God's Choices Are God's Justice
This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be made worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering—since indeed God deems it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant rest with us to you who are afflicted, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at in all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
We know that consequence comes for us all. All that we do rebounds back on us, for better or for worse.
Anyone who has accumulated any life experience at all can surely attest to the truth of this.
If we have done well, if we have worked to obey God’s Law and to be an instrument of His Will, we are promised good things in the hereafter.
Jesus assures us of this in the Judgement of the Nations recounted in Matthew 25.
Revelation tell us that only those whose names are inscribed in the Book of Life shall enter the New Jerusalem.
God promised the Israelites in Deuteronomy 28 that He would bless them for all time, so long as they obeyed His Commandments.
These same passages promise trial, torment, and tribulation for all who disobey God, who reject God’s Commandments, and whose names are not inscribed in the Book of Life.
Nor do we necessarily need to wait for the hereafter to see consequence visited upon wicked and wise alike.
As we are reminded in Ecclesiastes 5, those greedy for money always lust for more, and are never at peace with what they have. Surely we have seen this play out in front of us many times over. Every person convicted of fraud, of embezzlement, of larceny, always sought to have “more”—more money, more wealth, perhaps more power, more fame, or more influence.
Is the man who always is restless for “more” able to pause and be grateful for what he has? No, he is not. At least he usually is not.
Is the man who constantly lusts after women able to be at peace in the company of just a single woman, in the fashion God ordained at the beginning of the world? No, he is not, and for much the same reason as with greed—eternal dissatisfaction with what he has, and constantly pursuing that (or whom) which he does not have.
Many of us were told as children that “virtue is its own reward”. A case can be made that vice is its own punishment.
Are such punishments “justice”? Are the evils men endure as a consequence of their greed enough suffering for the evils they have likely inflicted on others?
Most who have suffered at the hands of another are unlikely to say “yes”. When we are wronged, we want vengeance. We want to see the wicked among us suffer for their wickedness—and it is human nature that we magnify the suffering we endure while minimizing the suffering endured by others.
Certainly God decreed the standard of justice among the Israelites should be “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” This was the law they were to administer amongst themselves. In adjudicating matters they were to repay suffering with suffering in kind.
Yet not all evils are brought before the courts of men for adjudication and punishment. Greed, selfishness, and lust all lead to mistreatment and wrongs endured, yet such wrongs often remain outside the realm of human justice. Do they therefore go completely unpunished?
What we are told by God is to leave such matters to Him. In Leviticus 19:17 God commanded the Israelites not to hate one another, and in verse 18 He further commanded them to forswear vengeance, issuing what Jesus would later identify as the corollary to the Great Commandment, that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
This teaching is reiterated in Ecclesiastes 3, where we are reminded that judgment and the future of all men are entirely in God’s Hands, and never our own.
Whatever consequences a person receives, be they in the herenow or in the hereafter, are what God has decreed is the right and just measure for whatever they have done, be it good or evil.
If a man does what is right and suffers adversity apparently as a result, is that therefore justice? We must accept that it is.
We are not only told time and again that God will mete out whatever consequences He deems appropriate, but we are told specifically by Jesus that doing the right thing frequently means embracing the cross and crucifixion. If we do what is right before God we will frequently be persecuted by men. Not only does life experience tell us this happens, Jesus all but guarantees this will happen.
Is this justice?
Yes.
It must be, for regardless of how we apprehend the consequences we see befall good and evil men alike, we are compelled to realize that all consequences are whatever God hands down to further His purposes. We will not know what those purposes are, neither for our lives nor for anyone else’s. God does not give us all the details, nor does God give us His reasons for not giving us all the details.
We are reminded of this in Isaiah 55, when the Lord reminds Isaiah God has His own thoughts and His own intentions, which are not our thoughts nor our intentions.
Job’s friends, in their arrogance, reminded Job of this before hypocritically presuming to know God’s intentions for Job and the sufferings Job endured.
Thus we are counseled in Proverbs 3 to put our trust in God, and let His Will unfold however He chooses. We will not know the “why”, and we may only know a portion of the “how”, but we are to have faith that there will be a “what”.
We are to have faith, and in truth we have no other choice. With or without faith in God’s ultimate divine justice, we do not control the lives of others. We do not control the choices of others. We do not control the consequences which come down upon others.
We do not even fully control our own lives. We at most control our choices, and through our choices we have some say in what consequences will come down on us. That is all the control we have, and that is all the control we will ever have.
With faith in God, without faith in God, that is all the control we can possibly have.
Is this justice?
Yes. It is the justice God has ordained for the world. Consequences, both in the herenow and the hereafter, are God’s ultimate divine justice for us all. It matters not if we perceive them as just or unjust, because the choice of what consequences will come down on anyone is never ours to make.
My prayer this day is that I will always be mindful that judgment and the future are choices that belong only to God. My prayer this day is that I will maintain the grace and the presence to accept that God’s justice is whatever consequence God selects for any choice made by men. My prayer this day is that I will focus my mind on the choices that belong to me—choices about what I will do in my life—that I may make better choices for my life, so that I may live a better life.
My prayer for you this day is that you also will always be mindful that judgment and the future are choices that belong only to God. My prayer for you this day is that you also will maintain the grace and the presence to accept that God’s justice is whatever consequence God selects for any choice made by men. My prayer for you this day is that you also will focus your mind on the choices that belong to you—choices about what you will do in your life—that you may make better choices for your life, so that you may live a better life.
Whatever consequences a person receives, be they in the herenow or in the hereafter, are what God has decreed is the right and just measure for whatever they have done, be it good or evil.
All consequences are whatever God hands down to further His purposes. We will not know what those purposes are, neither for our lives nor for anyone else’s. God does not give us all the details, nor does God give us His reasons for not giving us all the details.
Is this justice?
Yes.
It is a pleasure for me to see you integrate your mighty analytical mind with daily growing wisdom, Peter. You are truly becoming a wise and good man. Through Jesus, you have been forgiven the sins of your bygone days, and are growing in Godliness, with humbleness and strength. Bless you always!
I believe that in the complexity of fractals and Chaos Theory, we can see the ways that God works. There are magnitudes of order in seemingly chaotic patterns. The discord seen at one level combines in a bigger picture with other chaotic patterns to produce harmony and balance. These are clues to us that God indeed knows what He’s doing; there is a larger Plan to all He does. We need only trust this! If a seemingly unjust calamity happens to us, just trust that God is working it out for our benefit in the long run and the bigger picture. Learn the lessons He is trying to teach us, and grow in depth and wisdom. He loves us. So, trust in the Lord with all of your heart! His justice is integrated with His overall Plan, which only He can know and comprehend.