5. Righteousness & Justice

For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see his face.

Psalms 11:7

For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.

Psalms 33:4-5

I will sing of your love and justice; to you, Lord, I will sing praise.

Psalms 101:1

We have already looked at God’s just love. Today I want to further explore the links between righteousness and justice and God’s love, mercy, and compassion. The best place to start must be with Jesus:

For this is how God loved the world: he gave his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

God loved the world so much that he sent his only son. Why did God send his son? Because, first and foremost, justice needed to be done – sin had entered the world, all had sinned and the results of sin was death (Romans 3:23) – someone needed to take the consequences of that sin in order that restitution could be made.

Now the natural way of things would have been for God to mete out the correct punishment for each person according to their sin but in his compassion God instituted a system of sacrifice and scape goats(Leviticus 16). Ideally this would have stopped people sinning, but sin persisted and the ultimate solution, a once and for all sacrifice, was needed.

So, out of his immense love for those he had created, God sent Jesus to die on the cross so that justice could be done once and for all. A way was found for forgiveness and restitution. In dying on the cross Jesus took all the wrongs that had or would be done and paid the price for them. God is good and he could not be in relationship with us in our sin.

Jesus is the link between the need for righteousness and justice and God’s unfailing love, mercy and compassion. Psalm 11:4 tells us that God is in his holy temple. That he still rules from heaven. There can be no doubt that God is sovereign over the earth. The earth is his, and all that is within it is his (Psalm 24). Yet, just one Psalm earlier we have the analogy of God as our shepherd, caring for us and nurturing us. Protecting us from darkness, leading us beside peaceful streams.

Almost like two mountains we have these two images of God and the only way to bring them together is through the beautiful valley that is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. What amazing love…

Prayer: Lord, it’s not always easy to understand how you could have allowed your own son to be sacrificed for the sins of every one of us. But I am so glad that you did. I am so glad that you love us all so much that you were prepared to make this choice in order that justice might be done once and for everyone. As the Psalmist did so many years ago, I will sing praises to you for all you have done, for your amazing love for me, a sinner.

Amen

Action: Today take some time to express (sing, write a poem, create a piece of art, dance, whatever is your “thing”…)  your praises to God for his amazing and unfailing love which found a way for justice to be done, sin to be paid for through Jesus.

Journal your thoughts…