God Is Most Just

Minister:
Date: AM
Text: Deuteronomy 4; Lord's Day 4
Psalters: 6, 20, 201, 232
  1. In His demand.
    1. We humans want God to change His demand of perfect obedience.
    2. We must be careful:  let us be more concerned about God’s rights being violated than whether man's rights are.
    3. God is just.
      1. First, because God’s requirement is what man originally could do.
      2. Second, because man’s inability to love God is because man does not want to, not because he is unable.
    4. Also, that God is just in His demand of obedience is seen in that He laid this same demand on the Mediator.
  2. God is just to punish all and every sin (we want God to allow our disobedience to go unpunished).
    1. By justly punishing all violations of His will God remains God.
    2. God punishes both in time and in eternity, justly fitting the punishment to the sin.
      1. God judges sin in time.
      2. Eternal judgment is for the reprobate a fire that shall not be quenched and the worm that never dies (Mark 9:44,46,48).
    3. That God is just to punish is seen in that He laid the punishment of our sin on His own dear Son.
  3. Thus 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.
    2. God is merciful and just (not one more than the other)!  These virtues never conflict but always harmonize (His simplicity).
    3. God’s mercy does not overlook sin, but deals with it, for God punishes the sin only in Another.