God is Love vs. God is Just: What is Just?

     On a crisp clear night in the bustling cityscape of New York, two friends bump into one another.  Gabe and Drake had grown up together; they lived in the same neighborhood and went to the same church most of their lives.  Both Gabe and Drake went away to college and didn't see each other or talk much during the school year.  Tonight they had randomly met while walking through their peacefully noisy city.  Two years had passed since they had last had an in-depth conversation and tonight would be the night to change that.




Drake:  Gabe!  I haven't seen you in forever!

Gabe:   Hey man!  What are you doing out here?

Drake:  I just had to run to the store to grab some notebooks for lyrics and notes.

Gabe:   Cool!  How's college?

Drake:  It gets hard at times, but I'm making it through just fine.  How is it for you?

Gabe:   It's actually been really challenging me in the way I think and live.  It's making me think about who I am and what I believe.

Drake:  That's awesome!  What are you thinking about?

Gabe:   Well, I'm really having to evaluate what morality means to me and how my view of morality affects my view of God.  That also trickles down the chain and makes me think about how my actions reflect my beliefs.  It reminds me of James 2:18 when James says that he will show his faith by his actions.

Drake:  Definitely!  What you do says a lot about what you believe.

Gabe:   Yea.  I mean, I already knew that and understood it, but I never really thought about it critically.  I never thought about whether I put my faith into what I think God is affects my actions or not.  I think about God as an all loving deity, but I also thought that He had an angry vengeful side.  Believing that without realizing it made me a loving person with an angry vengeful side.  My actions reflected my subconscious beliefs.

Drake:  That's a great point, but you make it seem like you think that God is all love and not just with punishment also.

Gabe:   Well... to be honest, I think that God is love and the punishments that we see attributed to Him are really just misunderstandings from not truly knowing Him.

Drake:  Gabe, the Old Testament is clear that God deals out righteous and just punishment.

Gabe:   Exactly, but the Tanakh was also written by people who did not truly know God.

Drake:  What's the Tanakh?

Gabe:   The Tanakh is what the Jews call their Bible, which is also our Old Testament.  It's just the polite way to refer to the Old Testament.

Drake:  Oh, OK.  Well, back to the point.  The Old Testament clearly states that Moses, Abraham, and many others talked to God daily.  How can you even think that they didn't know Him?

Gabe:   I don't deny that, but I also cannot deny what Jesus said in the New Testament.  In John 1:18 and John 6:46 Jesus says that no one has known or seen God except for Jesus and Jesus has made God known.  That means that the scriptures of men knowing or seeing God in the Tanakh were written based on the assumption that they would never get a full revelation of God.

Drake:  OK, but that still doesn't explain how God isn't just in His punishments.

Gabe:   I have no argument that God is not just; my argument is that He does not punish.

Drake:  Again, I will pull you into the Old Testament.  You can't just contradict scripture like that.

Gabe:   I can if it doesn't line up with who God is in the New Testament or in Jesus.  If you can name one time that Jesus, who is the perfect revelation of God, punished anyone, then I will concede with you.

Drake:  That's too easy!  Have you not heard the story of Jesus turning the tables and striking people with a whip in the temple!?

Gabe:   I don't believe that I have... unless you mean the story of Jesus freeing the animals and herding them out of the temple.

Drake:  You're kidding me, right?  You do realize that the Bible says that Jesus struck people and forced them out, don't you?

Gabe:   Actually, it never says that Jesus struck anyone.  The only passage that mentions a whip is John 2:15 and that says a whip of cords.  To understand what this passage is saying, you must understand what a whip of cords is.  A whip of cords is not a weapon, it is a animal husbandry item.  It is a braided rope used to make loud cracking noises to herd animals.  Jesus flipped the tables to let the caged animals out because the cages faced upward and were under the table for ease of access and the whip was used to drive the cattle out.  John even tells us this in the very same verse.

Drake:  OK, so Jesus wasn't violent, but He wasn't called to be violent.  Jesus was just supposed to be a sacrifice, so His non-violence makes sense.

Gabe:   It is fair to assert that based solely on Jesus' example, but in light of His teachings, that stance falls apart.

Drake:  How so?

Gabe:   On the Sermon on the mount, Jesus explicitly states that you are never to respond violently to an attacker and said that you should actually allow him to continue.

Drake:  I think you are taking what Jesus said too seriously.  Didn't Jesus tell the disciples to buy swords?

Gabe:   Is it possible to take the words of God too seriously?  And as to the sword claim, Jesus did that to fulfill the prophecy that He would be counted among the thieves.  This would explain why Jesus said that two swords were enough.  Two swords would not be nearly enough to even defend twelve men, especially against the Roman army.  Furthermore, when Peter cut a soldiers ear off, Jesus rebuked him and said violence begets violence.  This means that being violent only causes more violence.  Jesus then takes it a step further and heals the man and thus driving the point home that Jesus and, by association, God are more concerned with restoration than retribution.

Drake:  I guess not, I just think that you're exaggerating them.  You may have a point about the sword thing, but what about Ananias and Sapphira?

Gabe:   I will admit, that scripture is exceedingly difficult to understand in light of what Jesus taught; however, just because one scripture seems to contradict Jesus does not mean that Jesus' teaching was wrong.  In light of the cross, it is revealed that God's "judgement" or "wrath" is just allowing our sinfulness to take over us.  God is not truly judging or being wrathful, but is allowing us to choose to dwell in our sin and take the consequences for it.  This would change if we cast our sins on the cross with Jesus and were committed to doing our best to follow God.  This is proved in Proverbs 8:36, Romans 6:23, and Genesis 2:17 when you understand that God did not kill anyone, but allowed the sin to take its course and lead to death.  Jesus weeps when we don't want Him and push His divine protection away as is seen in Luke 19:41, but He will not force Himself on anyone.

Drake:  That makes sense, but I'm not convinced.  I still think that God is just.

Gabe:   Well I think that God is just also.

Drake:  But you're arguing against that!

Gabe:   Not exactly.  I'm arguing against God punishing people.

Drake:  That's what justice is!  It is giving people what they deserve!  That's why a judge sentences people.  The sentencing is punishment!

Gabe:   You seem to have a skewed view of justice.  Just is defined as doing what is morally right or good.  This means that justice only requires punishment if the punishment is morally right or good.

Drake:  Well yea, the punishment has to fit the crime, that's how it works.  A punishment that is equal to the anguish caused by the crime is morally right.

Gabe:   I don't think that any punishment is morally right or good.

Drake:  How so?

Gabe:   Well what do we generally use as punishment?

Drake:  Well, again, it depends on the crime.  It could be anywhere from a monetary fee for lesser crimes, to jail time for more serious crimes, to death for capital crimes.

Gabe:   Great, now tell me, is extortion ever morally right or good?

Drake:  What do you mean?  How is that relevant?

Gabe:   You'll see in a minute or so, just answer for now.  Is extortion, or requiring money with the threat of further punishment if the money isn't paid, ever morally right or good?

Drake:  Well... I guess not.

Gabe:   Great!  Now, is kidnapping someone and locking them in a room ever morally right or good?

Drake:  I wouldn't think so.

Gabe:   OK, now is it morally right to murder someone?

Drake:  Obviously not!

Gabe:   So tell me then, if to be just is to do what is morally right or good, then can it use any of the above immoral acts as punishment?

Drake:  Well yes, because it's different.

Gabe:   It's not though.  To be just is to be moral and if you are moral, then you cannot do anything immoral under any circumstance.

Drake:  Well, then what would you suggest.

Gabe:   I would suggest what we see evidently throughout scripture as a whole.  We see that God restores rather than punishing.  God rights the wrongs rather than punishing the wrong-doer.  Two wrongs don't make a right, so why do we treat punishment different?  God doesn't take an eye for an eye, He heals the eye.  Jesus didn't allow the servant to the High Priest cut Peter's ear off in retribution, but Jesus rebuked Peter and healed the servant's ear.  God didn't require sacrifice to repay us (or animals in our place) for our sin; God reconciled us through His son.  God works through the reconciliation of restorative justice, not the punishment of retributive justice.

Drake:  Wait a minute!  You cannot say that God didn't require sacrifice to save us.

Gabe:   Why not?

Drake:  Because that goes against everything that we know about Jesus!

Gabe:   No.  Actually it goes against everything that the majority of modern Christians believe.  The early church didn't believe that Jesus paid our debt or a ransom, but that Jesus taught us how to live.

Drake:  That contradicts the Bible!  Also, how would you know what the early church believed?

Gabe:   It's in the writings that we have from the early church.  The dominant teaching for nearly 1,000 years was the Moral Influence theory, not the Ransom, Satisfaction, or Penal Substitution theories.

Drake:  I'll have to look that up for myself.  By the way, you didn't explain how God not requiring sacrifice lines up with the Bible.

Gabe:   Well, it has to line up with the Bible because Hosea and 1 Samuel both mention it.  Jesus also quoted the mention of it in Isaiah twice.

Drake:  Scripture references please!

Gabe:   Hosea 6:6, 1 Samuel 15:22, Matthew 9:13, and Matthew 12:7.

Drake:  I don't agree with you and I can't see how God isn't just.

Gabe:   That's fine, I hope that our friendship can still prosper.



     What do you think of the conversation between the two?  Who is right, who is wrong, and what are the issues with each argument?  Comment below with your opinion; every voice is valuable!