God the Righteous and Just
I was listening recently to an interview with well-known cultural and political commentator Dennis Prager, who also happens to be a follower of Orthodox Judaism. Because of a shared Judeo-Christian moral framework, his professional life often finds him rubbing shoulders, platformed, and allied with conservative Bible-believing Christians against our culture’s descent into leftist secularism. In light of this, the interviewer asked him bluntly, “Why aren’t you a Christian yet?” Among his answers was the simple statement, “I don’t believe that anyone else can die for my own sins.” While this response might not be surprising for an Orthodox Jew, it caught my attention in a fresh way. It showed that, even though he completely rejects the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he does have a high view of God’s righteousness and justice. I dare say, a higher one than many in our evangelical pews may have today.
A glorious picture of God’s righteousness, justice, and ultimate salvation come together in Exodus 33:18-34:8. After Moses asks God to show him his glory, God responds by saying, “I will make my all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘Yahweh.”’ (33:1) When the Lord did, he revealed himself and proclaimed,
“Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 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 fourth generation.” (34:6-8)
By saying that he will reveal all his goodness, as an alternative to all his glory (which Moses had requested), God is essentially promising Moses a glimpse of the perfections of his righteousness and justice. As John Frame notes, “To say that God is good implies that God is righteous…So righteousness is the form and structure of God’s goodness, and his goodness is the concrete, active embodiment of his righteousness.” God’s righteousness, as an attribute, refers to God’s objective “rightness” within himself. His righteousness does not correspond to a standard outside himself. He is the standard of what is right and good, in and of himself, and everything he does is necessarily in keeping with the righteous perfection of his nature.
As the text above and the rest of Scripture testify, this righteousness is not only expressed in mercy, grace, patience, and steadfast love and faithfulness, but also in his justice. Since God’s whole being is the source and standard for what is right, and everything that exists does so in relation to him, he can “by no means clear the guilty.” Further, His supreme justice not only includes an impartial expression of a right hatred toward sin but also the vindication of those who are guiltless in reference to His own righteousness. “Will not the judge of the world do what is right?” (Gen. 18:25)
Hopefully, by now, the text is drawing out a particular tension in your mind. How do the realities of God’s righteousness and justice align with his ability to express his steadfast love in “forgiv[ing] iniquity and transgression and sin?” The whole Old Testament Law and sacrificial system were intended to reveal sin (Rom. 7:7) and be a reminder of humanity's sinfulness (Heb. 10:3-4). Moreover, Psalm 53:1-3 and Romans 3:10 testify that no one is righteous or even seeks the righteousness of God on their own.
How, then, can God “by no means clear the guilty” and, at the same time, extend mercy and forgiveness to sinners while still acting according to his just righteousness? Can an earthly judge simply acquit a proven serial murderer and still be a righteous judge? Here, we glimpse something of Dennis Prager’s struggle. A God who is righteous in himself must express that righteousness in just judgment towards those who offend, reject, and rebel against God himself. However, what Prager fails to see is the solution rejecting everything toward which the Old Testament system pointed.
God’s purpose in resolving this tension becomes clear with the coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and the unfolding of revelation under the New Testament Scriptures under the New Covenant. See what the Apostle Paul, a former expert in the Old Testament Law, teaches under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
“But see now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it – the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ. (Rom. 3:21-26)
Here, we see God’s righteous goodness retained by making Jesus the perfect substitute and recipient of his just wrath against sinners. In doing so, he justifies, actually makes right, those who, in faith, have believed in him to be their substitute. Therefore, “God is both just and justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.” Whereas Prager and those like him, might object to the apparent unrighteousness of sinners being “let off the hook” because another was substituted in their place, the testimony of the Scriptures, both Old and New Testament, tell of a Savior who will not merely “let them off the hook” but who would substitute himself, give sinners righteous hearts, and make them actually righteous before God by grace. (Isa. 53; Jer. 33:31-34; Ez. 36:24-29; 2 Cor. 5:21)
The glorious truths of God’s righteousness and justice, while perfect and good, are a terror to us outside of Christ. As Christians, we must pursue a high view of these attributes as it will stir our love, thankfulness, and greater satisfaction in God. Further, let a deepened understanding of these doctrines also compel our hearts in love and urgency for those who cannot now, but may one day sing joyfully with the saints these words from the great hymn, “Before the Throne of God Above,”
“Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted free; For God, the Just, is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.”
Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, pg 257
