by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
October, 1940
THE JUSTICE OF GOD.
We now come to consider, second, its rule. Righteousness in creatures is according to some law, which is the rule of it and to which it is conformed: the moral law of God, which is holy, just, and good, is our rule of righteousness or right doing. But the Most High has no law outside Himself: He is a law to Himself. His nature and His will are the law and rule of righteousness to Him. This is an attribute common to the three Persons in the Godhead: necessarily so, since They partake of the same undivided essence. Hence we find the first Person is designated the “righteous Father” (John 17:25), the Son is called “Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1), and that it is proper to the Holy Spirit is evident from the fact that He is here to convict the world “of righteousness” (John 16:8). As the present aspect of our subject is of such great importance we must endeavour to give it our best attention.
“The will of God is the highest rule of justice, so that what He wills must be considered just: for this very reason, because He willed it. When it is enquired, therefore, why the Lord did so? the answer must be, Because He would. But if you further ask why He so determined, you are in search of something greater and higher than the will of God, which can never be found” (Calvin's Institutes, book 3, chapter 3, section 2). How great was the light granted to the eminent Reformer and how clearly and boldly he expressed himself thereon. What a contrast from the obscurity which now obtains in this so-called age of enlightenment, with its ambiguous, hesitant and apologetic declarations. That Calvin was by no means alone in this exalted view will appear from other quotations given below.
In answer to the question, “Why was it that Adam was permitted to fall and corrupt his whole posterity when God could have prevented his fall?” Luther said, “God is a Being whose will acknowledges no cause: neither is it for us to prescribe rules to His sovereign pleasure, or call Him to account for what He does. He has neither superior nor equal, and His will is the rule of all things. He did not therefore will such and such things because they were right and He was bound to will them, but they are therefore equitable and right because He wills them. The will of men can indeed be influenced and moved but God's will never can. To assert the contrary is to undeify Him” (Bondage of Man's Will). To the same effect Bucer said, “God has no other motive to what He does than His own mere will, which will is so far from being unrighteous, it is justice itself.”
God is absolute Lord, so that “He doeth according to His will in the army of Heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, What doest Thou?” (Dan. 4:35). And why not? Because He not only has the might but also the fullest right to do as He pleases. None was before Him, none is above Him: nay, He has no equal to direct Him, and therefore there is none unto whom He must render an account of His matters. What God ordains for us and what He orders from us is just and right simply because He so wills it. Hence it was that Abraham looked upon it as a righteous act to slay his innocent son. But why did he so esteem it—because the written law of God authorized murder? No. On the contrary, both the law of God and the law of nature peremptorily forbade it; but the holy Patriarch well knew that the will of God is the only rule of justice and that whatever He is pleased to command is on that very account righteous.
“What is the justice of God? It is an essential property in God, whereby He is infinitely just in Himself, of Himself, for, from, and by Himself alone, and no other. What is the rule of this justice? His own free will and nothing else for whatsoever He wills is just, and because He wills it, it is just, and not because it is just therefore He wills it” (James Usher, Body of Divinity). In answering the objection that “it is unjust for God to inflict eternal punishment upon temporary offenses, there being no proportion between the infinite and the finite, the Puritan, Thomas Brooks, wisely began his reply by saying: “First, God's will is the rule of righteousness and therefore whatever He doeth or shall do must needs be righteous. He is Lord of all: He has a sovereign right, and an absolute supremacy over the creature” (Vol. 6, p. 213).
We have added one quotation after another from these renowned servants of God of the past because the truth which we are now labouring has been repudiated in quarters in which it was not to be expected. Even in circles which might justly be termed orthodox—where in the main the onslaughts of infidelity were steadfastly resisted and the “landmarks” of the fathers steadily maintained—the sharp edge of the Spirit's Sword was dulled and those aspects of Truth most of all repellant to human pride toned down. In their well-meant efforts to refute the errors of Socinians a few even of the Puritans suffered their zeal to override knowledge, so that in their determination to concede nothing unto their opponents, they sacrificed some important elements of the Truth; and only too often later generations have followed their lead rather than those who were uncompromising.
In the above paragraph we alluded to those who have, under the guise of magnifying God's holiness, subordinated the Divine will to the Divine nature, insisting that “things are not just because God has commanded them, but He has commanded them because they are just.” Our meaning is that there was a reason for them in the nature of things, and that therefore He has enforced them by His authority. In plain language they mean that the Most High was not free to frame whatever laws He pleased, but was limited by the fitness of things, that His imperial will must conform to some standard ab extra to itself. Before we examine this position more closely, and turn upon it the light of Holy Writ, we will give yet one or two further quotations from eminent servants of God in the past for the purpose of showing how radically it differs from what they taught.
Thomas Manton, who was personal chaplain to Sir Oliver Cromwell, took the position that in contemplating the Divine justice, “God must be considered under a twofold relation: as absolute Lord, and as Governor and Judge of the world. As absolute Lord, His justice is nothing but the absolute and free motion of His own will concerning the estate of His creatures. In this respect God is wholly arbitrary and has no other rule but His own will: He does not will things because they are just, but therefore they are just because He wills them. He has a right of making and framing anything as He wills in any manner as it pleases Him . . . As Governor and Judge, He gives a law to His creatures, and His governing justice consists in giving all their due according to His law” (Vol. 8, pp. 438, 439).
“The will of God is so the cause of all things as to be itself without cause, for nothing can be the cause of that which is the cause of everything: so that the Divine will is the ne plus ultra of all our inquiries: when we ascend to that, we can go no further. Hence we find every matter resolved ultimately into the mere sovereign pleasure of God as the spring and occasion of whatever is done in Heaven and earth . . . The only reason that can be assigned why the Deity does this or that is because it is His own free pleasure so to do” (from the pen of the author of “Rock of Ages” and other well-known hymns, in his “Observations on the Divine Attributes”: 1750). Such teaching as this alone preserves the Divine independence and presents the true God in His unrivalled freedom and supremacy, unhampered by anything within or without Himself.
But against this God-exalting teaching it is objected that such postulates obliterate all distinction between God's sovereignty and His justice, merging the latter entirely into the former. With equal justification might we complain that the objector fails to maintain any distinction between the Divine holiness and the Divine justice, making the former to completely swallow up the latter. Should it be asked, Wherein shall we distinguish between the Divine holiness and justice? We answer, the one has to do more with what God is, the other respects what He does. Or to state it in other words, holiness pertains to the Divine character, justice to His office. Thus, “Justice and judgment are the habitation (and “foundation”) of His throne” (Psa. 89:14), that is, they relate to His public administration, to the government of His creatures. It is as Ruler and Judge that the Divine justice is exercised and displayed.
As to the objection that we obliterate all distinctions between the Divine sovereignty and justice, our reply is that we cannot do otherwise if our thoughts are to be formed entirely by the Scriptures. “Being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph. 1:11). There is no getting around that explicit statement, and to it we must rigidly subordinate our minds and formulate our theology if we are to “think God's thoughts after Him.” Observe well it is not here said that God works all things according to the exegencies of His holiness, or according to the dictates of His wisdom, but “according to the counsel of His own will.” True, blessedly true, that every volition of His is both a holy and a wise one, yet God alone decided what is holy and what is wise. He is under no law and tied by no rules, but ever acts according to His own good pleasure and that alone—and very frequently He does that which is flatly contrary to our ideas both of wisdom and justice.
It is this very fact which infidels and agnostics have sought to make captive out of. In the face of what confronts them both in creation and in providence they have drawn the conclusion that either the Almighty is a capricious or cruel Tyrant, or that having brought the world into existence He has withdrawn and left it to work out its own destiny. They ask, Why are there such glaring inequalities in nature: one child being born normal and another cripple, one enjoying health, and the other being a sufferer all its days? Why are some born under a government which gives them freedom while others are doomed to abject slavery? Why have some men more enlarged understanding than others, and some stronger passions than their neighbours? Why is it that virtue so often passes unrewarded and the wicked flourish and prosper? If it be replied, All of this is the consequence of sin, then the infidel asks, Why is there untold suffering among innocent animals?
And what is the answer to these expressions of unbelief, these outbursts of rebellion? How shall we silence those who wickedly affirm that the works and ways of the Most High are stamped with injustice? Or, what is far more to the point, how are young Christians to be dealt with who are disturbed by such troublers of their peace? The blatant enemies of the Lord we can well afford to treat with silent contempt, for the great Jehovah needs no efforts of ours to vindicate His character—in due time He will Himself close their mouths. But as to removing such stumblingstones from the path of our fellow pilgrims, there is but one satisfactory and sufficient way, and that is by maintaining the sovereign rights of Him with whom we have to do—by insisting that He is the Potter and we but clay in His hands to be molded just as He pleases.
Why has God given light to the sun, grass to the fields, heat to fire, and cold to ice? Why, in short, has He done any of those things which we see He has done when He could easily have done otherwise? There is only one adequate answer: in the varied manifestations of His attributes and in the communication of good or evil to His creatures, God has acted according to the sovereignty of His own will. Nor is it to the slightest degree unbecoming that God should act thus. Sovereignty is the most godlike of all the perfections of the Divine character, for it is that on which the awful supremacy of the great Jehovah chiefly rests. Our concept of “the high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity” would not be raised but lowered if we discovered that He was hampered in His actions. The display of His own glory as the King of kings and Lord of lords must take precedence over everything else.
“The Lord is upright . . . there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Psa. 92:15). Yet this is patent not to carnal sight, but to the vision of faith alone. The eyes of the naturally blind cannot discern the light of the sun, nevertheless it is full of light. In like manner, the eyes of the spiritually blind are incapable of perceiving the equity of God's ways, yet they are all righteous. But we repeat, they are righteous not because they are conformed to some external standard of excellence, nor even because they are in harmony with one of the Divine attributes, but solely because they are the ways of Him who “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will.” God's commanding Abimelech to deliver Sarah to Abraham, or else He would destroy both him and his household” (Gen. 20:7), may seem unjust in man's estimation, but has not the great God the right to do as He pleases?
Take the most extreme example of all: God's choosing one unto eternal life and another unto eternal death. Yet none who, by grace, bow to the authority of Holy Writ find any stumblingblock therein. Though they do not profess to understand the reason for God so acting, yet they unhesitatingly acknowledge His right so to do. Distrusting their conceptions of justice and injustice, they submit to the high sovereignty of Him who is Lord over all. And it is this very submission which brings to their hearts a peace which passes all understanding. Amid the profound mysteries of life, the perplexities of their own lot, though God's judgments are a “great deep” and His ways often “past finding out,” they have the unshakable assurance that the Judge of all the earth has done, is doing, and shall do, “right.”And why is it that the believer is so confident that simply because God does a thing it is necessarily right and good? Because he has learned this very lesson from the lips of Christ, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in Thy sight” (Matt. 11:25, 26). Observe the character in which the Father is here viewed: “Lord of Heaven and earth,” that is, as Sovereign supreme with indisputable right. Note the basis of action which the Redeemer attributes unto Him: “for so it seemed good in Thy sight”: no other explanation is vouchsafed, none other is needed, that is all-sufficient. Finally, mark well His “even so”: however strange it may seem to us, that closes the door to all impious inquiry and speculation. We are not to be the judges of God's actions, but the doers of His will. His own “good pleasure” is His only rule.
Moreover, let it not be forgotten that Christ conducted Himself in perfect consonance with His public declarations. In Gethsemane we find that He resolved His sufferings into the sovereign pleasure of the Father. How striking and how blessed to hear Him say, “Thy will be done.” This is the more remarkable and most pertinent to the point before us when we note that He immediately prefaced His acquiescence by affirming, “Abba Father, all things are possible unto Thee: take away this cup from Me; nevertheless, not what I will, but what Thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). How plainly do such words expose the error of those who contend there was an absolute necessity why God must punish sin, and why if His people were to be pardoned a Substitute must suffer in their stead. Christ knew God had willed that He should drink this awful cup, and He meekly submitted thereto, but He made it crystal clear that God had willed this not because His nature demanded the same, but simply because this was the way His own good pleasure had selected.
Those words, “All things are possible unto Thee,” in such a connection prove beyond all shadow of doubt that the Father acted freely, and without any compulsion from His holiness or justice in appointing Christ to make satisfaction for the sins of His people. Scripture nowhere says that He can by no means clear the guilty, but rather that He “will by no means clear the guilty” (Exo. 34:7). In like manner the Apostle Paul was moved to write, “What if God willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” (Rom. 9:22). It was not that any necessity of His nature demanded He should do so, but because it was the pleasure of His own imperial will so to do.
As it has been pointed out above, we must distinguish sharply between the absolute freedom possessed by God as Lord over all, and that which His perfections require from Him under the economy He was pleased to institute. His fidelity requires Him to make good His Promises and His veracity to fulfill His threatenings, but He was under no constraint whatever to make any promises or threatenings. His justice requires Him to impartially administer the law He has given, but He was under no absolute necessity of framing any law at all. Sin is a disease: could He not have sovereignly healed it had He so pleased? Sins are “debts”: was He unable to cancel them had He so desired? Perish such a thought! It is argued that God is “a consuming fire” and that fire cannot but burn when it comes into contact with that which is combustible. Have such foolish objectors forgotten that fire burns only as God orders it so to do? It consumed not the bush, nor the three Hebrews in Babylon's furnace! God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own WILL” (Eph. 1:11).—A.W.P.
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