it from the Revelation and the references to it, ignoring that the day of judgment and punishment, the age of revelation, has NOT come yet. Today we live in the age of grace. Jesus Christ has come and “he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins OF THE WHOLE WORLD.” (1 John 2:2). Jesus paid the price for EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY. He is the propitiation even for the sins of those that do not know Him yet, for the WHOLE world. God is no longer angry with man. He WAS angry, before the sacrifice of Jesus and he will again be angry, in the “day of wrath”, with those that denied the hand of friendship he extended to them through the death of His Son. Now however, in the age of grace, His door is WIDE OPEN. He gave His Son to be reconciled with us:

Romans 5:10
“For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

Before the death of Christ we were enemies to God. This was the time and the age before the New Testament. After however the death of His Son we are now reconciled with God. This is the time and the age of the New Testament, the age we are living in! Today God is NOT angry with man any more but He has stretched forth His hand of friendship. See again what 2 Corinthians 5 tells us:

2 Corinthians 5:18-19
“And all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”


God reconciled the world – not just some of the world, but the whole world – to Himself. When? When He gave His Son. The enmity finished then and there and therefore it does not exist today! Hence to attribute to God acts that would fit to an angry God, a God that punishes and judges people, while He gave His Son to reconcile the world to himself, distorts the reality and it is the cause of the horribly wrong views that some have about God. Who really wants to have anything to do with a God that allegedly punishes, causes destructions and is allegedly responsible for everything bad that is happening in the world? And yet this is most of the time the picture of God that is painted by religion. But this picture is ENTIRELY WRONG! What is the true picture is that of a God that gave His Son for us and has opened His arms to everybody. A God that “wants all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). And to use a passage from the Old Testament:

Ezekiel 33:11
“Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; For why should you die, O house of Israel?”


God never wanted the death of the sinner. What He wants is the return. And as we saw Christ saying to the woman who committed a sin that according to the law was punishable by death: “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more”.

To sum it up: does God punish, judge condemn somebody for his sin? The answer is NO. Instead what God wants is that the sinner returns and if he does not know Him to know Him and start a new life with Him, leaving sin back and getting to know the love of Christ for him, which passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). Indeed there will be a day, “the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Romans 2:5), a day of judgment and punishment for those that denied to reconcile with God (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). But this day has NOT come yet. Today, this very day, the message of God is not a message of judgment and punishment but a message of reconciliation: “as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)