Word of Salvation – Vol. 37 No. 46 – December 1992

 

The Justice Of God

 

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on Lord's Day 4

 

Dear congregation, beloved in Christ the Lord,

There are two points in this sermon that I would like you to remember: The first is that since God is just, our hope of escaping eternal punishment is only to be found in Jesus (who perfectly satisfies God's justice on behalf of sinners).  And the second is that God's justice guarantees the possibility of life and love.

So the first point is that our only hope for peace with God and eternal life is Jesus, because God is just.  God upholds the laws He has laid down for mankind.  The basic laws for mankind are well known.  The positive command of God for all men is that we should love God with our whole heart and being.  And that includes loving our neighbours, whom God has put next to us, as ourselves.

The reward for obedience, for loving God, for seeking His kingdom and his righteousness, is life.  God will take full and gracious care of those who truly and practically trust him.

The punishment for disobedience is spelled out in the law which God made known right at the beginning of human history: the soul that sins shall die.  That is a basic law of God for mankind.

That is the just consequence of sin; of disobedience to God's perfect law of love: death.  Now the first question of L.D.4 asks whether God has not placed us in an impossible situation.  You see, in L.D.3 the catechism has shown us that we human beings are not capable of carrying out God's perfect instructions.

Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, all men are born sinners.  So now Question 9 asks whether it is fair of God to command us to do what we can't do.  Does God not put us in a no-win situation?  This question can be looked at from a number of different angles.  It could be seen as an attempt to shift the blame for our sin and its consequences away from ourselves to God.

Or it could be seen as a call for God to lower His standards.  Should God not take our disability, our inability to love, into account?  Should God perhaps ignore our sin and forget about punishment.  Is it fair that God should ask us to do what we can't do?

Briefly, the answer to these questions is that we are affected by the decision of our first parents.  And God does not throw his law overboard.  In spite of the decision of our parents, Adam and Eve, not to honour God's law, to try and live without God's law, to bypass God's laws and to try and live by laws of their own making,?  God continues to deal with mankind in accord with his perfect law of love.  This means that the Lord continues to hate sin and will always seek to destroy sin.

Because God is the God of love and demands love, God hates sin and is committed to destroying sin.  The point of all this, dear sinner, is that you cannot save yourself.  You cannot escape the justice of God by your schemes or efforts.  You have sinned, you are under condemnation, you are doomed.  Some of you will be thinking to yourselves: that's an awful statement to make.  You are doomed.  That sounds like hell fire and brimstone preaching.  I agree.

But that is precisely the miserable predicament which every sinner (outside Christ) is in.

Sinners are doomed.

Doomed by their own sin.

Sinners are destroying themselves; they are bringing down God's judgement upon themselves.  That is what Jesus has come into the world for, and died for.  For doomed sinners.  So that He might save them from hell-fire and brimstone.  Till you see that, you'll never really appreciate what Christ has actually done for you on the cross.

Look, believing in Jesus is far more than believing that He existed.  You don't truly believe in Jesus till you make use of Him, like a drowning person makes us of his rescuer.  Jesus has come to save, to rescue men from something terrible; from their sins and from the punishment of their sins.  From eternal death!

If that is true, and God's Word says it is true, then it is pure callousness to say, and pure stupidity to think, that there is no hell, that there is no eternal death, there is no punishment.

To say such things is a lie.  It is cruel.

Let me illustrate.  Imagine that I see a person drowning.  Now I am able to save him if I want to.  But because I do not want to get wet I just keep standing on the side and start talking to him.  And I say to him: Listen man, I know they say that if you go under you will drown, but don't worry, that's scaremongering.  Just forget about that kind of nonsense.  You'll be alright.  Forget about drowning, you'll be OK.  Would that be helpful?  Not likely.  But that's the kind of thing many people are actually doing.  They act as if by talking you can alter the laws of God – the laws of life and death.  As if it is all just a matter of the mind.  As if only that is true what you choose to believe is true.  As if there are no objective realities.

That's the way a lot of people in our society actually think.  They think that you are allowed to believe what you want to believe.  It's all the same; because only that is true what you believe is true.

Well, it is not that way at all!

It is not men who determine what is true and what is not true.  No, it is God who determines the truth.  God is the truth.  He is the Maker of all things.  God has determined what His creation will be and how His creation will function.  Whatever you or I choose to believe, God's creation is the way it is.  And all the talking in the world won't change that.  And God sticks by the rules, or laws, which He has set in place.

As I said at the beginning, this is what makes life and love possible.  God sticks to the rules he has laid down.  He calls men to recognise and respect those rules.  If they don't, they will get hurt.

Again let me illustrate.  If for instance I try to ignore the law of gravity which God has put in place, and I jump off a high building pretending that I can float.  In all seriousness I keep telling myself, I can float.  If I ever try that stunt, I am sure to break a leg or worse.  God will not alter his laws just for my foolishness.

So by everything we experience in this life we are taught to respect our Maker's laws.  And we would not want him to change that, would we?

Imagine that there was no punishment.  Imagine that there were no rules and no consequences to our actions.  Life would be impossible.  Life needs rules.  Life needs laws which say what is allowed and what is not allowed; what is according to God's pattern and what is not.  Life needs rules which determine that if you do one thing there will be a consistent result or consequence to that action.  Life is like a game.  A game is an activity in which people make the rules.  Now for a game you can make any rules you like.  But as soon as you start playing, you all have to stick to the rules.  You have to play fair.  You can't insist that the rules be changed just because you are losing.

So it is with life.  For life God has set the rules.

And by the way, those rules are not just arbitrary rules.  They are rules which are exactly suited to human beings who have been created in the image of God to have fellowship with God and enjoy harmony with each other.

Now God does not change the rules just because some people don't like them.  Or because some people don't have a clue what real life is all about.  I said that God's justice, God's sticking to the rules he has laid down, makes life possible.  It also makes love possible.

Those of you who know your Bibles a little, will know that quite a few people in the Bible complain about the unfair treatment they experience in life.  You read questions like, Lord, why do the wicked get away with their wickedness?

Lord, why is it that I am so unfairly treated?

You might say they complain about the cheating that other people do.  For that is what sin is, cheating, cheating God's rules, cheating God and cheating your neighbour.

Now, if there was no guarantee that God will continue to apply his rules, and that God will eventually judge all people by His rules, would everyone not be tempted to forget about law and order altogether?  Would they not be inclined to just look after themselves?

And is this not precisely what is happening in our world today?  People who don't believe in God or in God's justice look upon life as a free for all.  They talk as if you may do what you can get away with.  With the result that our society is becoming increasingly lawless and corrupt.

When people don't trust in the justice of God they take matters into their own hands.  Things don't become better then, they always become worse.

In his grace, God has told us, I am the just God and I will set everything and everyone straight.

There will be a day of reckoning, a day of judgement and justice.

God calls us to trust in the justice of God.

When we keep that in mind it makes sense when we are told, don't repay evil for evil.  Don't retaliate to cheating by cheating.

Just because your neighbour behaves hatefully, don't follow his example.  Hatred, anger and cheating are all ways of destruction.

When we believe in the justice of God we can be patient and live in the hope that God will take care of things.

Believing in the justice of God we can trust Him to forgive our sins.  Because we believe that Jesus was crucified, convicted and punished for us.  God has promised to reckon Christ's death as our death, Christ's righteousness as our righteousness, Christ's life as our life.

Believing in the justice of God we will be encouraged to pray for the Spirit of Christ to renew us and to help us to love and serve our neighbour whatever that neighbour may have done to us.

We are called to let God rule our life, rather than allowing our lives to be ruled by the hatreds of men.

Believing in the justice of God we can accept suffering, because we are convinced that God will remove all sin and suffering from this world.  God is making a just world, a new world in which there will be no sin, nothing unjust, nothing hurtful.

Yes, believing in Jesus means trusting Him to bring us into the world of life and love which is the world of God's righteousness.

AMEN