Project Description

2014/03

The Right God

Young believers need to know the doctrine of God. I’m aware that this may not sound appealing to many young people today, but we will only please God in proportion to our knowledge of Him.  “…the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.”  (Daniel 11:32)  The truth about God must affect every part of our lives.  For many, Christian truth is divorced from Christian living but, properly understood, truth will always impact a believer’s life and his testimony before the world.

Take the truth that God is just.  Justice has to do with law.  If you were to visit London and pass the Old Bailey you would see Lady Justice on top of the dome holding a sword in one hand and the scales of justice on the other.  The law has to do with being weighed in the scales of God’s justice (Daniel 5:27).  God always does what is right in accord with His law.

There is no partiality with God, and never any miscarriage of justice in His court: the guilty are punished and the innocent go free.  God is the righteous and just God – a fact that is so relevant in a day when people cry out for justice to be seen to be done.  But the fact of God’s justice has a huge impact on our lives.

Knowing God is just causes us to seek out salvation.  By nature we are all guilty before the justice of God.  (Romans 3:19) We need mercy from the judge – not to be treated as we deserve.  Yet the very mercy we need is itself just mercy; for when God pardons the sinner He does so because Christ has taken the punishment we deserve.  In the cross God is both just and justifier, as His Son, the substitute, dies as a sinner, though innocent, so that we sinners could be viewed by God as innocent.  (1 Peter 3:18)

And knowing God is just gives us great assurance.  Am I acceptable to God?  If you are saved and ‘in Christ’, then His righteousness is yours, and God views you as perfectly righteous. (2 Corinthians 5:21) A just God cannot look with condemnation upon one who is righteous.  (Romans 8:1) Again, knowing God is just brings comfort as we battle with lingering sin.  We are promised that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Finally, knowing God is just brings perspective in view of the wickedness in the world around us.  God will put all things right. The wicked will not prosper and the righteous will be exalted. The judge of all the earth always does what is right, so leave room for God. (Genesis 18:25 and Romans 12:19)

Do you have the right view of the right God?

Dr. Stephen Pollock.