FIRST QUARTER 2025
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #6
FEBRUARY 8, 2025
"GOD'S LOVE OF JUSTICE".

 

“God’s Love and Justice” is the title for the lessons of this first quarter of 2025. This title especially sets the theme for our lesson this week—“God’s Love of Justice.” Justice and love belong together—an inseparable tandem.

Among others, these two are inherent attributes of God’s character. Without justice, there can be no love; there can be no mercy. Justice stands as the solitary beacon, casting an unyielding light on the path of love ahead.

Psalm 9:7-8 states, “The Lord sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness.” The significance of this verse is that it highlights God's role as a just and fair judge who governs with righteousness and integrity.

Justice is the backbone, the unflinching guardian that upholds the fragile architecture of trust and fairness. Strip it away, and shadows creep in, obliterating the possibility of genuine love. Love, in its truest form, demands a foundation of respect and equality. It thrives in an environment where every individual’s rights are honored, where the scales are balanced, and every voice is heard.

With the clarity of a knife’s edge, our world today is laid bare by injustice, where men and women wander, eyes vacant, hearts heavy with betrayal. The absence of justice erodes love, turning it into a hollow echo, a feeble whisper lost in the howling wind.

And mercy, that rare and precious gift of God cannot stand without justice. It is justice that defines the bounds within which mercy operates, ensuring that compassion is not misplaced, that forgiveness does not become permissiveness. In a world devoid of justice, mercy becomes a broken promise, an empty gesture in the face of enduring wrongs.

To change the metaphor, justice is the vigilant sentinel, ever-watchful in today’s world teetering on the edge of darkness. Without justice, the monsters of our fallen human nature are unleashed, wreaking havoc and sowing despair as is seen in today’s world. The absence of justice turns love into a fragile illusion and mercy into a cruel jest.

To truly understand the depth of love and the grace of mercy, one must first embrace the unrelenting light of justice. Only then can love and mercy shine through the cracks of a broken world, bringing healing and hope in their wake. In this balance, amidst the storms and shadows, lies the essence of our shared humanity.

In a world where justice and mercy often seem at odds, the profound interplay between these divine attributes shapes the very essence of a person’s ability to love. Can one truly understand the depths of God's mercy without first confronting the reality of His justice? For genuine love and mercy to exist, they must be accompanied by fairness, equity, and the protection of rights—the elements of justice. 

Justice establishes a sense of fairness and equality. When people feel that they are treated justly, it builds trust. Trust is a cornerstone of love. Without trust, relationships cannot thrive. Thus, justice creates an environment where love can grow.

Justice recognizes and respects the value that God places on every individual. This value is seen in the light of justice that streams from the Cross of Calvary. “By dying in man's stead, Christ exhausted the penalty and provided a pardon”—Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, Vol. 1, p. 340. Without Jesus dying in our place and draining the cup of the penalty of justice, that penalty would not have been exhausted and there would be no pardon. No mercy. No love.

Justice encourages us to see the world from others' perspectives and to act with empathy and compassion. Mercy, empathy, and compassion are essential components of love. When justice prevails, it fosters an environment where these emotions can flourish.

Justice also promotes social harmony by addressing inequalities and resolving conflicts fairly. Love thrives in a harmonious and peaceful environment. Without justice, conflicts and grievances can undermine the possibility of love.

Justice reflects a commitment to moral and ethical principles. Genuine love is based on integrity and moral values. Injustices compromise these principles and, by extension, the authenticity of love.

In personal relationships such as in a marriage or a friendship, justice manifests as mutual respect, fairness, and the honoring of boundaries. These elements are crucial for love to be healthy and sustainable.

In communities and nations, justice ensures that all individuals are treated with fairness and equality. A society that upholds justice creates a fertile ground for love and solidarity among its members.

The interplay between justice and love is profound and inseparable. Justice creates the conditions necessary for love and mercy to exist and flourish by ensuring fairness, respect, and empathy. Without justice, the foundations of trust and respect are undermined, making true love unattainable.

The justice of God refers to His fair and righteous nature in dealing with all creation, ensuring that His goodness is recognized and evil is punished according to His standards. It means that God always does what is right and holds everyone accountable to Himself for their actions.

“God's love has been expressed in His justice no less than in His mercy. Justice is the foundation of His throne, and the fruit of His love. It had been Satan's purpose to divorce mercy from truth and justice. He sought to prove that the righteousness of God's law is an enemy to peace. But Christ shows that in God's plan they are indissolubly joined together; the one cannot exist without the other. ‘Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.’ Psalm 85:10.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 762).

In an article about the law of God, A.T. Jones quoted a truth that love in a person comes from the union of justice and mercy and that our appreciation of mercy is because justice precedes it:    

“As has been well said: ‘Love in the soul is produced by the joint influence of the justice and mercy of God. It is impossible, therefore, in the nature of things, for a sinful being to appreciate God's mercy, unless he first feel his justice as manifested in the holy law.’ ”—Alonzo T. Jones, Signs of the Times, June 30, 1887.

It is no mystery that God loves justice, for in it is embodied His unwavering love and mercy. These attributes are exemplified in God’s law of justice. These are the weightier matters of justice. (Matthew 22:36-39; 23:23).

“Keep yourselves in the love of God by hearkening diligently to His commandments [justice], looking for His keeping power, His mercy, expecting salvation through His grace.”—Ellen G. White, Letter 110 (To Dr. David Paulson), July 7, 1902.

Conversely, the devil hates God’s justice, for it stands in stark defiance of his deceit and malevolence. The problems we face in today’s world are because Satan stripped God’s justice from His love and mercy. This is the masterpiece of his strategy of deception. He used and uses “fake news” about God. Because of the devil’s lie about God’s justice, he was able to clothe God with his own tyrannical attribute of injustice while transforming himself into “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). But his light is nothing but darkness. In contrast, God’s justice still stands as a solitary beacon, shining its radiant and unyielding light on the serpent’s night of horror. 

But Satan has now changed his message. This is because God is the God of supreme love (1 John 4:16), and this love is the heart and soul of the last day message. The devil changed his message God’s love as well as His justice. Central to the devil’s favorite religion—Spiritualism—is the false message about the love of God. But it is counterfeit. Consider the insights Mrs. White discloses concerning this.

“It is true that spiritualism is now changing its form and, veiling some of its more objectionable features, is assuming a Christian guise….

Even in its present form, so far from being more worthy of toleration than formerly, it is really a more dangerous, because a more subtle, deception. While it formerly denounced Christ and the Bible, it now professes [emphasis original] to accept both. But the Bible is interpreted in a manner that is pleasing to the unrenewed heart, while its solemn and vital truths are made of no effect. Love is dwelt upon as the chief attribute of God [emphasis added], but it is degraded to a weak sentimentalism, making little distinction between good and evil. God's justice, His denunciations of sin, the requirements of His holy law, are all kept out of sight…. 

“Christ is as verily denied as before; but Satan has so blinded the eyes of the people that the deception is not discerned.

“There are few who have any just conception of the deceptive power of spiritualism and the danger of coming under its influence.”—Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy, pp. 557-558.

This deception is snake oil, peddled by that serpent of old!

A friend of mine who was leading out at a retreat dwelt correctly, for the most part, on the love and mercy of God. However, my friend proclaimed something that startled me. He said, “God does not condemn!” I then stated, the teaching that “God does not condemn” is the teaching of Spiritualism. Then I read the following: 

“Spiritualism asserts ‘that God doth not condemn.’ ” He questioned, “Where did you get that?!” My reply, the book Education, pages 227-228.(See also GC 555). Needless to say, he was shocked.

My friend evidently believed that the judgment of God involved only the law of cause and effect. But there is more to it than this. The moral law includes this principle, but goes beyond it in that it contains two further principles which are responsibility and accountability to the holy God of justice. This can be illustrated in the violation of the seventh command. If a person commits adultery they are truly subject to the law of cause and effect. The effect can result in contracting some variety of the many venereal diseases rampant in the world today. But the transgression of God’s moral law involves more than mere cause and effect.

The violation of God's moral law transcends the mechanics of cause and effect. Transgression pierces the very essence of divine justice and holiness. When a person rejects forgiveness given through the merits of Christ, they stand exposed to the full weight of divine accountability. This refusal leaves them unshielded, their transgressions unatoned, destined to face the inexorable judgment at the end of the millennium.

Revelation 20:12 starkly reminds us that every unforgiven person must answer for their deeds done while in the flesh. This accountability will be before the judgment seat of God, where the final reckoning unveils the eternal consequences of their choices. 

Later that evening my friend approached me with the following words, “Finneman, you have an arbitrary God.” I asked him to explain. But his explanation fell short of his assertion. Then I had opportunity to ask him some pointed questions, such as: “Did God personally condemn and destroy people in the Old Testament? or did He command the destruction of unrepentant persons by angels or by His followers?” He answered in the affirmative. My reply to him was another question, but you do not believe God is involved in the condemnation and destruction of unrepentant transgressor at the end of the millennium? His answer was, “No.” Calling him by his name I stated, “You have an arbitrary God.” He left speechless. We are still friends.

This idea comes, in part, from a misinterpretation of Romans 1:18-28. The passage begins with “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven…”  Some then  apply God’s wrath to the law of cause and effect, of sowing and reaping. But the context does not uphold this notion. The context continues beyond verse 28. It extents at least to Romans 2:5 and 6 which informs us that those, committing the 20 plus listed sins in the immediate and extended context, are “treasuring up wrath” for themselves “in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who “will render to each one according to his deeds.”

The key to the meaning of God giving people over to the lusts of the flesh  is in verse 28 which says that “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, [so] God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.” God gave them over to their “debased mind.” This is dealing with the freedom of choice. The issue is about the matter of choice and not that the law of cause and effect is the definition of His wrath. The essence of the matter is that they chose to commit the heinous sins listed only through verse 28. The list continues. If they refuse to repent, and thus deliverance from their cherished sins, they will face the future “righteous judgment of God” which is called “the day of wrath” as recorded in Romans 2:5-6. Revelation 20:12-13 tells when this will be.

If condemnation is only a cause and effect mechanism, if follows that there is no need for the resurrection nor for the judgment at the end of the millennium. This is because the lost will have already received their punishment through the law of sowing and reaping. 

On the positive of justice, love is born from the fierce embrace of God's justice and mercy. It’s in the unyielding grip of justice, where we feel the weight of our sins, so that we first understand the enormity of God’s mercy. To appreciate mercy, we must face the stark reality of justice as laid down by God’s holy law. Only then, with our hearts laid bare and our spirits humbled, can we grasp more of the depth of divine love. 

It's a raw, unvarnished truth—without justice, mercy is hollow; without mercy, love is incomplete. Together, they forge a love that is profound and unwavering, a love that knows the full spectrum of human frailty and divine forgiveness, inseparably linked to God’s justice.

So it is very true, God’s love of justice is foundational to our forgiveness. It is because Jesus exhausted the penalty due to justice, that justice now demands justification for those who believe in Christ alone for forgiveness. (Romans 3:24-26). 

When God finally establishes justice in this world and out of love eradicates evil from the universe, every creature will praise God's united perfect justice and His perfect love (Revelation 15:1-4).

God truly loves justice and in that day it will be fully understood by every being in the universe that our lesson this week about “God’s Love of Justice,” and that His justice and love belong together—an inseparable tandem that will carry us throughout the limitless universe in eternity.

~Jerry Finneman