Daily Lesson for Sunday 2nd of February 2025

Throughout Scripture, love and justice go together. True love requires justice, and true justice can be governed by and meted out only in love. We are not used to thinking of these two concepts together, but that is only because both love and justice have been greatly perverted by humanity.

Image © Lars Justinen at Goodsalt.com

These texts explicitly declare that God loves justice (Psalms 33:5, Isaiah 61:8). In Scripture, the ideas of love and justice are inextricably linked. God’s love and God’s righteousness go together, and He is deeply concerned that righteousness and justice be done in this world.

For good reason, then, the prophets consistently decry all kinds of injustice, including unjust laws, false scales, and injustice and oppression of the poor and the widows or anyone vulnerable. Though people perpetrate many evils and injustices, God is the one constantly “ ‘exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth’ ” (Jeremiah 9:24, NKJV). Accordingly, throughout Scripture, those faithful to God greatly anticipate divine judgment as a very good thing because it brings punishment against evildoers and oppressors, and it brings justice and deliverance for the victims of injustice and oppression.

In fact, righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s government. God’s moral government of love is just and righteous, quite different from the corrupt governments of this world, which often perpetuate injustice for personal gain and personal power. In God, “mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalms 85:10, NKJV).

And God makes it clear what He expects of us. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, NKJV). If there is anything that we should reflect of God’s character, love—and the justice and mercy that stems from it—would be central.

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