Yesterday, we were introduced to the god of popular imagination. Today, we’ll see the hypocrisy of those who profess belief in such a god.
Scripture proclaims over and over again that our God is a God of perfect justice and unassailable righteousness. Psalm 11:7 says,
The Lord is righteous;Psalm 33:5 declares, “He love righteousness and justice.” And two psalms go so far as to proclaim, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne” (Pss. 89:14; 97:2)! Do you see what those verses are saying? God’s rule over the universe, his sovereign lordship over creation, is founded upon his remaining forever perfectly righteous and just.
he loves righteous deeds.
That’s why the idea of God as an unscrupulous janitor is so unsatisfying. It makes God out to be unjust and unrighteous. It makes him a god who simply hides sin—or even hides from sin—rather than confronting and destroying it. It makes him a moral coward.
And who wants a god like that? It’s always interesting to watch what happens when people who insist that God would never judge them come face to face with undeniable evil. Confronted with some truly horrific evil, then they want a god of justice—and they want him now. They want god to overlook their own sin, but not the terrorist’s. “Forgive me,” they say, “but don’t you dare forgive him!” You see, nobody wants a god who declines to deal with evil. They just want a god who declines to deal with their evil.
Scripture tells us, however, that because he is perfectly just and righteous, God will deal decisively with all evil. Habakkuk 1:13 says,Your eyes are too pure to look upon evil;To do so would be to renounce the very foundation of his throne. Even more, it would be to renounce his very Self, and that God will not do.
you cannot tolerate wrong. (NIV)
Most people have no problem at all thinking of God as loving and compassionate. We Christians have done a bang-up job convincing the world that God loves them. But if we’re going to understand just how glorious and life-giving the gospel to Jesus Christ is, we have to understand that this loving and compassionate God is also holy and righteous, and that he is also holy and righteous, and that he is determined never to overlook, ignore, or tolerate sin.
Including our own.—Greg Gilbert, What is the Gospel (Crossway, 2010), 44–45.
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