Monday, October 18, 2010

Justice and Mercy

"God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished–he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." Romans 3:25-26

Yesterday at my church service they played Benton Brown's "Jesus You are worthy". The refrain at the end is "justice and mercy". And for some reason, I suddenly got what that song meant.

Justice and mercy seem like a contradiction when together. I googled them together trying to find the song, and half the hits (that weren't about the flyleaf song) were about the contradiction. This one is from about.com:
True virtues are not supposed to clash - at least that is the ideal. Our personal interests or baser instincts may at times conflict with the virtues we are trying to cultivate, but higher virtues themselves are always supposed to be in harmony with one another. How, then, do we explain the apparent conflict between the virtues of mercy and justice?

But "Justice and Mercy meet on the cross".

How was justice served when Jesus died on the cross? Justice was carried out on ALL the sins of the world, all at once. All sinners and sins were punished. Fallen man was summarily punished for his depravity. And since we can agree that we've all fallen short of perfection, we've all sinned, that none of us is perfect - we can probably also agree that we deserve such justice served against us.

Then the mercy: We deserved punishment. And punishment was meted out... but not on us. Jesus mercifully put himself before us on the cross, receiving punishment we all should have borne and be bearing now. But we received grace instead of punishment, mercy instead of justice.

An excerpt from Philip Yancy's "What's So Amazing About Grace?" really hits it home:
"I agreed that the notion that a man could go to a store where a group of unarmed human beings are drinking soda pop and eating moon pies, fire a shotgun blast at one of them, tearing his lungs and heart and bowels from his body, turn on another and send lead pellets ripping through his flesh and bones, and that God would set him free is almost more than I could stand. But unless that is precisely the case then there is no Gospel, there is no Good News. Unless that is the truth we have only bad news, we are back with law alone."
In this except, Yancy is recounting a story of pre-civil rights era America, where a white man armed with a shotgun killed several innocent African-Americans. The crazy concept here is that both have opportunities to get into heaven.

God doesn't differentiate between our sins. Jealousy and gluttony are no less sins than racism and murder. Both sins put the sinners clearly on the fallen side of the law. If God can't forgive a murderer, than someone who's guilty of jealousy can't be forgiven either. But God does forgive jealousy, and gluttony, and racism, and murder. He is capable of forgiving all sins. Romans 10:10 tells us "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Paul tells us earlier in Romans 8:30 "And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified."

So the idea that a victim and his murderer could both end up in heaven is appalling to us. But not to God. If both have believed in their hearts and confessed with their mouths, they are saved. We have to believe that we can't be "too bad" for God's love. And if we are able to believe that we ourselves can't be too bad for His love, we also need to believe that others can't be too bad either. We must remember two keys parts: "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."; and "[all] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." Romans 3:23-24

7 comments:

  1. "God doesn't differentiate between our sins. Jealousy and gluttony are no less sins than racism and murder."

    Can you explain this a little more? Are you trying to say that all sins are equal before God?
    I have a hard time wrapping my mind around a Just God viewing a little white lie, as the same as murder.

    :-)
    Aisha

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  2. good thoughts. looking forward to swapping some crazy stories about what God's been up to in Haiti and D.C. on Wednesday. :)

    To Aisha,
    The just part of God can be seen as this.
    God is holy, aka without sin. He cannot be in the presence of sin, therefore any ain will seperate us from God. So, in that regard, all sins are perfectly equal, cause any sin, even a little white lie, will seperate us from God. If a man lives such a good life that his only sin the whole time is one "little white lie", it is still enough to seperate him from God.
    Additionally, God has shown his mercy extends equally to all sins. He is willing to forgive even the most egregious sins, such as murder, adultery, etc. Look at King David, the Apostle Paul. He even forgave Peter, who blantantly denied Christ three times on the very night he swore to always be faithful.
    Therefore, while I would have to think that some sins will grieve God more than others, as far as the punishment that is deserved, and the mercy that can be given, all sins are equal.
    My thoughts for the night.
    Seems like a good topic to continue with. Please post your thoughts.
    God Bless,
    Travis
    http://www.f1engineering.org

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  3. So a person who may tell a little white lie (and died without confession/seeking forgiveness) would be deserving of the same punishment (aka-Hell) as a person who has committed murder (who died without confession)? How would this fit in with a God, described as "Just"?

    While I can understand a God (in heaven) who cannot be in the presence of sin, he has been in the presence of sin, as manifested as Christ on Earth.

    So maybe my question is, if we die without confessing every single sin, do we go straight to Hell? Or are there some sins that we are cleaned of at the moment of death?

    Second, what is considered sin? Sure, there are the ten commandments, and a few that Jesus mentioned in the NT, but is there an all-encompassing list to reference by? What if we die as Christians and committed sins that we were not aware of?

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  4. While I don't know anything specific about the catholic viewpoint on confession, I don't think it's about confessing every single sin.

    "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

    Romans 10:10 was on my heart because we read Chapter 10 in Juvi this weekend. We discussed at length this two-fold concept to salvation. First, you must believe in your heart the truth about Christ, and accept Him as your Lord and savior. The second part, we confess with our mouths our sins.

    I think a crucial message in that is that God wants us to match internally and externally. We accept Him into our hearts, and this is only visible to God. When we confess with our mouths, we are declaring externally, to those around us that our hearts are with Jesus. We have external evidence of our faith, of our belief in Jesus, and of our commitment to follow Christ - to be like Him, to live like Him.

    Philippians 4:9 says "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me–put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

    Also, James 2:14-15 "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?"

    And James 1:22 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."

    It's about being authentic Christians - your actions match your heart and faith.

    We are not perfect, and God knows this. So to circle back to your questions: I don't think we have to confess every single sin to gain entry to heaven. One, entry to heaven is BY GRACE. It is a gift, and not earned. Second, I don't know if it's possible to recount every single sin committed by us. But the important thing to realize, is that we are forgiven already. When we confess with our hearts and mouths, I think it's a confession of "I am not perfect, I have fallen short of the bar Christ has set for me." We are cleaned of sins at the moment of death: we are cleaned of ALL sins at the moment of Christ's death.

    So what is considered a sin? I think any thing that has us falling short of Christ. We are not perfect. If we were to make a checklist, I think it would keep growing infinitely, because we humans are so clever at finding new ways to get into trouble. Again, I think our confession needs to be "I fell short of being as perfect as Christ." I think if we die, with this confession on our lips, and a humble and faithful heart in Christ, God will have mercy on us and take us into Heaven.

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  5. And trav - looking forward to swapping stories too!

    Btw, your comment is exactly the point I would have made :)

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  6. ."So what is considered a sin? I think any thing that has us falling short of Christ. We are not perfect. If we were to make a checklist, I think it would keep growing infinitely, because we humans are so clever at finding new ways to get into trouble. Again, I think our confession needs to be "I fell short of being as perfect as Christ."

    This statement is still confusing to me. If we don't know what sin is sin, than how can we make ourselves more perfect like Christ? Couldn't that just excuse people from truly changing, if they don't even know what they're doing is bad?

    ex. If a couple goes to church regularly, participates in community service, goes to bible study, but also lives together and sleep together outside of marriage... Do they make the confession of falling short of Christ, and then keep living their lives? How do they know they're living their lives according to Christ? What if they prayed about it, and felt in their hearts that they were living their lives according to Christ? Would they be right, or would they be wrong?


    "But the important thing to realize, is that we are forgiven already. When we confess with our hearts and mouths, I think it's a confession of "I am not perfect, I have fallen short of the bar Christ has set for me." We are cleaned of sins at the moment of death: we are cleaned of ALL sins at the moment of Christ's death."

    Can you explain this a little more? If a person was a believer in Christ his whole life, but died without confessing that he murdered someone or raped someone, does he still gain entrance to heaven??

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  7. Oh dear. I've been meaning to get back to you before this.

    So God's law is laid out for us all over the bible. Some of it is less clear than others, such as in Acts 10 when Peter has a vision that the once unclean foods are now clean. 1 Cor. 8-9 say:
    "But food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do. Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak."
    So in the case of your example, I would ask how the couple views their marriage, or lack thereof. If the couple honestly believes its not a sin, and has biblical reasons for living unmarried.. well that's different from this couple consciously sinning. God's grace does seem to have loopholes - but if you're continually consciously sinning, knowing that you'll be forgiven for it, then isn't your heart lost to Him already?

    I think there's a differentiation between believer and follower. Just because you believe in Christ doesn't mean you follow him. In James 2:19... "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder." The rest of James 2 is a good description of how faith and works combine in us to make us complete followers of Christ.

    I look forward to the next time I get to see you. I have a feeling we'll have a lot to discuss! In the meantime, I'd totally recommend Philip Yancy's "What's so amazing about grace?". It's a great book, and gotten me to think about a lot of these issues.

    <3!

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