God, Who is Fair and Just

Friday, March 6, 2020

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.                         Romans 3:22-26

In something of an attempt to present a different kind of sermon I once asked a church member to present a paper she’d written which holds the opposite view that Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans, namely that God is unfair and a liar.  The sermon’s main intent was to teach people who were going through very difficult times, and were experiencing a shaking of their faith, how to begin to trust God again.  Two things about this paper, it was my bride, Elizabeth, who wrote the paper in 1988, and it was a college assignment, not a reflection of her relationship with God.  It was simply entitled An Unfair and Lying God.

The paper was a really good argument for the unbelief you see today in people who are whistling in the dark, trying to get past the possibility that there really is a God and they might be in trouble.  The sermon became one of my all-time favorites, because during that Sunday morning worship I saw lights come on in the faces of people I knew and loved.  The place was alive with recognition of that awe of God’s holiness and righteousness; He is a just and fair God!

The Apostle Paul did not think that at one point in his life when he was still going by the name Saul.  In fact, to think God could forgive people that were departing from his orthodox Judaism to worship a sinner who’d been put on a cross, well that was just too much!  So, Paul went on a rampage, dragging those sinful believers in Jesus into the courts for judgment and death.  And then, at the height of that rampage, Paul met Jesus on the Road to Damascus, and everything changed; Saul had a heart change, because the light stopped him dead in his tracks.  He had an eternity change, because the Christ of that light forgave Saul, who would later call himself the chief of all sinners:

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.  1 Timothy 1:15

And Saul had a name change; God changed his name and destination to Paul, Apostles to the Gentiles, church planter, writer of a third of the New Testament, and martyr for the very Kingdom of God he’d once persecuted.

For You Today

There’s nothing truthful or fair in the heavenlies about the way sin treats you.  But God, in His infinite goodness and grace always tells the truth and is ever exceedingly fair and just!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

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Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For more posts on Romans 3 and the whole idea of the fairness of God’s judgment and grace see these older posts The Face of Rebellion and A Light Shines in My Heart