{"id":5732,"date":"2014-08-24T00:05:03","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T07:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=5732"},"modified":"2014-08-23T20:56:02","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T03:56:02","slug":"god-is-not-always-just","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2014\/08\/24\/god-is-not-always-just\/","title":{"rendered":"God is Not Always Just"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor this is like the days of Noah to Me:
\nwhen I swore that the waters of Noah
\nwould never flood the earth again,
\nso I have sworn that I will not be angry with you
\nor rebuke you.
\nThough the mountains move
\nand the hills shake,
\nMy love will not be removed from you
\nand My covenant of peace will not be shaken,\u201d
\nsays your compassionate Lord.
\n\u201cPoor Jerusalem, storm-tossed, and not comforted,
\nI will set your stones in black mortar,
\nand lay your foundations in sapphires.
\nI will make your battlements of rubies,
\nyour gates of sparkling stones,
\nand all your walls of precious stones.

\nThen all your children will be taught by the Lord,
\ntheir prosperity will be great,
\nand you will be established
\non \u230aa foundation of\u230b righteousness.
\nYou will be far from oppression,
\nyou will certainly not be afraid;
\nyou will be far from terror,
\nit will certainly not come near you. (Isaiah 54:9-14)
\n<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

God is not always just. Sometimes, instead, he is merciful. God promised that he would never send a flood again to destroy the world. This, despite the fact that the world\u2019s behavior didn\u2019t change: it remained just as wicked as before. Likewise, God promised that he wouldn\u2019t be angry with Israel ever again. What he did to them this time, he\u2019d never do to them again. The punishment required by the covenant, their exile to Babylon, he wouldn\u2019t ever repeat. \u201cThough the mountains move\u201d and \u201cthe hills shake\u201d God\u2019s covenant of peace would not be shaken. It didn\u2019t matter how they acted now; they were his and so everything would be fine.<\/p>\n

This was an illustration of God\u2019s grace\u2014of what has happened as a consequence of Jesus\u2019 death on the cross. We are at peace with God. His wrath, his punishment, his anger for our sins was all poured out on Jesus. So there\u2019s nothing left to pour out on us. Whatever bad thing we do, however we act, God already punished us for it when he punished his Son instead of us. It isn\u2019t fair, but that\u2019s how it is. So it doesn\u2019t matter what we do. The covenant of peace stands, because the punishment has already fallen. The fine has been paid. The jail term served. Grace, by its very nature, like mercy, is unfair and unjust. But that\u2019s how much God loves us.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor this is like the days of Noah to Me: when I swore that the waters of Noah would never flood the earth again, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you or rebuke you. Though … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5732"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5736,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions\/5736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}