Today’s Devotional: “The Righteousness and Justice of God”

“I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.” (Jeremiah 9:24)

Whenever the justice of God is brought up, His righteousness is right behind. In fact, you cannot mention one without the other, in that the same word in the Hebrew language is used for both, “tsaddiq.”

Righteous judgment was the understanding that the Psalmists and prophets had of God and of His rule.

“Clouds and darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.” (Psalm 97:2)

“Therefore, the Lord has kept the disaster in mind, and brought it upon us; for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works which He does, though we have not obeyed His voice.” (Daniel 9:14)

In fact, God’s justice is an outcome of His righteousness.

It was this understanding that allowed Abraham to intercede for the righteous within Sodom.

“Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25)

And it is the same righteousness and justice that was prophesied about the coming Messiah.

Of the coming Messiah the prophet Isaiah said, “In mercy the throne will be established; and One will sit on it in truth, in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking justice and hastening righteousness.” (Isaiah 16:5)

God’s righteousness in judgment is seen best in Jesus’s work of redemption upon the cross. It was through Jesus’s atonement that justice was satisfied through His righteousness.

The just penalty for sin is death, but God’s gift is life through Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul aptly points out saying, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Eternal life was given when Jesus became our substitute and died for us upon the cross, the justice and righteousness of God.