His Justice and Grace

His Justice and Grace

“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.” Romans 3:23-25, ESV

We know nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37, ESV). But, couldn’t Almighty God have formulated another way to save us from our sins? Did His only Son need to die such a horrendous death? To answer these questions, we need to go back to the Garden, where humanity was born. 

The Nature of God

In my much younger faith walk, I would ask myself, “Couldn’t God have given Adam and Eve a one-time pass? It seems like an unfair, ‘one-strike-you’re-out’ decision to remove them from the Garden. Why so unloving?” Perhaps you’ve asked the same question.

It’s true that nothing is impossible with God, as He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent. However, there is an impossibility for God: He cannot violate His nature. He is love, and the source of all love. It’s an impossibility for Him to not be love, and to not act in love. And it’s impossible for Him to choose injustice. His love will never violate His justice, and His justice will never violate His love. 

A God who could be unloving or unjust even once in history, would be a God we couldn’t trust. That would be terrifying. Despite the promises that are broken in this world, and the people who disappoint us, we are given the iron-clad assurance that God is always just, always loving, and always faithful towards us.

The Garden

Sin is serious business with Holy God. As a result of Man’s new sin nature, He knew the first man and woman would then be tempted to eat of the Tree of Life. The result would have given us eternal life as sinful beings (Genesis 3:22-23), though eternally separated from God. Because His holiness cannot allow sin to be in His presence, His heart would eternally ache for us, as would ours.

God longs to have a loving, intimate relationship with His children. He wants to live in eternity with you and me, not to live in eternity without us. But in the Garden, He couldn’t violate His nature of being just, nor violate His love for the sake of justice.

Therefore, Man needed to be banished from paradise, and experience mortality (Genesis 3:19). Meanwhile, God had a redemptive and loving plan through the work Jesus Christ would complete on the cross. Justice and love would be satisfied, a right relationship would be restored with Almighty God, we would have life everlasting, and we would share in the glory of our Savior (Romans 8:17, NASB).

God IS Love

“Why couldn’t God make us not sin, and not allow sin in the world?” As mentioned, God is love. If He kept sin from entering the world, He would cease to be love. It would make us His robots without the choice to love Him in return. Love is not controlling. Love is a choice. 

Love and Justice

We’ve established that God needed to carry out justice because of our sin, through separation and death. But to give us death without an acceptable atonement for our sins would violate His love, by not giving us His grace. 

Can you imagine God not loving us enough to offer grace? We would all be hopeless, for we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). And under the laws established in the Old Testament, no one could keep those laws perfectly and be worthy of eternal life. 

In the Garden, rather than take the life of Adam and Eve as punishment for their sin, there needed to be a substitutionary death to take their place, as payment. Hence, the first animal sacrifice was made by God (Genesis 3:21), starting the sacrificial system that would continue until Jesus became the final sacrificial lamb for humanity. He was the last and ultimate sacrifice, because as God Incarnate, He was the only acceptable and complete payment of our sin debt to Almighty God.

From the sacrificed animal in the Garden, God made skins to give physical covering and protection to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21). It was symbolic of the blood of Jesus that would cover us- the final and only acceptable sacrifice that would cover humanity from the beginning until the end of time.

Therefore…

Though we are worthy of death for our sins (and no one is without sin), we are justified through believing in Jesus- believing not just in His existence, but that He is the only way to the Father (John 14:6, ESV). His work on the cross re-established a right relationship between God and Man. It’s the belief and faith in Christ’s work and His work only (not even a pinch of our own) that justifies us to the Father. 

This is why Jesus said, “I am the only Way to the Father. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6, ESV). 

And this isn’t simply healing and restoring the original relationship between God and Man. It’s a better relationship. We now have the Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, living inside every believer. He is the Comforter. The Counselor. Our Protector, as He reveals the mind of God to us. We have His joy and peace, and will be given the right to sit with Christ on His throne (Revelation 3:21).

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—  and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-7).

Have You Noticed The “3’s” At Easter?

_{Leading Up To Good Friday}

On Thursday, known as Maundy Thursday, Jesus prayed three times in the garden of Gesthemane, after the Last Supper with His disciples. He asked three of His disciples to keep watch. (Matthew 26:36-46)

_{On Good Friday}

• Good Friday falls on April 3 this year

• Peter denied Jesus three times (Matthew 26:69-75)

• Peter was restored when Jesus asked three times if he loved Him (John 21:15-17)

• Pontius Pilate attempted to release Jesus three times, but the crowd denied it and requested Barabbas (John 18:38-19:16)

• 3 Languages: The sign over Jesus' cross was written in three different languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Latin) (John 19:19-20)

• 3 Crosses at Calvary- Jesus was on the middle cross, between the two crosses where the thieves hung (Luke 23:32-43)

• 3 Hours of Darkness: The earth was dark for 3 hours during the crucifixion (Matthew 27:45-54)

• It was 3:00 PM when Jesus took His last breath on the cross (Matthew 27:45-50)

• Jesus was 33 years old at death (approximately)

• The year of Jesus’ death was 33 A.D.

• Our Savior died and rose on the third day (Luke 24:46)

The number three marks divine completeness and perfection. It points to the Trinity, and God’s redemptive work for our salvation- the plan of the Father, the obedience of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Access other Easter-related devotionals that touch on the significance of the cross and God’s plan for salvation. See below, or click to browse the library.

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Due to the observance of the Easter holy days, the health article will resume next week. You can access our library of health articles by clicking here.