The God of Justice
Billy Milton - October 11, 2004
I hope you’re beginning to gain a better understanding of the Character of God as we progress through this series? So far we’ve looked at proof for the existence of God and how we can know him, we’ve also heard about the wisdom, grace and majesty of God and his immutability – God Unchanging. Today I’m going to preach on one of the less popular aspects of God’s character – his Justness. How do I know it’s less popular? Well quite simply when I speak of God’s love or his grace people’s faces light up but when I preach about his judgement or his wrath people don’t light up in the same way. There’s almost the sense that the God of Justice is the Old Testament God and the God of Love is the New Testament God. Not so! But, let me assure you of one thing, by the time I’m finished today, I hope and pray that every one of you will be able to say a heartfelt thanks to God that he is a God of Justice.
But first, there is another subject that goes hand-in-hand with justice and that’s forgiveness. God in his mercy gives each of us a conscience otherwise we’d be no better than animals. One of the results of having a conscience is guilt, and despite the appearance of carefree living that we see in our newspapers and televisions, I believe that many people struggle with a constant feeling of guilt. I know because I talk with them every week in various contexts.
Part of the problem is that we have forgotten how to deal with guilt. Our society teaches us that the best way of dealing with guilt is to redefine what guilt is, blame someone else, and so reduce the sense of personal responsibility and personal failure. I’m as prone to doing this as anyone else. Last November I was heading to Milton Keynes to preach one Sunday evening. It was about 5.30pm and as I left Dunstable on the A5 I got caught by a speed camera doing 50mph in a 40 mph limit. I thought, “Och it’s a Sunday evening and the roads dead quiet – they’ll let me off. And anyway, I’m going to preach – God’ll look after me.” He did look after me, but a couple of weeks later I got a notice of my transgression along with a demand for £80 and 3 points on my licence. I was mad!! And began to rant and rave about speed cameras and how they are ruining our roads and how I’d argue my case etc.etc. Well I phoned Bedfordshire Police and pleaded for mercy… to no avail. I then asked to see the picture and proof of calibration and so on. They sent the photo and sure enough, not only was it my car, but it was quite clearly me in the drivers seat and I had no alternative but to pay up. Despite all of my protestations I was guilty. I’d broken the law and had to pay the penalty. I did not like it one little bit and I pleaded for mercy but what I got was justice.
However, the other day as I walked through Berkhamsted, some young boy racer came hammering through the town centre doing 60mph… at least. I was really upset – he could have killed someone. He deserved to be locked away. That would be justice – wouldn’t it? He didn’t deserve mercy! We are all so good at applying justice to others but mercy to ourselves. Am I right?
So that’s one way of dealing with guilt – blame someone else. The other way to cope with guilt is to face up to our guilt as a reality, accept responsibility for it and take the consequences whatever they may be. From a Christian standpoint, this is essentially what makes us Christians. Taking responsibility for our guilt leads us to confess it and receive forgiveness. When we take this step our guilt is erased. We are now regarded as ‘not guilty’ of the sins of the past and they will never be recalled against us or used as evidence to condemn us. TALK OF CSI MIAMI AND THEIR TECHNIQUES FOR CONVICTING PEOPLE. THEY COULD NEVER CONVICT A BELIEVER IN CHRIST BECAUSE THEY ARE “NOT GUILTY”. DESPITE ALL THE EVIDENCE AGAINST ME, THE PUNISHMENT HAS BEEN SERVED AND THE PRICE PAID. This is a staggering claim, but whilst it’s easy to accept as biblically and doctrinally correct its harder to believe as being true for me.
I led another church’s weekend away last year and during the weekend a lady in her mid 30s confessed something to me that she had done when she was 18 years old. In her mind she believed that her particular sin was unforgivable and so had spent the next 15 years or so wallowing in guilt and ruling herself out of service for God as a result. Not only that but her health had begun to suffer as well. As I spoke to her about forgiveness, she agreed that God was compassionate and forgiving but just could not accept it for herself and so lived in a prison of her own making. She felt that everything that was going wrong in her life was somehow God punishing her for this awful sin she had committed. I know that there are people here this morning who will identify with this poor lady’s story! I was able to help her find freedom that weekend and I want to share with you, what I told her.
I told her that there are two people who want to talk to you about your sin. One is the Holy Spirit and the other is the devil. In John 16:8 Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would come and when he did he would convict the world of its guilt in regard to sin. Without any apologies the Holy Spirit will convict you of sin – to bring you to repentance and salvation. Satan too will remind you of sin, but in a much more sinister way. He is called the ‘accuser of the brothers..’ who delights in condemning us – not bringing us to conviction but condemning us! Do you see the difference? The Holy Spirit exposes our sin to bring us to a relief of them. Satan condemns us to make us give up and live in perpetual guilt. What we need to discern is whether our guilt is conviction or condemnation?
So let’s move from there to talk a bit about God’s justice. Let me ask you a question: What is the basis within the character of God that enables him to forgive my sin? Is it on the basis of God’s mercy or is it on the basis of God’s justice? Is it because he is being generous and kind towards us or is it because he is being absolutely right and just towards us? GET A FEW HANDS RAISED
I’m actually not surprised that most of you would say that we are forgiven because of God’s mercy ….but you are wrong. God forgives us on the basis of his justice! 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” If God were to forgive us purely on the basis of his mercy, the cross would not have been necessary. It is the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross that makes forgiveness by God a just act. It is in appealing to his justice that forgiveness is possible, not in an appeal to his mercy. Let me try to explain this.
Justice and mercy at first sight appear to be incompatible. To exercise justice and mercy to a person at the same time regarding the same act is impossible. Think back to my speeding misdemeanour. I was guilty, but if I had been angry enough to go to court the judge would have had two options. He could have either dealt with me mercifully and let me go free or he could deal with me justly and enforce the penalty of my misdemeanour, as laid out in the law. But he couldn’t do both. He couldn’t show mercy and let me go free but also fine me at the same time. Nor could he fine me and insist he was showing me mercy.
However, just imagine that the judge likes me and sees that my speeding was out of character and he wants to show me mercy. However much he might want to, as a judge he is obligated to uphold the law, and justice demands I be punished. So he fines me £100. That would be entirely just and my ability to walk away from court a free man would depend on my paying the fine. Now stretch your imagination a bit further and suppose that the judge really does like me and so he climbs out of his chair and with chequebook in hand pays my £100 fine. What would the record of the courtroom say? It would say that I had been found guilty, fined £100 and that the fine had been paid and I was now free. The attitude of the judge was one of mercy and kindness but I walked away from that court a free man, not because of an act of mercy, but because justice had been done. The fine was paid. It’s on the basis of justice that I walk free.
Its perfectly true that in the heart of God it was his love and mercy that made the cross an event in history. John 3:16 tells us that, but having sent his son to die for us on the cross as our substitute, it is now on the basis of his justice that God deals with our sin. In 1 Peter 3:18 Peter writes, “For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” Listen to this, with the demands of his law satisfied in Christ, God is legally and morally obligated to forgive us! Isn’t that amazing – the God of justice is obligated to his people?
And what’s more I cannot add anything to it or take anything away from it. Just supposing when I left the court I gave the clerk another 50p …just to ease my conscience. What has happened now is that the books are now unbalanced. The fine would be recorded as £100 and the payment £100.50. This is why penance is unnecessary. To insist on any kind of penance is to undermine what Christ has done for us. I can’t contribute to the penalty paid for my sin; neither do I need to, for payment has already been made in full. Therefore on the basis of God’s justice I can be forgiven. Isn’t this just amazing?
If my forgiveness depended solely on God’s mercy I would live with the constant fear that I’d finally pushed him too far and that his mercy was now all used up. That’s why Satan will attack the cross and all that it stands for because it was through the payment on the cross that Satan was doomed. Well may Graham Kendrick sing, “The price is paid: come let us enter in to all that Jesus died to make our own. For every sin more than enough he gave, and bought our freedom from each guilty stain.”
In housegroups this week we will look at this subject further and maybe talk a bit more about why God can be the perfect judge – what gives him that right? But I don’t have time to say any more today except to urge you to understand the basis of your forgiveness is God’s justice – doesn’t that just put a smile on your face?