Does God Punish People?
In the Bible, God shows in many places how kind and merciful he is towards us humans. There is no doubt that God also punishes. But when God punishes, it is neither out of arbi-trariness nor because he takes pleasure in pu-nishing us. On the contrary: God rather wants to bless us as humans and do us good. Because God is love. But because God simultaneously ab-hors all evil and cares about the well-being of all people, he cannot simply tolerate injus-tice and sin. For this reason, God intervenes when people do evil and live outside of His will, especially when they refuse to change their attitude.
On the other hand, God patiently calls us hu-mans to turn from our stubborn and self-des-tructive ways so that He can forgive our sins and bless us. In this we can recognize God's love and good nature. If God allows suffe-ring, it is primarily so that we humans under-stand that a life without God and his com-mandments inevitably leads to misfortune and chaos, from which both we and other people have to suffer. The assumption that everything bad that happens to us in this world is a pu-nishment from God is wrong.
God punishes to educate us so that we learn to live according to His plan for our lives and in the way that is best for all people. We must un-derstand that a life without God ultimately leads to eternal death. If God simply left us to our own devices, he would be showing that he is indifferent to us as humans and our well-being. But because God loves us and knows best what we need, God shows us the path that is good for us.
However, most people do not want to listen to God and do not follow his commandments that would bring peace and prosperity to all people. instead they allow their own beliefs and selfish desires to guide them, with all the consequences we see in the world.
For this reason, God has announced a judg-ment to punish those who are unwilling to turn from their sins, thus banishing evil from the world once and for all. Here too we see God's love for those who live righteously and who suffer from the ungodliness of this world. With this, God gives all who love him and sincerely strive for good a way out of this world of misery and a future in his imperisha-ble kingdom, where peace and justice will reign for all time.