One of the most common mistakes of believers is the
cultivation of the misconception that God is somehow sentimental or moved by
emotions. This ostensibly small misconception has an immense potential to
confuse and mislead believers into believing that God can be swayed through
sentimentality or that He rules from an impetus of anger. God is not and has
never been capricious in his actions. One of God’s primary attributes is
immutability — meaning that he does not change or waver in his character. His
dealings with His creation is always just.
Many believers have been taught about God from two polar
extremes that present Him as either a sentimental softy or an easily angered
tyrant. The former is the base teaching of what I call the “love” movement.
These erroneous doctrines focus on the love of God without giving any
considerations to His complete essence. Thereby creating the fallible
expectation that God will deal with his human creation from a position of
emotional sentimentality — creating the belief that God could never sentence
those that he loves to eternal damnation or allow them to suffer as a
consequence for their wayward actions.
The latter assumption is derived from the fire and brimstone
preaching that creates a situation in which people are falling in and out of “salvation”
incessantly, accompanied by a belief that God is sitting on high waiting for
them to make a mistake so that he can lower the boom.
We must understand that although God is love, His love is
not his point of contact with humanity, it is His point of reference. His love
and the fact that He is love (1 John 4:8), reveals why he engages us, but it is
no longer His direct point of contact. When God created Adam and placed him in
the Garden, His point of contact with Adam was is perfect love. Because man had
not yet sinned, God could allow His love to be the point for contact without
concern of the compromise of His holiness. However, after man sinned God’s
justice replaced His love as the point of contact between Him and mankind.
Justice is the attribute of God’s essences that stands guard
over all of the rest. God’s essence is expressed through 10 primary attributes:
veracity, love, eternal life, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,
immutability, sovereignty, righteousness and justice.
In order to avoid misunderstanding how God deals with
humanity, we must understand how His justice guards His integrity. The word “holy”
is used incessantly among evangelicals; however, if you were to ask the average
believer to define holiness, you would get some pseudo-spiritual, asceticism,
straight-laced, self-righteousness or some other form or pseudo-spirituality.
When the Bible speaks of being holy, it is definitely not speaking
of self-righteousness or self-denial. The word holy is like any other word in
any language; it evolves, changes and loses its original meaning — becoming
anachronistic. The English language over the last 400 years (the length of time
it has been since the original King James Version of the Bible was written and
the English term “holy” introduced) has been no exception to the rule of
etymological development. The word “holy” does not carry the same connotation
that it did in 1611. We must also keep in mind that English is not the original
language of the Bible so there is no reason to get sentimentally attached to a
particular word that was simply used to express the meaning of another word in
a completely different language, especially when there is a much better word
that clearly provides the lucid understanding of the term. That word is “integrity”.
When the Bible speaks of God’s holiness, it is speaking of His unwavering
character and integrity as it relates to His absolute standard of righteousness
— simply meaning that God never deviates from His standards for no reason
whatsoever. His integrity is absolutely impeccable. What He has promised He
would do, He will do.
With this understood, you are able to see that God does not
allow emotion to dictate his behavior. When the bible speaks of God’s anger, it
simply provides a clear understanding that God was displeased with a wrongful
action or misdeed that had been committed. The action that will follow will be
dictated by God’s standard of righteousness and executed by his justice.
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| Dr. Rick Wallace |
Allow me to explain. Imagine all of God’s attributes in a
box, and at the bottom of the box there is a hole that services a funnel to
mankind. Everything that God does concerning his creation passes through this
one hole. Standing guard at this hole is God’s justice. Contrary to many
teachings, the justice of God is impartial and neutral. It does not act on its
own, but carries out what the righteousness of God demands. What God’s
righteousness approves, God’s justice blesses. What God’s righteousness
condemns, God’s justice curses. What this means is God’s justice ensures that
God will never rule as a tyrant because his righteous dictates that he not, but
it also ensures that God will not become emotionally sentimental and allow sin
to go unaddressed.
To elucidate the principle here, I will simply say that God’s
integrity ensures that His actions are completely fair and just. This should
provide the spiritual equilibrium that is necessary to live an effective
Christian life.
The integrity of God ensures that He is the one constant in
the entire universe. Although humanity continues to change, God’s expectation
and standards have not changed. God is perfectly cognizant of our fallibility
and imperfection — providing the means to bridge the gulf that these
imperfections created between He and His creation — accomplished through the
magnanimous gift provided through Christ at Calvary. While this is true, we
must never take the approach that God’s love will allow Him to ignore sin. The
moment that He ever does that, He will cease being God and immediately His
integrity would come into question. God’s justice will execute what His
righteousness demands. ~ Dr. Rick Wallace
