Somehow it’s easier to hang on to the idea that God is love moreso than God is just. Every day I read a newspaper and my mind reels with the breadth of injustice. Narcissism is the norm and earth-bound justice lines up with the powerful.
II Thessalonians 1:6-7
God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels.
To hold tight to my belief that God is just all the time, no matter what I see, hear, feel, taste, I must be very conscious and very intentional. I must accept what I don’t understand. I must suspend my personal sense of “justice” and trust in the bigger picture.
When I was a younger Christian (both in years as well as experience), I was often stymied by those well-worn attacks on my God. If God is just, why do babies die? If God is just, why is their disease and suffering. If God is just, why are their orphans, widows, and abuse? If God is just, why are their wars and bigotry and extremism?
Gotta stand. That’s all I can do. Stand.
I have no answer except that God is just. God is merciful. God is love.
If God was none of these things, then there would be no justice anywhere, no love, no families, no births, no hope. There would be no joy, no laughter, no beauty and no faith. And yet, these all exist along side the pain.
I cannot know about the macrocosm of justice.
In daily life, there isn’t a parent who hasn’t heard the same attack: “That’s not fair!” My parent view of fairness and righteousness and justice will always be different from the child. We live the microcosm of justice vs. injustice in families. It’s not an easy road and rarely straight. There are too many obstacles in the road, too many unknowns. If I, in my little world, cannot mete out justice in such a way to please those nearest and dearest to my heart, what of those who work in ever-widening circles of responsibility.
Meditations from Zion 
You’re a Christian and I’m an atheist, and that’s just fine. There is no logical “proof” that he is or he isn’t. It’s just faith, plain and simple.
Of course.
And belief in a multi-dimensionality of existence that was constrained in that other time of my life.
Yes, God is just, but I must thank my God that in His justice, He remembers mercy. I have often pondered at how mercy can sit beside justice – the answer is the Cross.
As you mentioned in your post, ib, if God is just, then why do we, as wicked men (an all-inclusive club with no exceptions except the Man Jesus Christ), find that good things happen to us? The answer is mercy.
But, we will all have to give account to the Just God. We cannot give mercy as an excuse for continuing in sin, yet we can, if we believe in the Lord Jesus, plead the Blood of Christ as our plea in the dock.
I agree. But my point is that God’s justice still prevails and we have to accept his justice as well as His love and mercy.
Hi ib,
I’ve been considering this some more, and I remembered this post as I was considering a certain situation.
I was in the town centre today, and a man was bowed low in a doorway – homeless, in despair and also drunk – and I considered my own life – I have committed many grave and wicked sins in my life, probably more than this dear chap in the doorway.
Yet, I have a loving family, home and faith – why?
Yes, God is just and we must accept that, as you say.
Yet, God has a wisdom which we must also accept, for we cannot hope to either attain to it nor understand it. Why, in God’s wisdom, have I obtained mercy, yet this man has obtained a just response to his wickedness?
God says in Romans 9:15:
“I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”
Sometimes, because God is so loving, He passes over our sins. We do not escape His justice, but His justice has been meted out upon His Son.
Such are the immeasurable riches of His grace, and the unsearchable greatness of His wisdom.