1 John 4:8
God is LOVE
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Luke 18:1-8
The Parable of the Persistent Widow
1 Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2 He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. 3 And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
4 “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8 I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”
Job 19:25
I Know My Redeemer Lives
25 I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
Acts 17:24-31
God Has Appointed Jesus as Judge at the End of Times
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
John 13:34-35
Love One Another
34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 17:3
Now This Is Eternal Life
3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
When Jesus tells us the Parable of the Persistent widow, we learn about praying and being persistence in our prayers, and we also learn about justice and we learn about love...In this Parable there was a godless man, who was a judge...He did not care about his neighbors or people...He did not love...A widow kept coming back to this judge over and over to get justice against a man who was her adversary and had done her an injustice...The judge kept ignoring her, but finally his patient wore down and he said to himself that he neither feared God nor man, but this persistent woman was very bothersome to him...So he saw that she got justice, because her persistence had worn him out...
God is just and God is LOVE...In the end He will bring justice for all...And He will bring it through One He has raised from the dead...So justice and love are greatly linked, and LOVE trumps justice...Love has to trump justice, if we would get justice for our sinful ways where would we be and where would we go?...How would we get eternal life, if God gave us justice for the sins we have committed?...So a major part of justice is love...A judge needs to have love for the people who come in front of him...The best judges are the ones who care and love their neighbors...And the best Judge of all is the one who is complete LOVE...And those justices know much about mercy...And St. John tells us that God is LOVE, so we know that God will give us loving justice...And in one of Jesus last commands to His Disciples was to love one another...
In C. S. Lewis’ book Till We Have Faces, Lewis speaks of justice and in a sense love...One of the characters asks if the gods give us justice...And the character Orual says, “Are the gods not just?”...And the fox replies “Oh no, child...What would become of us if they were?”...There is another quote from Orual saying, “But there is no judge between gods and men, and the god of the mountain will not answer me.”...
We might learn from Till We Have Faces and Lewis that where would we be if God gave us justice without any LOVE...Would we be saved and gain eternal life...And is there a Judge between God and man?...And for those who believe in Jesus and in God, we know that such a Redeemer lives and His name is Jesus...He is our Mediator, and will be our Judge at the end of the ages, and He will Judge us perfectly...He is a Judge of LOVE...We need to have faith in our Judge and love our neighbors and each other as He LOVES us to be with God and Him in Heaven...For this is eternal life...Can we have justice without mercy?...Can we have love without forgiveness?...