Principle 2: Punishments are both temporal and eternal.
The Bible indicates some punishments are eternal, lasting forever, but others are temporal, lasting only a time. Eternal punishment is mentioned in Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” [See also Matthew 25:41, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, and Revelation 14:11].
We normally focus on the eternal penalties of sin, because they are the most important, but Scripture indicates temporal penalties are real and go back to the first sin humans committed: “To the woman he said, `I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.’
“And to Adam he said, `Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,” cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return’” (Gen. 3:16-19). [Scripture is filled with other examples of God sending temporal punishments on account of sin. See, for example, Genesis 4:9-12, Deuteronomy 28:58-61, and Isaiah 10:16].
Principle 3: Temporal penalties may remain when a sin is forgiven.
When someone repents, God removes his guilt (”though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” [Is. 1.18]) and any eternal punishment (”Since . . . we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God” [Rom. 5:9]), but temporal penalties may remain. One passage demonstrating this is 2 Samuel 12, in which Nathan the prophet confronts David over his adultery: “Then David said to Nathan, `I have sinned against the Lord.’
“Nathan answered David: `The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin; you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die’” (2 Sam. 12:13-14). God forgave David, to the point of sparing his life, but David still had to suffer the loss of his son as well as other temporal punishments. [See 2 Samuel 12:7-12 for a list].
In Numbers we read, “But Moses said to the Lord . . . `Now if thou dost kill this people as one man, then the nations who have heard thy fame will say, “Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which he swore to give to them, therefore he has slain them in the wilderness”’ . . . Then the Lord said, `I have pardoned, according to your word; but truly, as I live . . . none of the men who . . . have not hearkened to my voice, shall see the land which I swore to give to their fathers” (Num. 14:13-23). God states that, although he pardoned the people, he would impose a temporal penalty by keeping them from the promised land.
Later Moses, who is clearly one of the saved (see Matt. 17:1-5), is told he will suffer a temporal penalty: “And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, `Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them’” (Num. 20:12; cf. 27:12-14).
Protestants often deny that temporal penalties remain after forgiveness of sin, but they acknowledge it in practice—for instance, when they insist on people returning things they have stolen. Thieves may obtain forgiveness, but they also must engage in restitution.
Protestants realize that, while Jesus paid the price for our sins before God, he did not relieve our obligation to repair what we have done. They fully acknowledge that if you steal someone’s car, you have to give it back; it isn't enough just to repent. God's forgiveness (and man's!) does not include letting you keep the stolen car.
Protestants also admit the principle in practice when discussing death. Scripture says death entered the world through original sin (Gen. 3:22-24, Rom. 5:12). When we first come to God we are forgiven, and when we sin later we are able to be forgiven, yet that does not free us from the penalty of physical death. Even the forgiven die; a penalty remains after our sins are forgiven. This is a temporal penalty since physical death is temporary and we will be resurrected (Dan. 12:2).
A Protestant might say that God gives temporal penalties to teach a sinner a lesson, making the penalties discipline rather than punishment. There are three responses to this: (1) Nothing in the above texts says they are disciplines; (2) a Catholic could also call them disciplines; [Teaching on indulgences, Pope Paul VI’s stated, “The punishments with which we are concerned here are imposed by God's judgment, which is just and merciful. The reasons for their imposition are that our souls need to be purified, the holiness of the moral order needs to be strengthened, and God's glory must be restored to its full majesty” (Indulgentariam Doctrina 2)]. and (3) there is nothing wrong with calling them “punishments,” since “disciplining” a child is synonymous in daily speech with punishing a child.
As Greg Krehbiel, a Protestant who has written for This Rock, points out in a privately circulated paper, the idea that all temporal penalties vanish when one is forgiven “is the error at the heart of the `health and wealth gospel,’ viz., `Jesus took my poverty and sickness away, so I should be well and rich.’”
The Catholic has good grounds for claiming temporal penalties may remain after a sin is forgiven. The Church has shown this since its earliest centuries and by prescribed acts of penance as part of the sacrament of reconciliation.
Protestants often deny that temporal penalties remain after forgiveness of sin, but they acknowledge it in practice—for instance, when they insist on people returning things they have stolen. Thieves may obtain forgiveness, but they also must engage in restitution.
Protestants realize that, while Jesus paid the price for our sins before God, he did not relieve our obligation to repair what we have done. They fully acknowledge that if you steal someone’s car, you have to give it back; it isn’t enough just to repent. God’s forgiveness (and man’s!) does not include letting you keep the stolen car.
Returning what you have stolen is neither punishment nor forgiveness. If someone steals my car, and then later gives it back, I still want them punished.
None of this has anything to do with the health and wealth heresy.