Monday, September 26, 2005
Justice Achieved
Gadfly's Muse is thinking about justice.
He bases his post on the satisfaction we feel when the bad guy gets killed in the western. All those that would do away with the concept of penal substitution deny of us any sense of justice. To deny penal substitution says that we have absolutely no way of ever knowing what God is thinking. The lack of justice involved is so unlike anything we can comprehend that it defies us to the core. Such people would respond that other systematic thought on salvation also contains unexplainable mysteries. True enough.
But those mysteries are rooted in a very different place, and while mysterious, they do not strike one as a violation of "rightness," that is unless one's sense of rightness is utterly narcissitic.
Justice is found on the cross, of that I have no doubt.
Only Christians can long for justice and even cry out for it, as did David in the Psalms, depending upon the righteousness of their standing before God, and yet know, deep in their heart that though perfect Justice has been attained, that every sin has and must have been cruelly avenged, yet there is personal room for mercy and escape. The perfection of the plan is too wonderful to ignore for it meets the deepest longing of every human heart.That phrase, every sin has and must have been cruelly avenged, may stick with me for a very long time.
He bases his post on the satisfaction we feel when the bad guy gets killed in the western. All those that would do away with the concept of penal substitution deny of us any sense of justice. To deny penal substitution says that we have absolutely no way of ever knowing what God is thinking. The lack of justice involved is so unlike anything we can comprehend that it defies us to the core. Such people would respond that other systematic thought on salvation also contains unexplainable mysteries. True enough.
But those mysteries are rooted in a very different place, and while mysterious, they do not strike one as a violation of "rightness," that is unless one's sense of rightness is utterly narcissitic.
Justice is found on the cross, of that I have no doubt.
