The Injustice of God?
Over the course of this entire school year, I’ve had a unique opportunity on Wednesday mornings. Every week at 7am, I’ve been meeting in the band room at the middle school for an hour with a group of students. The students aren’t required to come, its simply available for them if they choose to. The purpose has been to have an ongoing conversation about life and spiritual things.
The school gave each student a planner at the beginning of the year. Each week in that planner contains a word or ideal that is a key component to having good character….like honesty, loyalty, perseverance, etc. Each week I have taken that word or character trait and we’ve talked about what it means in everyday life. Then we take that word and dig into it from a biblical perspective to see what God has to say about it.
This morning was our last Wednesday morning for the year and the word was ‘Justice’. As usual, I asked the kids to define the word for me and to give examples of it in life. They did a good job with it….bottom line for them was that it means to give or receive punishment that fits the crime.
So then I asked them if God is just. Without hesitation someone answered ‘yes’. I went on to ask if God is always just. I waited for a response then one kid spoke up. Here’s basically what he said… “Well, yeah, God is just because He always does what is right. But He doesn’t always give us what we deserve. So I guess that sometimes God is unjust. But its a good injustice. When God shows injustice its not a bad thing its a good thing.”
Wow. I think we may have a budding theologian in the middle school. The vocabulary this student used would make a lot of church people cringe and start muttering about heresy. However, what that boy said was absolute truth. Without realizing it, he had defined another word…Grace. The Bible says that we have all sinned and fall short of the the perfect standard of God. It also says that what we deserve because of our lack of perfection is spiritual death. However, God is willing to not give us what we deserve (that’s unjust) and offer us forgiveness through a Savior (that’s grace).
Our lack of perfection separates us from God. In that state of separation we deserve death. And yet God offers another way if we will trust Him through Jesus. If we choose that way, then we don’t receive what we deserve. Remember that justice is getting what you deserve.
I, for one, am thankful for the injustice of God.
