On Saturday, October 14, 2006, University of Miami’s football team took the lead over Florida International University. But things got sticky when FIU cornerback, Marshall McDuffie Jr., threw a punch at UM offensive lineman, Cyrim Wimbs, triggering unbelievable mayhem in the third quarter.

In seconds scores of players poured in from both sides until the brawl morphed into a pile of confusion. One Miami player from the sidelines charged onto the field, helmet in hand, and used it as a weapon.

Why did everyone and his uncle want to join? The desire for justice. One player sees his teammate getting clubbed so he joins the fight. This compounds until it’s a massive wrangle.

People Want Justice

No matter where you go, people live with a strong sense of justice. That’s why movies that theme on getting revenge on the bad guys sell like crazy. For example, did you watch the 1980’s western film, Silverado? Taking place shortly after the civil war of the 1860’s, once scene opens with a black man entering a bar to get a drink. But instead of giving him whiskey the bartender calls out two white thugs to take the black man down. But the black man shows he’s no pushover and creams his assailants. Then comes in the sheriff, “We don’t accept your kind here.” The black man looks at him hard and says, “That ain’t right!” This slogan keeps coming up through the movie as the black man suffers injustice from the whites. As you watch, your gut is wrenched with anger. You can’t help it. You desire justice.

When I lived in Los Angeles, one day the news headlines broke with the sickening story of a truck driver backing up his semi truck over a two year old boy. People who saw the danger started screaming and running—telling him to stop. But the truck driver didn’t hear a word because his music was on too loud. By the time he realized what happened it was too late. Dragging the driver out of his cab, the people beat him to death. No matter where you go, people want justice.

God’s Fingerprint

But why? Why does the most immoral heathen still get angered when an innocent person is slaughtered? Evolution doesn’t answer the question for genetic mutations can’t account for the existence of moral virtues. Only the existence of a sovereign Creator who is both moral and personal can account for humanity’s sense of justice. Because God created man and woman in His image (Gen 1:27) all humans are stamped with an indelible sense of right and wrong, good and evil. Ask the most liberal, immoral, and God-hating person on campus the simple question: “When is it okay to rape a child?” And he’ll tell you “never.” And then ask, “Then if morality is based on the popular vote of local communities instead of an objective standard of right and wrong, and if everyone in a local community all agrees that it’s okay to rape a little girl, does that make it right?” For him to remain consistent in his self-contradicting worldview he has to say, “yes” but watch how uncomfortable it makes him. He can’t help it. He’s made in God’s image, and the fingerprint of God’s holiness still gives him a conscience that screams, “That ain’t right!” no matter how indoctrinated he’s been by Satan’s efforts to explain away a holy Creator. 

Injustice Everywhere

In spite of our sense of justice we are a sinful human race and therefore injustice happens all the time. Someone cuts you off on the road so badly you almost get in a wreck. Someone steals your credit card and empties all $50 from you account (okay, maybe more than that). Somebody slanders you, deceives you or makes you look stupid. A professor gives you a grade that reflects how much he dislikes you instead of the accuracy of your paper. We live in a world filled with injustice. And it bothers us because we want things to be made right.

What about the four innocent lives taken by a flood in Texas this week? What about the Mexican drug cartels who outgunned the American and Mexican border patrol and shot dead anyone in their way?

Penn State University student, Jay Bundy, just got elected as president of the study body before he made the shocking comment: “If the students are stupid enough to vote for someone so inappropriate and retarded as I am then they deserve a president who’s going to give the worse performance to the best of his ability.”

No matter where you go, you can’t get away from the fact that someone at some point will treat you unjustly. The next statement may sound a bit fanatical, but hear on: Some day God will make all things right.

So God Let All Those People Die?

When we question, “How could God let 6,000 plus people die in 911?” we imply that there is some injustice in God. But this is silly, for the very hunger for justice that motivates us to ask such questions comes from God who created us in the first place! And Scripture is blatantly clear on this point: “He [God] will do no injustice”  (Zeph 3:5) or as Paul wrote to the Roman Christians, “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!” (Rom 9:14). To think that God is unjust is not only unthinkable but self-contradictory. If I accuse God of injustice I am using the very sense of justice I received from Him as my Creator to question Him. And this means I’ve assumed that I somehow hold a higher standard of right and wrong than God does. But God is not just just, He is the definition of justice itself! All justice everywhere in every corner of the universe is a reflection of the source of all justice: God.

Next time you see something unjust happen and wonder why God does not immediately intervene, first ask why God did not immediately intervene the first time you sinned and make things right. Your very first sin—no matter how small—deserves eternal punishment. But the fact that you are reading this right now proves that God has graciously withheld judgment for your sin, because people in hell don’t read blogs and articles on websites. God’s willingness to not punish every evil right now is not an implication of injustice but a demonstration of infinite mercy.

But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Pet 3:8-9).

Just because God does not do things on our timetable does not make Him an unjust God. I also find it much easier to wish justice upon the heads of others, but not upon ourselves. If God gives you and me justice, we’re in big trouble!

The God of Justice

In the book of Amos the reader is confronted with the God of justice. He is the God who makes things right. Israel, Judah, and six other nations wallowed in social sins—sins against fellow humans. Human torture, bribes, selling the poor for a pair of sandals, ripping open pregnant women, and a father and his son sleeping with the same girl infested these nations in moral filth until God’s patience would hold out no longer (Amos 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; Amos 2:1, 4, 6). That’s why Amos repeats the phrase: “For three transgressions of [whichever city] and for four I will not revoke its punishment,” no fewer than eight times in just the first two chapters. Three is a holistic number. It indicates completeness. We as humans are innately drawn to the number three. Beginning, middle, end. Ready, set, go. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Red, yellow green. It may well reflect the fact that we are made in the image of a triune God: one God but three persons.

For three transgressions, these nations had filled up the limit. They filled the margin of God’s anger. But then it says, “and for four.” Their social sin not only reached the brim but flowed over. With three, the cup of wickedness was full. With four it overflowed. It moved beyond the breaking point and now God must punish them for their rebellion. That’s why the book of Amos was written. God was now going to make all things right (5:22-24, 27) and recompense every evil deed.

This message is not just for Israel, it’s for the whole world. Someday God will make all things right. Every slander said, every lie told, every crime committed—everything will be made right by God in the end. Whether it be the highest of sin from Satan’s rebellion to the smallest of sin, the sinful complaint of a child, God will recompense all things.

What About People Who Never Hear About Jesus?

Our ministry launched an evangelism Bible study at a very dark and liberal private school, Kalamazoo College. What started as a Christian institution in 1833 now celebrates homosexuality, liberalism, atheism and every possible sort of anti-Godism imaginable. For instance, every October this college celebrates “Coming Out Day,” a day where people cover the sidewalks in chalk drawings representing homosexuality and where students are encouraged to wear different colors of the rainbow.

At this study we have two atheists, a liberal Episcopalian, a moral relativist, a Unitarian, several postmodernists, and a “Christian” who thinks people can get to heaven apart from Jesus Christ. Last Monday the study leader asked one of the students to read John 14:6 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.” After reading the passage the student said, “I believe Christ is the way to heaven, but I don’t see how God could still be just if He didn’t allow people who’ve never heard about Christ go to heaven.” The student didn’t realize that the very opposite is true: God would be unjust if He allowed anyone into heaven apart from Christ. The student’s thinking reflected typical postmodernism: that God can let sin go unpunished. The truth is, He can’t or He would no longer be just. Every sin ever committed by anyone must some day be punished. And that punishment will come through eternity in hell or by Christ on the cross. Jim Barnfather, an elder at Calvary Bible Church of Burbank put it this way, "An unjust sinner can no more go to heaven than a justified sinner can go to hell." Why? Because God is just.

A few days ago my friend Jay Wegter and I witnessed to a Roman Catholic student at Western Michigan University who thought that the only reason God sent Christ to die on the cross was to express His love. Now sure, it was an expression of love, but far more than this. Jay asked the student, “What did Christ’s death have to do with God’s justice?” The student had no idea. But Paul devotes an entire passage to this very topic in Romans 3 when he writes that Christ’s death was to demonstrate the righteousness [or “justice”] of God (Rom 3:25). How? God cannot forgive sin unless someone takes on the punishment for that sin. By having Christ die on the cross, God demonstrated that He can send unworthy sinners to heaven and still be righteous because that sin was paid for by His Son on the cross.

Why Man Can Never Bring Total Justice

Can a human exercise complete justice? No. If someone steals a pair of speakers he goes to jail. Drive drunk and you forfeit your license. Break the speed limit and you pay a fine. But this is only partial justice for even if you paid billions in fines and suffered a thousand deaths for a single crime you still must stand before a holy God on Judgment Day and give an account.

And here is why humans cannot bring complete justice: because every offense people make is an offense against an infinitely holy God. And an offense against an infinite God requires infinite punishment.

If you deceive someone—the worse part of your deed is not what you did against that person—it’s what you did against your Creator. Remember what David prayed in Psalm 51 after he committed murder and adultery? “Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight” (Ps 51:4). But didn’t David sin against Bathsheba by sleeping with her? (It’s not like he didn’t already have plenty of wives.) Did he not sin against Uriah by practically murdering him? Then why does he say his sin was against God only? Because sin would not be sin were it not for God. Every sin is first against God and is infinitely offensive in His sight.

This is why Jesus’ claim to be able to forgive sins was so outrageous. This is why the Pharisees fumed and accused Him of blasphemy. By forgiving sins He claimed deity. If I offend Kevin he can forgive me because I sinned against him. But Kevin cannot forgive me if I sin against Julie, because my sin was not against him. Nor does Kevin’s forgiveness of me make me right with God. This means that for someone to be able to forgive all sins, He must be God, for all sin is against God.

I appreciate how Todd Friel, host of the Way of the Master radio program, put it, “You don’t get to heaven because you were so good and earned God’s favor. You get to heaven because you were so bad and Jesus paid for your sin.”

The Just for the Unjust

But how will God accomplish all justice? Through the agency of His own Son: the Lord Jesus Christ. The Christ who paid for sin is the Christ who saves from sin. The Christ who came first as a suffering servant (Mark 10:45) is the Christ Who will soon return as a victorious warrior (Rev 19:11-21). He is God’s agent of making all things right.

Peter wrote, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust…” (1 Pet 3:18). The unjust made us just by taking our due punishment upon Himself. Paul wrote, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him" (Rom 5:8-9). Christ's death justifies all who put their faith in Him. Understanding the justice of God makes grace a thousand times sweeter.