The Justice of God

The Communicable Attribute of God's Justice.

The Justice of God

A man murders an entire family in cold blood. The man responsible is found, arrested, then taken into custody and tried before the court. This man is walked up to the stand to be questioned and to give an account for his crimes. He sits down. “JUSTICE!” the relatives cry out in the courtroom. An eye for an eye, as the old adage goes. The relatives of the deceased family here are expecting the same outcome to be applied to this man for his heinous crime. The death penalty. Seems fair, right?

A rebellious son is living in constant defiance against his father. No matter what, this young man is constantly fighting back against what his father instructs him to do. The father is loving, kind, forgiving and patient, yet his son still fights against his instruction. As a parent who experiences this behavior at times, this behavior can be discouraging, especially in that of a young man. Justice must be served.

“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall say to the elders of his city, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear.” - Deuteronomy 21:18–21

Woah! Wait… The death penalty seems a bit extreme here, right? This is absurd! This isn’t justice! The one man murdered an entire family in cold blood, the son was just disobedient… However, looking at this Old Testament passage and others also in the Old Testament, we can see that 36 of the 613 Old Testament laws warranted capital punishment. This included things such as false prophecy, perjury, idolatry, unlawful divorce, to only name a few. How is capital punishment justice for these? How is death fair justice for a son defying his father?

The main idea of this article is the Communicable Attribute of God’s Justice (Righteousness). Communicable attributes are the attributes of God that we can display as humans. This is in contrast to the incommunicable attributes of God like omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, etc.

What is Justice?

The question that we MUST answer to understand any of this is, what is Justice? Justice is defined as; “just behavior or treatment.” Furthermore, we must ask what is Divine Justice or Godly Justice? Divine Justice is otherwise known as Righteousness. What is objectively RIGHT being dealt out in perfect fairness.

God is the Creator. During the account of creation in Genesis we see that He created everything and He saw it as “good”; or for its intended purpose. For example, God created light and saw that “it was good” or in other words “it was good for the purpose of light.” God later created man with a purpose as well—to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. After God created man, He then gave man one law to follow:

“…but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” - Genesis 2:17

One rule. Seems pretty simple right? Well, we all know what happened next. What did Adam and Eve (man) do? They broke God’s only law for them. For God to remain Just, justice has to be served. For God to remain Holy, He cannot lie. The penalty, or punishment, or judgment which God had for disobeying this one rule, was death, and now this death had to take place. This is the prescribed justice for their crime. Just like you and I have penalties for breaking the law of man.

If death is the God given justice for sin, then why didn’t Adam and Eve receive justice then and there? Well, they did. Another definition for you, don’t worry I have a few more, but another definition for you all is for death. Specifically I want to point out how death can be defined as separation from life. Yes–God didn’t strike down Adam and Eve physically but a kind of death took place immediately. They were immediately separated from God spiritually. Spiritual death because of the sin. We can still define this as “separation from life.” This is separation from The Life…God. Because of this, they were removed from God’s perfect and holy presence, then separated from their holy dwelling place in the garden where they walked with God because they were forever marked by sin. Later on in Genesis we see that there was a physical death for Adam that followed as well. This physical death shows us something important, justice was not withheld, but it was delayed–this delay of justice was the establishment of mercy and grace. Physical death is a consequence of the fall–of sin.

In today’s culture there are many types of justice. Criminal justice, social justice, procedural justice, substantive justice… but I want to focus on divine justice. More specifically, I want to focus on two types of divine justice called retributive (or punitive) justice and restorative justice. These are the two types of justice that are most commonly dealt with in Scripture, in fact, all the other types of justice I just mentioned are only ideas of justice from a human perspective, divine justice is the only True Justice.

Two Types of Godly Justice:

Retributive Justice

• Judgment - Punishment - Criminals Deserving of Consequences

What is retributive Justice… Dictionary.com defines it as, “a system of criminal justice based on the punishment of offenders rather than on rehabilitation.”

First, let’s look at this punitive or retributive justice. God is the creator; the designer of the entire universe, the life to all and the order to all that exists. God created man in His image, to be image bearers of HIM. God gave one law to man in the beginning, and He gave clear consequences for disobedience. The Apostle Paul elaborates on this too in Romans 6:23. Death is the consequence. Well this doesn’t seem fair for the young defiant man mentioned above. After all, he only sinned against his parents, right? The parents are not perfect, so it’s not the same, right? Wrong. Disobedience to your parents is disobedience to God. This disobedience is not a reflection of God’s image. As it is written, “Honor your father and mother.” In that disobedience, you disobey and sin against the Almighty, infinitely perfect God.

Restorative Justice

• Mercy - Healing - Repairing Relationships

What about restorative Justice? Restorative justice “focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large.”

Remember the 36 laws I mentioned earlier that warranted capital punishment in contrast to the 613 Old Testament laws that don’t? Seems now that mercy and grace really outweigh the judgment from this perspective, right? This alone shows a percentage of roughly 95% mercy to 5% judgment. What if we applied those odds to the murderous man in the illustration? That wouldn’t be “fair”, would it?

In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, The Lord says,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. . . . You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:38–39, 43–44)

In these verses, Jesus emphasizes restoring relationships rather than retaliating when people wrong you. He isn’t arguing the importance of the government fulfilling its duty to punish unlawful acts, He is teaching that our hearts should have a posture of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Godly Justice is BOTH:

Here’s the thing, and listen carefully to this TRUTH: Godly justice is both retributive and restorative because He is HOLY. In being holy He always acts justly, meaning He always does the right thing. Conversely, His justice is an extension of His holy character. John MacArthur says,

“God is holy, and just, and righteous. He would never be able to display what that means to us fully unless there were sinners to judge…The fact that sin exists, allows God to display eternally, the glory of the full scope of His attributes.”

No error in Him or His ways. Only perfection, only justice. Because we are not holy, not perfect, and unrighteous, we do not always judge or deal out justice rightly. We tend to deal out justice from a warped perspective on what is Truly just and righteous. This tends to come from what we think is “fair” based on our personal bias.

Paul tells us what is truly JUST and RIGHT as the payment for our transgressions, or crimes, against a perfectly holy God who deserves perfect honor and glory…

“For the wages of sin is death…” - Romans 6:23a
Retributive Justice: PUNISHMENT! JUSTICE! RETRIBUTION!

“...but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” - Romans 6:23b
Restorative Justice: Mercy. Healing. Restoration.

This then answers our question of “How is capital punishment justice for false prophecy, perjury, idolatry, unlawful divorce, or a defiant son?” Because God is infinitely perfect, holy, and righteous, and He alone is worthy of our praise, obedience, and respect. We are HIS image bearers…

Conclusion

Believers, here is the good news:

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” - Romans 3:21-26

We are that murderer on the stand in the courtroom giving an account for our actions. Actions against a perfectly Holy God, worthy of perfect obedience, who we have sinned against by bearing false witness to as image bearers… We are also that defiant young man. Disobedient and in rebellion against a perfect, loving, merciful Father. Because He is perfect, holy, and just… there MUST be justice for our crimes against God. The penalty for sin must be paid. Death.

Jesus walked into that courtroom and took your place on the stand. He sat down and took the ruling from the court of the supreme Judge. Jesus also walked out into the street for us, mere children acting in defiance against The Father, and took on the penalty for our direct disobedience. Jesus suffered death in our place for our sins, taking on the wrath of God for the Sins of man (retributive justice) SO THAT WE can be made new, sanctified, and redeemed for God’s Holy Purpose (restorative justice.)

God shows us mercy through restorative justice, but we should never EVER forget that Jesus Christ, the perfect, holy, obedient, blameless Lamb of God, took on the retributive justice for our crimes. God dealt out BOTH. The penalty had to be paid. Justice had to be served.

Pastor Voddie Baucham put it so clearly this way,

“God is just and righteous, and not only does He judge theoretically, He’s going to judge you because of your sin, because of what you thought and said and did. You should have DIED in your sleep last night, but God gave you another day. You need to beg for forgiveness. Because you’re RUINED apart from Christ. And here's what you need to know: He died for the sins that you committed, not for His own, but by His passive and active obedience. He purchased full and complete righteousness that He might impute it to you and then took upon Himself ALL of the guilt that was necessary as the propitiation to a righteous God whose wrath MUST be poured out on sin. And it is only when you acknowledge your sin and turn from your sin and call on this CHRIST who died and apply that to yourself that you have ANY hope of being saved.”

Application

• Romans 8:1: “There is therefore NOW NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” AMEN! Reflect on the fact that you are no longer condemned! Jesus took on the retributive justice for our sin!

  • See my previous post on this topic HERE!

• Examine your heart toward Christians and the World.

  • As Jesus mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount: Our hearts should have a posture of forgiveness and reconciliation. Strive for this heart posture with all.

  • Remember, the World will act in the flesh and that is to be expected without the authority of Scripture. Have grace and mercy for them, love them by sharing with them the Truth in love and lead them to repentance as well.