Judgment, Just, Justifier, Justified

"Wherever you live, the towns will be laid waste and the high places demolished, so that your altars will be laid waste and devastated, your idols smashed and ruined, your incense altars broken down, and what you have made wiped out. Your people will fall slain among you, and you will know that I am the LORD….. They will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their detestable practices. And they will know that I am the LORD; I did not threaten in vain to bring this calamity on them... And I will stretch out my hand against them and make the land a desolate waste from the desert to Diblah—wherever they live. Then they will know that I am the LORD’”  (Ezekiel 6:6, 7, 9b, 10, 14).

Woe! Woe! Whoa…. Perhaps we’ll flip a few more pages over, but the thin pages of the Bible are heavy with judgment, and the unspoken words weigh the air. Did God really cause such horror? We try to brush it off, wiping it off to the Old Testament, wishing it off on those people.

We can’t forget it so easy. Not just because of the horror painted—that is not easy to forget. However, we can’t just relegate it to the past because it all speaks about Christ (Luke 24:44-47). It is all useful for teaching, rebuking, training, and correcting in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16-17).

We see the holiness of God and his justice in this picture. We see the horror of sin and the gravity of sin. We see our heart—either Calvin or Luther said that the heart is an idol-making factory. We see what we deserve—desolation and death, the ultimate and horrible desolation and death of separation from God. This is what Ezekiel is preaching.

Without the judgment, God would not be just. God would not be holy. God is JUST to judge. He would be UNJUST to NOT judge.

Christ is there. There is hope in the horror.

He took that judgment, the demolishment, the desolation, the separation, the calamity, the loathing of the Lord of sin, the death. He took the horror we shudder at and quickly flip the pages over (in our Bibles or in the newspaper).

“God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his JUSTICE, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his JUSTICE at the present time, so as to be JUST and the ONE WHO JUSTIFIES those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25-26).

That agonizing time on the cross brought us justice; thus God is both the just and the justifier. It is only when we see the judgment that grace is grace, that Jesus is Christ and Savior. It is only in light of horror we see hope. It is only in light of Ezekiel we see the Gospels. It is only in light of this that we stand amazed at the bottom of the cross this Easter weekend and revel.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and JUST to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, ESV).

Now, our JUST God would be UNJUST to NOT forgive, because of what Christ has done. It would have been impossible for God to remain true to himself, just, and to forgive without Christ (and a God who is not just is a horrible God, and we in Christ have so much hope in justice as well). Now, it is UNJUST for him not to forgive, for it IS DONE in Christ. He cannot deny his character, just. He cannot deny himself—Christ Jesus. He will not punish twice. We are free from condemnation, shame, and sin through the justice, grace, holiness, love, mercy shown by Christ on the cross.

Revel again—judgment paid. A just God. A God who justifies. A God who is JUST to FORGIVE. All hail the power of Jesus' name.

                               

"Without the holiness of God, sin has no meaning and grace has no point. God's holiness gives to the one its definition and to the other its greatness. Without the holiness of God, sin is merely human failure, but not failure before God....Without the holiness of God, grace is no longer grace because it does not arise from the dark clouds of his judgment that covered the cross. Without God's holiness, grace would be nothing more than sentimental benevolence. It is this holiness that shows the graciousness of grace, its character as unmerited, because it also shows us the offensiveness of sin." (David Wells, The Courage to Be Protestant [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 241.)