GOD IS LOVE

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”  (1 John 4:8-16 NIV)

“God is love” is not the complete truth about God so far as the Bible is concerned. It is not an abstract definition which stands alone, but a summing up, from the believer’s standpoint, of what the whole revelation set forth in Scripture tells us about its Author. This statement presupposes all the rest of the biblical witness to God. The God of whom John is speaking is the God who made the whole world, who judged it by the Flood, who called Abraham and made of him a nation, who chastened His Old Testament people by conquest, captivity, and exile, who sent His Son to save the world,… and who would one day judge the world in righteousness. It is this God, says John, who is love. It is perverse to quote John’s statement, as some do, as if it called in question the biblical witness to the severity of God’s justice. It is not possible to argue that a God who is love cannot also be a God who condemns and punishes the disobedient; for it is precisely of the God who does these very things that John is speaking. 

-- J. I. Packer (1926-2020) in “Knowing God”

#6442

JUSTICE, MERCY AND HUMILITY

In the Book of Micah, God called all the mountains and hills to witness as He told the people of Israel what is expected of them. “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8)

Of all the demands upon the Christian, justice and mercy – not to mention humility – are perhaps the most often misunderstood.

Justice is a hard standard. Justice demands absolute conformity with God’s holy character -- righteousness in our hearts, righteousness in our conversations, righteousness in our conduct, righteousness in our jobs and lives, righteousness in our institutions. Because God is a holy God, He cannot be in fellowship with unjust people.

At the same time, God is a merciful God. He woos His people and calls them back to Himself. But His justice -- consistency with His own decrees -- means that sin has to be paid for with death. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)…

Why didn’t God simply forgive and forget and let us begin again? Because His standard of justice, which demanded righteousness or death, could not be put aside.

So God shook heaven and earth, merging justice and mercy at the Cross by fulfilling the demands of justice through the one perfect sacrifice, His only Son, Jesus Christ.

When the Scriptures tell us to do justice and to love mercy, they require of us nothing less than the glorious, full-bodied justice and mercy God Himself showed. 

– Adapted from Charles Colson (1931-2012) in an article entitled “Doing Justice, Loving Mercy, Walking Humbly” in Discipleship Journal, No. 63 

#6394

JUSTIFIED BY WHAT?

In “Words We Live By” Brian Burrell tells of an armed robber named Dennis Lee Curtis who was arrested in 1992 in Rapid City, South Dakota. Curtis apparently had scruples about his thievery. In his wallet the police found a sheet of paper on which was written the following code:

“I will not kill anyone unless I have to. I will take cash and food stamps-- no checks. I will rob only at night. I will not wear a mask. I will not rob mini-marts or 7-Eleven stores. If I get chased by cops on foot, I will get away. If chased by vehicle, I will not put the lives of innocent civilians on the line. I will rob only seven months out of the year. I will enjoy robbing from the rich to give to the poor.”

This thief had a sense of morality, but it was flawed. When he stood before the court, he was not judged by the standards he had set for himself but by the higher law of the state.

Likewise, when we stand before God, we will not be judged by the code of morality we have written for ourselves, nor even by what the culture justifies, but by God's perfect law. 

Paul writes, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins.” (Romans 3:23-24 NLT)

Justification is what happens when Christians abandon all those vain attempts to justify themselves before God -- to be seen as "just" in God's eyes through religious and moral practices. It's a time when God's "justifying grace" is experienced and accepted, a time of pardon and forgiveness, of new peace and joy and love. Indeed, we're justified by God's grace through faith. 

-- SOUND BITES Ministry™, compiled from a variety of sources

#6287

JUDGMENT OR SALVATION

“If My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”  (2 Chronicles 7:14 ESV)

When God comes among us there are always and only two possible consequences: judgment or salvation. There is judgment if we close our eyes to His coming or refuse to receive Him. In that case, we are dependent on God’s justice and mercy. Or there is salvation and healing if we welcome Him with faith and trust.  “But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12 ESV) 

– David Winter in “Forty Days with the Messiah”

#5872

WHY DID JESUS HAVE TO DIE?

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”  (1 Peter 3:18 NIV)

To understand why Jesus had to die it is important to remember both the Result of the Cross (costly forgiveness of sins) and the Pattern of the Cross (reversal of the world’s values). On the cross neither justice nor mercy loses out -- both are fulfilled at once. Jesus’ death was necessary if God was going to take justice seriously and still love us. This same concern for both love and justice should mark all our relationships. We should never acquiesce in injustice. Jesus identified with the oppressed. Yet we should not try to overcome evil with evil. Jesus forgave His enemies and died for them.

Why then, did Jesus have to die? Even Jesus asked that question. In the Garden of Gethsemane He asked if there was any other way. There wasn’t. There isn’t. On the cross, in agony, He cried out the question, “Why!?” Why was He being forsaken? Why was it all necessary? The answer of the Bible is -- for us! 

-- Timothy Keller in “The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism” 

#5575

JUSTICE AND MERCY - Part 2

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8 NIV)

You can’t have one without the other. But just as we so often separate evangelism and social action, many in the Church today divide justice and mercy as well. Even worse, they secularize these holy terms. Conservatives seem to emphasize justice over mercy, then compound the problem by adopting the secular definition of justice, that is, punishing wrongdoers and seeing that everyone “gets his due.” So every man, woman, and child must carry his or her own weight -- no matter how heavy the odds against them -- as if poverty could only be God’s judgment and punishment for indolence.

Meanwhile, many a liberal latches onto mercy, believing it requires him to provide food, shelter, clothes, and entertainment for anyone who cannot provide for themselves. So justice and mercy have been divorced from one another, and Christians take up sides, choosing their church -- not to mention their political party -- according to a destructive dichotomy.

This false dichotomy between justice and mercy creates unhealthy extremes in our political and social policies in the United States. I think it is because believers have not stood in the gap. The church has too often bought into the secular definitions of these godly terms, thus ruining the possibility of a witness of what our Lord requires of us -- to do justice and to love mercy. Nor have we been a particularly convincing witness of “walking humbly” with our God. 

-- Charles Colson in an article entitled “Doing Justice, Loving Mercy, Walking Humbly” in “Discipleship Journal” No. 63

#5183

JUSTICE AND MERCY - Part 1

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”  (Micah 6:8 NIV)

What justice demands, mercy pays. Of all the demands upon the Christian, justice and mercy -- not to mention humility -- are perhaps the most misunderstood.

Justice is a hard standard. Justice demands absolute conformity with God’s holy character -- righteousness in our hearts, righteousness in our conversations, righteousness in our jobs and lives, righteousness in our institutions. Because God is a holy God, He cannot be in fellowship with unjust people.

At the same time, God is merciful. He woos His people and calls them back to Himself. But His justice -- consistency with His own decrees -- means that sin has to be paid for with death. And so He placed His only son, Jesus Christ, on the altar as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind. Christ -- in fact God Himself -- paid the price…

Why didn’t God simply forgive and forget and let us begin again? Because His standard of justice, which demanded righteousness or death, could not be put aside.

So God shook heaven and earth, merging justice and mercy at the cross by fulfilling the demands of justice through the one perfect sacrifice...

When the Scriptures tells us to do justice and to love mercy, they require of us nothing less than the glorious, full-bodied justice and mercy that God Himself showed. 

-- Charles Colson in an article entitled “Doing Justice, Loving Mercy, Walking Humbly” in “Discipleship Journal” No. 63

#5182

DIVINE JUSTICE AND DIVINE MERCY

“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate before the Father -- Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”  (1 John 2:2 BSB)

By conveying the Bible to people… we thereby enable them to learn… that our gracious Creator has provided for us a Redeemer… that this Redeemer has made atonement "for the sins of the whole world", and thereby reconciling the Divine justice with the Divine mercy, has opened a way for our redemption and salvation; and that these inestimable benefits are of the free gift and grace of God, not of our deserving, nor in our power to deserve. 

-- Former U.S. Chief Justice John Jay, in an address on May 13, 1824 to the American Bible Society of which he was president.

#5088