The Justice and Love of God

God’s way is love – a selfless and sacrificial love, love that gives oneself for others – and the way of love in the face of sin and rejection is forgiveness. Because of the justice of God, the price had to be paid (sin, being offense against God, could not go unpunished), and because of the grace and mercy of God, that price was forgiveness – longsuffering love. For him to love us – to love you and me – was to empty himself, to give his very being, to suffer fully, to drink the cup to the last drop. There is no love greater than this.

It may seem unjust that God should pay for what we did, but that is because God’s love is present there on the cross along with his justice – it was his sovereign will to give himself freely for us. Christ’s death must be seen as an act of justice and an act of love. The cross is just because God, who is just, declares it just. That is, it is just for our penalty to be paid by God out of love because God the just declares it just. “For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.”