When you think of God, does His justice first come to mind? Or is He a God of mercy, forgiveness, or love? And Jesus - why did He have to die? Couldn't God have provided forgiveness for us in another way? He is God after all.
God's justice is where R.C. Sproul begins his treatment of the Cross. As we learned in the last chapter, there is a need for atonement based out of the reality of sin. Justice had to come about because of sin.
Sproul begins the chapter having readers look at exactly why Christ had to come to the world. Many people consider God's mercy or His love the reason, but if the thought is dwelt upon, we see that His justice is why we needed a Savior. Sin is utterly disgusting to God - it is not like Him in ANY regard. It is the antithesis of His character. And we, as humans, have sin. The Bible tells us in Romans 3:10b "There is none righteous, no, not one."(NKJV) We are guilty - no matter if we are ignorant of the fact or not. The Bible tells us also that we have inherited this from Adam, as Romans 5:18a shows us, "So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone..."(HCSB)
Taking into account a Biblical mindset, Sproul takes us to the Old Testament. With this in mind, it's good to expose the Jewish mindset of how the Bible was written. Now, traditional Jewish minds equate justice and righteousness together. Looking at God, for God to be a righteous God, He must be a just God as well. This is true of how the Bible was written and how our mindset is to be. Sin is unrighteous - we can look at this any number of ways, but it ends up wrong. So, we are wrong and God is right. And God cannot overlook that sin - it must be taken care of. Since we are not able to take care of this on our own, we need a provision. Therefore, if God wanted a relationship with us, either, He had to punish us, or provide a way for His wrath to be satisfied, and be atoned for.
Jesus Christ is the satisfaction of God's wrath. We will continue to learn more about this in the future chapters, but God's justice is something not to be taken lightly. Dwelling on this, He is a God that is to be feared; we cannot completely overlook this aspect of His character. That is why repentance is so imperative as well to our faith. We can trust Christ for our salvation because He did it all for us on the Cross.
I hope you are enjoying learning along with me. I am enjoying this book so far and seeing that it is a great exposition and reminding me how utterly important the Cross is.
God bless!
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