• Title Page
• Introduction
• The Nature of God
• The Nature of Moral Being
• The Nature of Sin
• The Nature of Moral Government
• The Nature of Justice
• The Nature of Mercy
• The Nature of Substitution
• The Nature of Grace
• The Nature of Salvation

The Nature of Justice

Chapter V

In any discussion of justice, we are thinking in that realm where God’s holiness expresses itself in the maintenance of strict and undeviating righteousness. We are considering that moral condition which ought to be. We are therefore dealing with the life that is in perfect obedience to God’s will at all times. Such a moral condition describes the lives of all the angels around the throne of God.

But we are also thinking of the relation that such a righteousness must sustain to lives that ought not to be, in that they are out of all harmony with God’s will. We are thus considering the action of justice in the presence of unrighteousness, and are asking the question: How will justice proceed when confronted by such conditions? What must justice do in relation to such a life?

The answer is obvious. It must act, for the simple reason that it can never cease to act; which means, the demands of justice must be enforced. But in order to understand the principles on which God is compelled to enforce those demands, we need to look a little further into the nature of justice.

1. The Nature of Justice

Justice is that provision of God’s love for the sinless which insures the permanence of their moral well-being, no matter at what cost.

In the first place, therefore, justice must accomplish the perfect and continuous enforcement of those conditions which secure the permanence of their well-being. This is self-evident.