God's Justice Is Logical And Merciful

As you would expect...

This is the Seventh Post in a series from Chapter 3 of Friends With God: “The Joy That Was Set Before Him”.

In the Fourth Post we showed that the idea of “Christ came to pay a death penalty on our behalf” is not in scripture. The Fifth and Sixth Posts showed how illogical and unscriptural the idea of a substitutionary penalty for sin is.

In this post we will examine the scriptural truth about God’s justice and mercy toward sinners, and how the idea of a substitutionary penalty for sin ignores, undermines, and contradicts this truth.

Ignorant Of Sin, Yet Still Guilty?

At the foundation of “the penalty for sin” idea, is the notion that we are all worthy of death due to our sins, committed in ignorance or not. Fortunately, the word of God does not agree with such harsh judgement.

• No, this is not God’s gavel! It’s the largest gavel in the world, being 31 feet long, and is located outside the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Are you guilty of sin if you are ignorant of what it means to be righteous? Surely condemning people in their ignorance would not be a righteous thing for God to do? We would expect God to be merciful to people who are ignorant. And he is.

God’s mercy is clearly shown when we see that he was willing to overlook the times of ignorance of people caught in idolatry:

‘....we ought not to think that the divine nature (of the creator God) is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. (idols, which these people were worshiping) Truly these times of ignorance (about) God (he has) overlooked, but now (God) commands all men everywhere to repent’. (Acts 17:29-30)

If these people’s sins were so monumental that they required the death of Christ for them to be paid, then saying that God simply overlooked them, surely undermines the value of his sacrifice? It could even be considered blasphemous to ignore the sacrifice of Christ in this context, yet that is what Paul does!

Yet, as Christ did not pay any penalty for sin, then for God to overlook their sins (due to their ignorance) is quite understandable. What God simply required was not any penalty but for these sinners to turn from their sins in order to be forgiven.

Check the context of these verses for yourself- there is no mention of any ‘penalty for sin’ being necessary in order for God to overlook these sins. What God wants is repentance. There is no need for, or mention of, a substitutionary penalty, here or anywhere in scripture.

God was willing and able to ignore these sins for the simple fact that they were committed in ignorance. He had mercy on these people, because they truly did not understand what they were doing.

They were ignorant of the law of God which says it’s a sin to worship an idol. So, God forgave them. Now, doesn’t that seem reasonable?

Yes, God is very reasonable, and merciful, and logical- but the ‘penalty for sin’ doctrine is not reasonable, or merciful, or in any way logical.

Most People Have Been Ignorant Of God

The vast majority of people who have ever lived, have been totally ignorant of the law of God. They had no light for their feet, or lamp for their path. They were wandering around in the dark, unable to not sin.

They therefore are not guilty of transgressing the laws of God, which they knew nothing about. Why? Paul tells us earlier in Romans ‘... for where there is no law there is no transgression’. (Rom 4:15)

If you don’t know the law, it’s as if it didn’t exist in relation to your transgressing it. Which is what he also says later in Romans: ‘but sin is not imputed where there is no law’ (Rom 5:13) And this is the reason he was able to say that those people who were ignorant of idolatry, had no sin imputed to them, because God was willing to overlook their sin, as they were ignorant of what they were doing.

All people have sinned, even if they did not have the revelation of the law of God, which defines sin. Yet, we are told that God is very willing to overlook these sins, in his mercy:

For all have sinned and are far from the glory of God (they have not lived up to God’s expectation of them); yet they may have righteousness put to their credit, freely, by his grace, through the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. (How is this applied to our credit? Just continue reading): Whom God has put forward as the sign of his mercy, through faith, in his blood, to make clear his righteousness when, in his pity, God let the sins of earlier times go without punishment; (Rom 3:23-25, BBE)

For those who are deceived into committing sin, (or who commit sin in ignorance, or do sin out of weakness, or who simply don’t understand what they should do to be righteous) then God is merciful for all these reasons, and will not punish people for being ignorant of what a sin is.

The sacrifice of the life of Jesus is the sign of God’s mercy, as his entire life shows us how to live, in order to be righteous. We discuss what faith in his blood means in greater detail in the next chapter of Friends With God.

Ignorant Of Killing Jesus?

What about the people who actually killed Jesus? Are they able to be forgiven?

Of course they are. But why?

For the same reason- they were ignorant. Jesus said of them:

Father forgive them for they do not know what they do. (Luke 23:34)

What an amazing thing to say, and even more amazing is that he didn’t say anything about his needing to pay a penalty on all people’s behalf at this momentous point in the whole history of mankind.

Instead, Jesus asked His Father in Heaven to forgive these people because they were ignorant. This showed the total understanding that God has about us as human beings. It also demonstrates the kind of love Jesus had for those who were cruelly abusing him, and the justice and mercy of God that he could ask him to forgive them simply because they were ignorant.

These people who were guilty of killing Christ were ignorant, and this was the only reason Jesus gave for asking God to forgive them-without any “penalty for sin” being raised as an issue.

They did not even require repentance for this forgiveness! Ignorance is seen here to be an extremely valid reason for forgiveness of sin.

Similarly, when Peter is talking about those who killed Jesus, he cites their ignorance as a reasonable excuse for their sin:

“And now, brothers, I know that you did it through ignorance, as also did your rulers. … Therefore repent and be converted so that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. (Acts 3:17, 19)

Again, check the context of these scriptures for yourself, and you will see that all these people who killed Christ were not condemned because they killed Christ, for the simple reason they did it in ignorance.

Even so, Christ was an innocent man, which they knew for certain before they killed him. What were they ignorant of? It seems that they didn’t understand that he was the Christ. The fact that they were unaware of this truth was sufficient to allow them to be forgiven - again without any mention of a “penalty for sin” being required, or paid.

After Forgiveness Then What?

However, once we do understand our sin, then obviously ignorance is no justification for us to continue to live in sin, nor for God to be merciful toward us. Once we understand our sin, then we must be willing to accept the sacrifice of Christ as being the example we must follow, in order to continue in that mercy. (1Peter 2:20-21)

Therefore, the only reason God is willing to overlook your sins of ignorance, is that you are willing to then turn from sinning, and imitate Christ’s example in living the rest of your life in obedience to God:- which is the life-long process of repentance:

• Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now (God) commands all men everywhere to repent. (Acts 17:29-30)

• Which is also what Peter said: Therefore, repent and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out. (Acts 3:19) 

Unable To Not Sin  

On a similar theme to ignorance of sin, we also need to ask “If you are too weak to resist sin, and unable to not sin, are you guilty of sin?”

This is an interesting question, as we actually need the Spirit of God in order to understand sin, and to have the strength to overcome it:

Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us by God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man (without the Spirit of God) receives not (understands not) the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1Cor 2:12-14)

We need God’s Spirit to know anything about him. But if we don’t have the Spirit of God, we can’t help but walk in the ways of the natural man, which is the spirit of the world.

In another place, this natural man is called “being carnal, or “the fleshly mind”, in contrast to the person being led by the spiritual, or Godly mind:

Because the carnal (natural) mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then those that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (Rom. 8:7-9)

Yet, don’t worry. Paul is not talking about being physical when saying “those that are in the flesh cannot please God”, for he then says “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit”.

How can this be? He is obviously not talking about being in bodies, in our physical flesh, but about our spiritual state of mind.

It’s those with a carnal or fleshly mind who are not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be, because if you don’t have the Spirit of God, then you cannot be one of Christ’s followers. You therefore are living in the flesh, being led by your natural physical mind, which, because you are mortal, ultimately leads you toward death.

But if you are led by the Spirit of God, then you are not living by the directives of our fleshly natural mind, but are guided by the Spirit of God in you.

It is not that our very flesh is abhorrent- that is ridiculous. God created us as fleshly human beings and declared that His creation was good.

The Word became flesh and lived among us- and there is nothing about Jesus Christ in the flesh that was not good. It’s not about our physical flesh- it’s about our minds and hearts and when they focus on the physical and do not know or obey God.

Those who are called by God have been given God’s Spirit to help them understand and obey his word. They are still physical, and in that sense are obviously living in the flesh. But they also have the Spirit of God in their minds, to help them overcome sin. They therefore don’t have the mind of the flesh, but the mind of the Spirit.

In comparison, if someone doesn’t have the Spirit of God, then they cannot understand God’s way of life, and they don’t know what sin is, or what sin is not. They are therefore completely ignorant of what they are doing, as far as sin goes.

Only Those With God’s Spirit Can Please God

Paul told the Ephesians that this was their problem, because, being gentiles, they were unable to know God, unless they came to God through the truth that was originally given to Israel:

Wherefore remember, that you being in time past gentiles in the flesh (natural), who are called Uncircumcision (gentiles) by those (people) which is called the Circumcision (Jews) in the flesh made by hands;
That at that (previous) time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
But now (that you have been called by God) in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off, are made near (to God) by the blood of Christ. (Eph 2:11-13)

The fact that all gentiles did not know God, or have access to the Spirit of God, means that they could not have pleased God.

• It’s only by having the Spirit of God, that we have the ability to understand sin, and to overcome it. Only then are we able to please God, and become his friends.

God, however, does not condemn natural people who are in the world with a “death penalty for sin”, as they don’t have the Holy Spirit, and consequently can’t understand sin.

There is, therefore, no such “death penalty for sin, which Christ has to pay for”, as God, in his pity, has let the sins of earlier times go without punishment. (Rom 3:23-25) However, now we are commanded to repent and turn to God that our sins may be forgiven.

The word “repent” means to “turn away from”. While we turn away from sin, what do we turn toward?

God expects those who do understand his truth to turn to living a righteous life that is pleasing to him. But what is righteousness? Can we be righteous?

The next post will explain how the “penalty for sin” idea also undermines the scriptural truth about righteousness and how God expects us to live in this life.