Tag Archives: Forgiveness

Day 211: The God of Retribution

Jeremiah 51:54-58

“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
For Yahweh lays Babylon waste,
and destroys out of her the great voice!
Their waves roar like many waters.
The noise of their voice is uttered.
For the destroyer has come on her,
even on Babylon.
Her mighty men are taken.
Their bows are broken in pieces,
for Yahweh is a God of retribution.
He will surely repay.
I will make her princes, her wise men,
her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk.
They will sleep a perpetual sleep,
and not wake up,”
says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.
Yahweh of Armies says:
“The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown.
Her high gates will be burned with fire.
The peoples will labor for vanity,
and the nations for the fire;
and they will be weary.”

It should be pretty obvious by now to everyone who has been following along with me as I read through the Bible that God is a God who pays people back for what they have done. The Bible clearly teaches that forgiveness is not the act of ignoring evil. It teaches that retribution and forgiveness can coexist. Once you become a Christian, you understand this. God is only able to forgive us because Jesus took our punishment. When we look to Jesus, our punishment, which is death for failing to keep God’s law, was paid back to us.

I honestly believe that had Babylon stopped worshiping idols and started sacrificing to the God of Israel, they too would have been forgiven. God would have put their sin on The Sacrifice, but they didn’t accept that. I believe that this is one reason why the destruction of Babylon is repeated over and over again here in Jeremiah. God expects us to understand that retribution has to happen one way or the other. We have the same choice. We can either turn to The Sacrifice required by the God of Israel, or we can receive His retribution ourselves.

We also need to avoid being influenced by the world’s idea of “forgiveness.” Forgiveness that allows sinners to go free without punishment is not really forgiveness. It’s a corruption of justice. It’s treating the wicked as if they are good and treating the good as if they should just accept harm that they didn’t deserve. Some people believe that the Bible teaches this, but it doesn’t. When God tells us to not take revenge, He also tells us that we should expect revenge to happen. Let’s look at that:

Romans 12:19

Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”

God commands us, here, to “give place to God’s wrath.” If we take revenge, we will actually corrupt it. Perhaps that’s because we, as sinners ourselves, don’t have any right to be giving out punishments. God is the perfect One and He’s the one who alone has the right to punish people. He is also the only One who knows which ones will accept His Sacrifice first.

Day 16: The Lamb of God

John 1:29-31 : The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me. And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.

John saw Jesus coming and even though he didn’t know who it was going to be beforehand, realized that Jesus was the one (more about this next time) and pointed Him out to the people. He told the people that Jesus was “The Lamb of God.” This is very significant to the Jewish people. The Law of Moses required that lambs be sacrificed regularly to pay the price for the sins of the people. John was plainly predicting that Jesus was going to die and not just for the Jews but for the sins of the whole world.

The Bible clearly teaches that there is no forgiveness of sin without death:

Hebrews 9:22 : And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

God is a good God and He must maintain justice. It is common today to not see justice for some things that are clearly wrong. God is never like that. All wrong is punished without any exceptions. God has clearly taught this in His law that He gave to the Jews (The Old Testament especially the first five books of the Bible). Some of these laws will be ones that God will hold you responsible for. You know what they are because He has put them in your conscience:

Romans 2:14-16 : For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

A thing we all need to come to grips with today is: “Who’s death is paying for my sin?” Where did the blood come from for your failures to live up to the conscience that God has put in you? John the Baptist upheld the law of God to the crowds that he preached to. He baptized them in preparation for this “Lamb of God” who would take away the world’s sins. If failure to keep the law caused such death, what do you think the penalty will be for those who refuse to accept the payment that God provided in the “Lamb of God?”

John the Baptist did the job of bringing the news of this “salvation” to the Jews. John who wrote this book, along with the other writers of the New Testament did a great job of bringing this news to us, the people of “the world.”

Day 15
Day 17