Sunday School | God's Justice & God's Righteousness

Introduction

You guys, we're doing a series here, which is a doctrine survey on every major doctrine. We're covering all ten major doctrines of Christianity. It's going to take us about two years. And we're beginning with theology proper, which is the doctrine of the first person of God. The way that we're doing that is we're kind of walking through the attributes of God, which is essentially a fancy word for the aspects of his character. What is God like? Well, he is what he is, but we can kind of divide it up in little bits at a time just to make it manageable for us.

And we're generally using an organization to consider what is God like as creator, what is God like as judge, what is God like as redeemer, which can be helpful, but it's also a little bit artificial. Okay, so when we talk about God as creator, we might think about the omnis—that he's omnipresent, he's omnipotent, he's omniscient, he's right, he's all places, he knows all things, all those things.

And what we should have done, oh, two weeks ago, is finish up that section; we were talking about God as sovereign because that really groups well under that. But I had to leave town.

Because I had to leave town, I spoke at retreats the last two weekends, and Fetzer jumped in. And instead of having Fetzer finish sovereignty, he started looking at things that we might see that are true about God as judge. And he, in particular, talked about God's holiness and his truthfulness—and again, he could have finished talking about God's justice and righteousness, but he just didn't finish it.

So, what we're going to do now—everything's kind of goofy and out of order. I'm going to finish today talking about God as judge, I mean God's justice and God's righteousness as a way to complete what Fetzer started. Next week, I'm going to complete what I started and talk about God's sovereignty, and then we'll be back on track.

But I apologize, it is kind of coming in a goofy order, and things are kind of jangled up mostly because of my travel schedule. But we're going to try to clean it all up and finish this thing up. So, sorry it's all out of order. And as a reminder, God is all that he is at all times. It is not that while he's being creator, he's being omnipresent or omniscient. And while he's being judged, he is being holy. He was holy when he made the world. He is merciful when he judges sinners. He's all that he is at all times, right?

So, don't—we take him one at a time because we're just not as smart as he is. We can only focus on one thing at a time. Second thing to remember is that we are everything that he is to a dramatically reduced degree. He is merciful, and we can be merciful under the right circumstances. He is omniscient, and we know a couple of things, right? So, he is what he is. We are what we are because he is what he is. That's kind of the way we're going to frame this, okay?

God's Justice and Righteousness: What's the Difference?

Today, we're still under this—again, forgive me for the outer order. Today, we're talking about God as judge, and in particular, we're going to talk about his justice and his righteousness. But before we even do that: what is the difference between those two things? If we were to say that God is just or we were to say that God is righteous, these are, I think, obviously closely related things. Does that feel safe? Justice and righteousness are the same. These are—you might even think they're the same thing. I don't think they're quite the same, but they're obviously closely related.

So, what would be the distinction, do you think? When we say that God is just, we say that God is righteous. Why is that two points, not just one point? Yeah, Adam? Would justice be the way or means in which things are made right or kept right? Okay. As opposed to? Righteousness just being, like, just things being in right order. Or?

Okay. Okay. Okay. This is good. So Adam's—Adam's first throwing out their theory here is that maybe justice is the act of keeping things right, whereas righteousness is just more of like being right. Did I capture that accurately? Yeah. Okay. What do you guys think? Is that how we distinguish between righteousness and justice? Yeah. I think it's—I would only tweak it ever so little. How would you say it? Or do you just—you want to affirm that? I like it. Just like that. We like this answer. Okay. Scott? Righteousness is the standard. Judgment is the alignment to the standard. Okay. Righteousness is the standard. So, God is this righteous standard, and the justice is the alignment to the standard or the bringing it, correct—correcting it, bringing it in. Okay. I like this. Okay. This is good. Yep. So, justice to me is like being told that you're right, and righteousness is being proven. Okay. Alright. This is good. You guys are all—you’re all zeroing in on the same idea. There's almost like you could think maybe this isn't quite right, but it might help at an analogy level to think of, like, there's this—the adjective and then there's a verb. Righteous—you are righteous, but you do justice. Does that feel about right?

So, here's something. I was just reading Jeremiah yesterday, and I came across this distinction. What you have to know before—don't let this freak you out—Jeremiah, maybe of anybody in the scripture, is the most comfortable person anywhere in the Bible, most comfortable person calling God out. Okay? You might say he's the most honest, you might say he's the most candid, you might say he's the most unhappy. Right? Jeremiah suffers a lot, and so he does not—He's like shockingly bold telling God that he's disappointed with him.

Now, that's not—so we don't want to affirm that Jeremiah is right and that God is wrong, but rather we can be like, yeah, Jeremiah, I get it. Like, I know what that feels like. So, listen to how he does this. This is Jeremiah 12:1. He says, you are always righteous, Lord, when I bring a case before you. Yet, I would speak with you about your justice. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless liberties? Okay? He is drawing a distinction between God's righteousness and his justice. And he gives him high marks on righteous, which is to say, God, you are good. Right? You are morally upright. And then he says, yet, I would have a word with you about your justice. What does he mean when he says that? What's going on in Jeremiah's life? What is it? Yeah. Okay. And— and what’s not happening or what is happening? What's not happening? Yeah. Yeah. How God would apply the standard to non-believers. This is it. How does God apply the standard? God, I know you're good, but look around, man— everything's a train wreck, and the wicked are prospering, and so why don't you do something about it? That's what Jeremiah is saying. You feel that? So, God's righteousness, all that to say, God's righteousness is what he is. He is morally upstanding. But his justice is his obligation to himself, to no one else. Or he has no obligation to anyone but himself to make sure that other people are doing what they're supposed to do—that there's a consequences of bringing back into alignment. Right?

And so, from Jeremiah's perspective, at this particular moment in his life, he's like, man, I can see that you're good, but it sure as heck doesn't seem like you're requiring other people to be good, and therefore wickedness is prospering. Making sense? Okay. Now again, we're not affirming Jeremiah's having a rough day, and you may have had a rough day as well. But we could, in a very—these are difficult things to kind of parse between, but generally speaking, you could describe righteousness as being right and justice as doing right. And Jeremiah's only got a problem with the second one. Does that make sense? Does that land for you guys? Yeah. God is just. We're going to get to that when we get there. But right now, Jeremiah's just having a tough time.

Now, here's the thing. This is maybe you could say, well, if doing right and being right, do we really want to distinguish between those? Because, of course, it's the case that what God does flows from who he is. Right? And who he is is made manifest in what he does. So aren't they really ultimately the same thing? And I'd say, yeah. Right? But they're two sides of us, of the same coin. But a coin has two sides. And so that's cool. Right? We can talk about his righteousness, but we can also talk about his justice.

It's helpful to recognize that there's only one coin, but the coin has two sides, and we live in that. Okay? All right. Does that—I want to get that clear as we get going. Is that clear? Good? Anybody sitting on attack with any of that? Okay. His justness, his righteousness.

The Nature of God's Righteousness

Okay. Now, one more thing. I know there's like 17 preambles before we get into it, but this last one I think is really pretty important. This is true. What we're about to say is true for all of God's attributes, including this, including his justice, including his righteousness. But this one is maybe an easier place for us to trip on it, so I'll put it down here.

God is not conforming to an external standard of righteousness. Okay? You might have in your mind there's actual righteousness. There's this thing of what it is to be good and to be right, and God looks over his shoulder and bends the knee to that. Okay? That is not our circumstance. Righteousness does not exist as an external standard that God willingly submits to. Rather, righteousness is what he is in his most fundamental self.

We are extracting an abstract of righteousness based on what he is. And that's true for every one of these attributes. For each one of these things that we have to figure out what does it mean to be this, what does it mean to be that. We could say, well, there's such a thing as being present everywhere, and God decides to be present everywhere. There's such a thing as being merciful, and God decides to be merciful. As if he is like reflecting a thousand mirrors, trying to stay in line. Okay. I've gotta be merciful. That's right. Shoot. I gotta do that one. Okay. Now I gotta be just. Okay. That's gonna be hard to keep those in tension. And he's trying to figure these all—none of that's true. He is what he is.

And as we look at him and we see different facets of his glory, what we realize is that he is merciful, and he is just. He's not conforming to justice. He is the standard of justice. Does that land? Okay.

Let me try to make that a little bit more clear. When we say righteousness is just a way to describe some fundamental aspect of his nature, I received an email from a friend of mine who wrote this. She said, I had the thought one day that God could be anything. He could have been an evil tyrant. He is God, and he can do what he wants. But praise his name. He has chosen to be a loving father, and we are the most blessed people ever because of his wisdom. What do you think of that? I disagree. Total disagree. Gary disagrees. Anybody want to disagree with Gary? I agree with Gary. Okay? This supposition of this friend, and I appreciate the fact that she frames it. I had a thought one day—I have a lot of thoughts. A lot of them aren't true. Okay? We're always allowed to get things wrong in the way to getting them right. She said, I had the thought he could have been an evil tyrant. He is God, and he can do what he wants to do.

So, let me ask you this. Can God do whatever he wants? No. No. Has to be conformed to the real. Okay, okay. Kelly knows the punchline of this one. Okay, so listen, okay. This is a very particular question. Can God do whatever he wants? Kelly, what's the answer? Yes. Because he didn't want to contradict his name. Yes. Okay. Here's the thing. When I say, can I do whatever I want? Better not. Because I want all kinds of horrible things, okay? For you, the phrase whatever you want is expansive because you're not currently capable of doing whatever you want. If you could do whatever you want, your whole life would spin into madness. Right? For you, whatever you want expands far beyond your current capacities. But for God, the phrase whatever he wants, you gotta see that as limiting. Because what he wants is good. What he wants is in perfect conformity with his perfect nature. So, the answer to the question, can God do whatever he wants to do? The answer to that is absolutely yes. But can God do anything? Period. No. Why not? God cannot sin. God cannot—God cannot fail. Do you hear this?

So, for us, it's an inversion. For us, if we were to say, can Susan McQuade do anything? We would say no, but could she do anything that she wants? That'd be even worse, right? Okay—that's how that would be. But for God, in his very nature, if he was constrained by what he wants to do—and he is—he'd be perfect. He can't do anything, but he can do anything he wants to do. So here's how I responded to my friend. I was a little bit wordy, but I'm going to give it to you like this. I said, now, as to your understanding that God chooses to be good, I do not believe that is accurate. You are correct, of course, that he's God and he can do anything he wants to do. But it may be that you missed the inherent limitation in that statement, for he necessarily and always, by virtue of his very nature, wants to do good. He doesn't choose good, he is good.

He is the definition and the source of goodness, and he cannot be other. He could not, as you put it, be an evil tyrant. As such, it is not merely the case that he saw the unfortunate consequence of sin and has chosen to stand against it and has given us requirements to avoid it. Rather, the law is an expression of his own holy nature. The reason he tells us not to lie is not merely or even first because lies are bad or produce harm. It is because he is the truth, John 14. And he cannot lie, Titus 1.

And the reason that he calls us to worship him supremely is not merely because all other idols will break our hearts, but because he himself worships himself supremely, Isaiah 48, and is the only one worthy of our adoration. It may strike you as odd that he is limited by his nature, but I believe this not to be only true, but extraordinarily good news. For he will always act consistently with his nature.

He is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. He is love. He loves righteousness and justice. He is a merciful God. Indeed, it was the impossibility of his ever being unjust or ever being unmerciful that compelled the cross. It is there that all of his attributes met love, and justice, and mercy, and wrath, and wisdom, and all the rest in such a way that we could be rescued.

Okay. Groovy? He is all that he is at all times. He's not conforming to an extra external standard. He is the standard. And the attributes are merely our attempt to describe one facet at a time of what he is. And today, we're going to say that he—we're going to look at the fact that he is righteous. It would be the same thing to say that he is righteousness. And everything else that is accurately called righteous is only so because and to the degree that it is similar to him. He is the standard.

Evidence for God's Righteousness

Cool, cool? Yeah. Okay. That's true for all of these, but I feel like again, it is an important way to put it down. So, where do you go in the scriptures to make the case that he is righteous? That righteousness is his essential nature? Are there passages that have ever come off the page for you on this? Righteousness of God. Yeah, bro. 10 through the Lord's Prayer. Okay. The Lord's Prayer. How does this go?

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. — Matthew 6:9-13

So, holiness, hallowed, his name is holy. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is. Okay. So, that would presume that whatever his will is, if we're going to ask for that will to be done, there's a sense that his will will necessarily conform to his nature—that he is that. That's a little—there's a couple of logical steps in there, but I think it's sound. I think it's true. Yeah. Alex?

We need God because God is wonderful and amazing. God is our father. He is—he is wonderful. He is amazing. He is our father. Yes. Amen, Alex. I agree. I agree with you there. So, here's this one. How about Psalm 145? It is really plain. It says,

The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. — Psalm 145:17

Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God. You who have done great things, who, O God, is like you? — Psalm 71:19

So, we talk about righteousness. The Psalms are full of praise for his righteousness. So those are great. Are there others? I'm curious if there's any that you've ever, like, as we're trying to build these kind of rolodexes in our mind, the righteousness of God—I wonder if that lands for you in any way. Who am I missing? Yeah, Mike?

Beatitudes. Okay. Where do you see that? In Matthew five. What do you, what are you thinking there? Throughout the whole thing. I mean, you know, he's just emphasizing what's correct or what's right. So, we can infer then from every time that he praises something as being ultimately good, that that's a reflection of his ability to discern right from wrong because he is the definition of right.

So, beatitudes, though—this is so blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the—what is it—that's not as obvious to me. What's—what do you see in that that particularly speaks to his righteousness? Draw to blame. Okay. Well, certainly what we—what we shouldn't expect to find is anything inconsistent with it. Although I don't know that it necessarily—I'm just not maybe it would be if I was looking at it, but I don't know where that makes that punch a little bit. Yeah. Tricia?

I feel like when he discourses with Job, he talks about, like, who will contend with the one that—I mean, he points to his righteousness, and that it's like, who are you to be correcting your maker? Then pointing to his correctness. I mean, he says, Job 41, the Lord said to Job, will the one who contends with Almighty correct him? And it's like affirming, who can correct the Lord? He's righteous, he's correct. Yes.

So, Christian's pointing out that the last chapters of Job, I don't know, chapter 40 onward, 38 onward, in the end of Job is all the display of God's righteousness because his righteousness has been called into account, right? Because God, how could you let me suffer? That's not any good. And so God's response there, and we might even look at Job next week when we talk about his sovereignty, because Job is a great place to go for sovereignty. But of course, these things are all braided. He basically says like, it's my world, and I rule it the way that I will. And he will rule it in righteousness. Kelly Sue?

End of second Timothy, the end of Paul's life, chapter four, he says, he's being poured out like a drink offering, blah, blah, blah. Now, there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous—excellent. Heir that day. And not only me, but also a lot of the brothers and sisters. So at the end of second Timothy, the crown of righteousness will be awarded by the Lord, who himself is righteous. If you did a word study on righteous, you'd find a bajillion hits—like, over and over again. Zach? Zephaniah three.

Oh, Zephaniah three. You guys will have that on the tip of your tongue, I'm sure. What are you having your quiet time, Zach? What's going on? I just searched it on my phone. Oh, okay. All right. What do you got?

In the New Testament? Okay. We—Kelly gave his first. Jesse, do you want to add? Or am I constraining you? First John 1:9.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. — 1 John 1:9

And now you see again the braiding here of justice and righteousness. Right? He is just, not the same as righteous, it's the other side of the coin, and to purify us from unrighteousness. He's able to do that because he is—and so the first John will now come back up. Actually, such a fascinating verse. Maybe we'll, if we have time, we'll talk about that one too. Yeah, Adam?

In 2 Corinthians 5:21, he made the one who knew no sin to be sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. Very good.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Here's what I'm surprised nobody has mentioned—the book that has righteousness as its most common word in the New Testament. Job? Romans?

Somebody just said Romans? Romans is all about the righteousness of God, right? For in— I mean, over and over again, Paul's theme is righteousness, often our righteousness, but it's predicated, of course, on the ability of God to make us righteous, to do all that. So, if you studied Romans, there's just so much language here that's like its favorite word is the righteousness of God that is imputed to us.

Okay. I gotta be clockwork mindful. So, let's do justice, and then we'll kind of come back in here. Okay? We'll see if we can bring them together again. Let's talk about justice. If righteousness is what God is—he is fundamentally going to be right—then justice is when he does right, and in particular, when he does right regarding persons outside of himself. Right?

So, he's going to be just to us. But when we talk about justice, we have, most of us in our brain, a synonym for justice that is going to do you wrong. Okay? What is the most common synonym for justice that you think is likely to get us in the wrong track? Fairness. Fairness. Fairness. You guys, it was like right on the. Y'all knew it. Okay? Here's the thing. Is God fair? No. Thank God. No. Because fairness is giving what we deserve. So, I don't want what I deserve. Well. So, here's the—this is what gets tricky about this. If you look up any word in the dictionary, right, you're gonna get—there's like five different definitions for every word. Words have what we call a semantic range. And I would say, justice and deservedness are actually a pretty good synonym. The problem with fairness, really where fairness takes us off the rails, because most of the time, when your kids complain that you're not being fair, what do they mean?

This is a very specific—give me a better synonym for fair, from your kid's perspective. Equal. Same. Okay. Is life fair? Obviously not. I mean, just go outside, okay? We are not all equally wealthy, equally smart, equally pretty, equally healthy, equally—the thing you want. Like, pick a thing, right? So, life is not fair. And so, when we say that God is just, if what you hear is God is just, I. E. God is fair, I. E. Everyone gets the same, then that whole thing is gonna come down like a house of cards because it isn't true. Okay?

Now, so justice does connote fairness in our—it’s one of the acceptable definitions of justice, but it is not what we are talking about when we say that God is just. God is not fair. He does not treat everyone the same. Okay? Catherine?

Without looking at his righteousness—wait a minute, what am I thinking? His mercy. Okay. Because that— that kind of points you in the right direction. He's just because he's always good. So, therefore, if he's—if he is just, that means he cares about sin, and he will deal with it—and you don't need to worry about that person and their sin. And—but he's good.

So, I don't—this is Catherine doing real theology live before us. Right? So what she basically just said is, like, okay, we want to talk about God's justice, but I don't want to talk about God's justice for too many seconds before we also talk about God's mercy. Because if all that he is is just—if again, he's not conforming to these external standards—it's just what he is. And he's all that he is at all times. If it was possible for him to be just and to abdicate in some other part of his nature and to not be merciful, we would not like that at all. Okay? And that's—I think that's where Brenda was going—like, this would be a very dangerous world. If God was just, and he is, but if he wasn't also merciful, we'd be goners, right?

So, we are—we can only talk about one thing at a time, Katherine. So, we're talking about justice. But you're absolutely right that, like, this conversation better come around to mercy eventually or we will despair. Okay? So, yeah. Both.

This weaves us a whole conversation about this weaving between the justice and mercy of God, and also even by his justice and his wrath, he shows his mercy. And so the two are in conjunction, and how he parses out who receives his favor and who receives his wrath is based upon his righteousness. But I think Paul, in that chapter, kind of takes this concept and starts pulling something else that's excellent—explaining it for us. So, Romans 9—and I mean, this is a major theme. If Romans is about the righteousness of God, it's also about the practical righteousness of God.

Paul—we, I tend—we can think about Romans as a very logical, didactic, lawyerly dissertation, and it is. But that—you we've—I’ve told you this before; we've talked—we looked at this. It is driven by his emotional angst over the lostness of the people of Israel. He's suffering terribly. He knows that God is just, and he knows that the Jewish rejection of Messiah warrants judgment, for he is just. But he longs to see them experience mercy.

His heart's desire and prayer for the Israelites is that they may be saved, right? And so, as Paul works—he's working out, man, it's just hard for any of us. If any of us, with any consciousness, any self-awareness, were to talk about justice for too long without finding ourselves longing for the conversation to turn into mercy, then we're missing something. For if he was merely just, we would be consumed. But he is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Christ. Zach, did you want to add something to that?

I just had a question. How would you weave in the Lord's love for us, which is equal amongst us all, in a time where how justice and righteousness are applied to us is not? Yeah. So, we will talk about—and we'll probably in, like, two weeks, I think—we'll talk about the love of God, and how that even that is applied. For I do think it is true that we can say, full stop, that God loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. We can see Jesus loving the rich young ruler who walks away sad and doesn't come to him. So, he is—he does love the world, but we can get here, maybe we'll get to it now, maybe we won't get to it for a full year—but I do think that we can make a very strong biblical case that he loves his bride distinctly from the way that he loves those that are not ultimately his. And that—that can be a hard pill to swallow.

Right? But we— but in the same way, I am called to love my neighbor as myself, but I love Kelly differently than I love my neighbor. And so, God himself, he loves his bride in a peculiar way. So even there, I think there's still a distinction in what he does. So, there's not a—again, just, I don't think that if you hear me say God is just, you hear me say God is fair, God treats everyone the same—and then you're like, well, that doesn't seem true—the whole thing unravels. He's not fair. He's not. He applies his love and his justice, and his mercy according to his own wisdom and righteousness, right?

Katherine? When it when when we say he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness—and there's his love mixed with justice—that's how I see it. Yes. What he said, because—because he loves us so much, and he will cleanse us. He will bring us, he'll help us get to repentance. Okay, so let's see—this is the second time somebody's brought up 1 John 1:9. So, let's do this. Catherine is again citing 1 John 1:9. Basically, God is faithful and just.

Let's look at this for a second. Just go in your Bibles to 1 John 1:9. First John, this opening chapter is about confession. It's about forgiveness. And I'm going to give you a quick blitz of it because there's something here that is really worth seeing, okay? Let's just start in verse—we'll start in verse five, actually. I'll give you a little bit of context.

This is the message we've heard from him and declare to you: God is light. In him, there is no darkness at all. — 1 John 1:5

If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie—we do not live by the truth. But verse seven, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son purifies us from all sin.

Verse seven is a complicated verse because it says that the secret to being purified is walking in the light. You want to be cleansed? Walk in the light. Here's the risk. And I'm doing this—I’ll give this in a rushed fashion, okay? The risk is that you will misunderstand that walking in the light means be good. Tighten up, Stuart. Okay? Like, if you'll just be good, you'll be purified. And that's a problem because, well, if I'm being good, I don't need to be purified. If I need to be purified, I'm not being good.

Walking in the light is not a metaphor for being good. Walking in the light is a metaphor for stepping out of the shadows and being seen and exposed. It is a metaphor for confession. When we confess our sins, we're just acknowledging the shady thing that we did and just bringing it into the light. Okay? So, to walk in the light is to be seen, to be exposed to his holiness, to his knowledge, it is to confess. And you can see that because what he's about to do is essentially a Hebrew poem. He's rhyming—Hebrew poetry rhymes ideas. So, where in a proverb you'll be like, Better is a good name than much gold, a good reputation than much silver. Name rhymes with reputation, gold rhymes with silver.

What he's about to do, he's about to rhyme what he just said. Verse seven, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. Verse nine, he's going to say, if we confess our sins—that rhymes with walking in the light. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. So, we get purified from sin by walking in the light, we get purified from sin by confessing our sins. It's all—he's saying the same thing in multiple ways. But what he does that's weird is this: he says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Just imagine that in Roanoke, there were two judges. One of them is Rachel, and she is just. And one of them, I don't know, it's Alan, and he is merciful. If you were guilty, you did it, which court do you want to go to? Every time. Right? So what John should have said is, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and merciful, and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. But he didn't. He said, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just.

We're going to go see hanging Judge Thompson, which is the last thing we want to do, right? Why does he say to a frightened, guilty person, hey, hey, hey, it's cool, it's cool. Don't worry about it. Just confess your sins to God. He's just. Do you feel how weird that is? Okay. But it's not weird, and he's not wrong. Why is it not weird and why is it not wrong? Because Jesus paid it, Dan.

Think about this. It would be unjust for God to punish you if he's already punished his Son. That is the nuclear bomb of this whole thing. The justice of God could be very bad news for people like you and me if it weren't for the cross. But in light of the cross, the Son of God bled and died for you, we can demand justice all day long because the penalty has been paid. The justice of God should terrify you until you see the Savior, who said, I will drink it all—I will take it in your place.

For these reasons, all the passages in the scriptures that affirm the justice of God that could have terrified you become a comfort because it's paid. Here's Deuteronomy 32:12:

He is the rock, and his works are perfect; all his ways are just. — Deuteronomy 32:4

A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. Psalm 11:7:

For the Lord is righteous; he loves justice. Upright men will see his face. — Psalm 11:7

Ecclesiastes 12:14:

For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil. Every hidden thing.

But if it's been paid for by Jesus, that changes the game. Okay. I'm supposed to stop talking one minute ago, but I'm not going to. So, I want to say one more thing, okay? One of the most extraordinary things I've ever read is Jonathan Edwards' essay on the Trinity. It is just full of insights; it's crazy. We're not going to develop the whole argument now. But he basically, he gets into, like, what is the nature of the Trinity? How do the persons of the Godhead interact with each other? And one of the things that he says that is just so gorgeous, just so stunning and beautiful, is he pictures that God, who is just, is also merciful, and he loves undeserving sinners. And he pictures this: he pictures the eternal counsels of God as if God were planning to forgive you. If the Father were planning to forgive you, and the Son sees that it's about to happen, and he knows that when the Father forgives you, he will in that moment cease to be just because you are guilty. And he cannot forgive you any more than a good judge can let the guilty walk out of their courtroom for free.

And so, the Son, seeing what the Father loves most of all in the world is you, and he wants to forgive you, the Son intervenes and says, no, no, no, no. Don't do it. For you would cease to be just if you did. But I have an idea. You could punish me. And then you would get what you want most of all, which is them, and maintain your justice. When Jesus went to the cross, it was not just because he loves you, but because he loves the Father. And he wanted the Father to get you without ceasing to be just.

Not only that, but you look at that whole story from the other side, and you see the Father beholding the Son in his perfection, in his righteousness, in his absolute blemishlessness. And he sees his death on our behalf—one man offering his life as an exchange for what? Four billion? And he says, that would do it. That would work. You are so magnificent, so perfect, so utterly great that your death would not merely trade in for one man, but we'll give them all to you. You are so great.

And what you see in the cross is the Father's adoration of the Son, that he just esteems his sacrifice so highly. And you see the Son's adoration of the Father that he would be willing to suffer anything in order that the Father's justice would not be compromised while he still gets that which he loves most of all—namely, you.

The justice of God is really, really, really good news. Absent the cross, it would be very difficult for people like us. But the cross turns his justice into our greatest hope. Make sense? He is righteous. He is just. He is all these things. He's not just these things while he's judging. He is all that he is at all times. And we are a little bit like him, increasingly, as you're being transformed back into the image of God. Okay? Good enough for now? Sovereignty next week, but we've got to go to church. Thanks.

Oh. What? Oh, okay. That was really helpful, Penny. There's no class next week. We're having confirmation at ten. This is all true. I—I work here. Okay. No class next week. So, in two weeks, sovereignty of God.