Johannes Marck’s Marrow of Christian Theology, Didactic-Elenctic XVI
James Dodson
CHAPTER XVI
Of the Punishment of Sin
I. Besides sin, punishment belongs to misery. It often comes under the name of evil, curse, and death; as death is threefold: bodily, with the calamities preceding it; spiritual: Eph. 2:1, ὑμᾶς ὄντας νεκροὺς τοῖς παραπτώμασι καὶ ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις [you being dead in trespasses and sins]; and eternal, or second: Rev. 2:11, ὁ νικῶν οὐ μὴ ἀδικηθῇ ἐκ τοῦ θανάτου τοῦ δευτέρου [he that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death]; Rev. 20:6, ἐπὶ τούτων ὁ θάνατος ὁ δεύτερος οὐκ ἔχει ἐξουσίαν [on such the second death hath no power]. Here, however, punishment does not denote strictly the evil of satisfaction—
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—but more broadly any evil in relation to sin, from which it flows.
II. Punishment is thus defined: evil brought upon man by God because of sin, for the praise of His glory and for man’s destruction or salvation.
III. Punishment is an evil, always harmful and troublesome in itself, often also shameful; since God even punishes sins by sins, in different persons: 2 Sam. 12:11–12, “behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun; for thou didst it secretly,” etc.; 1 Kings 11:31, “behold, I will rend the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten tribes to thee,” etc.; and in the same persons: Isa. 6:9–10, “make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy,” etc.; Rom. 1:24–26, “wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts,” etc.; “for this cause God gave them up εἰς πάθη ἀτιμίας [unto vile affections],” etc.; 2 Thess. 2:11, “therefore God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie,” etc.
The Pelagians object:
1. Punishment and sin are not formally distinguished.
Reply: The same thing can nevertheless be considered in different ways.
2. Man stands involuntarily related to punishment, voluntarily to sin.
Reply: Neither is universally true.
3. Every punishment is from God.
Reply: Often only directively, not always effectively.
IV. Every punishment, in one way or another, is from God, either mediately or immediately, according to Isa. 45:6–7, “forming the light, and creating darkness; making peace, and creating evil: I Jehovah do all these things”; Lam. 3:38, “out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not—
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—evil and good?” Amos 3:6, “shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?”
V. Punishment strictly obtains only in rational creatures, even if the evil which constitutes their punishment often falls also upon irrational creatures: Gen. 3:17, “cursed is the ground for thy sake”; Gen. 8:21, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man.” And these creatures are sinners either in themselves or by imputation; otherwise the holiness, justice, and goodness of God would not admit punishment.
VI. The supreme end is always the glory of the divine virtues: Ezek. 7:9, “and ye shall know that I am Jehovah that smiteth”; Rom. 3:25–26, εἰς ἔνδειξιν τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ [for the demonstration of His righteousness], etc. The subordinate end is sometimes the satisfaction of divine justice, when it is called punishment strictly speaking; sometimes man’s salvation. This latter punishment, more broadly so called, is again either chastising: Prov. 3:11–12, “my son, despise not the chastening of Jehovah, neither be weary of His correction; for whom Jehovah loveth He correcteth, even as a father the son in whom he delighteth”; Rev. 3:19, ἐγὼ ὅσους ἐὰν φιλῶ, ἐλέγχω καὶ παιδεύω [as many as I love, I rebuke and chasten], etc.; or proving: Gen. 22:1, “and God tempted Abraham”; Job 1:12, “behold, all that he hath is in thy power,” etc.; or martyrial: Acts 5:41, “rejoicing,” ὅτι κατηξιώθησαν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος αὐτοῦ ἀτιμασθῆναι [that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name]; Phil. 1:19–20; 2 Tim. 3:12, καὶ πάντες δὲ οἱ θέλοντες εὐσεβῶς ζῆν ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ διωχθήσονται [yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution], etc.
VII. In punishments of satisfaction also, especially public—
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—ones, God intends the saving instruction of others: Luke 17:32, μνημονεύετε τῆς γυναικὸς Λώτ [remember Lot’s wife]; 1 Cor. 10:6, 11, ταῦτα δὲ τύποι ἡμῶν ἐγενήθησαν [now these things were our examples], etc.; ταῦτα δὲ πάντα τύποι συνέβαινον ἐκείνοις, ἐγράφη δὲ πρὸς νουθεσίαν ἡμῶν [now all these things happened unto them for examples, and they are written for our admonition], etc.
To this one must certainly refer the flood in the time of Noah. It is not lawful to doubt that it was universal, both because of Scripture’s testimonies: Gen. 6:11, “the earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence,” etc.; Gen. 7:19–20, “the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered; fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail, and the mountains were covered,” etc.; 2 Pet. 2:5, καὶ ἀρχαίου κόσμου οὐκ ἐφείσατο [and spared not the old world], etc.; and because of God’s power in gathering waters from every side, and His goodness in caring for the ark, which otherwise would not have been necessary.
VIII. Punishment is either temporal or eternal, and also either bodily or spiritual. To temporal and bodily punishment belong: native defects of the body; the troubles and labors of this life: Gen. 3:17–19, “in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life,” etc.; “in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” etc.; all diseases: Job 33:19–20, “he is chastened also with pain upon his bed,” etc.; finally death and the consequent corruption, which God, through longsuffering, did not immediately inflict upon fallen Adam, and whose curse has been removed from believers through Christ.
IX. Temporal and spiritual punishment is the native corruption of soul and body; a greater supervening hardening; actual sin flowing from it—
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—also horror of conscience in sinners: Prov. 28:1, “the wicked flee when no man pursueth,” etc.
X. Eternal punishment is further required by the infinite majesty of God, wounded by every sin, and by the continual multiplication of sinners’ sins.
XI. This does not consist in the annihilation of the subject, as the Socinians wish; because there are degrees in it: Matt. 11:22, 24, “it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you,” etc.; “it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee,” etc.; and therefore there is sense: Matt. 13:42, ἐκεῖ ἔσται ὁ κλαυθμὸς, καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων [there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth], etc.; nor then would it be better for the damned not to have been born, contrary to Matt. 26:24.
Objection 1. Permanence belongs only to the godly: 1 John 2:17.
Reply: A happy and desired permanence.
Objection 2. Death and destruction are attributed to the wicked: Matt. 10:28; 2 Thess. 1:9.
Reply: Neither denotes annihilation, but both denote mournful separation from God.
Objection 3. God’s justice does not admit eternal punishment for a momentary sin.
Reply: On the contrary, it entirely requires it, insofar as the wounding of infinite majesty cannot otherwise be compensated in a finite creature.
XII. This punishment consists in the exclusion of the soul from the gracious enjoyment of God; in being thrust down into hell, the common place of punishment; in the most desperate sense of divine wrath; and finally, in the most intense pain of resurrected bodies. Whether bodily fire also pertains to this is uncertain. Compare Matt. 8:12, “the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”; Matt. 18:34, “and his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors,” ἕως ἂν ἀποδῷ πᾶν τὸ ὀφειλόμενον αὐτῷ—
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—[till he should pay all that was due unto him]; Matt. 22:13, “bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness,” etc.; Matt. 25:41, “depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,” etc.
XIII. Degrees of this punishment are given with respect to intensity, not with respect to extension, since it is absolutely eternal. Nor should any eternal punishment of loss be posited without all punishment of sense.
XIV. All this species of punishment concurs in the wicked, who satisfy divine justice. Indeed, in Christ also, as Surety of the elect, the same has place; for spiritual death, with respect to divine dereliction, and eternal and infernal death, with respect to the kind of evil, and that which is more constitutive than consequential of this punishment, cannot be denied to Him.