Justice of God - God is Just - God of justice - Who is God?

I took your challenge...using e-Sword I found two scriptures that describe God as being just.

Deut. 32:4: He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

Isa_45:21: Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.

There are certain character qualities in God that need revelation in your heart individually and personally. His justice is one of those, because there are so many examples one can find in the pages of scripture that might convince a logical mind that He is anything but just!

Going to God in prayer and confessing your doubts is the first step. He is eager to have you know Him as a just God, but also as a loving God, a fearsome God, a gentle God, a warrior God. The list is much longer than this, so it is good to lay yourself before Him and let Him pour His Holy Spirit all through your mind and heart.

As you may recall from some of my previous postings, I too had serious doubts that He was just. Just look at the passage in 2 Chronicles 18, 18 -22 where God has all the host of heaven before Him and the spirit comes and volunteers to be a lying spirit in the mouths of all the prophets. It doesn't look like justice. If I did not know Him I would see divine treachery there.

As it is, He is not obligated to support those who cross into disobedience, it is almost a wonder how He has the heart to save so many of those who do not deserve His mercy!

I do not want to infer that you don't have a relationship in Christ established. You wouldn't be here if you didn't! But never be afraid to take it to another level, asking God to reveal more and better stuff to you.

From Jeremiah- "Ask of Me, and I will tell you great and mighty things that you do not know!" (33:3)

Psalm 7:11, God is a just judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day.(NKJV)

Psalm 7:11, God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. (KJV)

If you consider that the word 'Just' and 'Righteous' are the same (Hebrew 'tsaddiyq' - strongs H6662) you will find a few more references that say either "God is righteous (just)" or the "LORD is Righteous (just)".

Because God is Just (righteous) He can make or impart to us righteousness.

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." It's called the divine exchange, His righteousness for my sinfulness!!

Tom wrote:

"As it is, He is not obligated to support those who cross into disobedience, it is almost a wonder how He has the heart to save so many of those who do not deserve His mercy!"

Statements like this are wonderful, and true, on a surface level. I think the problem that many people have, including some true bible-believing Christians, is that if you peel the layers of the statement way back you will find that God created the system whereby men would be needing mercy in the first place.

Now I am going to use an analogy that sounds irreverent but yet seems to fit what I mean.

If I establish one of those cool little ant farms, and then decide to pour poison down the hole, should I be considered a hero for hurrying to get the ants inside out to safety?

My point is that the question about God being just raises issues like this. I am not saying that He is not just, but that there are certain "problems" that one has to address when discussing the topic.

Do I believe God is just? No

So then God is unjust?

In Christ,

So then God is unjust?

Romans 3:26 makes it clear that through the cross God is both just and the justifier of those who trust in Jesus as their Sin-Bearer.

"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus"-Rom.3:23-26

I come to the conclusion that Christians dont think before they type and if they have thought about it ,really they are saying they dont agree with what the bible teaches , i rather think that they haven't thought about properly and maybe haven't searched the scriptures throughly....

Jesus warned the Pharisees about searching the scriptures in search of eternal life. He said the scriptures testify of Him!

Searching the scriptures is always good, but seeking to know Him as one does that is critically important. Many have searched the scriptures and have found themselves hopelessly confused and disconnected from the source of life. Just as is constantly emphasized here on Sermon Index, salvation is a person not a doctrinal understanding. God the Father, God the Just One, is concealed in His character along with His other attributes that flow from His holiness and love.

Seeing Him as a just God requires that you come to know Him, because watching from a distance one might confuse His acting with Holy authority as tyranny.

In a message some years ago, Bob Mumford worked with the passage where Jesus said "when a son asks his father for bread, he will not give him a stone, will he?" He went on to explain how sometimes you are holding something that is hard, cold, and heavy. To you it appears to be a stone but as God works it out in your life you may well come to realize that it really was bread.

In the meantime, you go through anger, weeping, despair- accusing God of many things- mostly because you don't know Him yet. You are born again, you are in the door- but there are things in your fleshly life that keep you from intimacy with the Father.

As you watch that stone become bread, you will gain wisdom and complete confidence in the love that He has always had for you- even when you could neither recognize it or accept it.

He is a just God. The Holy Spirit will teach that to your spirit if you ask Him to.

Yea one thing iv seen is most unbelievers that i have had contact with reveal that they dont think god is just some have read parts of the bible others haven't ,,but you dont comes across many truly born of the spirit believers saying they think god is not just. And if it is possible for a true Christian to say god is not just ,the only reasonable explanation is they do not no the scripture > i dont think it is reasonable to say a true born of the spirit Christian who has met Jesus Christ knows that absolute holiness ,and the close relationship the father has with the son, to be able to reject the parts of the scripture that says god is righteous and just . I dont even know if that is passable ..

Sidewalk im not sure you will get a born again believer to argue with what you said about knowing Jesus ,,it would be the people who allready reject the righteousness and justness of who would reject the other parts of the Gospel like being born of the spirit .

So im not sure if your post was refuting something i wrote about a bornagain believers not knowing there bible well being the reason they think that god is not just, or agreeing with that ..........

Gary, I'm sure we on the same page with the justice of God, I just wanted to come at it from the angle that a person needs to be in a relationship with God with a spirit tuned to His Spirit to be able to see past what might be seen in the scripture as a God who is inconsistently just.

The Pharisees, and notably Paul, were extremely well versed in the scriptures but somehow never saw the justice which appeared in Jesus. But after Paul was born again and filled with the Spirit he was able to reference all the scriptures with his new eyes and renewed heart to see clearly the justice of God and the reality of Jesus.

Just some justice thoughts...

yep amen

God the Father, God the Just One, is concealed in His character along with His other attributes that flow from His holiness and love.

I believe that this thought is important to the issue. I know that some people have a hard time with understanding how an unrighteous person can be declared righteous; if this happened in an earthly court we would call the judge unjust, ignoring the demands of he law. Perhaps the original poster was seeing this difficulty?

Poul Madsen sums this difficulty up nicely in his comments on Romans 3;

"We must never think in this way, as though God were condoning or overlooking our sin, though this is all too common a way of counting on God's love. Such an idea of God's grace is completely erroneous, though it is popular because it neither makes men fear God nor be too worried about sin. God's grace, however, does not consist in His overlooking sin and weakening the claims of justice, but rather in upholding the law to the full. At Calvary God did not give His Son any exemption from the demands of the law, but allowed judgment to exact its full penalty. At the cross God established the law. He did not for a moment deviate from it; He never does and He never will, for He is just and holy.

What then does it mean that a righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law? If God did not ignore the law but upheld it to the full, how can Paul speak of His righteousness being manifested without the law? Clearly the words do not apply to God's relationship to the law, but to our relationship to it. This strikes a death-blow at any righteousness which we may pretend to have. The words mean "apart from the works of the law" (Romans 3:28), "without working" (4:2-6), "not through the law" (without building on the law -- Danish) (4:13). This humbles man to the dust. He stands guilty before God without excuse. His own sense of what is right and true condemns him. It is then, but only then, that he is in a condition to receive from God the righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ. Historically this righteousness was revealed at Calvary where once for all God manifested it (v.21). We should notice in this connection that the perfect tense is used -- "hath been manifested". For the condemned sinner, though, it is revealed through the preaching of the gospel (1:17), where the verb is in the present tense."

In Christ,

I thought the reading from yesterday's "My Utmost for His Highest" (Oswald Chambers) was pertinent to this discussion:
______

"When He Has Come”

When He has come, He will convict the world of sin… ””John 16:8

Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one”” "Against You, You only, have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary”” nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

Forgiveness doesn’t merely mean that I am saved from hell and have been made ready for heaven (no one would accept forgiveness on that level). Forgiveness means that I am forgiven into a newly created relationship which identifies me with God in Christ. The miracle of redemption is that God turns me, the unholy one, into the standard of Himself, the Holy One. He does this by putting into me a new nature, the nature of Jesus Christ.

If you consider that the word 'Just' and 'Righteous' are the same (Hebrew 'tsaddiyq' - strongs H6662) you will find a few more references that say either "God is righteous (just)" or the "LORD is Righteous (just)".

Because God is Just (righteous) He can make or impart to us righteousness.

"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." It's called the divine exchange, His righteousness for my sinfulness!!

Heydave has a good point. We cannot simply look for the english word "just", but we have to look for instances where the Hebrew or Greek indicates that God is a God of justice or that his actions are just.

I think the overall issue with this, is we do not see Justice as God sees Justice. His ways are much higher than our own and so if we wish to make the claim "God is unjust" we do so in a place of ignorance not fully knowing the depth of God's Justice nor what that is in it's eternal and infinite state. God sees a picture that we simply can't even fathom.

This is inspired- thank you Todd!

__________________________

Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one”” "Against You, You only, have I sinned…” (Psalm 51:4). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would not dare to forgive him. If God did forgive him, then this person would have a stronger sense of justice than God. God does forgive, but it cost the breaking of His heart with grief in the death of Christ to enable Him to do so. The great miracle of the grace of God is that He forgives sin, and it is the death of Jesus Christ alone that enables the divine nature to forgive and to remain true to itself in doing so. It is shallow nonsense to say that God forgives us because He is love. Once we have been convicted of sin, we will never say this again. The love of God means Calvary”” nothing less! The love of God is spelled out on the Cross and nowhere else. The only basis for which God can forgive me is the Cross of Christ. It is there that His conscience is satisfied.

________________________

God's ways are higher than ours- certainly true. But as moral agents created in His image, justice is always before us because He is holding us to just standards. He holds us accountable, and has given us conscience. Conscience, or "knowing together" connects every man to the justice of God and is the reason He can hold us to account.

For comparison, when a dog attacks and kills a child it feels no remorse and asks no forgiveness. We do not remand the animal to incarceration to await its penitence.

While we, operating in a culture where we are dealing with the sins of others and our own make concessions and allowances. We pick our battles, fumble through apologies, ignore issues we should address- God cannot do these things. He is the supreme governor (under the watchful eye of Satan I might add) and cannot let anything slide. As Todd mentioned, God's justice and mercy must be legal and complete and it is nonsense to think God forgives for love alone. He forgives, but only when the conditions of justice are met. Which is why everything in Christianity begins at a bloody cross with an innocent Son of God dying on it.

The justice of God is spoken first right here, when He takes the penalty that belongs to us and lays it upon Himself.

I believe the justice of God is completely understandable when in our repentance His Spirit teaches and redeems us.

Quote:______________________________________________________
Looking into the word 'just' it seems to be close to our word 'righteous'. And that, I say, I DO believe. God is righteous. I do believe this. Maybe I have a problem with the english word 'just' and the social connotations with it. As many Christians who use the phrase 'God is just' they generally say demeaning things that tear down others and then justify themselves by reiterating God's quote unquote 'nature'.
____________________________________________________________

Actually Just and Righteous are EXACTLY the same word, not just similar. So where you read 'righteous', read 'just'. Therefore if you believe God is righteous, you must also believe He is just. It's the same thing!

I think you do just have a problem with the English word 'just'. Words take on different meanings and impressions over time, but from a biblical meaning to be righteous or just is to be 'right' in all it's absolute sense. In the same way that God does not just have love, but IS love, God IS right(eous) and every definition and understanding of what is 'right' is based on God's rightness (righteousness). That could mean 'right' in everything He does or 'right' in His judgment.

God is both Just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. (Rom 3:26).
This could be translated as God is both righteous and the righteous maker of everyone that believes in Jesus, or any combination, but it reads better the first way I think.