Just and Justifier

“…that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Romans 3:26

We often hear today how, “God is love,” (1 John 4:8). How do we know this? That is answered in the end zone of many football stadiums; held up and written on placards: JOHN 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Most people, if not all America, know these verses. However, what most don’t know is that Jesus Christ was born to establish His Mediatorial kingdom on earth, and by that, He came to save sinners. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1 Tim. 2:5) Further, and according to 1 Cor. 15:24, “Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.” In the interim, Jesus was, is and always shall be the divine expression and essence of God’s love; which was made known and proven to us by ample evidence of His resurrection.

However, God’s love is just one of His attributes. He is equally and eternally just. As great a mystery as this will seem to the reader, there was a time before the rebellion in heaven; that a mediatorial kingdom did not exist. It wasn’t needed. All of God’s creation worshipped Him in their created perfections; that is, before Lucifer and a third of the angels rebelled and were cast out, but God did not extend mercy to them. For them, there would be no mediator. God, acting only in strict accord to His divine and eternal justice, promised them judgment and in the end, His wrath. Thus, ‘He shall put to an end all rule, authority and power.’ If that is a true and faithful statement, the question is, where in time eternal would God manifest His attribute of love and mercy; kindness and goodness? That was through God’s creation of man; suggesting that God both foreknew and predestined Adam’s fall; which led to the disclosing of His covenant of grace as early as Genesis 3:15. Of course, you might protest; saying that, ‘for God to predestinate Adam’s sin, that would have made Him a participant in it!’ However, the fact that God gave Adam the true ‘free will’ (before eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) and that God foreknew the outcome—that does not make God complicit. How can such foreknowledge and predestination be? I am persuaded that both operate concurrently in the One Who inhabits eternity. As for Adam’s choice? That, he made for all as mankind’s Federal head and representative. Nonetheless…

God demanded perfection from His creation, and still does, knowing what Adam and we would do in our rebellion and wickedness. “For all have sinned.” It’s interesting though how God disclosed His intended love and mercy. He did so first by providing us the Old Testament record of His justice. Therein, we learn of his introduction as I AM and an all-consuming fire—the One who established the rigidity and perfections of the Law. And as we learn, any violators of the Law paid dearly. As for us today, we did not fully understand God’s loving-kindness until Christ’s visitation. It was from that we learned of His birth, life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and His present standing at the right hand of the Father. Now, to finish…

I have heard people say how they could not understand how the vengeful God of the Old Testament was the same as the loving God of the New. To that I return to what is written in Romans 3:26, “…that He might be just (Old Testament revelation) and the justifier (New Testament) of the one who has faith in Jesus.” God’s attributes of His justice and love have perfect and eternal balance. In the Old Testament, He demonstrated His perfections through the Law and then His vengeance against those who violated it. Without this foundation, a just God cannot be seen loving and merciful. No, if He had rushed to express first His love and mercy, He would have been viewed as weak; proving no perfections or expectations. But now knowing God’s justice, to that end, we can then acknowledge God as justifier; inasmuch “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)