by Jacob Ninan
"Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God's kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off" (Rom.11:22). There is usually a vast difference between the way God judges people and the way people judge others. People usually apply too much severity or too much kindness when they judge others. God is the only One who keeps a balance between these two opposing characteristics of His nature. Also, which side someone gets to experience from God will depend on how he behaves towards God. God is without partiality and bias, and everyone will finally acknowledge that God's judgments are perfect (Rev.19:2).
Some preachers nowadays are presenting God as if His grace overlooks every sin, failure or fault from man, and accepts without any condition everyone who goes to Him. In this way it is as if God has completely set aside His severity. The impression we get from these preachers is that since Jesus has died for the sins of the whole world once for all, when we go to God through Jesus, even any future sin we might commit is already forgiven. This kind of preaching looks very attractive to many who do not know the whole Bible. Certainly this is a false representation of God. The Gospel makes it possible for us to go to God with the blood of Jesus Christ and experience God putting aside His severity from us for our sins, and granting us the free, undeserved gift of forgiveness and acceptance. But the warning in the verse we read is that if we don't continue in this grace, we would then open ourselves to experiencing His severity. Grace had been given to Israel, but when they rejected it by refusing to walk in obedience to God, they came face to face with God's severity again. They were moved out of His grace, and Gentiles who came to Him in honesty and humility were accepted in their place. Heb.3:12 gives a similar warning, "Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God."
On the other hand, we find some Christians placing themselves in a place of righteousness and throwing their judgment at others who have fallen. Apparently they think they are following a part of the Bible according to the letter, but without any sense of having themselves received only unmerited favour from God.
When God judges us, His kindness and severity are kept in their proper place. No one will be able to say that His judgment was unfair. We have a lot of learn from this, and avoid going to one side or the other based on our inclinations (Jn.7:24). Let us look today at four examples of God's judgment and learn something from each of them.
Severe
When the early church started after the Day of Pentecost and large crowds were gathered together, some people who owned properties sold them and gave the amounts to the apostles to take care of the poor among them. This, obviously, caught everyone's attention, and many people must have talked about the sacrifices some people were making for their brothers and sisters. Ananias and Sapphira also had some property. But what they planned together was to sell a piece of their property and give some of that money to the apostles, while giving the impression that what they were giving was the whole amount which they had received. But they were caught! The Holy Spirit revealed this to the apostle Peter. Peter questioned Ananias whether what they gave was the full amount, and he said yes. Immediately Ananias dropped down dead, and was buried. Sapphira came in later, and gave Peter the same answer, and she too dropped down to her death. The Bible reports, "And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things" (Acts.5:11).This judgment from God was immediate and most severe. Both Ananias and Sapphira had an opportunity to come clean and admit their guile, but they chose to blatantly tell a lie, and they did not know that it was their last chance. God went to the extent of supernaturally revealing the truth to Peter. But when the couple chose to tell a lie and deceive, God made an example of them before the whole church. What would have happened if they decided to come clean? God would have shown them mercy. God was not being unduly hard on them, but they had jointly decided earlier to go through this charade and to gain attention in the church, and they did not know the fear of the Lord.
This incident that happened at the very beginning of the church has been recorded and made available for people of all the generations to come. This illustrates the severity of God through a practical situation. It appears that God has not dealt with His people in this way frequently afterwards, even though there have been people with worse types of behaviour than this. We can perhaps understand this as a mark of God's kindness towards us. After having given this serious warning through this example, He is giving us an opportunity to repent before His judgment comes upon us (2Pet.3:9). Is this something we can assume will be always available for us? No. If we do not repent, we will be only storing up God's wrath which will certainly come on the Day of Judgment (Rom.2:5).
Merciful
Think of the woman caught in adultery who was brought before Jesus to see how He would judge. The Old Testament law commanded that such people should be punished by stoning them to death. The people who brought her were willing to do that without showing her any mercy. What were they thinking of themselves at this time? Perhaps that they would never do anything gross like this? They did not realise that even if they had not committed adultery like this, whatever sins they had committed would be sufficient for them also to come under God's fierce judgment. That was what Jesus reminded them about on this occasion, and in one stroke He took away their grounds for judging this woman.If they were aware of their own standing before God, they would not have been so hard on this woman, and even if they decided to stone her according to the Law, they would not have been able to do it with harshness. Nowadays we are used to hearing about several recognised and respected Christian leaders exposed of their secret sins. But we can also see the harshness with which many people condemn them – as if they themselves have never sinned! Once we have seen the greatness of God's grace towards us, how He has given us mercy even though we deserved punishment, our judgment would not be hard even if we have to execute authority over others and judge them (Matt.18:32,33).
Another thing about God's judgment is that it is totally balanced, having taken into consideration all the different factors that are involved. Jesus said that the punishment that He will give to people will depend not only on the crime but also on how much they knew, the circumstances under which things happened, etc. He said that when punishment would be handed out, what a man would receive for doing something he already knew to be wrong would be more severe that what another man would get who did the same wrong but did not know it was wrong (Lk.12:47,48). Jesus would also make a difference in His judgment based on the particular limitations or weaknesses of different people. The problem with the people who brought the woman to Jesus was that they looked at the letter of the law that said, "You shall not commit adultery," and they were ready to throw stones at her. This is what we see even today from Christians who are ready to throw their judgments at other people without looking at other factors as well.
At the same time, Jesus did not avoid recognising that what she had done was a sin that deserved to be punished. When He let her go, He also warned her not to sin again. This lets us know that He was not ignoring her sins or the punishment she deserved. He showed her mercy in addition. He must have seen repentance from her side and forgiven her sins. There was no repentance from Ananias and Sapphira even after they were caught. Some Christians do not think this through, and say that we must let everyone go! We cannot afford to overlook sin or call it by some nice term. But at the same time, let us not forget how we stand forgiven before God and how the only thing that made that possible was an unmerited favour God has shown us, and not as those who have never sinned.
Undeserved
Then there was the criminal on a cross by the side of Jesus as He Himself was hanging on His cross. This man was a well known criminal who had been captured and sentenced to death on the cross in a legitimate manner. When it dawned on him that he was about to die and that there was no way of escape, he also realised that his sins had caught up with him and that he deserved the punishment. He may have heard some things about Jesus earlier, the miracles He had done and the things He had taught. The criminal would have been totally taken aback to find Jesus on a cross next to him. What he knew about Jesus made him think that, unlike Him, Jesus did not deserve to be killed. Now that he could observe Jesus directly and see the way Jesus was responding to the soldiers and the punishment, he became sure that Jesus was not an ordinary Man at all, but a King, as the soldiers called Him.He admitted his sins to himself and probably wished he had been different. We don't know how much he knew God or whether he prayed at this time to God and repented. But here was he admitting that he deserved what he was getting, and placing himself into the hands of Jesus. We don't know too much of what happened here, but what we know is significant. Jesus was forgiving a man who begged for forgiveness in his mind and had no time to do anything more to make things right with God. Jesus was forgiving this criminal who was in a helpless position just as he was about to die and who probably did not know the way of salvation as the scholars would teach. This is a demonstration of God's undeserved mercy on a weak and helpless person. Some of us who are particular about doctrines can spend the rest of our lives discussing salvation as applied to this criminal, and still not come to a satisfactory and complete explanation. Yet God saved him.
This gives hope to the worst of sinners. None of us needs to say that we are beyond redemption. Of course, we cannot take a lesson from here to say that we can get saved even with our last breath and then postpone our decision. But we do see that this is an amazing grace, which God has made available for wretches like us.
There is another side to this story we can look at in passing. Here is a man admitted to the kingdom of God at the very last moment. He is mightily blessed to have had that opportunity. But he will be one of the "poorest" in the kingdom, because he never got any chance to obtain victory over sin or to become like Jesus. When we have an opportunity now to enter into God's kingdom and grow up there, there is no time to waste.
Lost opportunity
The last example we want to look at is that of King David. He was a man after God's own heart. He knew God as a young man and grew in that knowledge and closeness with God. We all know the psalms David has composed and the slaying of Goliath by faith in God. The ministry which God gave David blesses us even thousands of years later. But this man fell into adultery and murder towards the later part of his life. When the prophet Nathan confronted him, David admitted his sin, and the depth of his repentance is seen in the way he acknowledged his failure openly and without excusing himself. God forgave him. But the way David had sinned brought great shame to God and it brought up serious consequences for himself and also his family.Even though David was forgiven and the Holy Spirit was not taken away from him as it happened to King Saul before him, his life took a big turn. From the prosperous rule he had obtained over the nation he was now engulfed in battles with his own sons, running away as a fugitive from his throne, etc. His fruitfulness as the psalmist of Israel came down, and finally, he was not allowed to build a temple for God. This makes us think of what could have been, and how things ended for David.
If we become careless with sin and fall, there is provision from God for our forgiveness and our personal restoration to God. But it is not without consequences. When we choose certain actions, we must remember that we do not have ability to control the consequences. Do we want to end our life without being able to fulfill what God has planned for us? This reminds us of the righteousness and justice of God in His judgment, even when He shows mercy and kindness. It is something that must make us fear God.
Conclusion
Grace for forgiveness of our sins is given to us freely, without our having to earn it. But when we receive this grace it is also expected to produce in us responses that are fitting for those who have been shown mercy (Tit.2:11,12). Our judgment is taken away, but that does not mean that there is freedom to live as we like, without any responsibility for us to be careful how we live (Eph.5:15;4:1). We must also understand that those who fall away from Him open themselves to facing His judgment again (Rom.11:22).