The Everlasting Righteousness, Part One
Channel: Brock Organ
Date: 2012-01-13

The Everlasting Righteousness, by Horatius Bonar[1], Part One
Warning: This essay discusses intense themes. 

A most pressing problem that humankind faces is:

"How can a fallen, messed up criminal like me make peace with sinless God, and be restored to Him in right relation?"

Each person, throughout time, has faced this great problem of separation from God because of sin.  There is no evading it, it must be faced.

People's typical answers, as one might expect, are generally very inadequate: impaired and compromised faculties keep us from fully understanding the importance of the issue, and from correctly identifying the malignant character of evil that affects the separation between humankind and God.  Further, such answers value humankind too highly, and esteem God too low, and minimize the guilt of sin.

For example, these faulty solutions often will treat sin only as a misfortune, but not a crime; as a disease, but not address the issue of guilt.  They fail to acknowledge the judicial aspect of the issue, and fail to recognize that the crime of sinful character and behavior must be dealt with.  It is true that God is a Father, but He is also a Judge, and it is not responsible to oversimplify and incorrectly pit these complementary roles against each other[2].

It is an affront to God when, in contrast to faulty and incompetent human solutions, God provides His own divine answer to solve the problem of sin, only to have humankind reject it or be slow to accept!  This offense in preferring bad solutions to God's good solution indicates just how poor people's discernment of the evil they posses and face is, what a faint understanding of their fallen condition they have, just how crippled is their view of law, justice and rightness, and how ignorant of the high and noble nature of God's solution, and of God Himself!

God's solution remands the whole case into His divine court of law, that it might be settled rightly there.  Without godly help, humankind could only appear in court to lose, but God brings each person's case, upon right principles and in a legal way, that the case may be settled by pardon, in a way that is favorable to law, God, and humankind.  God's basis for reconciliation demonstrates that there is no compromise between law and love, but that both are fully expressed:  the pure rightness of godly authority is affirmed, the terrible evil of sin is correctly punished, and the boundless providing love of God is effectively and lawfully applied to lost humankind.  This reconciliation, God's answer to the separation of sin, is so equitable, secure and legally settled, that by a verdict of "pardoned" the accused is cleanly absolved, and justified from all things.

The consent of the parties is required for the court to dismiss.  The law consents, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit consents, and each person as defendant, is asked to consent.  With human acceptance of the divine pardon, the whole matter is settled, the case is dismissed, and the defendant can afterwards triumph:  "God has justified, no other can condemn"


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[1] a paraphrase of "The Everlasting Righteousness", by H. Bonar,
http://gospelpedlar.com/articles/Salvation/ER_Bonar/Everlasting_Righteousness.html

[2] Though God loves the sinner, and hates the sin, it would be incorrect to conclude that God's love must supersede justice, or conversely, that justice must trump His love.  For example, those who offer as a contradiction propositions like "if God is love, then God could never judge sinners, because that is not loving", or "if God is just, then God could never love sinners because that would not be just" are answered by noting that God is neither loving at the expense of being just, nor just at the expense of being loving: instead, God is both just and loving. 

In a finite and inadequate way through false religions, humankind has failed to reconcile, for the human-centered answers have generally put love ahead of law, and human interest at the expense of justice.  But though humankind has failed, God has not, and has accomplished a reconciliation in a way in which both law and love have triumphed; each principle has been honored and glorified.  The law, with its right punishments has been satisfied; God's honor has been maintained, yet not at the expense of humankind.  It has been reconciliation without compromise, and it is effectual and irreversible!

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