I think that Christian preaching and teaching has swung like a pendulum too far to emphasize God’s love and mercy too much compared to his perfect justice. What do you think about his justice and his love?
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I believe that He is just not fair, but just in All because He knows All.
You are right that in much of modern preaching the pendulum has swung toward love, mercy, and acceptance, often to the neglect of God’s holiness and justice. The Scriptures present both as inseparably bound, for God does not love apart from justice, and He does not execute justice apart from love. His very character is perfectly balanced, and the cross of Christ is where His love and His justice meet with terrifying and glorious clarity.
Let me give you some examples with Hebrew and Greek verbs that capture the action of God’s justice.
In Hebrew, one key verb is שָׁפַט (shaphat, to judge, govern, render justice). In Psalm 96:13 the psalmist declares that the Lord is coming “for He comes, for He comes to judge (lishpot) the earth. He will judge (yishpot) the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.” This verb shows God as the active arbiter who weighs deeds and renders a verdict in absolute holiness.
Another is דָּרַשׁ (darash, to require, seek, demand). In Ezekiel 33:6 God says He will “require (edresh) the blood” of the negligent watchman. Here His justice is not passive but actively demands accountability, showing His covenantal responsibility to uphold moral order.
In Greek, the verb κρίνω (krinō, to judge, decide, bring to trial) is central. Paul in Romans 2:16 says “God will judge (krinei) the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.” This is not merely external justice but penetrates to hidden motives, showing divine omniscience coupled with righteous judgment.
Another is ἐκδικέω (ekdikeō, to avenge, carry out justice). In 2 Thessalonians 1:6 Paul writes, “For after all it is just for God to repay (antapodounai) with affliction those who afflict you.” Here justice is repayment, a rendering back, showing God’s covenantal faithfulness to vindicate His people and uphold His righteousness.
Now as to how His justice relates to His love, the cross is the decisive answer. Paul says in Romans 3:25-26 that God displayed Christ “as a propitiation in His blood” so that He might be both “just (dikaios)” and the “justifier (dikaiounta)” of the one who has faith in Jesus. Justice demanded that sin be punished, and love provided the Lamb to bear that punishment. The verbs here matter: δικαιόω (dikaioō, to justify) is forensic, a legal declaration of righteousness, but it is applied in love through faith in Christ.
If we preach only love, we make God indulgent and sentimental. If we preach only justice, we make Him a cold executioner. The biblical witness holds both without compromise. At the cross, God did not suspend His justice to show mercy, nor did He crush in anger without love. He judged (krinō) sin in the body of Christ and He loved (agapaō) the world in giving His Son. His justice is not contrary to His love, it is the very expression of it, because love without justice is permissive and justice without love is merciless.
So yes, I agree with your observation, and I would press further that we must recover the God who both judges (shaphat, krinō) and justifies (dikaioō), who both requires (darash) and redeems (lytroō), who both avenges (ekdikeō) and loves (agapaō). This is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God revealed in Jesus Christ crucified.
J.
@CHANWI1234, can you clarify and explain your sentence? What do you mean? I’m curious.
I would disagree with that general assessment; though I would agree to a modified form of that assessment.
I think that many Christians have failed to grasp what it means to fear God. We have become comfortable in thinking that God forgives us and therefore nothing we do really matters–I can chase power, chase wealth, I can be vindictive and cruel, and it doesn’t matter because I’m on “God’s team” simply because I call myself “Christian”. On the other hand God DOES judge others, God does condemn those people over there: the non-Christians, those who disagree with me on politics, those who are different than me and my “tribe”. So I can wag the finger at “those people over there” but God gives implicit support to what I say, think, and do because I’m on “God’s team”.
Scripture, however, presents a very different picture. Jesus offered us a parable of an unfaithful servant who having been entrusted with much was unfaithful, and when the master returns and finds the unfaithful servant orders him to be “beaten with many blows” because “to whom much is given, much is required”. St. Paul speaks of how those who know God’s commandments, but fail to them, are in a much more perilous place than those who do not know God’s commandments and yet still do what the Law commands (Romans 2, ultimately Paul is going to talk about how both Jew and Gentile are equally condemned as sinners under the Law, but Paul is speaking of hypocrisy in claiming to be a hearer of the Law without being a doer of the Law in this specific point). Scripture warns about the danger of being a teacher, “Not many of you should be teachers” because the one who desires to teach is under a greater burden, and to be a false teacher is to be in a perilous place. St. Peter reminds us “Judgment comes first to God’s Household” it is we who know the truth, who claim to believe the truth, who will be held to a greater accountability than those who were ignorant of it.
This is the way in which the Law should be preached to drive us to repentance and confession of our sin, and stir in us the earnest desire to live differently, to live godly lives. Now the caveat is that the Law does not bring us comfort and confidence–it can’t, the Law shows that we are unworthy and unrighteous sinners. Only the Good News of what God has done in and through Christ can comfort us, declaring us righteous for Christ’s sake. This is why a clear and unambiguous preaching of the Law as the Law, and the Gospel as the Gospel is so important, and we can’t confuse the two.
Scripture reminds us, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God” and “Our God is a consuming fire”. We should not forget that our God is God. It is through faith in Christ that we behold the (to quote Luther) “friendly fatherly heart” of God; in this way “he who sees God as angry does not see Him rightly”.
To the one who despairs in his sin, the word we preach is Good News, for here is the comfort and consolation of God in Christ who loves the wretch and who died for the wretch that the wretch might live and be rich in the abundance of God’s mercy.
To the one who boasts, the word we preach is the dreadful word of the Law, all who transgress the Law shall die as transgressors, and there is Judgment for each and every person must stand and give account on that Great and Terrible Day.
This is why the Lord’s teaching is that on a certain day a Pharisee and a tax collector went to the Temple. The Pharisee boasted of his righteousness and how he was not like “all these sinners, especially that tax collector”; but the tax collector could not even lift his face up, but beat his chest, and simply said, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus says only one of these men went away justified. On the Day of Judgment it is not the “Lord Lord, did we not do all these great things in Your name?” It is not the “We were holy and righteous and we were good Christian men and women” who will stand just on the Day of Judgment, it is the ones who did as the Master taught, whose hearts have been changed and operated on by God. It is only by mercy that we shall pass through death to life, not by the works we do and boast about. Not even our boasting of having the right religion, not even our boast that “I am a Christian” will matter on that Day.
”So what kind of people ought you be?” Paul asks.
The problem I see today very frequently isn’t an over-emphasis on God’s love and mercy, and a neglecting of His justice and judgment; what I observe very often is the idea that God’s love and mercy is for “me” but His judgment is for “thee”. And so rather than beholding my fellow sinner as the object of God’s compassion, love, and grace; I instead treat God’s mercy as my pet prize and then withhold it from my neighbor because my neighbor is “icky”. I judge my neighbor forgetting that with the same judgment with which I judge I too shall be judged. But I judge myself righteous, even though the Law that condemns the murderous bandit condemns me the same, for if I hold anger in my heart against another, I transgress the commandment “Do not murder”, for I murder my fellow man in my heart through my anger; and when I lust after someone who is not my spouse, I am just as much an adulterer as the one who has directly violated their marital vows. And if I curse rather than bless, if I hate my enemy rather than love them, and if rather than turning the cheek I instead pay blow for blow–I am just another sinner, condemned, and deserving of death and hell.
Therefore, be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful.
I agree with you, @TheologyNerd, that the law must be preached, but when a person is truly born again with Jesus’ resurrection power, what then are we to follow in our real Christian lives? As always we need to get that answer from the Bible. For example, in Colossians 3:1 and following, we get God’s answers. You notice in verse 1, that all of Paul’s commands are based on the power of Jesus’ resurrection creating us as new creations. Also, he carries the principles of God’s laws over for us to follow in God’s strength alone, while giving full credit to him:
Col 3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Col 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Col 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Col 3:4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Col 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Col 3:6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.
Col 3:7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.
Col 3:8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
Col 3:9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices
Col 3:10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Col 3:11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Col 3:12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
Col 3:13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.
Col 3:14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Col 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Col 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Col 3:17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Col 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.
Col 3:19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.
Col 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.
Col 3:21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.
Col 3:22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.
Col 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
Col 3:24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Col 3:25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.