“Judgment & Mercy”

The Appomattox Court House Presbyterian Church Pulpit
Rev. Cameron S. Smith
The Lord's Day, February 5, 2006
Ezekiel 18:23-32
1 Peter 2:22-25

Question 9
Q. Is not God unjust in requiring of man in his Law what he cannot do?
A. No, for God so created man that he could do it. But man, upon the instigation of the devil, by deliberate disobedience, has cheated himself and all his descendants out of these gifts.

Question 10
Q. Will God let man get by with such disobedience and defection?
A. Certainly not, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, both against our inborn sinfulness and our actual sins, and he will punish them according to his righteous judgment in time and in eternity, as he has declared: "Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the Law, and do them."

Question 11
Q. But is not God also merciful?
A. God is indeed merciful and gracious, but he is also righteous. It is his righteousness which requires that sin committed against the supreme majesty of God be punished with extreme, that is, with eternal punishment of body and soul.

Prelude

"This is what sin has rent. It has torn apart the world that God made. Sin is not simply a matter of private attitude but invades all of a person's life. It enters every nook and cranny; nothing is immune to its touch. If, as [Cornelius] Plantinga says [in his 1995 book, Not The Way It's Supposed To Be: A Breviary of Sin], God 'binds things together: he binds humans to the rest of creation as stewards and caretakers of it, to himself as bearers of his image, and to each other as perfect complements,' then sin works to unbind all of these linkages. It has created a deep chasm between God and sinners over which no bridge can be humanly constructed; it drives the carelessness with which the environment is treated; it scars and mutilates marriages; it stirs up the ambitions and greed, the hatreds and distrust, that lead nations to break the peace and make war on one another. It brings in its wake folly, self-deception, and hardness. And knowledge of its work, indeed profound dismay over the ease with which we serve its impulses, as well as the precarious position in which we stand before God, and the false confidence that our pride lends to everything we do, all have to be understood if we are to begin to grasp the meaning of life."

From Losing Our Virtue: Why The Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision, by David F. Wells (Eerdmans, 1998, p.191)

Introduction
     Believe it or not, this is our final Sunday in the Catechism where the focus is on our misery! But I want to remind you once again that we must know, understand and experience a misery that comes from a broken relationship with God before we can begin to appreciate the Gospel in all its depth. This is precisely the point from the extended quote from David Well's timely book. It is our misery that points to our need for a Savior beyond ourselves-- just as the pain of a broken bone or serious skin wound screams for the need of immediate medical attention!
     Last week, question 8 left us this way -- and I paraphrase: "Are we so messed up that we're not able to consistently do what's good, but chronically prone to evil?" The short answer is, "Yes, unless we're born again by the Holy Spirit."

Is God Unjust?
     And so, our Catechism lesson picks up here by asking a natural follow-up question: (Q.9) "Is not God unjust in requiring of [men and women] in his Law what [they] cannot [in their own strength] do?" If we are naturally prone to do bad things that aren't pleasing to God and God made us; and if we can't help it because God has somehow foreordained it from the beginning, why then are we judged for something that God did to us in the first place?
     Here's how the Catechism answers the question: Is God unjust? Answer: "No, for God so created [Adam & Eve] that [they] could [joyfully keep his law]. But [Adam & Eve], upon the instigation of the devil, [and] by deliberate disobedience, [have] cheated [themselves] and all [their] descendants out of these gifts [i.e. the gift of joyful obedience]."
     God is not unjust: Adam and Eve had the ability to not sin. As they were originally created in perfection, they were able to keep all that God required of them. We make this judgment based on two things that we know about our first parents: First, we know that God pronounced his human creation good, a delight in his sight - there was no blemish in them. But, secondly, Genesis proclaims that man and woman alone are the crown jewel of creation in that they bear the image of their Creator (Gen. 1:27), with all of its original glory and perfection.
     But, there was temptation in the Garden, but note well that Genesis doesn't say that the serpent forced them to disobey God. He was merely suggestive-planting the idea into their heads; and the bait was taken. That's how the devil works with us down to this day! And so, our first parents were deliberately disobedient. They knew what God expected, and apparently they did have the ability to do all that God required; but they chose poorly. And now, as a result of that choice, Scripture says that no one is able to obey God (original sin). We have free choice, and we do what we want to do; doing the things that our hearts desire. The problem is that we're not inclined towards doing the things that please God; we're chronically turned in upon ourselves; doing what we think is right (cf. Judges 21:25). And so this is why God is not unjust in judging us for our sin. God doesn't make you sin. In fact, God desires just the opposite.

God's Heart
     I want you to take note of the opening and closing verses of our Old Testament lesson from Ezekiel 18: Verse 23, God says, "Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked…rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?'" And the closing verses in vv. 31-32, with almost identical words: "Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone…so turn, and live." That's not a coincidental repetition; it's a point God is trying to make firmly, and he wants you to remember it!
     Jack Abramoff, the disgraced ex-Washington "super lobbyist" provides a timely illustration of God's desire for the best for us. Quoted in the Notebook section of Time this week, Abramoff told a Jewish publication that "God sent me 1,000 hints that he didn't want me to keep doing what I was doing. But I didn't listen, so he set off a nuclear bomb." (Feb 6, 2006).
     Now, to be fair, Abramoff is an extreme example; but all of us, on a smaller scale, are just like him. God doesn't abuse our will to make us sin (cf. James 1:13); the devil doesn't make us do it either. The "1,000 hints from God" is none other than the fallen and tarnished image of God remaining within all of us. This is our conscience. As Abramoff points out, judgment comes not only in eternity, but it may also come within our lifetime as well -- in Abramoff's words, a life-altering nuclear bomb!

Straight Talk About Sin
     Question 10 affirms this conclusion: "Will God let man get by with such disobedience and defection? Certainly not[!]" I'll confess to you, the language in this answer is disturbing -- God's wrath, punishment in time and eternity. This is, quite frankly, the language of hell. For the most part, much of the Church has jettisoned this biblical language, finding it too harsh and depressing for modern sensibilities. Yale theologian H. Richard Niebuhr (d.1962) noticed this trend in church pulpits over fifty years ago when he wrote, "We have made our religion a God without wrath who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministration of a Christ without a cross."
     It is only when we come to grips with what the Bible says about human fallen-ness, that we can stand in awe of God's righteous judgment; but at the same time, in repentance, we fall to our knees in worshipful gratitude for his mercy in forgiving us in Jesus Christ!
     This mercy through the cross of Christ is the strongly implied bright light of hope in question 11: "But is not God also merciful?" Answer: "God is indeed merciful and gracious…." The bulk of the answer, as you will note in your bulletin, is that God is indeed righteous and just and human sin will not (cannot!) go unpunished. But then again, this is precisely the whole point about Jesus and his death on the cross! Look back to our New Testament lesson from 1 Peter 2 (vv.22-25): "[Jesus] committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (cf. Isa. 53:4, 9; 1 Cor. 15:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 3:5) That, my dear friends, is God's answer to our misery. A fellow Presbyterian minister summed this thought up so well when he let these words go from the pulpit: "But without a cross, there is no forgiveness. Without a cross, there is no salvation…." (Dr. George Bryant Wirth of First Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia; Sermons online from 2004)

Concluding Thought
     As I close this morning, I want turn your attention back to Ezekiel 18 (vv.30-31) once more. Listen to God's counsel through the prophet Ezekiel: "Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin….make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die…so turn, and live." God tells the children of Israel to "make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!" The irony, of course, is that they could not do it! God was quite aware that they couldn't do this for themselves, but he drops a huge prophetic hint of what he will do for humanity through his Son, Jesus. In the words of 2 Corinthians 6:2 "Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation."
     As we close this section of the Heidelberg Catechism, we move to our Redemption, looking into this "favorable time…[this] day of salvation." Praise God! Amen