God as Righteous Judge

The Bible tells us that this creator God is also a righteous God, who expects his children to live righteously, and who holds them accountable when they do wrong. In other words, he is a judge. We can trace a kind of three-beat rhythm in the Biblical recognition of this fact -- the recurrent rhythm of demand, disaster, renewal.

1. God makes demands. He expects his children to live up to these demands. You are expected to do justice, for example, rather than injustice. You are expected to love God rather than idols or false gods. You are expected to love your neighbor as yourself, rather than to "do him dirt." And so on. There is no evading these demands. No one, not even you, can wriggle out from under them, nor can they be avoided. 2. When these demands are not heeded, disaster follows. This disaster is interpreted as God's judgment upon human sin. The Book of Amos is a good place to see this principle at work. Amos looks at the nations surrounding Israel one by one -- Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and Judah -- and says that each one will be punished for having defied God's will. And then comes the pay-off, the pay-off to end all pay-offs. For the very same thing will happen to the "people of God" themselves -- they too will be judged by God for their wrongdoing. No escape for them, just because they are the "chosen people." In fact, precisely because they are the chosen people, their punishment will be stiffer -- they should have known better. All men are judged. No exceptions.

3. What is needed to change the situation is for man to repent. The situation is not completely black. The prophets do not simply talk of gloom, but they talk of gloom in order to "wake men up," so that they will change before it is too late. As Amos puts it:

Seek good, and not evil,
that you may live;
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
as you have said.
Hate evil, and love good,
and establish justice in the gate;
it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts,
will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

( Amos 5: 14, 15)

To talk of God as judge, then, is to insist that history has moral meaning, that when people do wrong, they do not "get away with it" indefinitely. There comes a time when they are held accountable. Human life is in the hands and destiny of the righteous God, and if people defy him, they must expect to suffer the consequences. They will be judged by him and found wanting. The only way out is for men to change drastically.