Grace & Retributive Justice

GRACE & RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die . . . The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself (Ezekiel 18:4,20).

Because mankind is morally depraved (every aspect of a person is affected by sin, leaving the person spiritually dead), every person stands in the position of being condemned to total separation from God in this life and in eternity. (John 3:19) And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. (Romans 6:23) For the wages of sin is death. . . . People cry out for justice when they feel they’ve been wronged, but all of us are guilty of wronging someone. Shylock wanted his ‘pound of flesh’ (Shakespeare’s "The Merchant of Venice"), but he was guilty of attempting to revenge the wrongs done to him by murdering his persecutor, Antonio. Justice may be what we demand, but grace and mercy is what we need.

Retributive justice is a system of criminal justice based on the punishment of an offender rather than on rehabilitation of the offender. While that may be the attitude of the hard-core moralist, it is not the attitude of modern society. Modern man’s way of dealing with the effects of our sinful depravity is to turn a blind eye to all wrongdoing as long as possible. Toleration is the attitude of the day. Parents don’t want to correct their children. Teachers are not allowed to discipline their students. Our culture puts up with wholesale vandalism, rioting, tagging, gang activity, lying, stealing, even killing with little or no consequences or accountability. The accepted norm seems to be that if evil can be ignored, it should be ignored. Punishment is reserved as a last resort, and then it never meets the full consequences of the crime. We live in a culture where tolerating and indulging evil is seen as a virtue while living by fixed principles of moral right and wrong is censured. This is because our culture is godless - yes, godless. Read Romans 1:18-32 and see if it doesn’t fit the times we are living in.

The idea that God is the major proponent of retributive justice is abhorrent to our culture. So, we get rid of God and replace Him with humanism. What’s even more gut-wrenching is the attitude of the modern American church regarding God’s holiness and righteousness, and our spiritual depravity. While the modern church falls all over itself to accommodate the sinner and his sin with no regard for repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, the Bible insists throughout that God’s creation is a moral creation in which retribution for sin and evil and wickedness is a fundamental moral principle. God is not holy and just if He does not punish the sinner for his/her sin. Unless we come to realize this truth, we will never understand and appreciate God’s great grace extended to us through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

“Father, forgive us for our sinful mind, heart, spirit, and soul. We stand condemned in sin when we stand alone without You. Our world is on the crash course to self-destruction because we have rejected You as Lord and God. Forgive us and heal us for Jesus’ sake, Amen.”

Pastor