Word of Salvation – September 2018
B.C.20 – The Justice And Mercy Of God
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp
Scripture Readings: Jonah 3 & 2Corinthians 5:11-21
Introd: Justice and mercy are regarded as mutually exclusive. You cannot have both.
A mother once approached the Emperor Napoleon seeking a pardon for her son.
The emperor replied that the young man had committed the offence twice and justice demanded death.
“But I don’t ask for justice,” the mother explained. “I plead for mercy.”
“But your son does not deserve mercy,” Napoleon replied.
“Sir, the woman cried, “it would not be mercy if he deserved it, and mercy is all I ask for.”
“Well, then,” the emperor said, “I will have mercy.” And he spared the woman’s son.
It is either justice or mercy and you cannot have both.
As a Mum you’ve warned your young son about getting into the biscuit tin.
The last time he did that you promised that next time he would be punished.
Next morning junior is again caught in the act so you now have two choices:
You can be perfectly just and administer the punishment.
Or you can show mercy and let him off with yet another warning.
But you cannot do both… it is either justice or mercy.
As a Dad you’ve warned your teenager for constantly breaking curfew.
You’ve promised that next time it happens she will be grounded for a whole month.
Two days later she again sneaks in an hour late so you now have two choices:
You can be perfectly just and forbid her to go out for four weeks.
Or else you can show mercy and let her off with a lecture.
However you cannot do both… it is either justice or mercy.
When it comes to God we seem to face the same dilemma.
Either God is perfectly just and punishes all and every wrong.
Or else God is perfectly merciful and just overlooks the wrong we do.
God cannot possibly be both just and loving… it is either or.
He must either punish people or let them off the hook but He cannot do both.
A] THE JUSTICE OF GOD.
1. I have often met people solve that dilemma by playing down the justice of God.
Some even deny justice altogether. Justice in relation to God is something outdated.
They can understand that all that stuff about God’s vengeance is there in the O.T.
Because they say the OT is really a pre Christian book for them.
So any talk about God’s anger… or God’s jealousy is considered absurd.
Those sentiments are unworthy of God.
That kind of thinking also creeps into churches… and it’s a false sentimentality.
An unwholesome thinking with a very one-sided picture of God.
All it wants to hear about… and talk about… and sing about… is the love of God.
As if once you have said “God is love” you’ve exhausted all that there is to say about God.
I’ll be so bold as to say that evangelical Christianity today has very little sense of the justice of God.
That in His absolute holiness He must justly punish sin. Paul spoke about God’s justice when he said:
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.”
That’s God’s justice… and if we ignore or deny that then we finish up with cheap grace.
As if God somehow owes it to us to be merciful.
Often we have little sense of how deeply we have offended the holiness of God.
So in many Christian circles almost anything goes.
Don’t get too hung up… after all God is love.
2. Evangelical Christians today need to recapture a Biblical sense of the justice of God.
We must take it seriously since the justice of God stares out at us from numerous pages of the Bible.
It would be helpful to look at the Bible thru the eyes of someone who reads it for the first time.
Over and over it comes as a shock to people in our self-indulgent society…
to read in Scripture the many sins that a just God punishes.
We see the justice of God in numerous events in the Scriptures of the O.T.
– It is already there in Genesis 3 – a God of justice expels Adam & Eve from Eden.
– We see it in the way God deals with Cain, the first murderer.
– If anyone doubts the justice of God let them read the story of Noah and the flood.
– Or the story of hard-hearted Pharaoh… punished with 10 plagues.
The righteousness and justice of God are awesome realities.
They run right thru all the preaching of the prophets.
We saw it there in the story of Jonah as God’s justice is directed at wicked Nineveh.
Later, in the book of Nahum, God actually carries that justice out too.
Interestingly today Nineveh is still just a desert wasteland.
Throughout the Bible there are plenty of references
to that jealous God who in His justice will not hold anyone guiltless…!
Today if we think that our sins don’t matter all that much
or that the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth isn’t too fussed about human behaviour
then we do well to read what Scripture says of God’s justice. It’s a common theme.
3. Let me add that this teaching is certainly not limited to the O.T. either.
If you think that then you haven’t read the story of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts.
You don’t have to read long in the teachings of Jesus to find this either.
No one denies that in Jesus life and teaching we especially see the love of God.
That is wonderfully true.
Yet Jesus also taught about a place where God’s justice burns with unquenchable fire.
Jesus spoke some terrible woes against the Pharisees. They scorch the letters off the page.
He predicted the overthrow of Jerusalem.
And nowhere than in the N.T. do we read more clearly that a day of judgment is coming
a time when God’s justice will be fully avenged.
In fact the clearest demonstration of the justice of God is right there in the gospels.
In the story of the death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary.
That cruel death of Jesus was the greatest demonstration of God’s justice.
Jesus took our place and was made to be sin for us.
Therefore He also had to bear God’s justice against the sins of the world by His death.
Today we can still see the justice of God at work in the world around us.
Let me give you just one example: AIDS and HIV.
If you are sexually promiscuous and sleep around you reap the consequences.
I’m not suggesting that we ought to see every AIDS victim as under God’s judgment.
Nor that God hates sexual sin more than other sins – not at all.
But God in His justice has allowed this disease into a society
that thumbs its nose at God’s laws about chastity and purity.
God is a just God and Scripture will not allow us to simply skim over that.
It is an awesome… a fearful reality… that our God is a just God.
And it’s all very well to talk about God’s mercy… but then please follow the pattern of the B.Conf.
and FIRST face squarely the awesome justice of God.
B] THE MERCY OF GOD.
1. Strange as it may seem some people also have problems with the other side of this dilemma.
They try to solve that problem about justice and mercy seeming to contradict one another
by playing down the mercy and love of God.
There have always been some people – Christian people too – who have problems with God’s mercy.
They just cannot believe that it is a reality.
They don’t dare to believe that God could possibly be merciful to them.
These people have read in the Bible all the fearsome things about God’s great wrath.
They are in awe of the majesty and holiness of God that underlie His justice.
It’s such a powerful teaching that they cannot get over it and see the mercy of God.
For them all that can be said about God is that He is a just and judging God.
They read of God’s judgment against all those people we mentioned earlier.
And then to them mercy and love seem contradictory to the Bible stories.
These people are like Martin Luther in his monastery cell.
Terribly afraid of the justice of God.
Somehow mercy and love have been pushed into the background.
Jonah wanted to do that too – push God’s love and mercy into the background.
Now while it’s true that our modern age could do with a little more of this….
and while all of us must do justice to God’s righteousness
it is also true that it is totally foolish to ignore the mercy of God.
2. The point is that this is one of the grandest themes of Scriptures
You never have to go very far to see the mercy and love of God.
It runs as a golden thread all the way from Genesis to Revelation.
Over and over we read that our God delights to show mercy… and He does that already in the O.T.
Already in the case of Adam and Eve God showed mercy.
When they rebelled God postponed the death sentence on them and allowed them to live.
Okay… not in Paradise… but still in a world where He still provided and cared.
We see it at the time of the flood as God in mercy provided an ark of safety for all who believed.
We see it when God rescues Lot out of Sodom.
Or take the story of the Exodus once again.
It is certainly true that we see there the justice of God levelled at Pharaoh.
But that story especially brings out God’s merciful rescue of Israel from their hopelessness.
Or think of how the Lord God in mercy put up with the grumbling Israelites in the desert.
For forty years they tested His mercy yet repeatedly God showed His love and care.
Or read thru the prophecies of Isaiah or some of the other prophets.
We see it in Jonah… God has pity on the city of Nineveh.
God turns away the judgment as the people turn to Him in repentance.
And so if we are fearful at times about a just and holy God…
if it troubles us that God is righteous and punishes sin (and we are sinful)
then please also focus on the mercy of God.
Martin Luther eventually found that a tremendously liberating thing.
It took the load off his shoulders when he was confronted by the mercy of God.
The reality that God is a forgiving God.
3. Of course we see this especially in the N.T. and in the life of Jesus.
Jesus was the one who demonstrated most fully the love and mercy of God.
The sick were healed, the lame walked, the dead were raised, forgiveness was preached.
In fact the clearest demonstration of the love of God
is that God sent His Son into the world to save the world.
God certainly didn’t do that because we human beings are such fine, upright, moral specimens.
God did that for no other reason than His own love and mercy.
From beginning to end Jesus reflected in His life the infinite mercy of God.
Today we see the mercy of God everywhere. We see it even in life all around us.
We see it in that God still gives sunshine and rain.
He causes the sun to rise on the righteous and the unrighteous.
And He sends rain on the evil and the good.
He does that for no other reason than that He chooses to be merciful.
In fact the apostle Peter reminds us that today God is good and patient also for another reason…
so that people might repent and turn to Him.
And that as they do that He then also show them His mercy in Christ.
Of course we do need to realise that God’s mercy won’t last for ever.
We cannot take God’s mercy for granted.
Scriptures remind us that today is still the day of salvation.
But God IS merciful… there is absolutely no doubt about that.
C] THE SOLUTION TO MERCY AND JUSTICE.
1. Now the problem is to take equally seriously God’s justice and God’s mercy.
That’s the tricky bit. To do justice to both.
God’s justice and wrath is clearly taught in the Bible… so are God’s mercy and love.
Obviously BOTH are true.
But how do we then resolve the tension between justice and mercy?
On a human level it seems that the one excludes the other. Napoleon had to choose.
That mother must choose one or the other. So must that father of the teenager.
So how does it work with God?
Or does God simply play favourites… justice for some… mercy for others.
No! God is perfectly merciful and at the same time absolutely just.
He is both together.
Someone has said that it’s a little like one of those high tension power lines.
They run from the power station right in to our cities.
And along those power lines there runs the energy that gives light and warmth.
In many instances it even provides life-saving energy… to a prem baby in a humidicrib.
But touch that same power line with your bare hands…!
Instantly hundreds of volts of energy will blast you out of this world into the next.
That power line that brings death also makes life possible.
Take away the energy that brings death and it also robs the city of light and power.
So too God is both the source of justice as well as of mercy… at the same time.
In God they are not contradictory… one does not cancel out the other.
2. Let me tell you a little story to show that justice and mercy can exist together.
In August 1969 Charles Watson and three others stabbed and shot seven prominent Californians.
Watson and his accomplices were all members of the Charles Manson cult.
It was one of America’s most notorious murder sprees.
As one of Manson’s most devoted leaders Watson orchestrated the mayhem.
Watson was eventually caught, tried and sentenced to death.
Later the sentence was commuted to life in prison. He’s been there for more than 38 years.
But in prison Watson eventually became a Christian.
Two of Watson’s victims were Leno and Rosemary La Bianca.
They had a daughter, Susan, who survived the massacre.
After many years Susan too had become a Christian.
She felt she needed to deal with the anger that was there against the killers of her parents.
She struggled with forgiveness.
Eventually she found the courage to start writing to Watson in prison.
But she didn’t let on that she was the daughter of two of his murder victims.
After writing to him for nearly a year Susan decided to visit Watson in prison.
She was able to totally forgive Watson for the murder of her Mum and Dad.
She was greatly encouraged that he had become a Christian and repented of his evil deeds.
Here is a situation where justice and mercy exist side by side.
Watson continues in prison to serve his life sentence.
But he has received total forgiveness from the daughter of two of his victims.
Justice and mercy… side by side.
3. How can it be that someone like Susan, the daughter of the murdered La Biancas can forgive?
She obviously believes in justice because she endorses the life sentence.
And yet she can extend forgiveness and hold no ill feeling.
It’s because as a Christian she has seen justice and mercy combined in a far more wonderful way.
In the person of Jesus Christ.
In Him God was perfectly just and paid the price for every sin we ever did.
And on the basis of that He can now show us mercy.
Let me conclude with two Bible verses that make that link: The first is in 2 Corinthians 5:21
Here is the gospel that Jesus satisfied God’s justice perfectly so that God could be merciful:
God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us
so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.
The other verse is in Romans 3:25, 26.
Here too justice and mercy meet in Jesus Christ.
God has presented Him (Jesus) as an atoning sacrifice thru faith in His blood.
He did this to demonstrate His justice at the present time
So as to be just and the one who justifies the man who has faith in Jesus.
If you struggle with putting justice and mercy together we should think of the rainbow.
You never see a rainbow in cloudless sky.
Nor do we see a rainbow when the sky is totally overcast.
You have the rainbow only when there is a storm and sunshine at the same time.
In the flood of Noah there was mercy and justice… storm and sunshine.
And that happened in a far more wonderful way on the cross of Calvary.
God Himself took our just punishment so that now He can show us His mercy.
BC stands for Basic Christianity. What are the fundamentals of the faith?
BC also stands for Belgic Confession – a document in which the Christian church (in a time of great persecution) spelled out the basics of what she believes.
When Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep it needs to grasp again the basics of the faith and confess them in a world where the faith is increasingly under attack.
Those who drew up the BC declared that they were ready to obey the government in all lawful things, but that they would “offer their backs to stripes, their tongues to knives, their mouths to gags and their whole bodies to the fire” rather than deny the truth expressed in this confession.