Tag Archives: justice of God

Why Does God Not Give Justice to the Wicked?

Some wicked people do receive justice while they live. Think of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, as recent examples. They both were forced into hiding and died violent deaths. However, Job is correct that many sinful people seem to live a perfectly comfortable life and die peacefully.

If you are an atheist, the fact that evil people never face justice is a real problem for your worldview. Once a person dies, after all, there is no further chance for justice to be done. If you are a Christian, though, there is an afterlife and God promises that justice will be done.

So it is only in the Christian worldview that justice is guaranteed to be done for both the wicked and the righteous. God promises that each person will face the judgment seat and their thoughts and actions will be assessed by the Almighty Himself.   Whether a person receives justice during his earthly existence is, therefore, not the end of the story.

Has God Dealt Justly with the Human Race? Part 3

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Picking up from part 2, we continue the narrative of God’s dealings with mankind. Recall that God has sent messengers which his people have killed. What will he do next?

Finally, God says to himself, “They just don’t want to hear from these messengers, so I guess I will go myself.” In the supreme act of condescension, The Creator clothes himself in the flesh of the creature in the form of the eternal Son of God, to try to call the people back to him.

The son arrives on the scene and proceeds to call his people back to him. He begs them to renounce their wicked ways. He calls on them, saying “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me.”

This son, who is God incarnate, heals the people and even raises some from the dead. He is sinless, he does not lie, he does not gossip. Never a wicked thought remains in his mind. He is perfect in his humanity. He loves like nobody has ever loved. The people watch him and, eventually, they decide what to do about him.

Their decision: assassination! Before they kill him, they hold a farcical trial where nobody is allowed to defend him. Not only do they kill this perfect son of God, but they ensure that he suffers the fate of a common criminal in one of the most excruciatingly painful means of death that men have ever invented. They nail him to a tree and let him suffocate to death over several hours.

Has God failed yet again to reach his people? Is there no hope for mankind? They have betrayed him, broken his covenants, killed his messengers, and now killed his very son.

But in an incredible act that bespeaks his unparalleled mercy and grace, God, seeing his innocent son murdered, decides that he can still be reunited with his creatures through the death of his son. All that they must do is trust his son as their savior, and he will still receive them into his kingdom. They can still have eternal life if they will only place their faith in his son.

Now I ask you, why should God do this for a rebellious and treasonous race of creatures who have rejected him, tortured and murdered his prophets, and ultimately nailed up his son who was sent to save them? Under what obligation is he? Put yourself in his place. You are dealing with a people who have cursed you, mocked you from the first.

How can anyone say that God is unjust, that he hasn’t provided enough ways to heaven? Given what has happened, why has God provided any way at all? It is unbelievably callous to ask God to provide yet another way. Should he should provide more sons for us to slaughter. Is one savior not enough? Should more innocent “sons of God” be murdered for us? No sane person can answer “yes.”

To question God’s justice is insulting and foolish. Now that you know the whole story, you should never doubt the fairness of God the Father asking us to trust Jesus Christ. Who can ask for more grace? Who can ask for more mercy?

Has God Dealt Justly with the Human Race? Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Picking up from part 1, we continue the narrative of God’s dealings with mankind. Recall that God has given the humans a choice to obey him or betray him.

In direct defiance of God, they do exactly what he asked them not to do. They reject his leadership and commit high treason against the author and sustainer of the universe; they reject what he taught them. They say to him “We will be like God.”

God says to them, “I warned you of the consequences and yet you directly disobeyed.” He casts them out of the paradise they lived in, but he sets a plan in motion to reunite these rebellious people with him through time and history. Even though they have turned their back on him, he is not willing to give up. He wants to be with them. He wants them to have eternal life, to never lose the precious gift he has given them.

As history further unfolds, God chooses a man through which he will activate his plan to save the people who have rejected him. God makes a covenant with this man and tells him that he will create a great nation through him, a chosen people on whom God will lavish special attention. He will bless them with great numbers and he will give them a bountiful land. These people will be the instrument that God uses to finally reunite all of mankind with himself.

But there are conditions, because God is still holy and he cannot not be holy. His nature never changes. He is eternally good and so his people must be good. God says to this nation, “If you will obey me, you will prosper; if you do not obey me, you will be cursed. Is this a fair deal?” The people say “Yes! We gladly accept these terms from the author of life.”

Time goes by and this nation of people start to reject God. They ignore his laws, they worship false gods, they perform perverse acts with and against each other. They fall into complete rebellion against all of God’s ways.

God looks at this and thinks, “They must have forgotten my covenant, my deal with them. I’ll send a messenger to remind them.” In fact, he sends several messengers who remind the people of their deal with God. They are reminded of his holiness, his beauty, his goodness, but they aren’t interested in the message.

In fact, these messengers that God lovingly sends are massacred! They must run for their lives. They are killed by the sword, they are struck in the face, they are imprisoned, they are stoned to death, and they are sawn in two! Over hundreds of years, God sends his messengers, appealing to the people to return to him, but to no avail.

There must be another way for God to get through, to redeem mankind. In part 3, we will look at God’s next move.

Has God Dealt Justly with the Human Race? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt

So many people complain that God, if he exists, is a tyrant who expects too much of human beings. To ask that we trust only his Son for salvation is unfair and exclusive. How do Christians respond to these accusations?

Pastor R. C. Sproul once spoke about God’s fairness in his dealings with mankind, and I have never forgotten what he said. Sproul summarized the entire biblical account of God’s dealings with mankind to put in perspective what really happened. Here is a paraphrase of what he said with some of my own commentary to flesh out the narrative.

A perfect, self-existent being, was living in perfect community and love, not needing anything. This God is perfectly holy, righteous, loving, just, and the ground of all beauty and of all that is good.

God decides to share his love and the gift of life with finite creatures. He creates a vast universe, he creates all the laws of chemistry and physics; he fine tunes the constants of gravitational, electromagnetic, and nuclear forces so that physical life can survive. He creates trillions of stars so that one tiny planet can support life; even burned out stars are needed in sufficient quantity to produce fluorine, which is essential to life on earth.

He creates a perfectly sized star which is just the right distance from the earth to provide heat and light. He creates a moon which the earth needs to regulate the tides and keep the earth’s tilt just right for temperatures to support life.

In fact, he creates the entire known universe and everything in it with the sole purpose of providing his creatures a physical world in which to live.

After the universe is created, this God then creates creatures who scurry around the newly formed earth doing exactly what God designed them to do. At this point, God decides that he would like to create a special creature, one that bears his image. This creature will have a rational mind, a moral conscience, a free will, and an ability to freely love God his Creator.

God scoops up a clump of mud and breathes life into it and names the new creature “man.” He provides this new creature with a partner whom he calls “woman.” He tells these creatures that they are beautiful creations and that he wants to have an intimate relationship with them. They will have dominion over all the plants and animals of the earth. They will rule as the sovereign king and queen over everything God created on earth.

However, as the author and creator of the entire universe, he is authorized to set up boundaries for them. He asks them to be holy as he is holy. He asks them to keep him in focus as their Creator and to obey his guidelines which are meant for their good. God tells them that if they do not obey him, if they commit treason against him, they will die.

In part 2, we will see what happens next. Will they obey him or commit treason?