Justice, God Style

So I suppose this will serve as an introduction to this blog. It is simply a place where I will post my thoughts on God or certain verses I have gone over recently (relative to the post, not today). I will still keep my other blog(s) for more personal posts, though I suppose some inference to my life may be taken from the verses I am thinking on or on the way I look at them. But perhaps not. Time will tell. So here is the first one. More will follow.

So, John Piper continues to rock my world. Seriously. I am thankful there are people who get things that I don't and have the gift to explain it to me. This time he focused on the verse where God says "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." The question, raised during his nine part seminar on TULIP (The points of Calvinism), was how this is just. How God could choose, before the boys were born and therefore before they had any merits or deeds to separate them, one to love and one to hate. Piper owned the topic.
God says "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." Piper brings this up as a similar statement to "I am who I am." Who God is is based solely on Himself, it is not based on anything else. "I am who I am." This statement requires nothing outside of God to complete it. Similarly, the other statement shows God's mercy is based on nothing but His mercy. God does not have mercy or compassion as we do, which is based off of actions. God's compassion and mercy are based solely on Himself. God is infinitely and absolutely free. This freedom, this absolute freedom from any bonds, is a major part of what makes God God and His glory.
So then, how does this play into justice. Well it comes down to how justice is defined according to God, and what God's justice means. Piper says the following:
"God's justice, or righteousness, is His unwavering commitment to uphold and display the worth of His glory. His freedom from all external restraints is an essential aspect of His glory. Therefore, to act in freedom is essential to His glory and thus to His righteousness. Therefore, in exercising that freedom for the upholding of that glory in choosing Jacob over Esau, He is acting in complete justice, He was doing what Justice demands of Him, that is, what the infinite worth of His glory requires. If He had not acted in freedom here, He would have been unjust, that is He would not have justly acted in accordance with the worth of His glory."
This is only a bit of his whole talk, and if you would like to get the whole thing go to Piper's site and get part 6 of his TULIP series. But this statement, this definition of justice is amazing. The idea of election is problematic for many. Unconditional election especially, since it means that God chooses us, like Jacob, before we are born and have done anything, and indeed apart from anything we ever will do. This idea that Piper puts forth shines a new light on that. From God's statement "I am who I am" we know that He is completely free from any restraints. He is the God that is there. Whether we choose to acknowledge Him or not is insignificant to who He is. He has that total freedom and it glorifies Him magnificently. So then, He must maintain that glory. Justice demands it! The purpose of all we do and all God does is to bring Him glory.
AHHHH! I love this so much. It amazes me. Acknowledging it makes it easier for me to appreciate the glory of God. The other day I was driving home and my car kind of swerves if I take my hands of the wheel, and I did and I thought about how I could have died. Then I thought something along the lines of "whatever, God either is going to kill me or not, it's been planned since before time." Then I stopped (not the car, just in my head) because I had another thought. I wondered if my view of God had made me less in awe of Him in light of the my views on predestination and all that. That isn't the problem, I have determined. See, if God keeps me alive I can see it in different ways. I can see it as a miracle that it happened, as it happens or right after. However, if I take the view that all of it was predestined to happen, that it was part of His plan to allow me to live, then I can appreciate Him and His glory still. Not necessarily in the mystery of the moment, but in the appreciation for His amazing grace that He lavishes upon us in every moment, and perhaps even more so in the fact that He prepared this grace before time. He loved us so much before we had done anything and indeed even apart from anything we ever would do. And that made me think of how amazing God is, that in all things we should stop and praise Him for that forethought, not only in our salvation or in the plan He has had for all time of Christ, but for even the little things. Dually praise Him, first for His provision every day in every thing, and again for the fact this is His plan that He has maintained all along. That blows my mind.
And in keeping up His glory, indeed in maintaining that glory and showing its worth He must maintain that central act of complete freedom that is an essential aspect. It blows my mind, that every day we can still know Him more and more. That this infinite God would make Himself known to us through His word. That I can continue to know Him and learn more and keep having my mind blown, that is the best feeling. That is the feeling I hope never to lose in my walk. To be challenged, to be forced to think, to be amazed, I love it.