Part I: Justice, Mercy, and Grace
God applies His justice, mercy, and grace to every single individual throughout history without exception. These qualities of God apply to both the reprobate (those destined for condemnation) and the elect (those destined for salvation). These qualities differ depending on which group they fall upon.
The justice, mercy, and grace of God can be divided into two categories each: the temporal justice and eternal justice; the temporal mercy and eternal mercy; and the temporal grace and eternal grace.
Let me define these three qualities of God: justice, mercy, and grace. An easy way I choose to understand these terms is this: justice is receiving what is deserved, mercy is not receiving what is deserved, and grace is receiving what is not deserved. The wording may be a little mind boggling, so I bolded key words for emphasis which should make it easier to comprehend the differences.
Part II: The Reprobate
All sinners deserve the full wrath of God which is the spending of the rest of eternity in the
The temporal aspect of justice is received throughout the lives of the reprobate through the judgments of God. He often upholds this temporal justice through governments, police forces, court systems, and even parents. Sinners pay fines, spend time in jail or prison, do community service, receive death penalties, are flogged, and whatever other means court systems put in place for crimes (sins). Parents punish their children for disobedience (sins) in various ways as well. Justice is upheld by God in this way. God also sends judgments upon individuals in other ways such as disease, exile, sickness, torment by evil spirits, famine, loss of possessions, financial poverty, spiritual blindness and depravity, and the list could go on.
God applies His mercy to the reprobate when they do not immediately receive the punishments they deserve and are given time to repent of their sins and commit them no more. Without mercy, God’s justice would be meted out immediately. Mercy can be mingled with temporal justice by not giving a sinner exactly what they deserve, but lessening the punishment in the hope that such kindness would bring about their repentance (cf. Rom 2:4). Justice does not cause people to repent, although justice can bear fruit of repentance in the sinners’ heart. Mercy is very precious, and you don’t want to abuse it or take it for granted. God said to Moses, “You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold” (Exodus 25:17). This shows how precious mercy is, for the mercy seat in the
The day will come upon the reprobate when the mercy of God will come to an end. When an unrepentant and unregenerate sinner dies, the mercy of God is over. There is no mercy for the ungodly after death. They will be raised up on the last day, stand before the throne of God and with no mercy the Judge will condemn them to hell forever for their wickedness. He will pour out His wrath and vengeance upon them forever. It will never cease. They scorned God’s temporal mercy when they walked the earth, so they will have no part in His eternal mercy. They are without hope. They will be weeping and gnashing their teeth in utter darkness. Their worm will not die and the fire will not be quenched (Isaiah 66:24; Mark 9:48).
The reprobate enjoy many things which they do not deserve. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45). God is gracious towards the reprobate. They enjoy food, water, family, marriage, children, clothing, shelter, friends, health, wealth, and so much more according to the providence of God. What I said above about the kindness of God leading to repentance applies to grace as well. The reprobate should see these good things and in gratefulness they should give glory to God who is the source of all these things. Instead they ignore God, think they obtain these things on their own, and choose to live to glorify themselves and enjoy doing what they want to do, without submitting to the one who has authority over them, namely the Creator of heaven and earth and all that breathes. Temporal grace is a gift of God.
As with eternal mercy, the reprobate will have no part in the eternal grace of God. The grace of God for them will one day cease. They will stand before God and will receive justice alone. No mercy, no grace; only the wrath of God. No sinner can stand before God with any excuses for as it is written: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man” (Romans 2:1).
Part III: The Elect
With the reprobate we said that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and this is true for the elect as well. The rest of that verse, however, says that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Without the free gift of God, the elect would perish along with the reprobate. Apart from the free gift of God, which nobody can merit by any amount of good works, every person would experience the eternal wrath of God. Thanks to the free gift of God, given to whom He pleases according to His purpose and will, the elect receive full justice, but through a different means than the reprobate.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea (Matthew 2:1) to the virgin Mary and He came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:20-21). He is the propitiation of the sins of the elect (Romans 3:24-25; Hebrews 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10). The word propitiation means to appease or to satisfy. In the Biblical context it means to satisfy the wrath of God and to appease His anger toward sinners. Jesus Christ took the sins of the elect upon Himself and suffered the wrath of God in their place.
The justice of God is satisfied, and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the elect. Imputation means to attribute or ascribe righteousness or guilt to another. The guilt of Adam for his trespass was imputed to his descendents, and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to those whom He died for (cf. Romans 5:15-19). In relation to the elect, justice is fulfilled through Christ. The wrath of God is appeased; it is satisfied. By the grace of God, this free gift is graciously given to those who believe in Christ as the sacrifice for the full payment of their sins. The elect were chosen in Christ “before the foundation of the world” so that they “should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4). Those who are in Christ, there sins are not counted against them, and the justice of God is upheld for all eternity. Those who are not in Christ, the wrath of God remains on them (John 3:36) and the eternal justice is yet to be poured out on them.
When it comes to the mercy of God for the elect, it is much the same as for the reprobate, yet the major difference is that this mercy extends beyond temporal to all of eternity. God’s mercy for the elect will never end. There is never a point in eternity when any of the saints will have earned through merits their salvation. The reason a saint will be in the new heavens and new earth will always be because of the mercy of God.
Grace is much of the same as mercy. None of the elect deserve salvation, but in God’s mercy of not condemning them after their first rebellion, He offers them the free gift of salvation in Christ Jesus in His glorious grace. This grace will never end for the saints, because there will never be a moment in eternity when their salvation will be earned. Their salvation was bought by the precious blood of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23), so that they could taste the riches and glory of Christ Jesus. Every single thing they enjoy throughout eternity will be new gifts of God’s grace. Even though they will be perfect at the resurrection, all the gifts they enjoy throughout eternity will be of His grace. Their perfection is not their doing, but the work of God. If God didn’t work to bring about their perfection, then they would have never obtained their glorified bodies.
Part IV: The Conclusion
As we saw, every single person in history experiences the justice, mercy, and grace of God. The sinners receive temporal justice on earth through God’s judgments and His providence over civil and parental punishments, and sinners receive eternal justice when the wrath of God is poured out on them in hell forever. Sinners receive the temporal mercy and grace of God, for God withholds from implementing His eternal justice immediately and in grace blesses them with many good things to enjoy. In the end, sinners never repent and give God the praise and glory, and thus the mercy and grace comes to an end and hell contains nothing but the wrath and vengeance of God upon sinners.
In relation to the saints, the Heavenly Father in His foreknowledge took all the past, present, and future sins of the saints and placed them on His Son who willingly took those sins upon Himself, and He appeased the wrath of the Father and thus reconciled the saints to God. Their sins are forgiven and they share in the glory of Christ through regeneration and their baptism into the body of Christ. The justice of God is fulfilled. In God’s mercy, He patiently endured the sins of the elect until the appointed time of their salvation when they believe and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ who was given for them according to the grace of God. Saints deserved eternal hell with the sinners (justice), but they did not receive the hell they deserved (mercy), but rather, they received the salvation they could never deserve (grace). If God were to forgive the saints of their sins without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but on repentance alone, then the justice of God would not be satisfied. Repentance does not appease wrath. Only perfection keeps away wrath, but since nobody is perfect, wrath has come to all. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, appeased that wrath by His death to uphold justice. God would be unjust if salvation came by repentance alone.
Forgiveness does not nullify justice. It is okay to forgive a criminal but still push for justice in the court system. Forgiving our enemies does not require the nullification of justice. Mankind is commanded by God to forgive their enemies because no one is good, but all have turned aside from righteousness. Do you need forgiveness? If so, then you must forgive others. If you don’t forgive others, why should God forgive you? Does God need forgiveness? No way! He is not obligated, therefore, to forgive anybody. Graciously He does forgive the saints. Praise God for His justice, mercy, and grace!
“Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness endures forever” (Psalm 111:3).
