If I had a nickel for every time someone made the comment \u2013 God is not only loving. He is also just! \u2013 I would be a wealthy man.<\/p>\n
People say that so often, and with such confidence and sometimes even condescension, that you would think that this one statement suddenly provides the final answer to all the questions, objections, and ethical dilemmas that result from a discussion about how God deals with mankind. The problem, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post, is that this idea suggests that God is somehow internally conflicted \u2013 that the loving and just elements of His character are somehow in conflict with each other.<\/p>\n
However, God is not conflicted internally. The loving and just elements of His character are not at war with each other. His love is not in opposition to His justice. It was His justice working together with His love that led to Christ dying on the cross for our sins.<\/p>\n
Doing Justice<\/strong><\/p>\n The concept of justice is often misunderstood. We tend to think of it as \u201cgetting even\u201d or \u201cmaking things even.\u201d If someone does something bad to us, we will \u201cget justice\u201d by seeing that person punished. If we don\u2019t have what we would like to have, we will \u201cget justice\u201d by making others pay their fair share.<\/p>\n Leviticus 24:19-21 is often brought up in support of this idea of justice –<\/p>\n If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured. Whoever kills an animal must make restitution . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Punishment for sin and making restitution are definitely a part of the Biblical concept of justice. However, the purpose of that Levitical injunction was not to tell people how to \u201cget even\u201d \u2013 it was instituted to restrict excessive punishment or penalties at the hands of either an avenging private party or the state. Requiring a life for an eye, or a hand for stealing a loaf of bread, for example, is not just.<\/p>\n But the Biblical idea of justice actually goes much deeper. The Bible doesn\u2019t just talk about \u201cgetting justice,\u201d it talks about \u201cdoing justice.\u201d<\/p>\n In Genesis 18:19, the LORD says of Abraham, \u201cFor I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice \u2026\u201d In Psalm 82:3, we are admonished to \u201cDefend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.\u201d Isaiah 56:1 \u2013 \u201cThus saith the LORD, Keep ye judgment, and do justice . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Justice is not simply getting even or making things even. It is making things right. It is restoring things to what they should be.<\/p>\n George MacDonald<\/strong><\/p>\n Most people have never heard of George MacDonald. But, they have heard of someone whose life was deeply influenced by him.<\/p>\n George MacDonald (1824-1905) was a Scottish author, poet and minister. He is not as well known as CS Lewis, JRR Tolkein or Madeline L’Engle, but his fairy tales and fantasy novels were inspirational to those later writers. In fact, CS Lewis published a book of extracts from MacDonald’s writings entitled, George MacDonald: An Anthology.<\/p>\n In the introduction to that book, Lewis wrote,<\/p>\n This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive MacDonald’s literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another, and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that it has given them great help – sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith. . . . I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself . . . . I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him my master, indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n MacDonald approaches the issue of God’s justice from a completely different perspective than most other writers. He uses an example of someone stealing a watch. If the thief is caught, dragged into court and convicted of his crime, MacDonald asks,<\/p>\n Have I had justice done me? The thief may have had justice done him \u2013 but where is my watch? That is gone, and I remain a man wronged. . . . Punishment of the guilty may be involved in justice, but it does not constitute the justice of God one atom more than it would constitute the justice of a man.<\/p>\n MacDonald understood that justice and restitution must go hand in hand. But, he went further. He was convinced that God’s justice is intended to bring about a complete victory over sin and death – not simply to punish sin, but destroy it. He wrote:<\/p>\n Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin, he is bound to destroy sin. . . . For evil in the abstract, nothing can be done. It is eternally evil. But I may be saved from it by learning to loathe it, to hate it, to shrink from it with an eternal avoidance. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner.<\/p>\n . . . Sin and suffering are not natural opposites, the opposite of evil is good, not suffering; the opposite of sin is not suffering, but righteousness. The path across the gulf that divides right from wrong is not the fire, but repentance. . . . The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from the consequences of our sins, is a false, mean, low notion. The salvation of Christ is salvation from the smallest tendency or leaning to sin. It is a deliverance into the pure air of God’s ways of thinking and feeling. It is a salvation that makes the heart pure, with the will and choice of the heart pure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Power of Grace<\/strong><\/p>\n The apostle Paul is an excellent example of what MacDonald was talking about. The \u201cchief of sinners\u201d became the \u201capostle to the Gentiles.\u201d \u00a0He was not simply punished. He was transformed by the grace of God. \u00a0In his case, judgment led to transformation.<\/p>\n Some time ago, math textbook editor Diane Castro shared a profound insight into God\u2019s grace. She asked, \u201cWhy shouldn’t we believe that Jesus’ redemptive work is more powerful and effective than Satan’s destructive work?\u201d<\/p>\n She went on to say:<\/p>\n Several years ago as I was working on a math book, I thought of an analogy that illustrates the verse \u2018Where sin did abound, grace did much more abound.\u2019 \u00a0When I think about sin, it is so vast and overwhelming that its magnitude is on the scale of a googol \u2013 10 to the 100th power, more than the number of elementary particles in the universe. A googol is a number that is so inconceivably huge that our minds cannot begin to grasp it.<\/p>\n But the magnitude of grace is like a googolplex \u2013 10 to the googol power, 1 with a googol of zeros after it, a number that dwarfs a googol into nothingness. As I imagine God’s grace extending to every human being and defeating all the effects of sin and restoring every relationship \u2013 that is a heaven I can get excited about!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n That is ultimately what God\u2019s justice is all about.<\/strong><\/p>\n Guest Post by George W. Sarris\u00a0http:\/\/blogs.christianpost.com\/engaging-the-culture\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If I had a nickel for every time someone made the comment \u2013 God is not only loving. He is also just! \u2013 I would be a wealthy man. People…<\/p>\n\n