The Justice of God

I'm reading through The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis) again and came across this quote:

"That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it" not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into glory."

This reminded me of a thought I had some time ago. Justice seems like a pretty strong theme throughout Scripture. I did just a cursory Google search on the subject and it returned many verses, from Genesis to Revelation, here are just a few:

- Deuteronomy 32:4 - "The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and with iniquity, just and upright is He."

- Job 37:23 - "The Almighty - we cannot find him; he is great in power; justice and abundant righteousness he will not violate."

- Psalm 33:4-5 - "For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord."

Isaiah 30:8 - "Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all of those who wait for him."

Isaiah 61:6 - "For I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them."

Micah 6:8 - "He has shown you O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Here is the thought I was reminded of: our earthly concept of Justice, I want to argue, is just a shadow of what actual Justice is. Take, for example, murder. If someone commits murder, we say that the murderer is "brought to Justice" when they are arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for their crime. There is a rather bombastic state's attorney in the county that I live in and he like to release press bulletins when a  particularly heinous criminal is 'brought to justice' through a conviction and prison sentence.

Is that justice though?

Sharing a Thought

I was thinking today - the Jewish people (the religious ones anyway, not speaking about atheist Jews) may not believe that Jesus is the Messiah and they may even go so far as to hate Jesus and denigrate Him. BUT, they are trusting in the same promises of God that we Western Gentile Christians are. Namely - that God is a) going to one day release the World from the Curse He placed on it, b) restore/renew all things, including our right relationship with Him and c) do away with Satan, evil, sin, suffering and death forever. I don't mean to minimize the seriousness of denying Jesus and the Cross, but I do mean to underscore the fact that the very roots of our faith are the same as theirs. To say that it's a different religion is to miss the large areas of commonality between the two.

One more thought, related to that - in Romans 11, Paul says, "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved. As it is written: "The deliverer will come from Zion; he will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is my Covenant with them, when I take away their sins." (Romans 11:25-27). Imagine how quickly the hearts of those believing Jews who currently hate Jesus will turn when they see him return in Glory. Because they are already believing in the promises of God, made to their forefathers, won't their hearts instantly turn (mixed with the pain of regret, I imagine, as well) when they see Him? Food for thought.