A word from heaven.

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God's Judgment Vs God's Love
~ The Paradox Series (Part 1) ~

To many people, God's Judgment and God's Love just does not seem to come together. How can a loving father also be the judge who will sentence people to eternal life away from Him? How can a loving father be the same being who will set the standards of what constitutes a Christ follower? It just doesn't make sense to many people.

What many people has done is that they compartmentalize God. When they look at God's Judgment, God's love does not come into the picture. When they look at God's love, there is no Judgment. This two faces of God just does not seem to click together. This is especially true when you come from a pretty traditional Asian Family like me where my biological father is the disciplinarian and the word "love" is hardly normally associated with his expression. (But as i grew up, i really appreciate him much more)

The face of God's love and God's Judgment in no way contradict one another. In fact, they are interlinked and does actually flow together really well.

The ultimate act of God's love for us is to send Jesus to the cross to redeem us. God's love is expressed through this act of mercy and grace. Mercy is not getting what we deserve, and Grace is getting what we do not deserve. Here comes the important part:

Love expressed through the Mercy and Grace of God would be irrelevant when we do not take the Judgment face of God into account.
Mercy is not getting what we deserve, and the Judgment face of God determines the magnitude of that.
Grace is getting what we do not deserve. Again the Judgment face of God determines that.

Take away the Judgment face of God and you take away any need for mercy and grace.
Take away the Judgment face of God and you take away the magnitude of God's love for us.

We can only truly understand the extend of God's love when you understand the extend of your sins through God's judgment and his commands.
You can only truly embrace God's grace and mercy when you truly understand God's judgment.

You're truly mistaken if you think having a relationship with God means that you do not have to think about the judgment face of God. That all sins will go unnoticed and you do not have to strive to be salt and light. You're mistaken because you've failed to understand that this relationship you are in is with a lawmaker who is perfectly Holy and hates sin. This lawmaker wrote the commands out of love for us to protect us to guide us.

If we had never loved the law maker, but try our best to reach the law maker by keeping to his commands, we miss the point because we’re all sinners and we’ll never be perfect.

If we love him, but at times when we fail, the mercy of the Saviour is there for us as a gracious act.

If we love him and at times when we manage to keep to his commands, we act as a faithful Child of God whom our Abba Father replies “Good and faithful servant”

Having explained how both are important, i'll seek to explain how the two come together nicely in order.

1) When we do something wrong or commit a sin, the first face that we will have to face is God's Judgment. God hates sin and no sin can go unaccounted for. Whether you like it or not, whether you are a Christian or not, you are being judged for your sins. That's the 1st stage.

2) For people who do not believe, their quest for repentance stops at point one. However, because of the face of God's love, we can seek mercy and grace beyond judgment. This mercy and grace is available to all and would only be given to those who earnest seek Jesus as the way the truth and the life. This is the redeeming power of the cross. Having said that, seeking God's mercy and grace without first understanding the magnitude of our sin through the judgment face of God will not make sense as i have pointed out earlier.

In Luke 18, The pharisee only saw the "blessings" and "grace" in his own life. He skipped the step of looking at his own sins with God's judgment face. However for the tax collector, he went through the both judgment and mercy and was right in God's eyes.

9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'

13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'

14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

The same argument can be used to look at Jonah 3. God threatened to bring upon destruction onto the people but there was a "U-turn" decision. The same happened when Moses pleaded to God to spare the Israelite of destruction after they do something wrong.

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

~ Jonah 3:10 ~

God is by no means indecisive. Neither is He torn between His character of love and His job of judgment. When He threatened to wipe the people off for their sins, it was what they deserve. But the people saw God's judgment face and duly went to stage 2 to ask for God's mercy. Throughout the entire episode, God never withdrew His offer for love for them. Neither has He withdrawn His face of judgment when he had compassion on them because doing that will be condoning their acts of sins. God is consistent throughout. With the same heart and being, God loves and He judges. God does not contradict himself nor is He schizophrenic.

In short, the judgment face of God tells us in sober truth how far we have fallen. God does not want us to stay there. That is why He sent His son to die on the cross. With judgment in mind, we receive God's mercy and grace with a thanks giving heart.

Regards,

jie hui

The kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009