March 2002

The Bible teaches us that salvation is an act of God displayed in man for His glory.  However there are some Christians that claim that if God initiates salvation in some and not in others than God unjust?  It is clear that God grants some the faith to believe; faith does not nor ever could originate from man for his very nature is contrary to the true God. 

We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.  As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;  there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." (Ro.3:9-12)

When we consider the “no one’s” and the “all’s”, we could not have sought out God. The apostle Paul persecuted the church until God worked in him:

The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly along with the faith and hope that are in Christ Jesus. (1Ti.1:14)

The Bible states that both grace and faith were given to Paul, which means that faith does not originate in man:

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. (Rom.12:3)

God does not give us faith because we are worthy by some merit of our own.  He gives us faith because it is through our unworthiness that He receives the glory after we are saved:

Listen, dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom He promised to those who love Him. (Ja.2:5)

Christ is the originator of our faith:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, (He.12:2)

Our faith only comes through Jesus:

It is in Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. (Ac.3:16)

Faith, as salvation itself, is not of or from ourselves; it is a gift from God:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith— and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. (Eph.2:8-10)

If God grants some the faith to believe while refraining from giving it to others, does that make him unfair?  What if he still persists in condemning those to whom he had withheld granting his grace, would that make him unjust?  The truth is that God never was, nor is, nor ever will be unjust: 

He told them, "Consider carefully what you do, because you are not judging for man but for the LORD, who is with you whenever you give a verdict.  Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery." (2Ch.9:6-7)

God is not an impartial judge.  If he was to lean away from perfect justice, we would have to say that it would be on a harsher sentence as our sin is a personal affront to him.  We are accountable to him:

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.  Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. (Ps.51:3-4)

Since it is God  that we have offended, it is his holiness that ensures us that justice will be met.  For God is holy; holiness is an absolute- the bar we must all clear if we are to go to heaven:

For God does not show favoritism.  All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.  (Ro.2:11-12)

For this reason, God will judge each man's work according to its lack of merit:

Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. (1Pe.1:17)

God is not unjust because he sends offspring born of Adam to hell, Adam and Eve knew the penalty for eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (Ge.2:15-17)

Man understood both the command and its penalty when Eve took and ate of the fruit:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?"  The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’" (Ge.3:1-3)

When man ate of the fruit, the penalty for his disobedience was to die both physically and spiritually. However, God did not put Adam and Eve to death the instant they ate of the fruit.  God postponed the punishment for eating the fruit until Adam was 930 years old, leaving his justice unserved at that time:

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Ge.3:17-19)

God could have packed the fruit with enough poison to physically kill Adam and Eve instantly, then he would have sent them to the lake of fire, the second death:

Re 21:8  But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars— their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

God would not have been unjust by the fact that he destroyed man the instant they ate of the fruit.  If we would say that he was unjust, it would because he allowed Adam and Eve to live and have children.  When someone commits the crime, it is justice that they serve their time.  In Canada, there was a horrific trial about a man, Paul, who did detestable things to teenage girls.  Prior to the man’s trial, the prosecution made a deal with his wife, Karla, for specific information in exchange for a very light sentence.  After the deal was made, the prosecution discovered video-tapes, which proved that Karla was not just a spectator, but a participant in the destruction of four teenage girls.  The prosecution could not reverse the deal they made with Karla, even though she took part in their deaths.  Did society rejoice because of the mercy extended to Karla?  No, they were outraged that justice had not been served as Karla did not receive the punishment which fit her crime.  When the public heard that her husband, Paul, received a more severe sentence than Karla, did they cry “injustice” because Paul was not shown the same leniency?  Many claimed Paul’s sentence was not harsh enough and were even more angered by the deal that the prosecution made with Karla.  In the same way, God is not unjust by not saving everyone; God is unjust that he saves any of us as the penalty for eating the fruit was death.  This should have been served immediately.  Since our first parents were to have died before they had children, we who were born after the first sin were born under their death sentence. 

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.  For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. (1Co.15:21-22)

Since we were in our forefather’s body when he should have died, we were born under  Adam’s sentence of death.  For this reason, Christ’s death could pay for my sin so that I could live eternally, yet his death could not cancel out the sentence of physical death due to our first parent’s sin: 

Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.  But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!  Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.  For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.  Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. (Ro.5:14-18)

It is because Adam’s sin was imputed to all that we all deserve death:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— (Ro.5:12)

However, because our original parent’s sin infected us all, we also had a sin nature causing us to commit sins of our own:

All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. (Eph.2:3)

When God judges our actions and rewards us according to them, that is justice:

God "will give to each person according to what he has done". (Ro.2:6; Mt 16:27; 2Co 5:10; 1Pe. 4:17)

One sin grants us the verdict of guilty, and all the good we might have done cannot undo it:

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.  For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a law-breaker.(Ja.2:10-11)

For this reason, we will face the wrath of God:

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness. (Ro.1:18)

The church has forgotten the difference between justice, mercy and grace.  Justice is giving man the punishment he deserves- eternity in hell.  Mercy grants man pardon for what he has done, sins against God.  However, grace is granting us what we do not deserve- ultimately above a lot of things, eternity in heaven.  God is not unjust because some of mankind will face his wrath, for that was the minimum sentence for one sin.  However, it is important to realize that God did not let man go unpunished but merely granted man a stay of execution:

There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—  he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. (Ro.3:22-26)

God allowed man to go unpunished until the time that he would send his Son to take our punishment on him.  He allowed a man who had no sin to die in place of men who had sinned:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2Co.5:21)

It is through Christ’s death that God’s justice on man has been met; believe and receive it:

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (Jn.3:18) 

It is not the rejection of Christ that causes us to suffer hell, rather it is our sin that causes us to receive the just judgment of God’s wrath:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him." (Jn.3:36)

Therefore, if we were to make the accusation of God being unjust, it would have to be on the basis that he saved anyone- we were objects of wrath and wrath is our just reward.  Are you not glad that God was unjust in allowing us to live, knowing that his own Son would pay the penalty?