Day 11: God Is Just, The Judge of All the Earth

Scripture

“Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” Genesis 18:25 ESV

“Keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:7 ESV

Confessional Summary

The Reformed confessions do not treat God’s justice as a side note. Westminster confesses that the Lord is “most just,” and also “most holy in all his counsels, in all his works, and in all his commands,” so His verdicts are never crooked and His standards are never negotiable (Westminster Confession of Faith 2.1). That confession does not flatter us. It says God is “just, and terrible in his judgments,” and “hating all sin,” which means justice is not a feature God turns on and off depending on the audience (Westminster Confession of Faith 2.1). Westminster speaks plainly about history’s end, saying, “God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world, in righteousness, by Jesus Christ” (Westminster Confession of Faith 33.1).

However, the confessions also insist that God’s justice does not hang over the believer as a threat, because it has already been satisfied in Christ. Westminster says God justifies His people by “pardoning their sins” and “accepting and accounting their persons righteous,” not by ignoring guilt, but “by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them” (Westminster Confession of Faith 11.1). Heidelberg puts the comfort in the first person, saying God “grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ,” as if I had never sinned, because Christ has answered for me (Heidelberg Catechism 60). That is why the Belgic Confession can call the last judgment “a great consolation to the righteous” and “a great terror to the wicked,” because the Judge who exposes all things is the same Savior who bore the curse for His people (Belgic Confession 37). Even the ancient creeds echo what the Reformed churches confess when they say of Christ that “he shall come to judge the living and the dead” (Apostles’ Creed; Nicene Creed).

The Reformers agreed that God is the perfectly fair Judge who never excuses guilt, and He will set every wrong right, either at the cross for those who are in Christ or at the final judgment for those who refuse Him.

Reflection


A universe without judgment is not loving. It is indifferent. Our hunger for justice is not a weakness to outgrow. It is a clue that you were made in the image of a righteous Judge. Evil that is never addressed is not “mysterious.” It is cruel. Scripture refuses to make God complicit with that cruelty.

But God’s justice sobers us because it does not stay safely aimed at “them.” It reaches into motives, private compromises, and respectable sins. We love the idea of God judging the obvious villains. We resist the idea of God judging our hidden self.

That is why the cross is not sentimental. It is necessary. Forgiveness is not God shrugging. It is God dealing with guilt without bribery, denial, or corruption. When that lands on you, you stop treating sin lightly and you stop treating grace as cheap.

For the Christian, God’s justice is not a future surprise but a settled verdict, because the sentence has already fallen on Christ, and the last day will be your public vindication, not your condemnation.

Application


Entrust one unresolved wrong to God today and refuse to keep it alive through bitterness. Then bring one sin you have been minimizing into the light and ask for mercy through Christ.

Prayer

Righteous Judge, keep me from demanding justice for others while excusing myself. Make me tremble at sin, love what is right, and cling to Christ as my only hope. Amen.