Throughout Scripture, love and justice go together. True love requires justice, and true justice can be governed by and meted out only in love. We are not used to thinking of these two concepts together, but that is only because both love and justice have been greatly perverted by humanity.
Read Psalm 33:5, Isaiah 61:8, Jeremiah 9:24, Psalm 85:10, and Psalm 89:14. How do these texts shed light on God’s concern for justice?
These texts explicitly declare that God loves justice (Ps. 33:5, Isa. 61:8). In Scripture, the ideas of love and justice are inextricably linked. God’s love and God’s righteousness go together, and He is deeply concerned that righteousness and justice be done in this world.
For good reason, then, the prophets consistently decry all kinds of injustice, including unjust laws, false scales, and injustice and oppression of the poor and the widows or anyone vulnerable. Though people perpetrate many evils and injustices, God is the one constantly “ ‘exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth’ ” (Jer. 9:24, NKJV). Accordingly, throughout Scripture, those faithful to God greatly anticipate divine judgment as a very good thing because it brings punishment against evildoers and oppressors, and it brings justice and deliverance for the victims of injustice and oppression.
In fact, righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s government. God’s moral government of love is just and righteous, quite different from the corrupt governments of this world, which often perpetuate injustice for personal gain and personal power. In God, “mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed” (Ps. 85:10, NKJV).
And God makes it clear what He expects of us. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, NKJV). If there is anything that we should reflect of God’s character, love—and the justice and mercy that stems from it—would be central.
What are examples, even now, of perverted human justice? How, then, can we not cry out for God’s perfect justice to come one day?
Supplemental EGW Notes
[The Lord] stays His judgments that He may plead with the impenitent. He who exercises “loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth” yearns over His erring children; in every way possible He seeks to teach them the way of life everlasting. Jeremiah 9:24. He had brought the Israelites out of bondage that they might serve Him, the only true and living God. Though they had wandered long in idolatry and had slighted His warnings, yet He now declares His willingness to defer chastisement and grant yet another opportunity for repentance. He makes plain the fact that only by the most thorough heart reformation could the impending doom be averted. In vain would be the trust they might place in the temple and its services. Rites and ceremonies could not atone for sin. Notwithstanding their claim to be the chosen people of God, reformation of heart and of the life practice alone could save them from the inevitable result of continued transgression.—Prophets and Kings, pp. 413, 414.
God’s love has been expressed in His justice no less than in His mercy. Justice is the foundation of His throne, and the fruit of His love. It had been Satan’s purpose to divorce mercy from truth and justice. He sought to prove that the righteousness of God’s law is an enemy to peace. But Christ shows that in God’s plan they are indissolubly joined together; the one cannot exist without the other. “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” Psalm 85:10.
By His life and His death, Christ proved that God’s justice did not destroy His mercy, but that sin could be forgiven, and that the law is righteous, and can be perfectly obeyed. Satan’s charges were refuted. God had given man unmistakable evidence of His love.—The Desire of Ages, p. 762.
Every man, woman, and child is God’s property, and has been bought with a price, even with the infinite price of the precious blood of the Son of God. God will not tolerate injustice from man to his fellow-men. He will not pass over oppression and wrong. Men in office cannot permit the practice of injustice and yet be clear from the judgment of God. For the sake of their own souls, and for the sake of the souls of others, men in positions of trust should seek to do good to their fellow-men, representing the character of the great Lawgiver. “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” . . .
Every work is to be brought into judgment, and every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil, and every man will be rewarded according as his work has been. Those who practice injustice and oppression set at naught the authority of God, and declare by their actions that they have no regard for the word of Christ, who has purchased redemption at an infinite cost.—“Rule in the Fear of God,” Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, October 1, 1895.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.