Just and Justifier

For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you.  The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. (Psalm 5:4-5 ESV)

Our God is 100% righteous and holy. We are separated by a vast distance of his glory and righteousness. In Psalm 5, David writes that God cannot be with evil, with sin. Evil will not exist before God’s eyes. David tells us God hates evildoers. This is contrary to what many hear: God hates the sin, not the sinner. Wrong.

Scholars point to Solomon as the author of Proverbs. Proverbs 17 says, “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” When we look at Psalm 5:5 and Proverbs 17:15 together, we see what many, including myself, call the “divine dilemma.” How can God, who hates evildoers, justify the wicked without being an abomination?

God had a meticulously crafted plan from the very beginning. He first unveiled this plan in Genesis 3:15, the protoevangelium or the first good news: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This is the first revelation of Christ in the Bible. God had a planned response to the sin of humans.

Paul tells of this plan in Romans 3: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

What sins had God passed over? The Sins of Abraham, a doubter, and a liar; the sins of Noah, a drunkard; the sins of Moses, disobedient and a murderer with a temper; and David, a murderer, and an adulterer. Jesus was the propitiation, the sacrificial act that appeased God's wrath against sin for all who believe in Him. Jesus resolved the divine dilemma. He bore the sins of Abraham, Noah, Moses, David, you, and me.

In doing so, Christ's sacrifice made God both just and the justifier of those who sin. Our salvation is sealed through our faith in Christ, which means that when we are justified before God, we are gifted with Christ's righteousness.

I have been asked how, in a few hours of suffering, one man could pay for Humanity's sins, past, present, and future. The answer is profound: that one man was not just a man but God incarnate, worth more than all of creation combined.

Christ became a curse for you. He paid for your sins with His blood. He gave you his righteousness and salvation through faith in Him, and in repentance, you are forgiven.

Do you know Christ? What are you prepared to do?