Consequences Of Sin

(Sin, Sinners (Old Testament))

Consequences of Sin The consequences of sin, according to the Israelite theologians, were manifold and always grave. Sin ruptured the relationship between the creator and the creature, and set in motion a series of consequences which, if unchecked, would eventuate in the “death” of the individual sinner. The emotion first shown by God in response to sin is told in the primeval history: he felt regret and remorse for having created the human race (Gen 6:5–7). Within the framework of covenantal theology, God’s response to sin was more commonly a visible display of “wrath” (ʾap) which “grew hot” (ḥārâ) against the sinner and led to punitive action (Considine 1969:85–159). Human sin would awaken the righteous indignation of God, and his holiness demanded further response. Divine disapproval was automatic in the case of calculated and malicious acts. Yet, a study of divine wrath would show that violations of taboo and other cultic infractions were just as likely to kindle God’s anger as were rapacious acts of violence (Lev 10:6; Num 1:53; 16:22; 18:5; Josh 22:20; 1 Sam 4:17; Qoh 5:5—Eng 5:6; cf. Milgrom 1970:21 note 75). On other occasions, divine wrath in response to human error cannot be readily explained, and though it may appear as mere caprice, can be understood as essential to divine freedom (Num 22:20–22, 31–35; 2 Sam 6:6–8; 24:1, 10 [cf. the Chronicler’s midrash in 1 Chr 21:1]; Exod 4:24). Sin is said to provoke God’s “jealousy” (Heb qnʾ; verbal, adjectival and nominal forms); it is that which “irritates” (kʿs, Hipʿil) or “antagonizes” (nsh, Piʿel) him, and issues forth in divine “vengeance” (nāqām, nĕqāmâ cf. Pitard 1982:5–25).The OT emphasis on divine wrath and vengeance has prompted modern theologians to ponder the problem of “injury” and “harm” being done to God through sin. If God is truly transcendent, why should he feel so threatened by human misbehavior, as though sin personally harms him or takes something from him? How can the sin against him be compensated through expiatory (substitutionary) sacrifices? The question of how God is injured by sin was already a matter of speculation in the story of Job: both Job and his friends, ironically, doubted that human sin should disturb the divine agenda significantly (Job 7:20, 12; 22:2–4; 35:6–8; cf. Jer 7:19). Perhaps on the deepest level neither ancient nor modern theologians have adequately answered this question. Yet all ancient religions of the Near East maintained as axiomatic the religious principle that the gods were duty-bound to uphold the moral order of the universe by rewarding righteousness and punishing sin. Societal stability depended upon the maintenance of its moral fabric, and this the gods had to insure. If the ancient poets employed anthropological language in describing divine emotions concomitant with the discharge of this divine obligation, they can surely be forgiven; would it be less troublesome theologically to have God mete out justice in the stoic, dispassionate and uncaring manner of an executioner?According to what principles did the OT theologians envision the execution of divine punishment? If indeed there was a consistent Israelite dogma of talionic retributive justice, why are there so many apparent exceptions—including the major voices of dissent heard in the books of Job and Qoheleth which were also endorsed as canonical by official Judaism? Did God intervene by fiat to personally administer punishment, or did he employ agents, or did he merely maintain the balance of natural events which automatically bring the sinner his just due (so Koch 1955:1–42)? Evidence for each of these modes of punishment may be found in the OT, and the narrative in 1 Kings 22 shows how convoluted schemes of divine punishment might become. However, the lack of scholarly consensus on these questions testifies to the fact that the diversity of viewpoint and the complexity of the problem even among ancient writers have not been fully appreciated. In the following broad canonical sweep we may survey some of the dominant and influential viewpoints on the topic of God’s punishment of sin.In the primeval history of Genesis 1–11, recurrent episodes of sin result in the alienation and estrangement of humankind from God. The first episode (Genesis 3) also leads to the fracture of human society and disruption of nature: hostility now dominates the relationship between the woman and the serpent, between the woman and the man, between the woman and her sons. The man and the ground from which he was taken become mortal enemies, each struggling to take life from the other, until the ground finally gains victory. Cain’s sin (Gen 4:1–16) results in ostracism and exile; his expulsion from civilized, cultured society leads to the birth of a new restless, violent society apart from God (Gen 4:17–24; 5:28–29). Global violence and forbidden marriages with celestial potentates prompt God to decree global destruction (Gen 6:1–9:18), and even in the salvation of Noah’s family, crime leads to the enslavement of one nation by another (Gen 9:17–27). Human hybris reaches its zenith at Babel: the assault of heaven is answered by God in the dispersion of races through the confusion of language (Genesis 11). In such pictures the epic narrator unveils sin and punishment in paradigmatic form: these episodes prefigure the character of sin and suffering which will reverberate throughout the canonical telling of Israel’s history.In the election of Israel as the covenant people of Yahweh, a new basis for the punishment of sin was established. Israel now became bound under oath to observe the terms of the covenant with Yahweh (Exodus 24), and Yahweh became the God who must uphold drastic forms of punishment if Israel wavered in covenant fidelity (e.g., Deuteronomy 27–28). Thus the Deuteronomistic historians and the prophets would ceaselessly remind the wayward nation that the rise and fall of national fortunes was a direct function of covenant loyalty: When they were under the heel of foreign oppression, it was because Yahweh had abandoned them, allowing their enemies to exact a penalty for their sins.The doctrine of retributive justice meted out mechanistically against human sin appears simplistic to a modern read of the OT. However, parallel literary genres of the Fertile Crescent suggest that ancient historiographers and theologians adopted this construct as a didactic literary convention. We may illustrate two episodes of Israelite history with contemporary Near Eastern parallels to show how pervasive this paradigm was. In 1 Samuel 21 the narrator tells of a three-year famine which had come upon the land of Israel for unclear reasons. When King David finally inquired of the Lord to ascertain the cause, Yahweh told him it was on account of Saul’s murder of the Gibeonites, in violation of a sworn oath. Expiation for the crime was immediately made (through a reciprocal bloodbath of Saul’s descendants) and the Lord relieved the famine. A strikingly similar story is told in the prayer of the Hittite king Mursilis to the Hattian storm god. He laments that a plague which had broken out during the reign of his father had continued unabated in his own reign. Upon inquiry, the storm god revealed through an oracle that violation of a sworn agreement with the Egyptians was the basis for the divine punishment. Restitution and confession were needed to expiate the crime perpetuated by the Hittites during his father’s reign (ANET, 394–96; cf. Malamat 1955:1–12). The assumption in both accounts was that national disaster was necessarily a consequence of sin (even if committed during the reign of a previous ruler); it was imperative that the sin of the fathers be identified and expiated so that divine wrath might be assuaged.A second illustration of the pan-semitic doctrine of retribution may be drawn from the Israelite historians’ account of the fall of Judah in 586 B.C. The Hebrew prophets leave no doubt that the destruction of the temple and the “seventy-year” exile are divine punishment for sin. A similar logic is found in Esarhaddon’s report of the downfall of Babylon a century earlier (ca. 689 B.C.E.). Esarhaddon’s account is found in several editions, all of which ignore the important political realities, viz., the destruction of Babylon by Sennacherib’s armies; they offer instead a theological interpretation of the sequence of events (Brinkman 1983:35–42). According to Esarhaddon’s court historiographers, the Babylonians had become excessively evil: they constantly spoke lies and deceit to one another; they took bribes, abusing the weak and enriching the strong; they allowed murderers and oppressors to become established in the city; robbery became commonplace, as did disrespect for parents and disobedience of slaves; the Babylonians even plundered the temple treasury to make protection payments to the Elamites. The sins of the Babylonians finally became too much for Marduk their god: Marduk flew into a rage, ordering the destruction of the city through a violent flood and its return to a swamp. The gods flew up to heaven and the Babylonians themselves were sold as slaves among the foreign riffraff (Borger 1956:12–15, episodes 1–10). Though Marduk originally decreed for his city seventy years of desolation, ultimately his mercy prevailed and he reversed the number (“turned it upside down”), authorizing Babylon’s restoration in the eleventh year (LAR, 243). Though modern political historians would reconstruct the events quite differently, Esarhaddon’s version conforms to an ancient (and biblical) perspective where causality in history can be reduced to the simple matter of sin and punishment (see in addition to Brinkman’s article further examples discussed in AHG, 98–114).An important contribution on the nature of divine punishment mirroring the sin has been published by P. D. Miller (1982). Miller demonstrated that judgment and punishment in the OT conform to a pattern of “poetic justice,” where the penalty inflicted upon the sinner constitutes a matching repayment in kind for the harm done in the offense. Thus, the king who does “evil” (rāʿâ) will suffer “calamity” (rāʿâ) of his reign as punishment (e.g., 1 Kgs 21:17–19). While the general principle of commensurate talionic punishment was found in ANE treaty curses and law codes, the literary vehicle used in the Hebrew Bible employs of a poetic form of the talion, often achieved through paronomasia and other elaborate turns of phrase.We have already discussed some of the consequences of sin in priestly thought (see section C above). The sinner incurs guilt through transgression, and is made to “carry” (nśʾ; sbl) the weight of guilt until it is removed through cultic rites and divine forgiveness. In the interim, depending upon the precise nature of the sin, the guilt-laden sinner may expect sorrow (ʾáwen), sickness (Pss 102; 107:17–18; cf. Seybold 1973) and other forms of suffering (ʿāmāl, etc.). Israelite theologians at some periods linked sin and suffering so closely that suffering apart from sin was inconceivable (Job; cf. John 9:2). For very serious offenses the sinner might expect the death sentence (at least according to the ideals of the Law). The death penalty might be carried out by the community as part of their judicial responsibility, or administered by God himself in the law of karet (Wold 1979; Milgrom 1970:5–8; Knierim 1965:48–50, 73). The “karet formula” (“[that person shall be] cut off [from my presence]”; Lev 22:3 and often) most often envisages death through direct divine intervention, and is consistent with the many passages which cite “death” as the consequence of sin (e.g., Num 18:22; 27:3; Deut 24:16; 21:22; 22:26; 2 Kgs 14:6; 2 Chr 25:4; Ezek 3:20; 18:4, 20; Amos 9:10). If a persistent sinner did not die physically as a result of sin, living under the threat of imminent death must have itself been a terrifying punishment. In the case of a capital crime, the sinner might still hope that repentance would move God to commute the sentence (e.g., 2 Sam 12:13) or delay it (e.g., 1 Kgs 21:28–29).G. Removal of SinIf the OT theologians spoke of sin’s consequences in very grave terms, it must also be remembered that forgiveness of sin formed a vital doctrine in Israelite faith. Though the path to forgiveness through repentance and cultic ritual might be complicated, though compensation and expiation might be costly, and though some natural consequences of sin might be irreversible, the hope of restored relationship with God found an equally important place in the Hebrew Bible. One Israelite poet’s expression of this confidence in the Miserere (Psalm 51) provides a supreme and elegant display of such faith. On a national scale, even though punishment of sin should result in expulsion from the holy land of Israel, the exiled community could pray and hope for forgiveness and national return (1 Kgs 8:44–53). Nourished in the poems of Israel’s psalmists and writing prophets, this promise of forgiven sin formed the basis of hope for permanent national identity which would live on in the hearts of Jewish believers for many centuries.

Genesis 2:8–4:15; 6:1–12; 13:1–18; 15:1–21; 18:16–33; 20:1–18; 29:31–30:24; 39:1–23

Exodus 9:13–10:20; 20:1–21; 29:1–21; 32:1–35; 34:1–9

Leviticus 4:1–6:7, 24–30; 8:1–9:24; 14:1–32; 15:1–19:8, 19–37; 24:10–23; 26:14–46

Numbers 5:5–6:21; 8:5–26; 12:1–16; 14:11–25, 39–45; 15:22–31; 16:20–40; 18:1–7; 19:1–22; 21:4–9; 22:22–40; 28:11–15; 29:7–40; 32:1–27

Deuteronomy 1:34–46; 9:1–29; 15:7–11; 23:15–24:4; 31:14–32:18

Joshua 7:10–26; 24:1–28

1 Samuel 2:12–17, 22–36; 12:1–25; 14:24–46; 15:10–35; 19:1–24

2 Samuel 12:1–15; 19:19–23; 24:10–17

1 Kings 8:22–53; 12:25–33; 13:11–14:18, 21–15:8, 25–16:28; 20:31–34; 21:17–29; 22:51–53

2 Kings 3:1–27; 10:18–31; 13:1–13; 14:23–29; 15:8–12, 17–31; 16:1–20; 17:5–41; 21:1–18

1 Chronicles 21:1–30

2 Chronicles 6:12–42; 7:12–22; 12:13–16; 20:31–37; 28:9–21; 33:18–20

Ezra 9:1–15

Nehemiah 1:1–11; 9:1–38; 13:4–31

Job 4:1–21; 8:1–22; 11:1–20; 13:20–15:35; 22:1–30; 24:1–25; 31:1–40; 33:1–33; 34:21–36:23

Psalm 4:1–8; 14:1–7; 19:1–14; 25:1–22; 32:1–11; 38:1–22; 40:1–17; 41:1–13; 51:1–19; 59:1–17; 65:1–13; 78:1–55; 79:1–13; 85:1–13; 90:1–17; 103:1–104:35; 106:1–107:22; 119:9–16

Proverbs 1:8–19; 5:1–23; 10:16, 23; 11:31; 13:6, 15, 21–22; 14:21, 34; 16:6; 17:19; 20:9; 21:4; 23:17–18; 24:8–9; 28:24; 29:6, 16, 22

Ecclesiastes 5:1–7; 7:1–8:1; 9:13–10:20

Isaiah 1:2–31; 3:1–12; 5:8–6:13; 13:1–22; 22:1–14; 26:20–27:13; 30:1–17; 31:4–9; 33:10–24; 42:21–25; 43:22–28; 50:1–11; 52:13–53:12; 58:1–59:15; 61:1–11; 63:15–64:12

Jeremiah 2:26–37; 3:6–4:4; 5:1–31; 8:4–17; 11:1–17; 13:15–14:22; 15:10–18; 16:1–17:13; 18:18–23; 30:1–24; 31:23–40; 32:26–33:18; 36:1–10, 27–32; 40:1–16; 44:1–30; 50:1–20

Lamentations 1:1–2:22; 3:22–42; 4:1–5:22

Ezekiel 2:1–3:27; 7:1–27; 11:1–13; 14:1–23; 16:44–59; 18:1–32; 20:33–44; 21:1–27; 23:36–49; 24:15–27; 28:11–19; 32:17–33:20; 39:21–29; 43:1–12; 44:10–31; 45:18–25

Daniel 4:19–27; 9:1–27

Hosea 4:1–10; 8:1–10:15; 11:12–14:9

Amos 1:3–2:3; 3:1–4:5; 5:4–15

Micah 1:2–16; 3:1–12; 6:1–16; 7:8–20

Habakkuk 1:2–4; 2:5–20

Zephaniah 1:2–18

Zechariah 3:1–10; 5:5–11; 13:1–6

Malachi 2:1–9

Matthew 1:18–25; 3:1–6; 5:27–30; 6:5–15; 9:1–8, 10–13; 12:22–37; 13:24–30, 36–43; 15:1–20; 18:6–11, 15–35; 19:16–26; 26:26–29, 36–46

Mark 1:1–8; 2:1–17; 3:22–30; 7:1–23; 8:34–38; 9:42–48; 11:25–26; 14:32–42

Luke 1:67–80; 3:1–20; 5:16–26, 29–32; 6:27–38; 7:36–39; 11:1–4, 33–36; 12:1–12; 15:1–32; 17:1–10; 18:9–14; 19:1–10; 24:44–48

John 1:29–34; 3:1–21; 5:10–16; 7:53–8:47; 9:1–12, 24–41; 15:18–16:15; 18:39–19:16

Acts 2:14–39; 3:11–26; 5:22–32; 7:54–60; 8:14–25; 10:34–43; 13:13–41; 21:37–22:21; 26:12–18

Romans 1:18–2:16; 3:1–26; 4:5–8, 13–25; 5:6–8:11; 11:11–36; 14:14–23

1 Corinthians 6:12–20; 7:25–8:13; 15:1–34, 50–58

2 Corinthians 5:12–21; 12:14–13:6

Galatians 1:1–5; 2:11–21; 3:19–25; 5:16–6:5

Ephesians 1:3–14; 2:1–10; 4:17–5:14

Colossians 1:9–18; 2:11–3:11

1 Thessalonians 2:13–16

1 Timothy 1:12–17; 5:17–25

2 Timothy 3:1–9

Hebrews 1:1–4; 2:10–18; 3:7–19; 4:14–5:4; 7:20–28; 8:7–13; 9:6–10:4, 11–18, 26–39; 11:23–29; 12:1–11

James 1:12–18; 2:1–13; 4:13–17; 5:13–20

1 Peter 2:18–25; 3:18–4:11

2 Peter 1:1–11; 2:4–17; 3:1–9

1 John 1:5–2:14; 3:4–15; 4:7–11; 5:14–21

Jude 12–19

Revelation 1:4–8; 18:1–8