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God is just.
Man interprets justness, or more precisely "justice" as a balancing of
the scales. God's just-ness resides in the immutability of his
word. There is a famous adage that adorns the bumpers and rear
windows of many a Christian's car: "God said it. I believe
it. That settles it." While this phrase may bring a smile to our
face, it is in fact, very humanist in nature. Whether the driver
believes what God says has no impact on the "settling" of the matter.
The phrase "God said it. That settles it." is the universal truth
of God's justice.
Balancing of the scales plays no role in God's justness, to define it by
man's interpretation is to impute malleability to God's immutable law.
For example, homicide is segregated into many different categories by
man from aggravated murder to abortion, from capital punishment to
"justifiable" homicide. The worldview uses the programming
if..then...unless...
For example, If Abe strikes Ben, then Abe receives punishment
unless it is determined that Ben struck Abe first, then Abe
should receive less punishment than Ben because Abe was defending
himself; or it is determines that Abe unintentionally struck Ben then of
course it was a mistake and Abe's punishment may be limited to
apologizing to Ben or paying restitution to Ben for recklessness.
God is perfectly just, in that, the unless is omitted entirely
from the equation. The demarcation of God's laws is absolute, it's
an "either/or" statement with inalterable consequences. To take
the example from above, if God has determined that striking another
person is against His law, once the determination is made that Abe
struck Ben, then, regardless of the circumstances, Abe must face the
consequences of his action.
Depending on the circumstances, the humans may perceive the consequences
as unjust or as justice, but the rest of the story is this: God
created the demarcation between right and wrong, good and evil, order
and chaos as well as the consequences prior to the creation of man and
therefore was not influenced by His love for His creation. His
perfect law was set forever at the moment that He created order within
the void. Therefore though the consequences may seem harsh to our
eyes, we fail to see that they are perfectly just because of the very
fact that they are unmoved by circumstances or further evidence.
You are either on the right side of the line or the wrong side of the
line, that is not the fault of the line nor is it reason to move the
line. And God does not obscure the line, one of the wonderful
manifestations of God's all encompassing love for us is that He does not
play "gotcha", He is very clear in both His word and through natural
revelation where the lines are drawn.
The ten commandments are a perfect example of this clarity, take the 6th
commandment: "Thou shalt not kill"(KJV) or "You shall not murder"(NIV)(Exodus
20:13). This is a clear demarcation of right and wrong action
leading to just consequences. If you kill or murder another human
being, you have earned God perfectly just consequences. Regardless
of the circumstances the taking of the life of another human being is
against God's law and the consequences for crossing that line are the
same for the serial killer as for the doctor that administers the lethal
injection for the serial killer. That is a challenge to a
worldview which justifies wrong action with circumstances, but, again,
God is perfectly just and therefore impartial, because if His justness
could be influenced by our persuasion, works or restitution then His
grace would have no value.
God's judgment is impartially administered based on His immutable law.
And it is because of this that our joy in Christ's work should reach new
heights every single day. Because nowhere in creation is the fact
that God is just more vividly displayed than through Christ's
justification of us to God which leads to eternal life. But let's not
get too far ahead of ourselves.
The human experience with the justness of God began in the Garden of
Eden.
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