Is God Just?
When we discuss the attributes of God, love is always brought up first, followed closely by mercy, forgiveness, and grace. We are attracted to the warm, fuzzy stuff that reminds us that we are OK. But God has other attributes, and one of the most uncomfortable to talk about is that God is just.
What Does It Mean To Be Just?
The word just comes to us from the Latin word jus, meaning “law” or “right.” In its simplest form, it indicates fairness and righteousness. It encompasses the idea of treating people impartially, ensuring that laws are fair and applied equally, and that individuals receive what they deserve. It has significantly influenced our English vocabulary, particularly in legal terms like justice, jurisdiction, jury, justify, and perjury,. All trace their origins back to the same root as just.
The idea of God being just (in this world) goes way back to the garden of Eden. “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:15-17). There it was, stated clearly, and we know what happened…
Human Nature and Justice
You know how some people only have to be told not to do something, and even though it may not even be something they desire to do, they do it just because they were told not to? My daughter was about two years old, and I had just finished scrubbing the kitchen floor. It was wet and slippery, so I told her, “Don’t go into the kitchen. The floor is wet.” Well, in she went. I retrieved her and moved her back to the living room, and said a little more emphatically, “Don’t go into the kitchen! The floor is wet!” The scene repeated a third time, and then my beautiful, precious, sweet, little two-year-old walked purposely to the very border where the livingroom rug met the kitchen, looked me in the eye, and stomped her left foot on the kitchen floor. Shall we just say she learned about crime and punishment that day. I’ll leave it at that.
Back to Adam and Eve: Of course, they chose [prompted by the serpent] to do the very thing that they were told not to do. They ate the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden:
“To Adam [God] said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, You must not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’” Death entered the world. [This is important!] “Then the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them” (Genesis 3).
The man and the woman who were designed to live forever, chose to be disobedient, and so their bodies began to die. However, God loved them, and He did not kill them. Since God is just, and justice had to be done, God killed an animal, and clothed Adam and Eve with its skin–the first animal sacrifice.
Sacrifice and Justice
We can’t know what Adam and Eve taught their children, but perhaps that animal substitution is what Abel was commemorating when he offered up the best of his flock to God. Animal sacrifice became common in many early cultures, but it was mostly to appease the anger of egotistical gods (Cain’s perspective, perhaps?). Animal sacrifice is mentioned in Noah’s story, as well. It became a part of the Jewish ritual.
The term korban primarily refers to sacrificial offerings given by humans to God “to show homage, win favor, or secure pardon.” The sacrifice was usually an animal which symbolically took on the deeds of a person, was slaughtered, and then was transferred from the world to the divine realm by being burned upon an altar (Wikipedia).
Blood and Justice
The book of Leviticus says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have assigned it to you for making expiation for your lives upon the altar. It is the blood, as life, that affects expiation” (17:11-12). It seemed the animals were the way to escape the death sentence pronounced in the Garden of Eden, and people increasingly took advantage of it.
When the people of Israel were enslaved in Egypt, the final plague sent to secure their release involved the sacrifice of an animal–a lamb. Exodus 12: “The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt: ‘Tell the whole community of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they must each select an animal of the flock according to their fathers’ households, one animal per household. If the household is too small for a whole animal, that person and the neighbor nearest his house are to select one based on the combined number of people; you should apportion the animal according to what each person will eat. You must have an unblemished animal, a year-old male; you may take it from either the sheep or the goats. You are to keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter the animals at twilight. They must take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses where they eat them. They are to eat the meat that night; they should eat it, roasted over the fire along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or cooked in boiling water, but only roasted over fire—its head as well as its legs and inner organs. Do not let any of it remain until morning; you must burn up any part of it that does remain before morning. Here is how you must eat it: you must be dressed for travel, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. You are to eat it in a hurry; it is the Lord’s Passover. I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and strike every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. I am Yahweh; I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. The blood on the houses where you are staying will be a distinguishing mark for you; when I see the blood, I will pass over you. No plague will be among you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.’”
The death of a “ lamb” for a person became the death of a lamb for a family …
A Written Code of Justice
Shortly afterward, God gave a written law, ten commandments for the instruction of living right with God and with one’s fellow human beings:
“And God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Clarifying the law did not help a whole lot. Animal sacrifice continued to be the fine for breaking God’s law … and everybody broke the law! In fact, people became “experts” of the law and added hundreds of extra clauses to what God dictated. It was entirely impossible for people to live completely innocent lives.
Justice and the Day of Atonement
A new practice was instituted for the Day of Atonement:
[From Leviticus 16] “Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering. He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain. He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the tablets of the covenant law, so that he will not die. He is to take some of the bull’s blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the atonement cover.
“He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. In this way he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the tent of meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness. No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel.
“Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull’s blood and some of the goat’s blood and put it on all the horns of the altar. He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelites.
“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.
“Then Aaron is to go into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the Most Holy Place, and he is to leave them there. He shall bathe himself with water in the sanctuary area and put on his regular garments. Then he shall come out and sacrifice the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people. He shall also burn the fat of the sin offering on the altar.
“The man who releases the goat as a scapegoat must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp. The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and intestines are to be burned up. The man who burns them must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp.”
The death of a “lamb” for a person became the death of a lamb for a family, and the death of a lamb for a family became the death of a lamb for a nation …
Not the “Justice” God Had In Mind
And the slaughter was always brutal, and gory and horrifying. It should have been. It was what should have happened to the guilty person. It was justice. But people missed the point and their hearts were not changed. They were only enabled.
I can almost hear God crying out in frustration, “Y’all! [Well, He probably didn’t say y’all.] It’s not about the animals!!!”
The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?” says the Lord.
“I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.
When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?
Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals
I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I hide my eyes from you;
even when you offer many prayers,
I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.
Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.”
So a final sacrifice was prepared, one for all time–the Savior, Jesus Christ. Isaiah prophesied about it 700 years before it happened:
One Sacrifice for All Time
“Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressor.”
So it went from a “lamb” sacrificed for a person, to one for a family, to one for a nation, to one final Lamb for all people for all time.
Because of His great investment in you, God will always treat you fairly. He is absolutely just in all His judgments. Because of His holy righteousness, He cannot be bribed or corrupted in any way. God cannot be fooled. Because He is all-knowing and everpresent, He has all the facts at His disposal. He can “search all hearts and examine secret motives. [He gives] all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve” (Jeremiah 17:10) .
Justice is a pillar of our society, ensuring that the innocent are vindicated and the guilty are punished. But all too often, this standard for justice is compromised for personal gain by corrupt judges and unscrupulous lawyers. Consequently, many people mistakenly believe they can manipulate God’s system of justice. They think that God is fooled by their excuses and alibis. As the holy and righteous sovereign of the universe, God cannot ignore any act of sin. God hates sin with a holy passion. The psalmist writes, “You spread out our sins before You — our secret sins — and You see them all … Who can comprehend the power of Your anger? Your wrath is as awesome as the fear You deserve” (Psalm 90:8,11). God’s anger over sin should never be underestimated.
God Is, Indeed, Just
Romans 6:23a: The wages (just payment) of sin is death.
Hebrews 9:22: without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
John the Baptist saw Jesus coming and said “Behold the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.”
The Book of Revelation calls Him “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
I would be amiss if I did not add that this is not a means of justice for only a few people–not even one nation or (dare I say?) one religion. Jesus is “the way, the truth, and the life,” and everyone who calls upon His name gets the same plea deal.
Romans 5:1: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
That is the really good news. By faith and by grace, your death sentence has been esponged by the blood of Jesus Christ.
God bless you! You are justified!
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