The Righteousness and
Justice of God
Scripture
Genesis
18:23-33
Key Verse -
“Will you
sweep away the righteous with the wicked?”
Study
The
righteousness and justice of God are so closely tied together that
they are the same word in Hebrew but translated differently in
English depending on the context. So because of God’s
righteousness, he is required to act justly. There is no need for
lawyers as God knows all already, and no one will be excused as a
matter of technicality.
It is because
of God’s holiness that righteousness is demanded. No sin can enter
God’s presence. There must be something done – either man is
forever kept from God’s presence or there is made another way to
appease God’s need for justice.
Where has
God’s justice gone?
There are many
that wish to dismiss God’s justice in favor of God’s love. Even in
our passage from Genesis, it would appear that God would have
relented if there were even ten righteous people in Sodom. But this
is a mistake to think this way. First of all, even if God did not
destroy Sodom for the sake of the righteous in the city, this
doesn’t mean that the sinners would escape judgment. Just as in
America today, God may be preventing disaster from striking because
of the sake of faithful believers who continue to pray. But this
doesn’t mean that the entire nation is saved – even if we wish to
incorrectly call ourselves a “Christian nation.”
There are
those who wish to disregard God’s sense of justice altogether
however. A loving God cannot send a person to Hell and thus God’s
righteousness must be ignored. Such a focus makes God totally
impotent in dealing with sin however.
We must be
careful not to take God’s justice into our own hands however.
Bombing abortion clinics – committing murder in order to stop murder
– denies the fact that God is in control and it is His right to
judge and according to His time. Some of histories most notorious
sinners saw conversions later on in their life because God was
patient, unlike us.
God has given
us guidelines by which we are to judge. Even Martin Luther King
foolishly stated that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world
blind.” However, we cannot totally ignore justice while here on
earth, waiting upon God to judge in eternity. We are not to judge
rashly or out of emotion, but we have every right to call sin what
it is.
Fortunately
there is an appeasement to God justice. Next time we will look at
God’s love and understand what it does and doesn’t mean to all of
humanity.
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