God Is Just Series

Introduction

I am currently preaching a series of sermons that I am calling, “Glory: The Character of God.” In this five-week-long series, I am exploring God’s self-revelation of himself to Moses in Exodus 34:6-7.

I am concluding this series today. So far in this sermon series, we have examined the truths that God is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, faithful, and forgiving. Today, I would like to examine the truth that God is just.

God’s justice may be defined as follows:

God’s fair and impartial treatment of all people. As a God of justice (Is. 30:18), He is interested in fairness as well as in what makes for right relationships. His actions and decisions are true and right (Job 34:12; Rev. 16:7). His demands on individuals and nations to look after victims of oppression are just demands (Psalm 82) (Ronald F. Youngblood, F. F. Bruce, and R. K. Harrison, Thomas Nelson Publishers, eds., Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1995]).

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about justice and especially about God’s justice. Hopefully, we can set some things straight today.

Scripture

God revealed several of his attributes to Moses in Exodus 34:6–7. Let’s read Exodus 34:6-7, although our focus today is on the second part of verse 7:

6 The LORD passed before him [that is, Moses] and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

Lesson

In this lesson, we learn about the justice of God.

Let’s use the following outline:

1. The Reality of the Justice of God

2. The Facets of the Justice of God

3. The Escape of the Justice of God

I. The Reality of the Justice of God

First, let’s begin by looking at the reality of the justice of God.

A few years ago, the Pew Research Center showed that 80% of Americans believe in some kind of God or higher power.

However, far fewer people believe in the God who is just. A majority of Americans reject the view that God looks at all people and will judge them on what they do and say.

In fact, more than two-thirds of Americans believe that people are inherently good. This view comes into sharp relief when people die, and it was especially evident in the 9/11 attack on America. One frequently heard on the news that the thousands of Americans who died all went to heaven and only the 19 terrorists who hijacked the plane ended up in hell.

I remember hearing Dr. R. C. Sproul say that our culture now believes in “justification by death” rather than “justification by faith.”

“Justification by death” is the belief that a person is justified by God and granted entry into glory upon the death of that person. That is the general view of people in our culture today.

Most people believe that there is a God or, at least, some higher power. They will say something like this, “I believe in God. And I believe that God is a God of love. I believe that God accepts every one. God will forgive everyone and accept every one. Because that is who God is.”

People generally believe that God is a God of love. And they reject the notion that God is a God of justice.

The fact is that people do want justice. Suppose a drunk driver plows into your loved one’s car and kills him or her. You don’t want the judge to say to the drunk driver, “Oh dear, I am so sorry that you did that. I love you and I hope you will never do it again.” No! Nobody wants that.

One pastor shares the following story about the 1948 movie titled All My Sons, starring Edward G. Robinson, who plays a man called Joe Keller:

[Keller] was a man who had run this manufacturing business. During World War II, he suddenly realized he had produced a set of parts for the Air Force that was defective. He sent them anyway because he knew if he didn’t send them he would have been financially ruined....

He hoped for the best, but what happened was those parts were put into airplanes and, as a result, 21 young pilots crashed and were killed. The officials came back to the manufacturing place with policemen and with handcuffs.

[Keller] lied about his knowledge of it. He was able to get them to believe somebody else in the plant was to blame. That man went off to prison for the rest of his life. Only Joe Keller and his wife knew what he had done.