A holy God must be just. Who else could ensure that justice is ultimately done?
May 2021 saw an extraordinary murder. Prosecutors charged a 14-year-old boy with killing a 13-year-old girl by stabbing her 114 times.
Suppose the case were tried in a place that did not require jury trials, but rather a single judge determined guilt or innocence and the nature of any punishments. Suppose in this case the judge found the defendant guilty but then dramatically told him, “I have decided this court will forgive you for what you did. You were having a bad week. School was not going well, and you were under a lot of pressure at home. You have grown up playing violent video games, and you are the product of your experiences.
“You should not have killed this girl, but everyone has a bad day now and then and does something they regret later. I am sure you are basically a good person, and I don’t think we should ruin your bright future by giving you a criminal record. So the court is releasing you and ordering you to attend anger management classes. After that is completed, let’s just act as though this unfortunate incident never happened. I’m sure the girl’s family and friends will get over this.”
The cross and righteousness and justice
Even in our super-permissive society, such actions by the judge would cause outrage. A good judge must punish the guilty and acquit the innocent.
We recognize this on a human level, but it is even more true when it comes to God in his role as the ultimate judge. Who else could fill that role? God must judge because he knows and rules all things, and because he is a moral being who created us as moral beings, and because he gives us commands that will produce a good society and holds us responsible for the harm done when we break those commands.
God is a good and holy judge, a judge who only does what is right and just. Therefore he does not violate his standard of perfect righteousness and justice to save us from our guilt.
That is why Jesus had to die on the cross for our sins. God would not wipe away our sins simply on the basis of his mercy. We were unrighteous, and his righteous justice required punishment.
However, in love and mercy, he chose to make a way to save us. He would substitute for us and receive the punishment we deserved. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, [that is, God made his sinless son Jesus to be sin] so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
This exchange satisfied the righteous justice of God. What Jesus did on the Cross satisfies the holiness of God. When God looks at a person who has faith in Jesus, he sees that person clothed with Christ himself and therefore clothed with his righteousness.
Only Jesus can satisfy God’s justice
This is why Jesus said no one can come to God apart from him. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No other religion has
(a) a sinless leader
(b) who is the eternal Son of God
(c) who became a man
(d) who died as a substitute for our sins
(e) whom God raised from the dead, thereby vindicating him and his teachings and enabling him to save from death those who believe in him.
Without having the one and only Son of God as one’s Savior, no one can meet the demands of God’s holy righteousness and justice.
Perfection
That is because God’s standard for righteousness and justice is perfection. For example, one sin of Adam and Eve was enough to incur condemnation (see Genesis 3 and Romans 6:23).
We cannot imagine perfect justice. Human justice is always approximate and messy. Some criminals get away with crimes or get leniency they do not deserve. Some innocent people are convicted for crimes they never committed.
But God’s justice is perfect and comprehensive. He does not grade on a curve. He does not give mulligans (a golfing term for letting a player who has made a bad drive re-do it and score the hole as if the bad first shot never happened). Evil deeds incur real, objective guilt in God’s sight—a debt to God’s justice that must be paid—not just a subjective feeling of a guilty conscience.
God knows all things, all thoughts, motives, words, and actions, and he knows every person’s guilt. He knows every evil a person has ever committed and as a perfect judge will bring every last deed, bad and good, into the light and give the just recompense in perfect proportion, never too much or little in punishment, but extravagant in reward.
To say that God is holy is to say that he is just.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)