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Jonathan Griffiths: The justice of God, it is good news, and we praise Him for it. But there is a sense as well now in which the justice and the righteousness of God, they're bad news, too. These things are bad news for all sinners in our natural state.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths. Jonathan, we've looked previously at the fact that we have a God who is a God of love and a God of justice. And you were saying that's good news. So if we have a God who is just and a God who is righteous, how could that be bad news?

Jonathan Griffiths: Well, they're bad news because we are in our fallenness, in our sin. We are unrighteous. We do not do what is right, and we are not in ourselves right. There is a problem between us and God in our natural state. We face His justice, His judgment rightly for the wrong that we have done.

That profound problem at the heart of human existence needs to be addressed, or else we do face the prospect of the judgment of God.

Steve Hiller: And that's the good news of the gospel right there. It is addressed in the cross of Christ.

Jonathan Griffiths: That's the wonder of the cross, that Jesus has entered into that judgment for us and in our place. But we need to receive that gift of forgiveness. We need to accept the work of Jesus on our behalf. That's the invitation of the gospel. That's the urgent call of the gospel, that we respond personally so that we might receive the benefits of what Jesus did at the cross and might be spared the ultimate judgment of God.

Steve Hiller: Today, we're going to continue to look at the just and righteous God. We're going to begin in Psalm 73. So grab a Bible and join us there. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: There is hardly a darker prospect than the thought of a figure of evil who is given freedom to wield absolute power. Think of the worst despots of history. Think of the Hitlers and the Stalins and the Pol Pots. Their power was great in their time. The depths of evil in their character seemingly endless to the onlooker. And, of course, the world observed in horror as the results unfolded.

The Bible teaches us that God is all-powerful. God is sovereign. God is omnipotent, ruling over the affairs of the world in absolute liberty. If we recognize the omnipotence of God, if we believe the Bible's account of His great power, His limitless power, then we do actually have to confront another question. What is the character of the God who wields absolute power over the universe?

This great question is, of course, no mere matter of theory. It's not a question simply for the philosophy textbook or the university lecture room. It is pressing and it is urgent for each one of us whenever we look out on the world and see evil flourishing and wickedness abounding. If God is all-powerful and evil is so prevalent in our world and in our personal experience from time to time, we then must confront this question: What is the character of the God who reigns supreme over the affairs of this world?

In Psalm 73, the Psalmist famously pours out his heart to God. He issues what is really a heart cry of anguish, driven by this sense that the world is full of injustice. And it's here in this Psalm that I'd like to begin today. Let me read the opening verses of that Psalm for us. This is Psalm 73. The Psalmist writes, "Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies." And down to verse 12: "Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning."

There is the cry of heart of the believer of years gone by who saw the wicked having prosperous and healthy and happy lives, while righteous and God-fearing people like him are suffering. And he cries out to God. We are today living in days of widespread distress and suffering in the midst of this pandemic, and I don't need to tell you that. We can look on and observe one person whose life is marked by unkindness or selfishness or exploitation of others, criminal activity—one person who escapes illness and perhaps even prospers in these days.

We can then look on at another person who is perhaps on the front line of serving the community in some way, who then catches the virus and dies, and we wonder what is God doing. How are we to make sense of His work in a time such as this? With these very significant questions in mind, questions that are urgent for all of us, no matter what is our circumstance, no matter whether we are committed believers or questioning skeptics, we come now to the Bible's teaching on the justice and the righteousness of God.

Now, at this point, I should mention the fact that we are treating these two words and these two concepts, justice and righteousness, together because they overlap in the vocabulary and the thought world of the Bible. God's righteousness is His character of total rightness and integrity and goodness and truth. And His justice is the expression of that character in His governance of the universe. And those two ideas, though distinct, they belong together in the Bible's portrayal of God.

Unsurprisingly, the Bible affirms for us unequivocally that God is totally righteous and totally just in His character. And that's the first truth that I want us to see. That's the first point I want to make: God is totally just and righteous. Now we could actually spend the rest of our time together reeling off Bible verses that proclaim this great truth. If we know our Bibles at all, really, we know that the Bible says this much about God. But just to make the point very simply, listen to these affirmations of scripture.

In his great song in Deuteronomy chapter 32 and verse 4, Moses declares of God, "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He." Psalm 97 verses 1 and 2: "The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice, let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are all around Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne."

Psalm 145 and verse 17: "The Lord is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His works." Isaiah 5 and verse 16: "But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows Himself holy in righteousness." Now those are but a few passages; I could mention many more that make this essential point. The God of the Bible is declared to be just and righteous. He says what is true. He does what is right. As He governs the world, He acts in perfect justice as an outworking of His perfect righteousness of character.

We all regularly face situations where we are called upon to place our trust in someone else. If we get into a car with someone, we are trusting that person to drive us safely. If we get into a plane, we are trusting the pilot up in the cockpit. We are trusting the engineers who cleared the plane to fly. We are trusting the airline executives who hired both people. I remember having some surgery a few years ago and recognizing, thinking as I went under in that general anesthetic, that my life was quite literally in the hands of the anesthesiologist and then the surgeon who would operate.

As you and I live each day in a world where we are self-evidently not in control, the Bible calls upon us to trust that the sovereign God who reigns supreme, that He is righteous and He is just. Trusting His character in this way is actually absolutely integral to our Christian faith. We don't know and we don't see all that God is doing. We see only a small portion of God's work as He governs the world. But He has made Himself known to us through His word, through His creation, through His acts in history.

Ultimately, He has made Himself known to us through His Son who came to live among us. Based on the revelation of God, He calls us to trust that He is entirely righteous in His character and entirely just in His governance of the universe. Now, all of that having been said, we need just to acknowledge and recognize that there is something a little bit circular here in the Bible's insistence that our God is a God of righteousness and justice.

There's something a little bit circular here because if we probe the issue and ask the Bible the deeper question—what is the standard of justice, what is the standard of righteousness of which we are speaking—here is the answer at which we arrive. True righteousness, according to the Bible, true righteousness is defined according to the character of God. And true justice, well, it is defined according to God's standards of just governance of the world.

You see, God Himself is the gold standard of justice and of righteousness. From 1889 until 2019, the kilogram as a measure of mass, it was defined according to the original kilogram block, the International Prototype Kilogram, which was held in storage in a vault in France. The scientific community only moved very recently last year to a different model of this. But historically, when you went to buy a kilogram of flour or whatever, you were being told that the mass of the flour you were buying at the supermarket corresponded to the mass of the block of metal in a vault in France. That was the definition of what was a kilogram.

According to the Bible, when we are told that someone or something is righteous or just in any measure, we are being told that the person or the action corresponds in some way to God's own perfect character of righteousness and justice. And so in part, for us to learn to trust God's righteousness and His justice, in part, that really boils down to us learning to trust Him in who He is. It's not about coming up with our own standard of what is right and what is just and then seeing, does God meet my standard?

It's not a matter of demanding that God do what is fair in our eyes or in the eyes of our contemporary society and then becoming indignant if He doesn't meet our standard. No, learning to trust God's righteousness and God's justice is about getting to know God Himself through His word. It's about seeing and observing what He is like and recognizing that He is indeed good and righteous and just in every way, in all His dealings, in all His works, and in all His words. That's the affirmation of the scriptures. That's the claim of the scriptures. And it is indeed the learned experience of the saints. The God of the Bible, He is righteous. And He is just.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths and a message called "The Just and Righteous God." It's been one of the most listened to of the past year, so we've taken this message and the other top nine and we've bundled them together in a series called Listener Favorites, currently airing on the radio. In addition to putting this series together, we've also designed a study guide to help you go a little bit deeper in these messages. You can get the study guide for free when you come to our website; that's encounterthetruth.org. Again, that's encounterthetruth.org. Back to the message. Here is Jonathan.

Jonathan Griffiths: The God of the Bible, He is righteous and He is just. But now I want to turn to think about the outworking and the implications of this truth about the character of God. And I want to suggest that God's justice and His righteousness are both good news and bad news. And I want to see how God's justice and righteousness are expressed fully and ultimately at the cross of Christ. Well, let's start with the positive. The justice and righteousness of God are very good news.

It's vitally important for us to know and believe that the one who sits in the seat of absolute power has total integrity. That's why moral failures and corruption among senior leaders in organizations and in governments around the world, that's why those things still matter to us. You can turn to your newspaper page or news app on any day of any month of any year, and you will find somewhere there a report of a leadership scandal, a leadership challenge based on character and integrity.

In a morally lax age, we still find that we care on some level about such things. We care because we know that if there is corruption at the top, we're all in trouble. To sit under a compromised leader, we know it's fundamentally unsafe for those who are led. But the fact that our God is a God of integrity, it is ultimately a fact that enables us to sleep soundly at night. It's a fact that tells us that this universe is fundamentally a moral universe. It tells us that right and wrong as categories, they actually mean something in the final accounting.

In Genesis chapter 18, the Lord threatens judgment against the wicked city of Sodom. And the patriarch Abraham, he's concerned. He draws near to the Lord wanting to intercede. This is Genesis 18 and verse 23, if you want to follow. And Abraham says this to the Lord, "Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will You then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from You. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?"

And the Lord said, "If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I'll spare the whole place for their sake." And, of course, the story continues, but does indeed end in judgment. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?" asks Abraham. And, of course, wonderfully, the answer is yes. Always yes. The God of all the earth, the judge of all the earth, He will always do what is just on every occasion, in every situation, every time. That's the only way to make sense of life in this world.

That's the only reason at the end of the day we can look out on chaos and hurt and injustice. We can look out on economic inequality and racism and abuse and social unrest and failing systems of human justice. We can look on at all those things and say, "This is almost unbearable. It seems to be spinning out of control." But here's what I know and here's what I believe: the God of all the earth, the judge of all the earth, He is just and He's going to do what's just.

So the justice of God, it is good news. It's good news in the immediate sense that He governs the world day by day and moment by moment according to His principles of justice, perfect principles of justice. Now, we need to recognize the reality of sin and the fall, and we're going to come back to that a little bit more in a few moments. The world is not as God created it to be. Society does not function in the way that He designed it to function at the creation.

We don't see the flawless and uninterrupted outworking of God's justice at every turn, every day in the world around us. However, despite the fall and despite the damage of sin, God's general principles of justice are seen in great measure in day-to-day life in the world around us. And this is something that I think the book of Proverbs teaches us more than any other book, perhaps, in the whole of scripture. It teaches us to look out for God's general justice and God's general righteousness as it is revealed in the day-to-day functioning of life in His world.

The book of Proverbs, it gives us some general principles about life in God's world. The Proverbs, they're not promises, of course. Things go wrong in a fallen world because of the damage of sin, but the principles of Proverbs are true in general because of the character of the God who made the world and rules the world. So, for instance, in God's world, in general terms, hard work is rewarded. That's one principle. Generally speaking, the one who labors faithfully tends to see a reward for that labor.

Proverbs 10 and verse 4: "A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich." Proverbs 28 and verse 19: "Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty." On the negative side, gluttony and drunkenness are given their due in God's world. They're going to lead to ruin. Proverbs 23 and verse 20: "Be not among the drunkards or among the gluttonous eaters of meat, for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and slumber will clothe them with rags."

Now those are just a couple of examples; we could find many more in Proverbs. But they illustrate a basic point, a fundamental point: God's general principles of justice are expressed in the way in which His world works, in the way in which He governs life on earth. However, we do know that in this fallen and broken world, this world damaged by sin, those general principles are not always applied evenly because of the fall. And we know that sometimes there is great unfairness and great injustice in our human experience.

That was the experience of the Psalmist in Psalm 73, which I read at the beginning. Sometimes those who seek good and try to do good are struck down with illness or poverty or suffering, while the wicked, they prosper and they're allowed to do more evil through their prospering. We think of the mass murderer, the abuser, the genocidal dictator, and we all know of those realities in this world. And so how do we live in such a world where such things do take place, where such people do seem to prosper at least sometimes? Well, to answer those concerns, the Bible points us consistently forward to God's ultimate final judgment to come.

Steve Hiller: Well, we're going to pause right there, but we'll continue this message on our next broadcast. You're listening to Encounter the Truth with Jonathan Griffiths and a message called "The Just and Righteous God." And if you ever miss a broadcast, come and listen online. Our website is encounterthetruth.org. You can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. Again, that's at encounterthetruth.org.

Encounter the Truth is a listener-supported ministry. We're able to be on this station, make the podcast and the app available because of your generosity. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a book entitled "The Final Lap," written by John Wyatt. Jonathan, I have a friend who likes to say what you read isn't necessarily as important as who you read. So that kind of begs the question for me then: who is John Wyatt?

Jonathan Griffiths: Yeah, John Wyatt is a medical doctor who's a leading Christian ethicist in the UK. And John's made a wonderful contribution to thinking about practical Christian living and significant choices we make in Christian discipleship. I've used John's resources over the years when I've had an opportunity to teach Christian ethics at different times. I've relied on John's thinking a huge amount.

But just recently, he's been working on the whole area of aging and retirement and dependency and the final years of life and how we think about that as Christians and how we steward that time well as believers. I had an opportunity to speak alongside John at a convention in the UK, the Keswick Convention, not so long ago. And John's seminars on aging and retirement and ill health and dependency in older age were just gold, and people appreciated them so much. So I think this particular resource that we're making available this month will be a tremendous help to many people.

Steve Hiller: It is called "The Final Lap," and it's our thank-you gift to you as you financially support Encounter the Truth this month. You can call and give a gift over the phone. Our number is 1-833-99-TRUTH. That's 1-833-998-7884. Or go online to encounterthetruth.org.

You can also write to us at Encounter the Truth, PO Box 5513, Ottawa, Ontario, K2C 3M1, or in the US at Encounter the Truth, 215 North Arlington Heights Road, Suite 102, Arlington Heights, Illinois, 60004. For Jonathan Griffiths and our producer Mark Brudda, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time.