A GOD OF LOVE OR JUDGMENT: A PLEA TO MY MILLENNIAL BRETHREN
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God is both love and righteousness. He is merciful but also judgmental. For now, at least, the two must go together until the time comes when there will no longer be sin in God’s world. Interestingly, the center point of all history, the ultimate display of God’s glory (John 12:23-28), the Cross, was characterized by both grace and judgment.
Nevertheless, we are warned that we have to lead with mercy as does our Lord:
∑ If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well….So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:8, 12-13; ESV)
It was the mercy of God at the Cross that overcame judgment for us. We had deserved death, but through the judgment of Christ on the Cross, we received the free gift of life (Romans 6:23).
Despite this close and even inseparable relationship between righteousness (judgment) and mercy, many want to separate the two. I have heard a number of millennials say:
∑ I cannot accept this Old Testament God of wrath and judgment who had ordered the extermination of the Canaanite people. However, through Jesus, I was able to see a different God and to accept the Gospel.
Admittedly, God ordering the destruction of the Canaanites is troubling. However, there are many other things we might find troubling about the God of the Bible. He had condemned His entire creation to death and decay, He destroyed all His creation during Noah’s flood (except for those on the Ark), and He had destroyed Sodom and all of the surrounding towns with fire and brimstone. Perhaps, even worse, He also promises the eternal destruction of the wicked. And we find this promise even in the New Testament.
Peter argued that we shouldn’t consider this promise a bluff or a parable. If God had judged the angels, now demons, flooded the earth, and destroyed Sodom, we cannot dismiss the future promised judgment of God (2 Peter 2:4-9). He is righteous, and we deserve to be treated accordingly.
Jesus was no less severe. He taught about the final judgment (hell) more than anyone else. Here is just one example:
∑ “And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left…And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:30-33, 46; John 5:22-27)
There is no way around this teaching. Our God is righteous, and He judges sin. When we reject the God of the OT, we also reject the God of the NT (Jesus). We cannot accept the God of love while we reject the God of judgment. When we marry, we accept our mate in their totality. Nor can we just choose the verses we like and reject those that we don’t. When we do this, we stand above Scripture to judge it and refuse to allow Scripture to judge us. Besides, this is not a religion that the Spirit will validate within us. Just look at the liberal churches who endorse a God of love but not of judgment!
How then can we make peace with the wrath of God and other His other characteristics that do not please us? We need to humble ourselves to realize that there is much we do not understand. This had been Job’s problem, even though he was the most righteous man in all the earth. He too was confident that he understood far more than he did. Consequently, he indicted God because of his suffering, accusing Him of injustice. However, God showed Job how little he really understood. He asked Job a series of questions to get across His point. Job was unable to answer one, and so he repented of his arrogance in dust and ashes (Job 40, 42).
We have a higher estimation of our judgments about God than we ought to have. The Prophet Jeremiah was like us. He too thought that God was too judgmental and had a lower estimation of the Israelites than was warranted, at least, too low of an estimation of the ruling elite. God had challenged Jeremiah in this regard:
∑ "Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city” (Jeremiah 5:1-2).
Jeremiah was convinced that God’s assessment of Israel was way off:
∑ I thought, "These are only the poor; they are foolish, for they do not know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God. So I will go to the leaders and speak to them; surely they know the way of the LORD, the requirements of their God." (Jeremiah 5:4-5)
However, Jeremiah found that he had been woefully mistaken. Even his own family wanted to kill him. Consequently, he began to understand humanity in a very different light and pleaded for God to judge Jerusalem:
∑ LORD, you know all about their murderous plots against me. Don't forgive their crimes and blot out their sins. Let them die before you. Deal with them in your anger. (Jeremiah 18:23)
We only see the outer man until we become victimized. We are fooled by appearances. I don’t think that we have any idea of the depths of human rebellion and their contempt for their Maker. I couldn’t believe the Genesis 19 account of Sodom. I couldn’t believe that evil had become so deeply entrenched. I couldn’t believe what God had stated about humanity prior to the flood:
∑ The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)
How could it be that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually?” It was too much for me to believe. It seemed like something out of a comic book.
In contrast, this generation tends to believe “love will conquer all.” However, as I have walked with the Lord, my estimation of His judgments has changed. This doesn’t mean that I feel comfortable with every aspect of God’s righteous judgments. Abraham certainly didn’t when God asked him to sacrifice his long-awaited, promised child, Isaac. However, after walking with God for many decades, he had learned to trust Him even when he didn’t understand Him, confident that God would salvage what seemed to be a hopeless situation.
I too struggle for understanding, and sometimes it seems that I am grasping at the wind. However, I have learned to not trust in my own understanding but in Him (Proverbs 3:5-6). I thank Him for humbling me, but I do not abandon understanding. However, I have come to see, as had Job and Jeremiah, that it can fail me.
New York School of the Bible: http://www.nysb.nyc/
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