Sunday August 29, 2021

A just and good God

He (God) demonstrates it in the present tense so as to be righteous while declaring righteous one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3.26

The Bible reveals two characteristics of God : his righteousness and his goodness. But how can they be reconciled in the face of our guilt ? If God forgives man without condemning his faults, he would not do justice to anyone ! And if he applies his judgment without showing a mercy that can save him, where would be his goodness ?

But for God, this humanly insoluble question is not ! In fact, by his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus suffered the capital punishment by taking on our faults. Thus, being righteous in place of the unrighteous (1 Peter 3:18), through him the righteousness of God was fully satisfied. And in his infinite goodness, by being incarnated in Jesus, God has mingled with our human condition to pay in his crucified body the required punishment for our faults.

How can God be righteous and good at the same time ? The crucial answer is that God was in Christ on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:19), and in his righteousness and goodness he himself bore the sin of the world, he suffered its condemnation. There is no opposition or conflict between his righteousness and his goodness. On the contrary, they unite in Christ crucified and risen. Then they manifest together in the heart of everyone who repents and believes in him.

Dominique Moreau

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Proposed reading : Letter to the Romans, chapter 3, verses 19 to 26.

Source (Live Today)