WHEN JUSTICE IS LIKE POISON
Do horses run upon rocks? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. Amos 6:12, R.S.V.
Whatever would make justice like poison? It seems almost inconceivable. Justice--why, the very word sounds like "equality" and the "rights of conscience." Yet we Christians can make what is very right end up very wrong.
Often we assume to know God so well that we hold Him accountable for the choices that are our own. We say the Lord made this happen or told me to go there, but is the Lord accountable for these things? Some earnest souls claim God's guidance one day for the very things they blame the devil for the next. What are we saying about our heavenly Father with such fickleness? To unbelievers He must look rather capricious.
When we sternly say that God makes bad things happen to teach us lessons, is it no wonder that candid people feel a little sick to their stomachs? Especially when such sentiments are couched in love language. In fact, we make accepting Him just about as easy as it is to plow the sea with oxen.
How we act has a lot to do with this. We raise our children "in the truth" by mouthing doctrines while we try, as it were, to make them run their horses upon the rock-hard evidences of our own misconceptions about God. We tell them that He loves them but that they will be torturously destroyed if they do not serve Him. We reject them when they act disgracefully; or treat them with condescension, thinking that they don't notice, expecting that they should be grateful that we have chosen to do so.
God is not like that! He knows that horses can't run on rocks. He knows that we will never come to trust Him unless we discover how very reasonable are His ways. His justice is not like poison, it is the great celestial antibiotic against the spread of the virus of sin in our hearts and minds. Sin is our predictable response to such twisted concepts about our great God. Justice is His persistent endeavour to reintroduce reality into our lives.
God's justice is not the justice of a judge exacting a price for our injustice, but rather that of a teacher wanting to impart truth to his students. Shall we not all gladly come under His tutorship?
Do horses run upon rocks? Does one plow the sea with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. Amos 6:12, R.S.V.
Whatever would make justice like poison? It seems almost inconceivable. Justice--why, the very word sounds like "equality" and the "rights of conscience." Yet we Christians can make what is very right end up very wrong.
Often we assume to know God so well that we hold Him accountable for the choices that are our own. We say the Lord made this happen or told me to go there, but is the Lord accountable for these things? Some earnest souls claim God's guidance one day for the very things they blame the devil for the next. What are we saying about our heavenly Father with such fickleness? To unbelievers He must look rather capricious.
When we sternly say that God makes bad things happen to teach us lessons, is it no wonder that candid people feel a little sick to their stomachs? Especially when such sentiments are couched in love language. In fact, we make accepting Him just about as easy as it is to plow the sea with oxen.
How we act has a lot to do with this. We raise our children "in the truth" by mouthing doctrines while we try, as it were, to make them run their horses upon the rock-hard evidences of our own misconceptions about God. We tell them that He loves them but that they will be torturously destroyed if they do not serve Him. We reject them when they act disgracefully; or treat them with condescension, thinking that they don't notice, expecting that they should be grateful that we have chosen to do so.
God is not like that! He knows that horses can't run on rocks. He knows that we will never come to trust Him unless we discover how very reasonable are His ways. His justice is not like poison, it is the great celestial antibiotic against the spread of the virus of sin in our hearts and minds. Sin is our predictable response to such twisted concepts about our great God. Justice is His persistent endeavour to reintroduce reality into our lives.
God's justice is not the justice of a judge exacting a price for our injustice, but rather that of a teacher wanting to impart truth to his students. Shall we not all gladly come under His tutorship?
RSS Feed
