The Judgement of God

In the wake of every natural disaster, there seems to be scores of "Christians" who proclaim to the world that this pain and suffering is the judgment of God. That we, or whoever the victims may be, are being punished for our sin.

My personal opinion on the matter is as follows:

God's Judgment has already been poured out. All of it. Nothing was leftover, none of it was saved for a rainy day. (more on rainy days in a minute)

All judgment for sin, and all wrath toward sinners, was poured into Jesus at the cross.

To say that God is still judging us, or judging the world, is to spit in the face of Jesus and tell him that his sacrifice was insufficient.

How arrogant! Especially from people who call themselves Christians. They are claiming to be good with God, that Jesus washed away their sins, but then God's mercy ran out. They got in, but then the door closed. If you truly believe in the goodness of God, you realize that God still hates sin because of the destructive effects it still has in our lives if we continue to live in it. But all His wrath, and all His judgment, HAS BEEN POURED OUT. "It is finished" are the final words spoken on the matter.

The other time that God's judgment was poured out, was in the flood. This display of God's wrath was so destructive, that we are still experiencing the echoes of it. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and the like are the ongoing effects of the destruction of paradise. The perversion of what the earth was originally created to be.

There is no present judgment. What we see today, and may inappropriately label "acts of God" are the results of living in a fallen world where the caretakers have abandoned their responsibility to take dominion. That's us. The church. God's children are called to step into the authority that God gave to Adam before the fall. We are to take dominion of the Earth, and bring the Kingdom of Heaven into full reality.

I believe that God is looking on the people in Haiti with compassion, not slinging lightning bolts and tidal waves like the "Apocalypse Now / Judgment Day" God of Wrath portrayed by Hollywood and the Media. Which makes me wonder how he feels toward the people who callously brush off this tragedy (and others) as His judgment. Those are His kids you're trash-talking. How we get from "For God so loved the world that He gave" to this kind of religiously-justified hatred and apathetic disregard for human suffering is downright disgusting.

Whatever sinful practices may have been occurring in Haiti, or in the United States, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, are covered under the sacrifice of Jesus. To believe otherwise is to directly contradict the finished work of the cross.