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Today we're going to look at God's righteousness and goodness. Let's begin then by reading from Isaiah chapter 45, verses 19 to 25. I have not spoken in secret. In a dark place of the earth, I said not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye me in vain. I, the Lord, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right. Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, ye that are escaped of the nations. They have no knowledge that set up the wood of their graven image and pray unto a God that cannot save. Tell ye and bring them near. Yea, let them take counsel together. Who hath declared this from ancient time? Who hath told it from that time? Have not I, the Lord? And there is no God else beside me, a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth, in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength. Even to him shall men come, and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory. Thus far, the reading of precious scripture. Let's pray. Lord God, we bow before Thee at these moments, and we thank Thee so much that Thou art the Lord, our righteousness, that Thy righteousness is part and parcel of Thy very character, and that therefore in Thee we have the righteousness not only of the law, but also of the Gospel. We thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast sent Thy Son as the Lord our righteousness, to satisfy thy own justice, so that we sinners may be saved through faith, gracious faith, in Him alone. And we pray, O God, that we might more profoundly appreciate that righteousness after this lecture than when we have entered this room this morning. Help us in lecturing, give power, give insight, give clarity, and give the mind of thy spirit that we might grasp this wonderful word as descriptive of thee, righteousness, as a word that lies at the very heart of the gospel itself, at the very heart of thy character and thy message and thy word. Lord, be mindful of us now and bless us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I've had the question sometimes in my life, people have asked, if you had to describe the scriptures or the gospel in one word, what word would you pick? And I've always said the word righteousness. Actually, the word righteousness describes what has been called the fourfold state of man by Thomas Boston. It describes our original state, our original righteousness. It can describe our fallen state, we've lost righteousness. It can describe our renewed state, we recover righteousness and are restored into the image of God. And it can describe our future state as either a state of righteousness and glory or a state of unrighteousness and hell. But that word righteousness is also a description of God himself, God himself. And it's interesting how much terminology in the scripture is used to describe this. We saw last time that we can look at God's moral purity through his holiness, but you can do that through his righteousness as well. In his righteousness, God has established a moral order for the universe. And he treats all creatures fairly. He is righteous. He is just. He is never unrighteous. He's never capricious. Louis Burkoff, in his Systematics, describes the righteousness or justice of God as strict adherence to law. But that's good insofar as it goes, but it's not to be conceived of in a neutral fashion, because we must go on immediately to say that God is a law unto himself. True, not in a capricious sense, We cannot apply to God what was said of God's people under the old covenant, everyone did that which was right in his own eyes. God's not a law to himself in that way. For God cannot deny himself. He's faithful to himself, to his own righteous and holy character. So the justice of God The righteousness of God is the inherent and infinite righteousness of God. This is who God is. Now, in the Old Testament, the basic words denoting righteousness and justice cluster around two word groups. The first is mishpat, which comes from the verb to judge. And so mishpat describes the result or the act of judging. You could translate it a verdict or a sentence or a decree. Or in the abstract sense, you just would say justice. In the King James Version, it's translated as justice, judgment, ordinances, sometimes as right. So it often refers to justice in a generic sense of the word. And that reflects upon God's justice, since he is the root and the ground of all justice. This word is used at least 71 times in the Old Testament. I won't start giving you references, there's too many, you can look them up in a lexicon. The second word family group comes from psychotic, to be righteous. And the various nouns in this group and adjectives all have basically the same meaning. The idea of satanic is that there is conformity, righteous conformity, to an ethical or moral standard. Now in the Old Testament, that standard is the character and nature of God. That's why God is called just and righteous in himself. And by extension, that means that he will have just judgments and just dealings with his creature, with mankind. And God reflects this character both in the gospel and in the law. He doesn't just say, well, I've got good news for you. I'm going to save sinners. And there's nothing about it. No, he sends his Son to perform righteousness, to be righteousness in our place as unrighteous sinners. But also in his law, his law is a reflection of his righteous character. This is who God is, in his law. He's just, he's righteous. Now in the New Testament, there's also a very rich set of family words, well known, that connote the righteousness and justice of God. And the main one is dikaios, which means righteous, or its corresponding noun, which means righteousness. These words speak of right conduct before God, right conduct before God, as well as just judgments and rule, the rule of God. But particularly in Paul's letters, the phrase, the righteousness of God, is often used to speak about the forensic transaction, the forensic, the judicial transaction that is, whereby the sinner is pardoned and justified before God. In other words, particularly in Paul's letters, the gospel, comes across in courtroom language, language that speaks of righteousness. Now, what are the elements and what are the distinctions in this very broad term, righteousness? Well, if we try to break it down into different categories, we must say that in the very first place, in many instances where this word is descriptive of God, it's speaking simply about His morally pure character. And because He's morally pure, He does what is right. He does what is right. So God is characterized by a moral rectitude. When you think of God, you should think of righteousness with a capital R, someone who does what is right. That's why I read to you that powerful section from Isaiah 45. Verse 19 says, I, the Lord, speak righteousness. I declare things that are righteous. Then in verse 23, I have sworn by myself the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness. Verse 24, Surely shall one say unto the Lord, I have righteousness. Now, in the New Testament, We find similar references to God's righteousness. By the way, I should say that in the Old Testament, there's dozens of places like this. Text I just gave you from Isaiah, but too many to mention. But Jesus says, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount in the New Testament, Matthew 6, 33, to seek first his kingdom and righteousness, his righteousness, and all other things will be added to you. And of course, in the great passage on the imputation of Adam's sin and of Christ's righteousness, the Romans 5 passage, which I know you're familiar with, Paul says, Romans 5, 18 and 21, Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. And then verse 21, As sin has reigned unto death, even so my grace reign through righteousness. Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. John says that if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. So, there's a massive amount of biblical material. that presents God's righteousness as His moral purity. But that isn't all that Scripture says about the righteousness of God. Secondly, Scripture also speaks of this righteousness in a covenantal context, a covenantal context. We might put it this way, that God's righteousness is His total consistency with his covenantal relation, his covenantal revelation, rather, of himself, his covenantal pledge to his people. One of the early references in the Bible to the righteous acts of God is in Judges 5, verse 11. It says, they shall rehearse the righteous acts of the Lord, even the righteous acts towards the inhabitants of his villages in Israel. Then shall the people of the Lord go down to the gates. Well, that statement's obviously set within a covenantal context. This righteousness is a righteousness that shows itself, manifests itself in a covenantal relationship. So that's the reason why, one of the major reasons why the supreme revelation of divine righteousness in the Bible is always, or often rather, presented in the context of the cross of Christ, the work of Christ. Because through Christ's work, God establishes this covenantal righteousness. And of course, it's only as we get renewed by this righteousness that we begin to manifest something of this righteousness as a covenant creature to each other. It's precisely because we're recreated in the divine image that this righteousness is possible now for us to show and to live. at least in some measure. And so, in terms of human righteousness, when the saints of the Old Testament appealed to their own righteousness, we often think, You know, how do they say that? How does David, for example, say, you know, Lord have mercy on me for I am holy or I'm righteous. Well, they're not just appealing to the idea of the Old Testament principle of meritoriousness, but they're appealing to the integrity of their relationship, the integrity of their relationship. in which they stand to God in terms of the covenant righteousness he has established with him. Now, there are lots of nuances to this covenant righteousness. Gerhardus Voss suggests five different categories to expound the nuances of covenant righteousness. in his biblical theology. And Barton Payne, in his theology of the Old Testament, suggests there are nine various nuances. Well, obviously we don't have time to examine all of these. But let me say that in terms of covenant, we can focus just briefly on two of the central aspects that point us to this vital characteristic of divine righteousness. And that is that the righteousness of God is revealed in scripture both on the one hand in terrible condemnation, and on the other hand, secondly, in wonderful, merciful deliverance. And both the terrible condemnation and the wonderful deliverance are what they are because of the absolute integrity of God's righteousness and of God's commitment to the revelation He has given of Himself in His covenant. And if we don't understand both of these nuances, we're bound to minimize the biblical representation of who God is in one direction or another. And you often find this, not only in yourself, but in other people and in church people as well, that either they look at God almost exclusively in terms of retributive justice, or they see God almost only in terms of merciful grace and salvation. If you take Martin Luther, for example, before he saw the gospel clearly, how did he view the righteousness of God? It was just God's angry retributive justice. So he tells us in those famous passages how much he hated Paul. because he said that in the gospel the righteousness of God was revealed and to him that was just terrible condemnation. But then Luther discovers that the gospel actually conveys that God's righteousness is an expression of his covenant faithfulness in which his grace and mercy shine through that righteousness. And so he discovers that instead of saying, God is a righteous God, but he is also a Savior, he now is able to say, God is righteous because he is a Savior. So Luther's new picture of the righteousness of God doesn't deny that God's righteousness involves terrible condemnation, but now he sees that it also involves covenant faithfulness in manifesting grace and salvation. If you contrast that with Albrecht's ritual a 19th century liberal theologian, Albrecht Ritschel, you find the opposite problem. And in most theology that follows Ritschel in liberalism and in neo-orthodoxy, There is the same error manifested that ritual begins where Luther ended before he came to see the gospel. Ritual obliterates any notion of retributive justice in divine righteousness. So he says in his book, the book title is Justification and Reconciliation, page 474, God's righteousness is his self-consistent and undeviating action on behalf of the salvation of the members of his community. Thus, in essence, it is identical with his grace." You understand what he's saying? When we talk about God's righteousness, we're talking about nothing but grace. It's only wonderful, merciful deliverance. There's no terrible condemnation. So ritual makes a parallel mistake that Luther made. He sees only one nuance to righteousness. And both of them, Luther prior to his gospel deliverance, as well as ritual, both of them take a part for the whole. And they repudiate very important dimensions of righteousness. And it's quite easy to do, because all you have to do is isolate certain texts that really speak of one nuance and say, you see, that's what righteousness means, and you ignore the rest. So ritual, for example, isolates Psalm 116 verses five and six, gracious is the Lord and righteous, yea our God is merciful, I was brought low and he helped me. So you see, righteousness of the Lord is gracious, gracious to the Lord and righteous. And you see, this is the problem, not just here, but may I add as a footnote, this is a problem for ministers, it's a problem for theological writers, there's a tendency We want to read the Bible through our own desires, the spectacles of our own desires. And so what happens is we can ignore certain texts, leave them off to one side, find themes that are nuanced and just emphasize what we want to emphasize about them, and we become imbalanced, and we actually end up teaching something about God that is really not the picture of Scripture, about God, or about Gospel, or about anything. Hence the importance of systematic theology, to take all of what scripture says about a given subject and bring it all together and say, what's the whole perspective here of scripture? So you have, then, God's moral purity. You have the issue of the covenantal context. of God's righteousness in scripture, which is very important. Thirdly, let me say a word to you about what has been called by theologians the rectoral justice of God. The rectoral justice of God. This righteousness or justice refers to God's instituting moral governance in our universe. moral governance in our universe, so that there are rules, rules that define good and evil, rules that stipulate rewards and punishments for those who obey and those who disobey, and that God enforces those rules because He's judge over all. And God's justice or righteousness declares to us that these rules are not arbitrary, they're not immoral, they're not unfair. God cannot be unfair. God's rectal justice simply means that he's ordained rules that are morally right. So in God's moral governance, all his punishments are appropriate to our crimes. That's an important thing to say about God, because that's something that we can't say about man. As man, we make all kinds of mistakes, don't we? one of my children could commit some moral infraction tonight, and because it doesn't really impact me personally too much, I might overlook it too easily and minimize it. But that same child might be sitting around the supper table and knock over a huge glass of milk right into my brand new suit pants, and I might respond way too strongly because it impacts me and might actually become somewhat angry or at least somewhat visibly upset when really it's a pretty innocent thing. So you see, our responses can often be unfair. But God doesn't have, remember that word before, God doesn't have passions like that where he responds unfairly or without self-control. God's righteousness means that God's response to everything is appropriate. It's appropriate. Job 34 verse 23 says, He will not lay upon man more than right. Other passages that speak of this, Genesis 18 verse 25, The Lord of the Earth, do what is right. Lots and lots of references to God's rectoral justice in Psalm 119. Also the same point in Hosea 14 verse 9, for the ways of the Lord are right, and the righteous will walk in them. But this also means that God is a righteous moral governor. in terms of handling our salvation. This needs to be stressed particularly today. All the debates about imputation and God's righteousness in the book of Romans and in Paul. God hates sin and God punishes sin, but He sent Christ as our substitute. And by requiring his son's death to pay for our sin, God demonstrates that the demands of his righteous law are met in Christ. And so we read in Romans 3, 25 and 26 of Christ that God has set him forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood. to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, here it's repeated in case you didn't get it the first time, at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. So here we clearly see that God is saying, not just any righteousness will satisfy me. Those who try to keep my law will fail. Only the righteousness which is by faith in the Son of God, in His infinite righteousness, which alone can satisfy the infinitely offended righteousness of God, will anyone find sufficient standing to stand before God. And Paul goes on to say in Romans 10 that this is precisely the error of his Jewish brethren. Romans 10 verse 3, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, this infinite, impeccable righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. And that's why, once Paul realized this, you see, then his desire was no more to establish his own righteousness, because that's a hopeless thing anyway before this impeccable, infinite God. His whole goal in life then became to find all his righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ. So he says in Philippians 3, verse 9, "...and be found in Christ, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." So you have this rectoral righteousness of God in all His dealings with His creatures. You have, secondly, the rectoral righteousness of God, particularly in salvation of His own. And then finally, you have God's rectoral justice in the fact that He is judge of all the earth. He has authority to judge everything here, not only, but also on the great day. So you see things, you see references to that in many of the Psalms, Psalm 9, verse 8, Psalm 99, verse 4, and many other places. Now, in addition to God's rectoral justice generically over mankind, we also need to stress that God treats every individual fairly. This is a bit more of a challenging concept. You see, it wouldn't be very comforting, would it, to know that there's a moral order and God has a fair moral order, and then to say, but he doesn't enforce that moral order fairly on individual people. And yet, of course, when we look around, there seems to be a disconnect here, doesn't there? Some people seem to get all the troubles. Other people seem to have very few trials. I've talked to a man recently, he said, I think I haven't grown very much in my Christian life because I've hardly ever had a trial in my life. So, is this just? Is this fair? That's what human nature says. And so this kind of dilemma has led philosophers and theologians often to speak of various kinds of justice. In fact, philosophers often speak of social justice, political justice, and other kinds of things. More recent theologians have spoken of this issue in the context of two terms, egalitarian justice and distributive justice. Now, egalitarian justice refers to the idea that God would distribute exactly the same thing to everyone. That is to say, no one gets more or less than anyone else. Distributive justice, on the other hand, is the idea that each person gets his due, no more, no less. Now it's, I suppose, thinkable at least, that everybody deserves exactly the same thing. That actually, I mean, generically, yes, everyone deserves hell. We can say that because we're all sinners. But people live differently and deserve different things, don't they? So that would be very unusual indeed. And in fact, when you turn to Scripture, you discover, don't you, that Scripture never even vaguely suggests that God operates on principles of egalitarian justice. In fact, none of his attributes obligate him to do so. God is not obligated to show the same loving care for every human being. But the fact that God is love does indicate that God does show love to his creatures. The fact that God is just does mean that his actions will be just to his creature, but it doesn't mean that he's going to operate with an egalitarian justice in this world so that everybody gets exactly the same thing. Now, some people are concerned about this, and they think, well, this isn't fair of God. But actually, the biblical portrait of God shows that God functions in accord with distributive justice, that He gives in accord with what has been done. Now, for Christians, of course, reckoned to their account is the righteousness of Jesus. And that's why we receive such wonderful things at the hand of God, like salvation. when we receive that by faith. So, when God, we say, sets up a just moral universe where he treats every individual fairly, we don't mean to say that we all, we Christians all deserve salvation, but we mean to say he treats us fairly in terms of the justice that has already been paid for, satisfied for, for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then within that context, God uses distributive justice as well. If you're a believer, your sins are paid for in Christ, that's wonderful, but if you then go out and backslide, there will be consequences. One of those consequences may not be, maybe, but it may not be also, that you'll have great outward afflictions, but you'll have a great inward affliction. You'll feel more distant from the Lord, for one thing. That's distributive justice already, distance from the Lord. We need to handle this whole concept of distributive justice without turning the whole concept into an idea of, well, we get saved by our good works. Now, another distinction here is between remunerative and retributive justice. The Bible, when speaking of this category of distributive justice I've just mentioned, speaks then of rewards and of punishments. And that has led theologians to make this distinction as well, remunerative justice and retributive justice. The remunerative justice refers to the granting of a reward that is due. or deserved, and the retributive justice refers to a punishment being meted out that is also deserved. And as we turn to scripture, of course, there's hundreds of passages that we could draw on for both of these things. This is also at the core of the struggles of the book of Job, isn't it? When Job complains about his circumstances, Job 8, verse 3, what does Bildad ask? Does God pervert judgment? Or doth the Almighty pervert justice? That's a rhetorical question. The answer is of course not. Of course not. Even though Job, nor his friends, though they try clumsily and sinfully, know the exact reasons for Job's calamities. And what is Job teaching us? Job is teaching us, the whole book of Job is teaching us, that even when we can't understand God's ways, God is always still fair and righteous. So the book of Job is teaching us what Deuteronomy 32 verse 4 says, Deuteronomy 32 verse 4, He is the rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He. Now, that leads us then to say just a word about punishments and rewards, because this means that those who deserve punishment receive it. And in fact, in the Bible, we often find that people who get punished actually come to admit that they deserve it. And in some places, the psalmist even pleads for the Lord to judge the wicked, to give them what they deserve, such as Psalm 7, verse 9. Another psalm. The writer praises God for judging the wicked and for giving them the recompense that they deserve. Psalm 129, verse 4, the Lord is righteous. He has cut asunder the cords of the wicked. And Micah admits that when it comes to God's judgment upon Israel, in Micah 7, verse 9, I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause and execute judgment for me. For he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. And you find this language a great deal, similar language, in the book of Revelation also. Revelation 16, 5 and 7, and Revelation 19, verse 2, many other places as well. But Scripture also equally speaks of, or not necessarily equally in terms of quantity, but equally in terms of concept, speaks of rewards, rewards for those who do good. Paul often speaks of rewards to believers, and he's confident that God will give them rewards. Why? 2 Timothy 4, verse 8, because he is a righteous judge. But there are also passages, other passages, that show that God rewards righteous deeds. even in the Old Testament, Job 33, verse 26, Psalm 103, verse 6, and so on. Even the Day of Judgment is portrayed with Jesus as the righteous judge, judging the works of all men. And the Bible even speaks of it, that judgment, that final judgment, in relationship to works, in terms of rewards and punishments. So we read, for example, Acts 17, verse 31. He hath appointed a day in which he shall judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And scripture goes on then to say that Jesus will be just in those judgments. In fact, he says in John 5 verse 30, I can of my own self do nothing as I hear I judge and my judgment is always just because I seek not my own will but the will of my Father who has sent me. Now we know, of course, that because all men are sinners, no one will be rewarded with heaven because of their own accomplishments. But we also know that even in heaven there will be a principle of reward, and in hell there will be a principle of punishment. That refers to more than just the state of the people. In heaven there will be one star outshining another in glory. Particularly those who suffered a lot for Jesus and remained faithful will be rewarded. The Bible often speaks of that. And in hell, there will be differences of degrees. Those who've heard the gospel and rejected it all their life, as Thomas Brooks said, will be thrust into the center of hell. And so we're saved by grace only. But we also recognize, and that's not our primary motivation, but we also recognize on this earth that as we walk and save sinners on this earth, that there are vast differences between believers. Some, as it were, are scarcely saved. Others walk with such liberty and their lives are so fruitful. Some are a thousandfold more fruitful than others, and they will be rewarded for that in eternity. How? We don't exactly understand that. So what we need to grasp is that this whole concept of reward and punishment functions in this life and in the life to come, even as we're saved only by grace. We need to keep those two things in tension. In one way, at least in my mind, of keeping that functioning intention, being able to grasp it a little bit, is I like to think of it this way. I like to think of heaven and hell as not being static places, but places in which there's growth. Like John Howell said of heaven, "'Tis cumulative glory." Continual education. So the capacity of the believer in heaven will be continually enlarging. Even, I like to compare it to an 8-ounce glass, a 12-ounce, a 16-ounce. They can all be full of water. Everyone in heaven will be full of joy. But your capacity can expand, you see. And those that get rewarded in heaven will have a larger capacity. And so it expands and expands and expands. But also in hell, those who've rejected the gospel have a larger capacity to have the punishment of God bear down upon them. All right, so what are some practical implications then of God's righteousness and justice? Well, there are many, particularly to the saved, Now let me just give you just a few of them. I'll just give them to you briefly. You can meditate, look up texts and so on. Number one, we should reflect God's justice in our daily walk of life. We should reflect God's justice in our daily walk of life. Exodus 23, verses 6 and 7. Colossians 4, verse 1, we're told that even if we had slaves, we must treat them just and equal, knowing you have a master in heaven. So what God is saying throughout the Bible is that in all our personal relationships and our financial dealings with people, We should put away partiality and prejudice, put away robbery and oppression, as the minor prophets say so powerfully, and we should put on equitableness, conscientiousness in all our ways, treating everyone fairly. And sometimes that means self-denial. Let me just give you a little humorous incident in my life that happened last week Sunday. I went to church three times on Sunday, and I was very tired, but I was encouraged by the Word. But after the afternoon service, I thought, well, now I've got a little window, I can go home take a little rest and be reinvigorated for the evening service. But I saw a stranger in church. I went up to him. He was really excited to be in our church. He had come all the way from Chicago. I talked to him for a few minutes. I said, the last thing in the world I feel like doing is inviting this guy over right now. So rather gingerly, I asked him, do you have a place for supper? He said, no, not really. I said, well, you can come with me. You can come with me. Because that's fair. I mean, you don't want to put a guy in a motel room for supper when he's come to your church, even though I didn't feel like it whatsoever. And he probably sensed that I didn't feel like it with my tone of voice, which wasn't too good. But so he said something like, well, I don't want to bother you. He gave me a way out anyway. And for a flick of a moment, I thought, should I take that way out? And I thought, no, no, no, no. I've got to be fair. I said, now come along with me. Then I told him on the way, I might take a quick nap for a few minutes, but he wanted to see the seminary. I said, okay, I'll show you the seminary. Well, of course you end up talking and it turned out to be a wonderful visit. And what he did yesterday, it was hilarious. He got back home and he wrote to his daughters. blow by blow, detail by detail. Every word, every word that I said to him and he said to me, and the whole experience. That little time between the services, he wrote out in a four and a half page single space description of the whole experience and gave it to his daughters and then sent it to me. He said, I thought you might be interested in seeing this. And I read this thing in a couple of places, I was just laughing out loud, but by the time I got done, I just realized this was so incredibly important in this man's life. Amazing. And I was hugely glad that I did what I did. And the neat thing was that in the process of doing it, I actually lost my tiredness and enjoyed it. And that's a neat thing about ministry that you should always remember. When you treat people fairly in the ministry, you will often be doing things that you don't necessarily always feel like doing, but in the act of doing them, you will sense the approbation of God. And there will be a joy in it. And your whole demeanor, your whole attitude will change in the act of serving. And that's a beautiful thing. You see, because when you're born again, God has put in your soul this sense of justice and righteousness, and you will have a sense of inward peace when you treat other people in justice and righteousness. And when you don't, there'll be like a gnawing worm in your conscience. I haven't treated so-and-so rightly. And that's why when someone comes up to you and says, you know, you haven't been over to my house for X number of years and you have this sense of guilt, people can put me on a huge guilt trip easily because I can never give enough attention to everybody that I really feel my conscience, everything is fair and equitable. So I'm very vulnerable to these guilt feelings. And I think almost every minister goes through that. So you've got to find a way here to deny yourself and yet remember of course you are just one body. You've got to watch out for your body too. You're just one person. You can't do everything. So you have to try to be as righteous and fair as you can be. And sometimes that means, of course, that you disappoint everyone just a little bit because you can never do enough for everyone. I mean, if I go to visit someone in the congregation, usually the last thing they say to me is, don't wait so long next time until you come. And I feel like, well, I'm farther behind than when I came. It's just impossible to keep up. My dad used to say, you have to try to keep everyone equally dissatisfied. A little bit tongue in cheek. But the point is this, you see, You're not omnipresent. You can't do everything. But what you're doing, are you showing fairness? Are you showing fairness in the congregation? Or are people walking around saying, oh yeah, you can tell he really likes so-and-so. He's always catering to them. When they go in the hospital, he goes three times a week. When I go in the hospital, he goes one time a week. Ooh, that's bad news. Gotta be fair. Gotta show righteousness. Okay, so that's a practical thing. We have to reflect God's justice. That has lots of implications for ministry. Number two, we need to revere God's justice. We need to revere God's justice. Psalm 37 verse 28 tells us we're to depart from evil to do good. For God loves justice. Forsakes not his saints. We're to revere it. God's justice should move us to fear the Lord and to depart from evil. If God is just, and if we will be rewarded in this life and a better for all the good works that we do, How can we sin? If we really believe in the righteousness of God, how can we sin at all? But also, how can we sin so flippantly? And how can we use our mouths so casually? We need to revere God's justice. That will put a watch upon our mouth, and even upon the thoughts of our heart. Have you ever been anywhere where you heard a TV blaring in the background or something, but you couldn't see it? And you just listened even for two minutes to the words that were coming across it? How shallow, how banal, how empty, how vain those words are. But then, think about your own life. What would it be like to have a tape recorder at night and just have on that tape recorder nothing but all the words that you said that day to people? I think it'd be very painful. So shallow, so self-centered. I like this, or I like that, or I feel this way. And we're supposed to be people that are living to the righteousness of God. Our mouths and our words and our thoughts should be filled with what does God think? What does God want? How does God feel? So we've got a long ways to go, brothers. We're pretty self-centered. And it's not just we ourselves, but it's also our people. And it's our congregations. I've often said it as a bit of a joke, but it's actually very serious. But if you go to visit someone and you focus the entire time on them and how they feel about things, Chances are, when you walk away, they'll say, I had a wonderful visit with the minister, because he drew me out, he focused on me. Well, yes, we are to focus on them, but we're also to try to raise them up to a higher level. Let's talk about the Lord as well as about your health. You can do both, but let's try to get into some depth here and revere God in our conversation. Most conversation is so empty. And what troubles me, and I know troubles you too, I'm sure, is that a reflection of the heart of these people? Is that a reflection of my heart? So in the ministry, we need to carry around with us this kind of reverence for God's righteousness and majesty and holiness and well-being. Many of these attributes we've been talking about, in fact, all of them, but also this sense of righteousness, so that we walk with integrity. And that when people talk to us and want us to do them special favors, or want us to do something a bit risque, or let them in on some secret that we really shouldn't let them in on, that we just lovingly, politely, out of our reverence for the righteousness of God, draw the line in the sand and say, say inside of ourselves, I'm not going down that road. And in the end, people will respect us for that. And this can sometimes be a struggle because sometimes, you know, there could be practical, pragmatic advantages to sharing things with people that maybe you shouldn't share. So there's a temptation. But this will help if we revere the righteousness of God. shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right? And shall not I, his servant, do what is right? Number three, we should hope in God's justice for remuneration. Isaiah 30, verse 18. We wait on the Lord. He will be gracious to us. He's a God of justice, Isaiah says. Blessed are all they that wait for Him. Now, it's in this area that Paul speaks when he says, henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day, not to me only, but to all them that love is appearing. We look to God, says Paul, for remuneration, for our conscientious service to Him. He's a God of righteousness and justice. And when we suffer in His service, when we suffer in the pathway of obedience and duty, we should stay ourselves upon our God by hoping for his just reward and waiting patiently for it. We shouldn't lose heart. We shouldn't think our labor is in vain or our services are unappreciated. Even if people malign us and despise our ministry and take us for granted, the Lord is not unrighteous to forget our sincere labor for his name. Now, this has some important implications. Now, let me refer to ministry again. Many times in ministry, you will tend to feel down. Maybe there's one person that's so upset with you, he wouldn't shake your hand. And what do you do? Well, if you're a little bit like me, you're prone to slip off that edge and go into a self-pity party. instead of remembering that there's 699 other people that will shake your hand. And maybe those 699 other people haven't said a word to you of encouragement for quite a while. But you know what? Don't be discouraged. They really, they really do care about you. They really do love you. And when you shake their hand on Sunday morning and they just smile at you and say, good morning, pastor, In that smile, you can see, you can sense, you can feel an appreciation if you're not wallowing in self-pity. That's one reason I like to shake hands with our people at the church doors. I like to feel that handshake and that look in the eyes and wish them well for the week. I like to feel that bonding. And over the years, I think that grows and grows. They don't have to say anything. They don't have to say something all the time. And when mistreated, well, don't render evil for evil, I say to myself, but just remember, God will make it right. God will make it right. Here, and if not here, well then hereafter. And that's a happy way to live. You just trust the government. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Just leave it in the Lord's hands. There's an old Dutch saying that if you leave something alone for sixty days, it will straighten itself out. Well, that's not always true, but sometimes that is true. Don't be a policeman in the ministry. Every time you hear somebody say something against you, you've got to dig it up. Where did it come from? Who said it? Where did the rumors start? It's endless, it's hopeless. Just let it lay and let your own sense of righteousness and fairness and integrity carry the day. And after a while, false rumors will just, unjust rumors, for the most part, will fade away. They may last a while, and you may wish they'd fade away sooner. But hope in God's justice. God will make it right. God will make it well. And again, if He doesn't do it in this life, He will make everything well in the life to come, surely. Every crooked stick will be made straight there. And so, you leave it. You leave it in the Lord's hands. in the Lord's justice and righteousness. Another practical result, number four, we should defer to God's justice for retribution. This is just an extension of what I've just been saying. Whenever you're tempted to strike back at people, remind yourself of Romans 12.19, avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance belongs to me, I will recompense, saith the Lord." Don't ever take justice into your own hands. Now, as ministers, of course, there will be times when the church will have to exercise church discipline. Perhaps exercise church discipline because of the way someone treated you. But don't you be in the vanguard of that. And don't you even encourage it. Just leave that in the judgment of the brothers of the consistory or the session. Fifth, we should appeal to God's justice in our intercessions. Appeal to God's justice in our intercessions. Remember in Genesis 18, Abraham comes and he appeals to God. He says, if there's 50 righteous, if there's 40, if there's 30. Remember what he says in the middle of that a couple of times? I know you're a righteous God and the Lord of all the earth will do what is right. If there's perventure, there's 20. Well, if all that saves Sodom. So as we intercede for other people, It's appeal to God's sense of righteousness. Okay, Dr. Mishkin was very sick. He was on the brink of death last week. And we went to prayer, didn't we? As a congregation, you guys went to prayer. We went to prayer privately. We went to prayer corporately. And what was one of the things we prayed? Oh Lord, let's train this brother here and just send him back. His life's work is just beginning there. Well, don't I remember him? Don't I remember thy own cause? A sense of fairness and righteousness? Yes, of course he doesn't deserve to live for a day. Of course none of us deserve to be a day in God's service. But on the other side, Lord, it's thy cause, it's thy work. It seems so incomprehensible that thou wouldst take this servant away so quickly, just in this position to do some good in South Africa. So you intercede, you appeal to his justice. In this case, God heard our cries, but if he didn't hear our cries, it would have taken him away. Then we'd have to say, well, God has reasons above and beyond our understanding for doing what he did. We don't have a right to say God is unfair. God's fairness is always beyond our comprehension in its dimensions, but we can appeal to that in our intercessions. Let it be far from thee, shall not the judge of all the earth do right? Sixthly, we should rest in God's promises, believing he'll perform them, since he is righteous. I love here Nehemiah 9, verses 7 and 8. Thou art the Lord, the God who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham, and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous. What does it mean for God to be righteous? It means for Him to fulfill His own word, His own promises. He's true to Himself. He's true to His words of warning and condemnation. He's true to His words of promises and gracious salvation. And so, because God is righteous, we cling to His promises. And then, seventhly, lastly, we should praise Him and bless Him for His justice. Psalm 33, 3 to 5, God is worthy to be praised for His righteousness. The word of the Lord is right. All His work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. You see, the psalmist is praising Him. And then, to unsave sinners, well, We could break it down here too, but basically there's just one application, isn't it? The solemn application that God's justice, God's righteousness calls every sinner to repentance. The judge of all the earth shall do right, and if we are not found in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His righteousness, what future do we have? There's a powerful text in Romans 2. Let me read that to you in a moment. Romans 2, verse 3. And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things? And thou doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God. Or despises thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? See, God's justice calls all lost sinners everywhere to repentance. Because no one can escape his righteous judgment. You can't get away with sin. That's God's fairness, God's righteousness, God's personality. You can't get away with bribing God. God judges everyone without respect to persons by gospel standards according to their deeds. Romans 2, 11 through 16. And so every sinner should repent. Every sinner should flee to the Lord Jesus Christ. Every sinner shouldn't rest until he gets right with God. Okay, that's I've been a little longer winded than I wanted to be here, but I think the righteousness of God is an important concept and attribute to get across. Any questions? Yes? Do you have any word for imprecatory psalms? Ah, yes. Well, when it comes to the imprecatory psalms, we are speaking in the area of righteous anger. holy anger. There is a sense in which the execution of righteousness from its negative side involves holy anger. Be angry and sin not. The best book that I know of ever written on this, and I recommend it to you highly, is a small paperback book, about 90 pages, 100 pages, by James Adams. I think it's just called the Imprecatory Psalms. And James Adams is a friend of mine, and he actually did his whole doctoral dissertation on the Imprecatory Psalms, and that's very good. But he's condensed it all down and put it at a somewhat more popular level in this short book. I've seen both, the big dissertation and the short book, and the short book is all you need. But basically Adams is arguing in the book that when the psalmist expresses his imprecatory wishes, that their real concern is for the glory of God, and they're really seeking to uphold God's righteousness, and that even when God speaks in an imprecatory way, these are all things that are done in justice and fairness, relating to what sinners deserve, and relating to the glory of His own name. So when we today, in a kind of a sweet evangelical atmosphere, where we kind of have this impression we should be loving to everybody all the time, and loving not just to them, but to their sins and overlook them, we can err on the other side and forget to appeal to God's righteousness in these things. So for example, if a psalmist lived today, I think they'd pray something like this, Lord, either convert those doctors who perform abortions or destroy them, because they're taking away created life. It's not fair, it's not righteous. There would be a sense of holy anger, more than what we tend to exercise. we tend to be way too soft on sin, in ourselves and often in other people. Now, there's a vast difference in how we go about expressing those imprecatory wishes, I think. I like to think of it this way, that people who say these things in a mean, cruel, angry tone of voice usually have something else going on inside of them that's not right. But to have a holy anger with tears, like Jeremiah, weeping for the slaying of the daughters of the people, and to express that. Oh Lord, remove them or convert them with loving, righteous anger. is very biblical. Is that helpful? When we speak about the exercise of God's justice outside of Himself, what relationship does that have to His freedom? I know that John Owen disagrees with Thomas Goodwin on this. exercise of his justice outside of himself, he's free to exercise that in any way that he wants. And Owen will argue, we'll know, specifically with the atonement, that was the only way that God could exercise that justice. What is the relationship between them? Yeah, that's been debated a lot, and of course that's a good and a profound question. It can become a bit of a into a mural question within Christianity that maybe isn't always terribly profitable. But I think this much is very important, that God is always true to himself, true to his own character. And so I think the old Puritans who said, I think they got it right when they said that God is free to be himself, but because he's sinless, he's never free to sin. So he's never free to act outside of his own character. And so you mentioned that Owen said that God couldn't save anyone other than in the way in which he saves. I think that's true of the later Owen. I think the earlier Owen imbibed some possibility and then later changed his mind a bit. But I would agree with the later Owen. I think it's the only way, as far as we can see, with our finite understanding, that God could save sinners because he cannot be arbitrary. in his justice. He can't just say, oh well, I kind of like Kyle Borg today, so I'm going to forgive him his sins and bypass his justice. And I think that's where Arminius, that's really the difference between Arminianism and the Reformed, right? I mean, Arminius came along and said, God is gracious and he's just, but he has the prerogative within himself to get off of the throne of his justice and walk over here and get up on his throne of grace. and just can forgive Kyle Borg in any way that he wants to, because he's God. And in a way it sounds pious, you see, but the Reformed said, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. If God gets off the throne of His justice and gets on His throne of grace and saves Kyle Borg in any way He wants, He can save Kyle Borg in a way that contradicts this throne of justice. The only way for God to be gracious to Kyle Borg is for God to do that while he sits on the throne of justice and to turn that throne of justice into a throne of grace on just grounds. There's a big difference there. I don't know Goodman's view, so I can't answer that part of it. sovereign justice? For example, when God afflicts believers for no rhyme or reason? Yeah. First of all, I beg the question. If you say God afflicts believers for no rhyme or reason from the side of believers, as far as they can see, that's a legitimate question. But from within God, there's always a rhyme and there's always a reason. So, God knows what he's doing. He knew what he was doing even when he afflicted Job. Yeah, yeah. It's a complex mosaic, isn't it? Because we only see... Our lives are like a big jigsaw puzzle, a thousand pieces. We only see a couple pieces at a time. God sees the whole thing. Maybe you're not walking in any known sin. Maybe you're walking fairly close to God and things are well. You're not backsliding and you're conscientious and godly. But maybe God just simply wants to broaden your horizons in terms of the depth of your understanding of who He is. He might afflict you. Do you deserve that affliction? Well, of course, in yourself you do. So there can be a kind of sovereign justice there. And by the way, the Puritans actually speak about that in terms of assurance of faith, pretty powerfully in 18.5. 18.4 of the Westminster Confession of Faith, they say here are all these reasons that God can withdraw himself in assurance, that you can lose your assurance. And almost all the reasons apply to us, the typical ones you'd expect, like backsliding and not using the promises and so on, being sloppy in the means of grace. But then they have this little phrase inserted there that says God can also withdraw himself for sovereign reasons. And they wrestle with, and that's probably your very question, what are those sovereign reasons? Why would he do this? Some people today, some conservative evangelicals, like Errol Hulse, I remember once in a private conversation he actually told me, I think that was a mistake for them to put that in there. I argued with him, no, it's not a mistake because what the Puritans are doing here is they're doing this for pastoral reasons, for people who are being very sincere in walking with the Lord and yet are being heavily afflicted. So that people understand, and that does give us comfort, doesn't it? That God has his sovereign reasons above and beyond our understanding. So it's not necessarily that I'm walking in some gross sin. And that's, I think, what the book of Job is about as well. So other people, like Thomas Brooks, actually give six or seven reasons, and so does Anthony Burgess, why God would sovereignly withdraw assurance even when there's no apparent reason for it. And if you look at my dissertation under Chapter 5, under that 18.4 section, I list, I think, the reasons by Thomas Brooks there, and then in a separate article I did on Anthony Burgess, I look at the reasons Anthony Burgess gives. And I think you'll find those helpful. But if you combine all the reasons together, I think the ultimate biggest reason is that God uses affliction to mature his saints. And if you start thinking about it the other way, what happens if you had a good walk with God but God never gave you any affliction at all? You would dissipate in your spiritual relationship with Him. So we need to remember, and I think this is the Puritan reasoning, we need to remember that we need a certain measure of afflictions in our lives because so much of our spiritual life is circumstantially motivated. Our prayers are often circumstantially motivated. As soon as you come in great need, don't your prayers increase and don't they become better? God has all these wise reasons, pastorally, for doing what he does. Okay, I intended to do God's goodness and we didn't make it, but this was a good discussion, so I hope it wasn't too tedious, my presentation anyway. But we'll pick up with God's goodness then next week. Tuesday, and I told you the exam is the following Tuesday, right? and that it will go through God's goodness. I said that right? Yeah. So, part of the lecture, the first half of the lecture next Tuesday will be included in the exam, but then the remaining lecture on Tuesday and Thursday will be in the final. All right, whose turn is it to close with prayer?
God's Goodness & Righteousness - Lecture 11
Series Theology Proper
Sermon ID | 24111326259 |
Duration | 1:29:44 |
Date | |
Category | Teaching |
Language | English |
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