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will I visit upon you all your iniquities.” The judgment on the world will come later. The Lord’s people are the first to be dealt with - those closest to God (Ezekiel 9:6, Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and 1 Peter 4:17). God disciplines his people when on earth. One has heard it said that there is a purgatory for Christians here and now; not after death as Romanists teach (see Hebrews 12). Because believers will not pay the ultimate penalty of everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9), this does not mean that they will not suffer for wrong doing here. There were certain punishments inflicted on Adam and Eve apart from the penalty of death and there will be consequences here for Christians if they do not act rightly. “He that does a wrong shall receive the wrong he has done and there is no respect of persons” (Colossians 3:25). This would involve not only sins directly against God but wrongs committed against one’s fellows. God judges in respect of these (1 Samuel 2:25). God does not treat Christians as enemies but he may chastise them as sons as it says in 2 Samuel 7:14/15. James also speaks of this in his epistle (chapter 5:14/15). God is not mocked as Paul says in Galatians 6:7-10. Because one is a Christian one cannot sin with impunity.

Apart from what is said above there is also the internal effect of sinning - a guilty conscience and loss of the joy of salvation as David says in Psalm 51, particularly verse 12.

Then there is the day to come to consider. Moses had great reward by eschewing the temporary pleasure of sin (Hebrews 11:24-26). In a day to come those who have given their lives in genuine service to Christ will receive a reward but those who have built in “wood, grass, straw” will suffer loss (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). Consider also Christ’s parable of the servants and the minas in Luke 19:11-27. Not everyone produced the same profit and not all got the same reward. However, the Lord’s enemies were slain as we see in verse 27; these last representing those who will not accept Christ.

Some seek to apply the parable of the wheat and the darnel to the Church (Matthew 13:24-30), so that they do not apply discipline to those with whom they fellowship if they are guilty of misconduct. Paul’s injunctions in 1 Corinthians 5 are practically ignored. Others go to the opposite extreme and effectively interfere in the lives of persons who are not and may never have been in fellowship with them by doing such things as influencing their wives (or husbands) to leave them, and maybe their children. It is really applying Church discipline to the world.

It is important to see that merely complying with rules (laws) is a defective way of living. What we

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