_5_The Consequences of Sin

Since God has forbidden sin, that is, the deviation from His , sin makes man guilty before God (Rom. 3:19: “All the world may become guilty before God”; reatus culpae) and subjects him to the punishment imposed by God on sin (Gal. 3:10: “Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law”; reatus poenae). Furthermore, since the is given by God, not by any human authority, the nature and extent of the punishment cannot be determined by human sentiment, but must be determined solely by God’s revealed Word. And according to God’s revealed Word, sin is in every case a capital crime, that is, makes man guilty of death, as both the Old and the New Testament declare. Gen. 2:17: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Rom. 5:12: “And death by sin.”

On the basis of Scripture, death may be said to be threefold.

1. It is the death of the soul, or “spiritual death,” i. e., the disruption of the communion of the soul with God. Only by the communion with God, for which it was created, does the soul live — by cleaving to, believing, trusting, and loving God. But sin breaks this communion abruptly. The evil conscience cannot but flee from God. Sin separates the soul from God. By the sin which Adam had committed he was separated from God inwardly, in his soul, to such an extent that he also fled from God outwardly when he heard the voice of the Lord in the Garden. And, as Luther remarks, when Adam fled from God, “he was in the midst of death and hell” (on Gen. 3:11, St. L. 1:215). He was brought back from death and hell into spiritual life only by hearing and believing the Gospel of the Seed of the woman, only by having his good conscience restored. In his exposition of the words that the Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent (Gen.3:15), Luther says: “This text it was that restored Adam and Eve to life and raised them again from death to the life which they had lost by their sin” (St. L. I:240). “This text is the absolution acquitting him and us all. For if this Seed is so strong that He crushes the head of the serpent, He also crushes all its power; so, then, the devil is conquered, and all damage which Adam suffered is repaired. Adam enters again the estate in which he was before.” (St. L. III:66.) This theme, Gen. 3:15: “He shall bruise thy head,” is taken up again in 1 John 3:8: “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.” And that the works of the devil have been destroyed through the atoning death of Christ is clearly stated John 12:31 and John 16:11: ‘The prince of this world is judged.”

There can thus be no doubt about what Scripture means by “spiritual life” and “spiritual death.” After the Fall man gains spiritual life when by faith in Christ’s work of reconciliation he finds healing for his evil conscience, finds peace with God. And he is in the state of spiritual death when on account of his sin he has an evil conscience before God, inwardly flees from God. Scripture describes the death of the soul, or spiritual death, as someone’s being dead while living (1 Tim. 5:6: “She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth”).

2. Spiritual death carries in its wake a fearful catastrophe; the only reason why we do not fully realize its enormity is its daily occurrence among us. That is temporal death (mors corporalis, sive temporalis). Bodily death is nothing less than a tearing asunder of man, the separation of the soul from the body, the unnatural disruption of the union of soul and body which have been created by God to be one. This event, so terrifying in itself, loses its terrors for Christians only because through faith in Christ they have already in this life been raised from spiritual death into spiritual life; death translates their souls into Paradise (Luke 23:43) to be with Christ (Phil. 1:23).

3. Spiritual and temporal death will be followed, unless the guilt of sin removed from the heart and conscience by faith in Christ, by eternal death (mors aeterna). Eternal death is not the annihilation of man, the cessation of his existence, but his eternal existence in torments. 2 Thess. 1:9: “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.” Matt. 25:46: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment.” Hollaz, Examen, “De Peccato,” qu. 20: “Spiritual death is followed by bodily and eternal death.”

The Scripture teaching on the guilt and punishment of sin needs to be constantly set before men, because depraved man, following the example of the devil and our first parents (Gen.3:4-5, 12-13), is continually arguing against it. The temporal punishments (the disorders in the realm of nature: wearisome work, pain, calamities caused by storms, floods, and earthquakes, wars, temporal death), though they are before men’s eyes, are regarded not as God’s judgments over sin, but as natural phenomena.21 And the eternal punishment is called in question as being contrary to God’s love and mercy (see the chapter on “Eternal Damnation” in Vol. III). — Also Christians, as far as they still are flesh, are in constant danger of forgetting the guilt and punishment of sin. The passage Mark 9:43-48 (threatening “eternal fire”) is, according to the context, addressed, and particularly so, to the Christians. They need this preaching; they must ever bear in mind what would be the inevitable consequence of their sins, too, if they did not by daily repentance continue in spiritual life and crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts. Believers daily pray: “So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

Here would be the place to discuss the nature of the sufferings which befall believers here in this life (Ps. 73:14). Since their sins are not charged against the believers (Rom. 4:8) — they are free from the guilt and punishment of sin (Rom. 8:33: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth”; Is. 53:5-6) and they have peace with God, Rom. 5:1 ff. — Scripture calls these punishments, on the one hand, a judgment of God upon the sins of the believers (1 Pet. 4:17: “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God”); on the other hand, Scripture teaches just as clearly that these punishments are intended as fatherly chastisements (castigationes paternae) and that their purpose is to keep us from apostasy (1 Cor. 11:32: “But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world”). Luther therefore calls these sufferings “a gracious and joyous punishment” (St. L. I:243).22