As Christians we are not delivered from God’s judgment. Because of the kindness and mercy of our God our judgment is transformed to discipline. Sin is unthinkably destructive. Because it causes suffering it can’t be ignored or flippantly passed over. It will not do to just receive a clean bill of health when the cancer still lives, eating away life moment by moment. The cancer has to go.
This is what Colin Gunton tells us in The Christian Faith:
“…on the cross Jesus bears God’s judgment on sin in order not that sinners should not be judged (condemned), but that they should endure judgment in a different form, as discipline. The point is indicated in Barth’s observation that Jesus’ bearing of God’s judgment for us does not mean that we are not judged ourselves…Christ, we might say, bears anticipatorily the eschatological judgment of death – he goes to hell – in order that those who trust in God through him should be able to bear the judgment that cleanses rather than annihilates.”
God works on us and disciplines us to form us into people who reflect His love. He forgives and heals us. This is, at times, a painful but happy process whereby we change to become people who can be good friends to others and faithful followers of our loving Master.