Today I was gutted to hear that a seminary professor I know has renounced his faith. He is a brilliant, gentle, loving and wonderful man. So why this? It will impact so many.
There are certainly more reasons than I know. Certainly. But it appears that one of the difficulties was that at times we read in the Old Testament that God killed whole families. How does a believer reconcile that to a good God?
I don’t have the answers. We do not understand the ways of God.
But I do in my limited understanding of the ways of the goodness and justice of God know that if he decided to completely destroy every last human being on this earth, he would still be good. Why?
Because humanity is very evil and therefore because of evil, if there is justice in this world at all, the very nature of justice demands that evil be punished. The fact that humanity still exists is because of the goodness of God. But not a cheap goodness that merely overlooks evil and says it we’ll let it go like we see in today’s cultural thinking.
As soon as man acted in rebellion to God, if God was good at all, in his righteousness and justice there would have to be action. But the action fitting for rebellion is death. Therefore from the moment there was rebellion, God set into motion also the place of redemption and atonement through Jesus. Punishment and death–yes. Atonement–yes.
Justice would be served through death for this rebellion.
Love would be served as man could be redeemed back to God if justice is served for the crime of rebellion which is death..
This is what makes the cross so extraordinary. Jesus was both just and justifier.
“he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26).
But make no mistake, when humanity declared rebellion on God, not a single one of us deserves to live. At all. It’s only God’s horrendous mercy and grace through Jesus Christ that we breathe at all.
