Spare Change May 2018
Surprised by Justice?
Do you ever find yourself surprised by the swift justice of God? Hopefully you have been taking the journey through the scriptures with the rest of the church. If so, you are currently reading through 1 Samuel and Acts; both books have examples of swift justice. We have read about how Saul’s line was cut off for his disobedience in offering a sacrifice himself instead of waiting for Samuel. In Acts we have seen how Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead after lying about the price of land they sold. Both examples, and many more in the Bible, show that God’s justice can sometimes be swift. I remember when I first read these stories I was troubled by them. Why would God be so cruel to these people? I remember having similar thoughts as the Israelites were commanded to slaughter the Canaanites or when God sent poisonous serpents through the Israelites’ camp as a punishment. How can you be so mean, God?
Often our view of God is skewed by the expectation of God being merciful in all things. We want on-demand mercy. We not only expect it, we think we deserve it. What’s wrong with that kind of thinking? It assumes we have done something to earn God’s mercy and it also doesn’t take into account God’s true character. In actuality we have done the opposite-- every sin is a rebellion to God and brings us closer to receiving God’s justice.
In R.C. Sproul’s book The Holiness of God he paraphrases a quote by Hans Kung, a Roman Catholic theologian, “the most mysterious aspect of the mystery of sin is not that the sinner deserves to die, but rather that the sinner in the average situation continues to exist.” Did you notice how he took our regular way of thinking that we deserve God’s mercy and flipped it around? He wonders why we don’t get God’s justice, why do we continue to live in spite of our sinfulness?
Sproul says about this subject, “[God] is indeed long-suffering, patient, and slow to anger. In fact He is so slow to anger that when His anger does erupt, we are shocked and offended by it. We forget rather quickly that God’s patience is designed to lead us to repentance, to give us time to be redeemed. Instead of taking advantage of this patience by coming humbly to Him for forgiveness, we use this grace as an opportunity to become more bold in our sin. We delude ourselves into thinking that either God doesn’t care about it, or that He is powerless to punish us. The supreme folly is that we think we will get away with our revolt.”
Are we more surprised by justice when we should be surprised by mercy? We should be shocked that a holy God wants to redeem us and used His own son to accomplish this task. We should be appalled that we have another breath, considering the rebellion that has formed in our hearts. This is why we must throw ourselves at the mercy of God delivered through the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Christian should thank God every day that God has made us righteous by the sacrifice of Christ, that he is now in Christ, and adopted into the family of God. This is the true reality of both justice and mercy in our lives-- God showing His great mercy by not giving us the swift justice that we are owed so we can come to Christ and receive the fullness of God in Jesus Christ.
We must not forget this truth and we must not get complacent in our faith. This truth should drive us to share the gospel and tell everyone about Jesus. Peter reminds us of this very truth in 2 Peter 3:9-10, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
There will be a day of ultimate justice and we must not forget that, but until then we must not be surprised by God’s swift justice, rather let’s be thankful for His great mercy!
