The Justice of Resurrection

"If God has already forgiven us for any sin that we might commit...why should I stop?"

"Why can't the church kick people out when they are hurting others?"

"I know that I'm supposed to be forgiving and loving of my enemies....but I can't help but hate them and want them to be punished!"

...The preceding comments have all been a part of three different conversations I've had with church people from various states in the past 2 weeks. It's been convenient that as we approach Good Friday and Easter Sunday that a lot of talk has centered around God's justice, mercy and just why this all went down.

First of all, the first comment came from a friend of a friend that I don't even know, who I'm guessing is a struggling Christian or a quesitoning non-believer...either way...way to go with the question!

I'm not going to answer these questions one by one, but all of them go back to our understanding of God's justice through Christ's death and resurrection (yes...you need them both). In God's willing sacrifice through Jesus Christ, all our sins were taken upon one person and the punishment was leveled. But what if we stopped there? What if Jesus never rose...then how could we ever know about new life? How could we ever realize that our sins were forgiven? It takes Jesus conquering death and rising physically for us to know that sin cannot stop us, it cannot keep God in the grave, and therefore with God on our side, it cannot keep us down in life and cannot keep us in the grave eternally. This brings about a question of God's justice though...is God really that mean and wrathful?

Old Testament writers certainly thought so...and even talked about the wrath of God. To tell you the truth, I'm not all that comfortable with this, because I like my fluffy God that loves me, loves you and loves the world.

But I've been confronted by some of the above questions, because it seems like we have a hard time believing that God isn't going to spank our enemies hard because of their sins. We have a hard time believing that God doesn't hate the same people we hate.

Well...first, we are not God and don't know how to think for God. Secondly, God's wrath and love seem to be intermingled in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We see a wrathful situation and wonder if this is the only way...but have you thought about the love for everyone else in this situation? Have you ever remembered that Jesus is God incarnated into human flesh, and God is really taking the punishment upon himself in order to love fully the whole world and all of creation?

So this awful situation that we feel bad for Jesus for, gives us new life because God loves us more than God. Wow...that's a powerful statement.

And so for us, who hate others, and can't figure out why God doesn't do something about mean people in the world....God has. God has loved them and forgiven them, just the same as you. And I wonder if we poured out the same kind of sacrificial love as God does to these other people if they would be capable of hurting us. Probably...but would we notice as much is the question. Would we notice their sharp actions if all we could see in them is how much God and we love them as creation?

God's justice doesn't seem fair for us right now...but I have a good idea that the justice of mercy and love in the resurrection will work out in the end.