God Is Perfectly Just

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Hebrews 10; Lord's Day 4
Psalters: 283, 87, 230, 398
  1. God is just in what He requires of fallen man.
    1. God still requires that man do what is good even though man is completely incapable of doing any good.
    2. N.B. we do not love God because we do not want to, not just because we are not able.
      1. Our inability arises from our willful disobedience in Adam.
      2. We deserve the death penalty.
    3. That God is just to demand love of us is evidenced when He demanded it of the Mediator.
  2. God is just in punishing all and every sin.
    1. Today, the concept of justice is being slowly but surely eroded.
    2. God remains just, demanding that all sin be punished, so it is an abomination to let sin go unpunished.
      1. God is terribly displeased with sin. He is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29; Deut. 4:24).
      2. God’s wrath is against my original sin, i.e., the sin with which we are born.
      3. And God is also a consuming fire against my actual sins (of commission, omission, and corporate).
    3. God punishes with temporal and with eternal judgments each sin,
    4. The Son of God bore this judgment, being made accursed for us.
  3. God is just and this is evidenced in the way in which He shows His mercy.
    1. Can the just God who justly judges sin be consistent with the gospel of God’s mercy and love?
    2. God is merciful and He is just, one as well as the other, not one more than the other.
    3. God’s mercy does not simply overlook sin, but deals with it, for God punishes the sin only in Another.
      1. Mercy is God satisfying His own justice by putting the punishment of His own people on His Son.
      2. Christ’s cross displays God’s justice and God’s mercy (Psalm 85:10).