God Is Most Just

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Romans 2; Lord's Day 4
Psalters: 282, 87, 389, 320
  1. In His demand.
    1. Man is quick to charge God with being unjust for demanding of man what he is incapable of doing.
    2. Initial cautions.
      1. This shows that we are more concerned whether man = s rights are violated than whether God = s are.
      2. If God would drop His requirement, then He would be saying that He is not worthy of our love; He would stop being God.
    3. Man?s inability to obey God (to love Him) is because man does not want to, not because he is unable.
      1. The deepest cause is not that we do not have the power to love God, but that we love ourselves more than God.
      2. Our inability arises from our willful disobedience in Adam.
    4. Note further that the justice of God?s demand of obedience is seen in that He laid this demand on the Mediator.
  2. God is just to punish all and every sin.
    1. Man wonders if God might allow our disobedience to go unpunished.
    2. God remains God by justly punishing all violations of His will.
      1. It would be it is an abomination to let sin go unpunished (Heb. 12:29; Deut. 4:24).
      2. God?s wrath is against every human?s original sin, i.e., the sin with which we are born (Psalm 51:5).
      3. And God is fiercely angry with each and all of our actual sins (of commission, omission, and corporate).
    3. God punishes both in time and in eternity, justly fitting the punishment to the sin.
      1. God = s judgments in time.
      2. Eternal judgment is the fire that shall not be quenched and the worm that never dies (Mark 9:44,46,48).
    4. That God is just to punish is seen in that He laid the punishment of our sin on His own dear Son.
  3. Thus we see that God is most just in His mercy.
    1. Mercy is the expression of God = s goodness and love to bless those who are inescapably miserable.
      1. We must not confuse mercy with leniency.
      2. Leniency indicates weakness, but mercy is strength.
    2. God is merciful and just (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.