The Justice and Love of Good Friday...

One of the many questions that those who are skeptical of the Bible and Christianity ask is "How can God be both just and loving at the same time?" It would seem that love and justice are incompatible attributes. If God is just, He must punish sin. But if He is loving, He would forgive sin. How then can He be both?

The attributes of God’s justice and love are not contradictory. He is both absolutely just and unconditionally loving. Actually each attribute compliments the other. In other words, God's justice is administered in love and His love is distributed justly.

And there is no more perfect example of this reality then what followers of Jesus remember as Good Friday, where Jesus was killed by being crucified on a cross. In His love, God sent His Son Jesus into humanity in order to allow Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful lives so that God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life. This is most clearly expressed in Romans 5:8:

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus death on the cross was not only an expression of His love; it also satisfied God’s justice, which demands eternal death for our selfish rebellion. We see this in the first part of Habakkuk 1:13:

Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, And You can not look on wickedness with favor.

God’s justice demands that sin be punished, but God’s love compels Him to save sinners. So Christ’s death on the cross releases His love and satisfies His justice. Thus there is no contradiction between absolute justice and unconditional love.

So how does this reality impact your view of God? How does this impact how you view Good Friday and Easter? How does this reality impact your response to the Bible and Christianity?