Judged by Righteousness

Psalms 9:7 But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, 8 and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the people with uprightness.

I have discussed how God is both our Creator and our King.  Today we are going to look at a much trickier aspect of God and that is God as our Judge.  What gives God the right to judge us? Well, He did create us and as our King He gave us laws to follow so logically who better to be our judge than God?  The Bible states in the above verses and in other places (Acts 17:30) that when God judges us, He will judge us in righteousness because He is a righteous judge. Psalms 7:11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. So that begs the question, what is righteousness?

This is where things can get tricky.  It's very important that you don't rely on just what I point out here, but that you also open up your Bible and discover all it says about the subject of what it means to be righteous because the word "righteous" appears in the Bible (ESV translation) two hundred and sixty-two times.  The word "righteousness" appears two hundred and fifty-nine times. Clearly the Bible has a lot to say on the subject that I can't fit into one post, so please do some research on your own.  However, I am going to try to explain the concept of biblical righteousness as best I can.

First let's ask the question, who is righteous before God? Psalm 143:2 Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you. There you have it.  No one who is alive is righteous before God.  Even Jesus backs this up. Mark 10:18 and Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone." Why is no one good?  Because God gave us His standard of righteousness in the law.  These laws embody who God is.  The laws that God gave the people of Israel are a description of God because they outline His very nature. In order for a person to be righteous he must keep God's commandments.  However, this is an impossible task.  All anyone has to do is go through the Ten Commandments to discover that they are guilty of breaking these laws, are therefore unrighteous in the eyes of God. 

You may be asking yourself what you can do in order to be judged worthy to get to heaven, and the answer to that question is that there is nothing you can do to get to heaven. Romans 5:17 For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in the life through one man Jesus Christ.    Paul tells us here that righteousness is in fact a free gift of God through the death of His Son Jesus.  Just as one man's actions (Adam) caused the rest of us to have a nature of sin, so it is that we can receive righteousness through the actions of Jesus.  But the most important thing to take away from that verse is that righteousness cannot be earned by anything that you or I do as people because it will be given to us as a freely given gift of grace. 

But it is important to point out that God will not force this gift upon you.  If you don't want any part of the grace offered to you then God will not make you accept it and give it to you anyway.  God has offered you the gift, but it is you who must accept it.  The Bible says in both Genesis 15:6 and in Romans 4:3 that all Abraham had to do was to believe and it was credited to him as righteousness.  So what does this have to with you? Romans 10:9 because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  All you have to do is truly believe that God gave His Son to die for your sins and raised Him from the dead after three days in a victory over death, then confess that fact with your mouth.  Because if you truly believe then you are going to recognize your sins and the unrighteousness in your life and you are going to give those up in a pursuit of righteousness.  While The Bible tells us that we cannot obtain righteousness by the works of our hands, we are to pursue righteousness.

1 Timothy 6:11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14 to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will display at the proper time- he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in the unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.  To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Lord of Creation

Isaiah 40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; His understanding is unsearchable.

Who is God?  That is a mighty big question.  The above verse in Isaiah 40 gives as good an explanation as can be said in short.  God is the Creator of the universe.  Of course, since He is the creator, He is also a great many other things.  For instance, He created us so therefore He rules over us as our eternal King.  As the King and Lord of creation, He handed down His laws to Moses in the form of the Ten Commandments.  This also makes Him our Judge.  These are just the three aspects of God that can be derived by His act of creating us as well as the world around us. Over the next few posts I am going to be addressing the different aspects of just who exactly God is.  This one will be dealing with God's role as our creator.

First, I am going to prove to you that God did create everything we see around us.  The odds are that you are reading this either on a computer or a smart phone.  Where did it come from? Someone in a factory put it together of course.  But you know that someone created it because the evidence is there before your eyes.  The same can be said for the trees outside of my window.  How do I know that there is a creator? Because I see the evidence in the mere fact that there is a creation.  If that logic wasn't enough for you then let's open up a Bible. Romans 1:20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. Psalms 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. These verses also state that God speaks to us through his creation.  So the entire universe around us is the proof that God exist and that he created it.

Now that we have established that God created everything let's take a look at His role in creating us.  Genesis 2:7 then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. God then created us, the human race out of the dust.  What is the significance of this?  All the rest of creation He spoke into existence but with us He took the time to form us and breathe His very breath into us thereby separating us from the rest of creation.  Why is this the case? Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. God created us in His own image, and gave us authority over the rest of creation.  Then in Genesis 3 comes what is referred to as the fall of Man.  In trying to become like God, mankind ate fruit from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil thereby condemning mankind.  Why did this happen? It's a long story for another time but the short version is because God gave us free-will and because we are not God we use our free-will to make bad decisions.

God did not just create us and then turn us loose.  He has an individual plan for each and every one of us.  Jeremiah 1:5"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations." Now while these are God's words to Jeremiah that doesn't make it any less true for anyone today.  God loves us and has a plan for each us, but because of the free-will He gifted us with we must choose whether or not to accept that plan.  What is God's plan in your life? That you accept His gift of grace offered through the sacrifice of His Son so that we might be reconciled back to God despite our inherent sinful nature. Romans 5:10 For while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. After being reconciled back to God then we can further find His plans for us in His Word (the Bible).  But I can go ahead and tell you his overarching plan for all of us.  Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. God wants you to go and spread the Good News of his Son.  We who sinned against God are called to be reconciled to him so that we can go and spread the Gospel to all nations so that they might in turn be reconciled.  

Like I said earlier, we have been given free-will so that we might choose whether or not to follow God's plan for us.  He did this because He knows that in order for us to show our truest devotion to Him that we have to choose to give Him that devotion.  Do I know what God has specifically planned for your life? No. That's between you and Him.  But I do know that it is His will that all of his children be reconciled to Him (Romans 5:10) and to spread the good news of His grace to the whole world (Matthew 28:18-20).