A review of 'Just Love' by Ben Cooper

Just Love: Why God must punish sin (currently half-price at the Good Book Co) is a good little book by Ben Cooper, formally an economics tutor at Oxford and curate of St Helen's Bishopgate, now researching a PhD on the Gospel of Matthew in Sydney.

It's written for the Christian/seeker who is seriously concerned why God must punish evil. Unfortunately I can't think of another book setting out to do the same thing, and yet it is surely one of the most important objections people have to Christianity. Does anyone know of any other books on this? Seriously, I would like suggestions.

The book is pure St Helen's Bishopgate in style and content, so your feelings about the book would probably be easily predicted by your thoughts on that particular flavour of teaching. I quite liked it. It is neither over-emotional, nor unfeeling. It is very clear, although maybe a little demanding for its intended audience. Very faithful to the Bible it was more expository than I expected, and he was always concerned to keep the cross at the centre throughout.

As criticism, I found the overall structure was a little confusing despite regular signposting, and the explanatory diagrams could do with revising as I found them quite hard to grasp. I also thought a bit more discussion on hell, particularly in a way that empathetically addressed the struggles of those who are worried about friends and relatives, would have been helpful.

The GBC should be congratulated on publishing such a helpful resource for the church. I really liked the cover too. Although if they ever reprint they should proof-read it for typos and correct the mis-numbering of the chapters which was particularly embarrassing (I'm sorry, I know that I, of all people, have no right to criticise typos).

After the introductory chapters, the argument of the book could be summarised as:

• Chapter 2: God is Love. "God is love" in the context of 1 John shows that God's love is best understood in God sending his Son to die for us. If we consider how the Bible describes this act of love it is clear that Jesus died to take the punishment for our sin. Not only that it explains that there was no other way for us to be saved. Punishment had to happen.
• Chapter 3: Real Outrage. As CS Lewis identified there is something dehumanising about reducing the purpose of punishment to either rehabilitation or deterrence. Our intuition tell us that certain crimes deserve retributive punishment. Although we may be quicker to cry out for the punishment of others than ourselves.
• Chapter 4: God is Creator. God graciously provided for us in creation. As he is the Creator he has the right to decide what is good and evil. He promised that if we tried to take this role that belonged to him he would punish us. Because sin is refusing to be dependant on him, punishment by being cut off from the presence of God who is the source of life is a fitting response.
• Chapter 5: God is LORD. Sin is unbelief and calling God a liar. As God's name is defamed he has to clear his name and demonstrate that he is God. He has to show that he is just and has authority as he claimed in the warning he gave in Adam and Eve. This means that there has to be death either of us or a substitute.
• Chapter 6: God is Good. The necessary flip-side of loving good is hating evil. God being good means that he is angry at evil, and he is not so inconsistent that he will not act on this anger.
• Chapter 7: Just Love. Jesus provides an escape from God's punishment of sin. He was the one person who didn't deserve death, but by died so that we could live. As the new Adam he reversed the curse of the old Adam for all those that trust in him. The implications of this are that we should (i) put our trust in him, (ii) tell others about the danger they are the rescue, (iii) recognise the seriousness of sin and turn from it, (iv) live a life of love, and (v) rejoice in God's love.