In order to truly understand your relationship with God and how God deals with you, you must first gain and understanding of the "integrity" or "holiness" of God. This is done by first understanding the essence of God, which is revealed through his primary attributes: Sovereignty, Love, Eternal Life, Righteousness, Omniscience, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Immutability, Veracity, and Justice.Since this post is not on the complete essence of God, you will have to research the definition and meaning of the majority of these attributes. The focus here is understanding God's point of contact with His human creation.
Because of erroneous and fallacious teachings that over-emphasize God's love and under-emphasize His justice, many believers have a skewed perspective of who God is and how He deals with mankind. Many see God as this sentimental being that loves His creation so much that he couldn't possibly sentence any of them to hell. Others view Him as this despotic ruler Who rules unfairly with an iron fist. This is because very little time has been committed to actually teaching the Divine Essence of God.
Before the fall of man, there was no sin, so man's point of reference and his point of contact was God's love. Because God's command had not been transgressed, there was no need for justice to be in play with mankind. However, once man sinned, God's justice became the point of contact with mankind, while His love remained the point of reference.
What does all of this mean? God is not only righteous, He "is" perfect righteousness. This means that God's righteousness can only approve and reward that which meets his righteous standard. When Adam sinned, he moved God's justice into play as the point of contact. What this means is God's justice now stands as guardian over His Divine essence. In simple, God's justice executes what his righteousness demands. What God's righteousness approves, His justice blesses. What His righteousness condemns, His justice judges. Make no mistake about it, God's justice is His point of contact with us. There is no sentimentality involved here.
"may he judge Thy people with righteousness, and Thine afflicted with justice (Ps. 72:2)
"He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth (1 Chron. 16:14; Ps. 105:7, KJV)
"And He shall judge the world in righteousness, He shall minister judgment to the people in righteousness." (Ps. 9:8, KJV)
God evaluates and deals with man from His justice. All of God's attributes are guarded by His justice which is established by His righteousness.
This is what R.B. Thieme Jr. has to say on the matter:
"If God's point of contact with us were His sovereignty, He would choose who would go to Heaven; He would program us to mechanically enact every detail of our lives on earth. We would be automatons; human freedom would not exist...This distorts the sovereignty of God.
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| Dr. Rick Wallace |
So, what does all of this mean? It means that we can't become overly consumed with with God's love to the point that we believe we can circumvent his requirement of righteousness without incurring his judgment. Grace delivered us from the ultimate penalty of sin, but it does not exempt us from the consequences of our actions that bring us face to face with God's justice. Remember, what God's righteousness approves, God's justice blesses, and what His righteousness condemns, His justice judges. God is not capricious in His actions nor His judgments. He deals with each issue the same every time. This is why no one will be able to say in the end that God is unfair. His integrity is uncompromised.
The simplified message: Don't let these watered down messages about God's love convince you that you won't get dealt with if you get out of line. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace
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