The Comfort in Divine Retribution

“You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” — Amos III. 2.

This is to my mind, the most un- Jewish utterance in the whole course of the Old Testament. It is like a summer day shining in the heart of winter. I am told that to shepherds on the plains of Bethlehem the sun shone out at midnight. So is it here. We have an anticipation of the day in the midst of night; the lark sings at evening. The common opinion of the world previous to Christ is that punishment is a mark of alienation from Divine love. Here it is said to be the contrary. It is indicated that if the family of Israel had been less dear to Grod it would have received less chastisement.

God chastises the children of Israel because He knows them — knows that they are worth chastising. His infliction of punishment is, in fact, rather prospective than retrospective. It points not so much back to the expiation of a past deed as forward to the realising of a future glory. “Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit’’ — the pruning of the vine is more for the sake of to-morrow than for the sake of yesterday. The keynote of dawning Christianity is the keynote of modern jurisprudence — punishment for the sake of reformation. Nothing proves your immortality like your retributions. It would not be worth while to punish a dying man. If you knew that your enemy would be dead in a week I feel sure you would let him go in peace. So would your Father do with you if you were not an immortal; He would let you sing in the sunshine after you have waked the storm. It is because you are an immortal that He will not let you go. It is because you have eternity in your heart that He exacts from you the tribute of the hour.

My soul, faint not when thou art rebuked of thy Father! — it proves thine immortality. Even the rewards of thy Father do not prove thine immortality like His penalties. It is natural to speak kindly to a dying man. If thy days were to be few thou wouldst have more sun, less cloud. It is because thy days are to be long in the land that there are given thee so many commandments, so many penalties for breaking them. Sometimes thy penalty exceeds thy sin. It is because thy penalty is not meant for thy sin so much as for thee. Less would suffice to cleanse thy fast; but it is thy future that must be cleansed. Thy pain is sent for to-morrow, not for yesterday. God told Cain that the mark He had set upon him would keep him from being killed. So is it with the mark on thy conscience — the wound called remorse. It is thy Father’s sign of thine immortality. No perishable life could have shown such a wound. It is too big to be inflicted for the sake of time. It is the imprint of thine eternity. It is the scar that tells, not of death, but of deathlessness. It is that print of the nails which attests thy resurrection life. Faint not beneath thy pain, O my soul!