The Consequences of Sin

The creator God is all-powerful, all-loving, pure and holy, separated from the evils of human beings.  Evil is the rejection of his goodness and truth.  Are there any consequences for those who deliberately and defiantly reject God and his will? 

We know from our own experiences that choices have consequences.  According to the Bible, some choices have eternal consequences.  The first story in the Bible is of a man and a woman disobeying God by pleasing themselves and not obeying the command of God (Genesis, chapter 3).   Because of their disobedience (called “sin”), God no longer allowed them to live in the perfect paradise called the “Garden of Eden.”  Hardships, suffering and death entered into their lives.  We today suffer the consequences of sin entering the world.   

We, too, have chosen to do what pleases us, rather than obeying God.  The Bible tells us that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  The Bible further says, “The person who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4) and, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).   The Bible says that we will all be judged by God according to our works (that is, the life we have lived).  After describing the disobediences of the Gentiles (or Greeks, the non-Jewish people), the Apostle Paul addresses the Jews who condemned them and writes that God judges all people without partiality: 

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. 2 We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. 3 Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? 4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? 5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 

6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. 9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality. (Romans 2:1-11) 

Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed to perfectly know God and obey him in all things, said, “God loves the world so much that he sent his one and only son into the world so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  Then he added,  

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (17-18) 

Jesus concluded, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (3:36).  Later, Jesus spoke to some who rejected him as the Son of God, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come. . . . unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” (8:21-24).  

The closing chapters of the Bible say that those who obey God will enjoy eternal peace and blessings with God and those who die in disobedience to God will be separated from God forever (Revelation 21:1-8; 22:1-5, 12-14).  The choice to obey or disobey God has consequences, both now and in the eternal world.