Just God

  

Romans 3:7-10 “For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just. What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”

 

The Greek word for “just” is “endikos”, meaning according to right, righteous, just. I just wrote about the meaning of the word “right”, and now we see that by what is right in the eyes of God, we can then determine what is “just”. Wrong is known by a knowledge of what is right and where is the right place to be.The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “just” as: The primary sense is straight, not crooked. What is: 

1. Regular; orderly; due; suitable.

2. Exactly proportioned; proper.

3. Full; complete to the common standard.

4. Full; true; a sense allied to the preceding, or the same.

5. In a moral sense, upright; honest; having principles of rectitude; or conforming exactly to the laws, and to principles of rectitude in social conduct; equitable in the distribution of justice; as a just judge.

6. In an evangelical sense, righteous; religious; influenced by a regard to the Laws of God; or living in exact conformity to the Divine will. There is not a just man on earth, that does good, and sins not. Ecclesiastes 7.

7. Conformed to rules of justice; doing equal justice. Just balances, just weights, a just ephah and a just him shall ye have. Leviticus.19.

8. Conformed to truth; exact; proper; accurate; as just thoughts; just expressions; just images or representations; a just description; a just inference.

9. True; founded in truth and fact; as a just charge or accusation.

10. Innocent; blameless; without guilt. How should man be just with God? Job.9.

11. Equitable; due; merited; as a just recompense or reward.--Whose damnation is just. 

12. True to promises; faithful; as just to one's word or engagements.

13. Impartial; allowing what is due; giving fair representation of character, merit or demerit.

 

Isaiah 45:20-22 “Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. They have no knowledge, who carry the wood of their carved image, and pray to a god that cannot save. Tell and bring forth your case; yes, let them take counsel together. Who has declared this from ancient time? Who has told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, a just God and a Savior; there is none besides Me. Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other.”

 

I was talking to our Associate Pastor Obie last Sunday at church and told him how I was just discussing with Pastor Herk about how, not only the pagan world, but many within the Christian church do not know what is “right”, but also does not know what is “just”. The sixteenth century English minister Philip Doddridge wrote in “The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul; “Every amusement of the imagination is welcome, if it may lead away your mind from so insipid  and so disagreeable a subject as religion. And probably the very last time you were in a worshipping assembly, you managed just as you would have done if you has thought God knew nothing of your behavior or as if you did not think it worth one single care whether He were pleased or displeased with it. Alas! With all your belief of God, the Providence, and Holy Scripture, that religion is not worth a thought? That it is not worthy one hour’s serious consideration and refection on “What God and Christ are, and what you yourselves are, and what you must hereafter be?” Where then are all your rational faculties? How are they employed, or rather how are they stupefied and benumbed?” Are we just going through the motions in the face of a just and holy God?

 

Deuteronomy 32:4 “He is the Rock, His work is perfect: for all His ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He.”

 

Doddridge concludes, “It is evident that God is present, present with you at this moment; even God your Creator and preserver of the whole visible and invisible world. And is He not present as a most just, observant and attentive Supreme Being?” Praise be to God.

 

In Christ, Brian