Thursday: The Vindication of God’s Name
Daily Lesson for Thursday 13th of March 2025
Ultimately, God’s name is vindicated in every way. Through the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the plan of redemption, the perfect righteousness and love of God is manifested beyond any reasonable doubt (see Romans 3:25-26; Romans 5:8).
Read Romans 3:1-4 in light of Isaiah 5:3-4. What does this teach about God Himself being vindicated in the cosmic conflict? What more could He do than what He has done?
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In Romans 3:1-31 and Isaiah 5:1-30, we see that God (in some limited sense) invites mere creatures to judge His character, even though we have no right or standing to do so. In the end, when all the “books” are opened, we will see the evidence that God is perfectly just and righteous. God will vindicate Himself before all intelligent creation.
Read Revelation 15:3 and Revelation 19:1-6. What do these passages teach about the vindication of God’s name in the end? What more could He do than what He has done?
Throughout Scripture, God shows concern for His name. Why? You cannot have a deep love relationship with someone whose character you detest or do not trust. If someone told your spouse or spouse-to-be horrible lies about your character, you would do what you could to counter any such claims, for if such claims are believed, they would fracture your love relationship.
In the end, God is vindicated at the cross and through the entire plan of redemption. In the pre-Advent judgment, God is vindicated before the onlooking universe.
Then, in the post-Advent judgment, during which the redeemed will even “judge angels” (1 Corinthians 6:2-3), God is vindicated, as the redeemed have been given the opportunity to review the records and see for themselves why God has acted as He has, and that all of God’s judgments have always and only been perfectly righteous and loving. Who among us doesn’t have a lot of questions that need answering? Before it’s all done, we will have those questions answered (see 1 Corinthians 4:5).
Finally, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). This is all part of the vindication of the character of God.
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The Bible says, God will ultimately destroy Satan and sin. Why did God not destroy Satan and sin in the first instance? God has allowed Satan and sin to run wild for a while causing great havoc on his creation, only to destroy them finally! Why? What does the Bible say about this costly “delay”? Did God mind so much about vindicating his name at the expense of human suffering?
The Bible submit that God’s ways are not our ways, and his ways are so deep for human mind to fathom (Isaiah 55:8-9). However, the Bible provides valuable information about the costly “delay”.
1. God’s justice and mercy must be revealed to demonstrate his nature as opposed to the nature of Satan. The universe must witness that God operates on the principle of love. Even the destruction Satan and sin will be accepted as an act of love.
2. God want the whole universe the witness the true nature of sin. All created beings must see the consequences of sin and when Satan and sin are finally destroyed, no one will doubt God’s love and justice.
3. God is not “delaying” destroying Satan and sin out of indecisiveness but out of love and justice. God is patient, not wanting anyone to be lost (2 Peter 3:9).
“And they were singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: “Great and marvellous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations” – Revelation 15:3, NLT
A small group of nerds gather at my house once a fortnight to discuss our Raspberry Pi computers. We immerse ourselves in the world of Python code, general-purpose input output (GPIO) interfaces, breadboards, stepper motors, Pi-cameras, ultra-sound detectors and so on. Most people would not understand a word of what we say and are not even interested. Our wives think it is a great idea because it keeps us out of harm's way while they do the important stuff. When I tell my non-nerd friends that I am going to a Raspberry Pi meeting they look at me quizzically and wonder why we have to have a meeting about raspberry pies!
For a conversation about Raspberry Pi computers, you need to have a fair background in computers and technology to make sense of what is going on,
In many respects, our discussion about the vindication of God's name only makes sense when you have a lot of knowledge about what is going on. It makes sense to us because we read the Bible and look at the lessons and go to meetings about God and Satan where we become steeped in the knowledge and terminology. It frightens me sometimes that we become so knowledge oriented. This came to a head in my mind as I was reading one of books that others have mentioned in this study. It is a really great book, interesting to read, develops the theme logically, and uses Biblical references properly to give a big-picture relationship between God the Father, and Jesus. It appeals to me and my sense of theology. But someone without a Christian background would find the book about as interesting as one hundred pages of python code.
Which brings me to two points:
My point is that if we have the idea that our beliefs are going to be vindicated, it is probably not a very good starting point for sharing the Gospel with the secular mind. Christianity is not a nerd club where we talk nerd talk to one another but rather a sharing group.
Jesus made this point:
That does not sound like a nerd group to me!