The True Bounds of Christian Freedom Chapter 4: Chastisements For Sin

Query 2: Are Christians freed from all punishments and chastisements for sin? If we examine the Scriptures, they seem to hold out this teaching to us, that God’s people, those whose sins are pardoned, may yet bear chastisements for sin. That they have at sundry times been under the rod, the corrections and chastisements of God, is plain. Abraham, Moses, David, and indeed all were; and the apostle tells us: ‘If ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons’ (Heb. 12. 8). God scourges every son He receives. That these corrections have been inflicted on them for sin, the Scripture seems to teach in Lam. 3. 39-40: ‘Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.’ Also in Micah 1. 5: ‘For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel.’ Also in Micah 7. 9: ‘I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him.’

Narrated by Duane A. Linn