A Word in Season: Justice and salvation (Isaiah 45:21)

The Preciousness of a Clear View of the Saving God

To needy sinners, nothing is more precious than clear views of a saving God. That's true when we first come to him, confessing our sins and calling upon his name for salvation, and it remains true for us as we go on in our lives as believers.

The clear and accurate sense of what God is like in redeeming his people is precious to those who feel their sin. And that's why when Isaiah speaks in Isaiah 49 and says, there is no other God besides me, a just God and a saviour, there is none besides me, with that note of insistence on the exclusivity of God as just and righteous in saving, then we see and we know and we ought to feel and we can feel joy in what God has made known concerning himself.

The context is one in which that exclusivity needs to be emphasised, that there is no other one who can save. Not all the vaunted and boasted gods and idols of this world are able to do what God is able to do alone.

The Justice of God and the Punishment Sin Deserves

It's why he goes on to say, look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. And it's in this character of the just saviour that he sets himself forth. And those two realities, just and saving, go hand in hand and both cause the believer true delight.

Because when we come to understand our sin or sin in general, then we know that sin deserves punishment. We cry out for it even in this world when we see people who seem to be getting away with something.

We say, that's not fair, that's not right. Someone ought to do something about that. The problem for so many of us is that when it comes to my sin and the fact that somebody ought to do something about my transgressions, that then we begin to buck and to kick.

But when we've seen God in his glory, then all excuses are stripped away. We understand that sin must be punished. We see that sin needs to be atoned for. Someone somehow needs to deal with our sin if we are to be accepted by God.

Because sin is against him, sin pollutes us, sin damns us, sin destroys us. And so we need a God who is not only going to be just, but also going to save us. If he were not just, he would not be worthy of honour and glory and respect.

Calvary as the Meeting Place of Justice and Mercy

But if he's going to save us, then there's going to need to be justice on the one hand, and also mercy without any kind of inconsistency or conflict between the two. And there's no place other than Calvary where justice and mercy meet in that way.

That's where God shows himself both a just God and a saviour. Because their sin is atoned for. Their sin is punished entirely in the person of God's beloved son, Jesus Christ. There the wrath against sin that our sins deserve is poured out upon him, and he makes atonement.

He suffers the punishment due for our sins. But there too, God shows himself a saviour. Because in Christ Jesus, there is not only atoning blood shed for our cleansing, putting away of our transgressions, but there's also a perfect righteousness that is secured for us.

Trusting in Christ and Delighting in God's Salvation

And it's when we then see God in Christ that we cry out, here is a just God and a saviour. Here is one who will not overlook or ignore or simply sweep aside sin, but deals with sin as sin must and should be dealt with.

And in the very act of dealing with sin also provides salvation. And if you and I, we put our faith into this Jesus, if we trust in God as he makes himself known in the person of his son, if we grasp the benefits that we derive when God makes himself known in this way, then we will never cease to delight in and glorify this God as he makes himself known, a just God and a saviour.