Justice is also a nature of God

“Israel, return to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity” (Hosea 14:10)There is always the temptation for many people to look at God from only some aspects of His nature and omit others that they are not so comfortable with. Many rightly see a God whose nature is love; who is caring and will never make us the ‘tail but the head’, a God that will ‘prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies, that will anoint our heads with oil and our cup will run over’.We always see a God that would protect and see us through every danger we stumble into but fail to see holiness as also part of the nature of this God. We fail to also to see justice as part of the nature of God. Arthur Pink in his paper ‘The Justice of God’ writes that ‘When we view God only as “Love” and refuse to contemplate Him as “Light”—will necessarily result in our manufacturing a false God in our imaginations, a caricature of the true and living God’. God is light and cannot share partnership with darkness. Humans are known to be swayed with emotions, lack of or evolving information, gratification or other considerations to change their belief or nature. We change our opinions, our understanding of our environment and our inventions as more information becomes available. But God is constant and nothing will change His nature or alter His creation. He is constant and complete; He cannot act based on emotions but on His nature. He is not going to create a man who might not require oxygen to live any longer or make modified oxygen that would enhance our breathing or redesign our hearts with new components that last longer. James put it plainly in James 1:17 that with God ‘…there is no variation or shadow of turning’. God’s nature will never change; He will not stop loving or stop being holy or stop being a God of Justice.
There are many that use human emotions to see God as too loving to punish anybody with hell fire. God is holy and cannot lie or behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13). He cannot live with sinners and because of His loving nature He ‘gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.’ (John 3:16) He has demonstrated His love and will also demonstrate His justice at the appropriate time because it is also His nature.
If God has taken the pains to ensure that we do not perish but have eternal life by giving His very best to rescue us, it follows that if we neglect to avail ourselves of this final opportunity, He has no other Son to give us a second time.  Hence the writer of The Letter to the Hebrews warns us that if we ignore this offer of love, His justice will come into play.  Destruction will follow naturally – and that destruction, like His love, is total and irreversible (Hebrews 10: 30, 31 cf. John 3: 36).
He desires that none should perish but cannot force Himself on anyone hence He stands at the door of our hearts knocking and if anyone hears His voice and opens the door, He will come in and dine with the person, and that person will dine with Him (Revelations 3:20).
The church begins the Lenten season from Wednesday this week; a period for us to reflect on our relationship with God with fasting and prayers. God loves us and needs our repentance. He told the Israelites in Hosea 14:10 that they had stumbled because of their iniquities and ask them to return to the Lord that their paths may be smooth. Let us take advantage of this opportunity to straighten our relationship with God.