A warped sense of justice

“God’s not fair.”

It is a little ironic that people sometimes say this. Why? Basically because God’s way of thinking is perfect and holy, and ours has been corrupted by sin.

Yet we dare, with our corrupted judgment, to disagree with God’s decisions of judgment and mercy, claiming that he isn’t fair.

I read about a group of Christians who were discussing Jeffrey Dahmer, a man who had committed some pretty hideous murders in the ’90s. While in prison, however, he became a Christian.

Upon his death (he was murdered by another prisoner), the group was divided on how they saw him.

Some had seen an interview in which Dahmer had talked about his conversion, and believed he had truly repented.

The ones who had not only saw him as a monster, and dismissed the idea that he had truly repented.

“Crimes that bad can never be forgiven. He couldn’t be sincere,” one person said.

Many people would agree with the latter group. Yet these same people bitterly complain about being forced to suffer the consequences of their own sin.

“God! Why are you punishing me?” they cry, all the while ignoring the fact that it was their own actions that brought the consequences upon their heads.

That’s what God was saying to the Israelites here in this passage. He said,

Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’

Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust?

If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die.

But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life.

Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die.

Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’

Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust? (Ezekiel 18:25–29)

Here were the people of Israel, criticizing God for being unjust because of all they were suffering. Yet they totally ignored that it was their own sin that caused God’s judgment to come.

How about you? Do you get angry when God allows judgment to come into your life? Or do you get angry when God shows mercy in others’ lives?

Remember that God is totally just. He always does what is right, and if you disagree with him, it is not he who is wrong, but your own warped sense of justice that is.

So let us be humble before God, showing mercy to those who repent of their sins and repenting of our own sins when God’s discipline comes into our lives.