Participants:
Series Code: IIWSS
Program Code: IIWSS025006S
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00:00 [uplifting music]
00:11 [uplifting music] 00:13 >> Eric Flickinger: Welcome to "Sabbath School," 00:15 brought to you by It Is Written. 00:17 Thanks for joining us this week. 00:19 We are looking today at lesson number 6-- 00:22 this is a fantastic subject-- "God's Love of Justice." 00:26 This is part of the larger theme that we're studying 00:29 this quarter, and that is the God of love and justice. 00:32 We're gonna see these two ideas come together today. 00:35 Let's begin with prayer. 00:36 Father, we ask that You will bless us, once again, 00:39 as we study Your Word. 00:40 Help us to understand how You love justice 00:43 and how that is a part of Your character. 00:46 We ask Your blessing on our time together today, 00:48 and we thank You, in Jesus' name, amen. 00:51 Well, we're grateful to have, once again, with us this week 00:55 the author of this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson; 00:57 that is John Peckham. 00:58 He is an associate editor at the "Adventist Review" 01:01 and also a research professor 01:03 at the Theological Seminary at Andrews University. 01:06 John, thanks for being with us. 01:07 >>John Peckham: Thank you for having me. 01:09 >>Eric: So, this week we're looking at 01:10 "God's Love of Justice." 01:12 The Ancient Near-Eastern deities had some characteristics 01:16 that kind of contrast with the God of the Bible. 01:20 How are they different and how might somebody's perspective 01:24 of God, that is, the God, be influenced by maybe 01:29 some things that they've experienced, 01:31 or are familiar with, with these Ancient Near-Eastern gods? 01:35 >>John: Yeah, the Ancient Near-Eastern gods are 01:37 in some ways akin to, like, a supervillain in a comic book, 01:41 they have superhuman characteristics, 01:44 they have superhuman strengths and powers, 01:48 and yet they also have superhuman defects 01:52 and foibles and sins. 01:53 So, if you look at the kinds of things 01:55 that humans struggle with-- 01:58 selfishness, anger, violence, 02:02 all kinds of horrible character defects-- 02:05 but they tend to be magnified in these Ancient Near-Eastern gods. 02:09 And one of the things 02:11 that the Ancient Near-Eastern systems of sacrifices 02:15 was intended to do was to placate these gods, 02:18 to keep them happy with the people, and maybe, 02:22 if you gave them enough offerings, 02:24 then they would treat you well, 02:27 they wouldn't bring destruction on you or some kind 02:30 of a calamity, but one of the big problems for them is these 02:34 Ancient Near-Eastern gods, they're actually very fickle; 02:37 they're unreliable. 02:39 You don't know what will please them one day 02:43 and make them angry the next day. 02:45 You could do everything seemingly right, and they're 02:47 still angry, or in some cases they just didn't know what 02:50 these crazy gods might want; they couldn't be trusted. 02:54 And so, if you think of living like a person in those days, 02:58 that you're just walking on eggshells every day about 03:02 how you could be in right relationship with these gods 03:05 that you think are controlling everything 03:07 that's happening around you. 03:09 The God of the Bible is the opposite, 03:12 He's perfect in every way, He's perfect in character, 03:16 He's a God of love but also a God of justice, 03:19 and He tells His people 03:21 exactly what He expects of them in His law. 03:26 And in His law, He tells them what He expects of them, 03:29 not for His sake but for their sake, because 03:32 what He asks of them is actually what is good for them; 03:35 it's actually what brings flourishing to their life. 03:39 And so this is why you have the psalmists over and over again 03:41 say things like, "Oh, how I love Your law," 03:43 because this was a great blessing to them, 03:46 that you have a God who Himself is consistent 03:48 and constant, His character never changes, 03:50 and He also clearly lays out precisely 03:54 what He expects of people and how things will go 03:57 well for them, again, not for His own sake but because 04:00 He's always looking for the flourishing of His people. 04:04 >>Eric: So, God is looking out for His people, He's constant, 04:09 He's dependable, He's loving, 04:13 but we've also got this idea of justice. 04:15 So, how do we get this God of love and God of justice 04:20 together in a way that makes sense to us? 04:25 Because maybe we have a difficult--many of us have 04:29 a difficult time finding out how those two sync beautifully. 04:32 How can we reconcile that? 04:35 >>John: Yeah, in Scripture, these concepts 04:37 that sometimes seem to us like they're far apart, 04:40 they're actually very closely intertwined. 04:44 According to Scripture, you cannot have true love 04:46 without justice, the kind of love that will allow injustice 04:50 and evil and suffering to continue forever, 04:52 that's not love at all. 04:53 And so, love and justice go together, love without justice 04:56 isn't really loving, and justice without love could be harsh 05:00 or could be exacting, it also wouldn't be the same, 05:04 but for God, these two things go together. 05:07 And we see in Scripture that it's not just that God is love, 05:09 He is, He's love, and it's not just that God is a just God, 05:12 but these are actually part and parcel of His character, 05:15 and God Himself loves justice. 05:18 So, there's a number of passages that just teach this explicitly 05:21 that I want us to see. One is in Psalm 33, verse 5. 05:25 >>Eric: "He loves righteousness and justice; 05:28 the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." 05:30 >>John: So, you notice in that text, 05:32 it's just an object of His love, His righteousness and justice, 05:36 and "the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord." 05:38 So, you see how these concepts go together; 05:40 they are inextricably linked. 05:42 We could also read Isaiah 61, verse 8, and I will read that. 05:47 God Himself is speaking here, He says, "For I, the Lord, 05:51 "love justice; I hate robbery for burnt offering; 05:56 "I will direct their work in truth, 05:57 and will make with them an everlasting covenant." 06:01 So what does God hate? 06:03 Robbery--or any kind of injustice, any kind of evil, 06:06 again, because it always harms at least one of His children, 06:08 but He loves, He loves justice. 06:12 And so, it's not just that God is love on the one hand 06:14 and He's just on the other hand, these things go together, 06:18 in fact, they're the foundation of His government, 06:20 and this is what the psalmist teaches in Psalm 89. 06:23 >>Eric: In Psalm 89 and verse number 14, it says, 06:27 "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; 06:32 mercy and truth go before Your face." 06:35 >>John: And you see how these concepts fit together, 06:39 you have righteousness and justice, 06:41 the foundation of His throne, 06:43 and, in fact, as we'll talk about later in this quarter, 06:45 this is at the center of what we call "the cosmic conflict" 06:47 or "the great controversy," that there are questions raised: 06:49 Is God really righteous? Is He really just? 06:51 And actually His very government is built on this concept. 06:55 But juxtaposed with that, in parallel is mercy and truth, 07:02 or lovingkindness and faithfulness is another way 07:05 of translating those terms; they're very commonly 07:08 put together in the Old Testament, 07:10 faithfulness and lovingkindness or mercy and truth. 07:15 And these are also central to God's government and central 07:19 to God's very character because the way that He governs, 07:21 the way that He acts in the world 07:23 is just always an expression of His love, 07:25 which is always just, 07:26 and His righteousness is always loving, 07:29 these two things cannot be separated in God's character. 07:32 And when we think of them as separated, we actually 07:35 have an impoverished concept of both at work in our minds. 07:39 >>Eric: Speaking of things that go together when it comes 07:41 to God, I want to delve for a moment or two 07:45 into the ideas of faithfulness and righteousness. 07:48 How do faithfulness and righteousness work together? 07:52 Let's look at a couple of different passages here. 07:55 Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy, chapter 32 and verse number 4. 08:00 In Deuteronomy 32, verse 4, it says, "He is the Rock, 08:05 "His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, 08:10 "a God of truth and without injustice; 08:13 righteous and upright is He." 08:16 >>John: If you look at that verse, I don't know how else you 08:20 could say more strongly that God is perfectly righteous 08:23 and just all the time. There's no evil in Him, right? 08:26 It just stated directly, "His work is perfect." 08:28 All His ways--not some of His ways--all His ways are justice. 08:32 He's a God of truth, and He's without injustice. 08:34 So, if we miss it the first time, right, that all His ways 08:37 are just, He's without any injustice, and then 08:40 He's righteous, He's upright, again, it's like using all 08:44 of the language you could use to say 08:45 God is only and always righteous all the time, 08:49 and this is the consistent witness of Scripture 08:52 all throughout the Psalms, we could read psalm after psalm 08:55 after psalm here, but we'll just mention a couple here. 08:57 In Psalm 92:15, Psalm 92:15, it says, 09:03 "To declare that the Lord is upright; 09:05 He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." 09:11 And this is one of many passages that describes that God is only 09:16 and always fully just, fully righteous, always faithful. 09:21 And what I often express to my students is that humans will 09:24 often let you down, but God never will because His character 09:27 is unchanging, He is always righteous and always faithful, 09:31 and He's always trying to do good for everyone. 09:33 And this is what we see in Psalm 145. 09:36 >>Eric: In Psalm 145, verse 9, it says, "The Lord is good 09:39 to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works." 09:44 >>John: Sometimes people get the idea that God is partial, 09:49 that He's good to some and not others. 09:51 As we'll see, have an opportunity to see later on 09:54 in future lessons, we'll wrestle with these ideas: 09:57 What about the injustice in the world? Where is God? 09:59 What is He doing? This is known as "the problem of evil," 10:02 and we'll be exploring this a lot in later lessons. 10:05 But for now, we see that God is not just blessing some people, 10:10 in fact, all the blessings come from God, who gives His love 10:16 to everyone, the sun shines on everyone because of Him, 10:19 His mercy is over all people, and He has love 10:23 for every single human in every single part of the world. 10:26 And so when evil things are happening or injustice, 10:29 this is the opposite of what God wants, and this is because, 10:32 as we'll see later, we live in enemy territory. 10:35 There's a great conflict going on, but on God's side, 10:38 God is only just; He's only loving; 10:41 He only wants what is best for us. 10:43 And I think here, again, an analogy is kind of helpful 10:46 because sometimes people look at the world 10:48 and they think, "Well, if God really has mercy on everyone, 10:53 "if He's really loving toward everyone, 10:55 "why does it seem like the outcomes are so different? 10:58 "Some people look very blessed, and some people 11:01 "look like they're not blessed, 11:02 or the world just kind of looks like a mess." 11:06 And if you were to imagine somebody who may be a painter 11:09 who paints a beautiful picture, just a perfect work of art, 11:12 like, if you were to look at it, you would say, 11:14 "This couldn't be improved upon. 11:15 This is just artwork at its best, perfectly crafted." 11:22 But then, let's say, you come to it on another day, 11:26 and you find that it looks like a completely different painting, 11:30 like, there's paint in all the wrong places; it's just a mess, 11:33 looks like somebody threw paint on it here, threw paint on it 11:35 there, ripped the canvas a bit; all kinds of things took place. 11:40 Now, if you look at the first canvas, it's gonna be real easy 11:42 to say, "Oh, this is the work of a master artist," but if you 11:46 look at the second painting, and you think that only one person 11:49 was involved, one agent, you're going to think, 11:53 "This is a real terrible artist; they don't know 11:54 what they're doing," or "This is really horrible." 11:57 But if you realize that somebody came behind that original artist 12:01 and vandalized their painting intentionally, 12:03 if you have that additional information, 12:04 you see there's so much more to the story, everything 12:08 that the original painter put into that was perfect, was good, 12:12 and it's actually messed up by other ingredients. 12:14 And this is the consistent teaching of Scripture, 12:17 everything, all of God's gifts are good and loving, 12:20 and His mercy are over all of His works, but there, 12:23 as we'll see in later lessons, 12:24 there's an enemy who has come in to disrupt God's plans, 12:27 and that's why we see both of these things in our world. 12:31 >>Eric: So, we're, as you said, we're going to be unpacking 12:32 that as we continue going through. 12:34 Now, this week we're looking at "God's Love of Justice." 12:37 In addition to the quarterly that we're going through 12:40 right now, the lesson study, there's also a companion book. 12:43 Share with us a little bit about that companion book 12:45 and why someone who is interested 12:47 in this week's subject might be interested in that book. 12:49 >>John: Yeah, so, in that companion volume, 12:51 I get an opportunity to go into more depth talking about 12:54 God's righteousness, God's justice, God's faithfulness, 12:57 how the Bible portrays these concepts as central 13:01 to God's character, and also what they should mean 13:03 for us in the way that we should live with one another. 13:07 >>Eric: So, if that sounds like something that you 13:09 might be interested in, and I hope that you would be, 13:11 you can pick that book up at ItIsWritten.shop, 13:15 again, ItIsWritten.shop. 13:17 Look for the companion book 13:19 to this quarter's "Sabbath School" lesson. 13:21 We're going to be back in just 13:22 a couple of moments 13:24 as we continue taking a look at "God's Love of Justice." 13:27 We'll be right back. 13:29 [uplifting music] 13:33 >>John Bradshaw: You know that at It Is Written, 13:35 we are serious about the study of the Word of God, 13:38 and we encourage you to be serious about God's Word also. 13:42 Well, I want to share with you another way 13:45 that you can dig deeper into the Word of God, 13:48 and here it is: ItIsWritten.study. 13:52 Go online to ItIsWritten.study, 13:55 and you can access the It Is Written Bible Study Guides, 14:00 25 in-depth Bible studies that will walk you through the Bible. 14:05 It's going to be good for you, and it's the sort of thing that 14:08 you will want to tell somebody else about so that they can 14:12 dig deeper into the Word of God and come to know 14:15 the things of the Bible intimately. 14:18 As you get into the It Is Written 14:19 online Bible study guides, 14:21 you'll understand the prophecies of the Bible, 14:23 the plan of salvation, and more. 14:25 So, don't forget: ItIsWritten.study, 14:28 ItIsWritten.study. 14:33 [uplifting music] 14:37 >>Eric: Welcome back to "Sabbath School," 14:39 brought to you by It Is Written. 14:41 We are looking at lesson number 6, 14:42 "God's Love of Justice." 14:46 John, I want to delve into this idea 14:49 of God's changeless character, 14:51 especially in the books of Malachi and James. 14:55 How does His changeless character help us 14:58 to understand the concepts of divine justice and mercy? 15:04 >>John: Yeah, this idea of the constancy 15:06 of God's character is central. 15:07 Like, people are up and down, they can be all over the place, 15:11 one day they might be for you, another day they're against you, 15:14 they might make a promise and not keep their promises, 15:17 but the God of the Bible is different; He is always 15:19 constant in character; He never lets us down. 15:23 Now, these passages we're going to look at, 15:25 they're actually sometimes misunderstood 15:27 in other theological systems, 15:29 where sometimes Malachi 3:6, that we're about to see, 15:32 is used to describe God as being unchangeable in a way 15:36 that He can't even enter into back-and-forth relationships, 15:39 like He can't be affected by us at all. 15:41 But we'll see, even from the passage itself, that this 15:44 is talking about a different kind of changelessness, 15:47 in Malachi, chapter 3, beginning in verse 6. 15:49 >>Eric: "For I am the Lord, I do not change; 15:52 therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob." 15:55 >>John: So, often, people who are trying to make this idea 16:00 that God cannot change at all-- and by that they mean He can't 16:04 even enter into relationships or do new things--they just read 16:07 the first part: "I the Lord do not change." And they say, 16:09 "There it is. He doesn't change in any way whatsoever." 16:13 But when you keep reading the passage, 16:14 we can see that it's already in the context of--what? 16:17 In the context of relationship. 16:19 Because it doesn't just say, "I the Lord do not change," 16:22 but, "Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob." 16:27 And the idea here is that it's precisely because His character 16:31 doesn't change that His people are still preserved. 16:35 In the background of the book of Malachi, there's this question 16:38 that the people are asking of God, like, 16:41 "What have You done for us?" 16:42 Like, God says, "I have loved you," and they say, 16:45 "How have You loved us?" 16:47 And He says, "What do you mean, 'How have I loved you?'" 16:49 And there's this juxtaposition between Jacob and Esau, 16:52 and really it's talking about the nation of Israel 16:55 that's descended from Jacob, and the nation of Edom 16:58 that was descended from Esau, and even though 17:00 they were brothers, only one of those two nations still exists, 17:05 only one of them is still in place. 17:07 And God uses this as an example to show how He has loved them, 17:11 how He has been compassionate toward them, 17:13 because without God's special provision, special protection, 17:16 they also no longer would exist as a nation. 17:19 And so, here in Malachi 3, again, they should be cut off, 17:24 but because God is unchanging in His character, because He always 17:28 keeps His promises, He bears long with this people 17:32 and He still maintains His relationship with them. 17:36 And we see also in the very next verse that this unchangeability 17:39 is an unchangeability of His character, and it's 17:42 unchangeability of character in the context of relationship. 17:45 Because in the very next verse, in verse 7, God says, 17:47 "Return to me, and I will return to you." 17:50 So, He's always changeless, right? 17:53 Elsewhere in the Old Testament, God says, 17:55 "I haven't forsaken you. You have forsaken me." 17:58 And so He invites His people, "If you'll just turn to me, 18:00 "I'm here; I only want your best already. 18:03 Return to me, and I will return to you." 18:05 And so, it's this constancy in relationship; you can always 18:07 rely on Him; He always keeps His promises; He never fails. 18:11 >>Eric: There's also another passage over 18:12 in the book of James; I'm going to look at that one. 18:14 James, chapter 1 in verse 17, says, "Every good gift 18:18 "and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down 18:21 "from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation 18:25 or shadow of turning." 18:27 So, here again we see this unchangeable character of God. 18:31 >>John: Yeah, here again it's about the constancy 18:33 of His character, it's the same kind of idea when Jesus says, 18:37 He says, which of you, if you're a good parent, 18:40 if your child asks for a good gift, you give them a scorpion, 18:44 or something like this, right? 18:45 And He says, "If you then, being evil, know how to give 18:47 "good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father 18:50 give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" 18:52 And the whole idea is that God is a giver of gifts, 18:55 He's a giver of only good gifts, and every blessing actually 18:58 comes from Him because He is unchanging, 19:01 He only and always gives blessings for His people 19:05 all the time; all good comes from Him. 19:08 And even when in cases we've seen, like, 19:10 He brings discipline, it's also for good in the end. 19:14 >>Eric: So, let's dip into something else here. 19:17 We have this biblical depiction of God as relenting or repenting 19:24 in response to human actions. 19:26 So, here's a God who's unchangeable, in theory, 19:29 and yet He's repenting and relenting. 19:31 If He's repenting and relenting, how is He unchangeable? 19:36 How does this all fit together? 19:37 >>John: Yeah, there's a couple of passages here that will set 19:40 the stage in one direction; then we're going to look 19:42 at some others and say, "How do these kind of fit together?" 19:44 So I'm going to share Numbers 23:19, 19:47 and then I'll invite you to read 1 Samuel 15:11. 19:50 So, Numbers 23:19 puts it this way. 19:52 "God is not a man, that He should lie, 19:55 "nor a son of man, that He should repent. 19:57 "Has He said, and will...not do? 19:59 Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?" 20:02 Now, read one way, you could read that text to mean that God 20:05 doesn't repent or relent at all, and in isolation, 20:09 you could read it that way, but one good rule of thumb 20:12 is not to read text in isolation, right? 20:14 The question is not just what makes sense 20:16 of the passage by itself, but what reading is consistent 20:19 with the rest of Scripture. 20:20 And so we'll see, in the context of other passages, 20:23 that God is said to relent or repent with the same term. 20:26 So what is the idea here? 20:28 In this passage, it's, again, that constancy of character. 20:31 First of all, "God is not a man, that He should lie, 20:34 nor a son of man, that He should repent." 20:35 That means He never lies, and He doesn't repent 20:37 the way that humans do, and if He made a promise, 20:40 He will always keep it. We'll come back to that. 20:43 But I want to read, want us to read 20:45 1 Samuel 15, verse 11, as well. 20:47 >>Eric: "'I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, 20:50 "'for he has turned back from following me, 20:53 "and has not performed my commandments.' 20:55 "And it grieved Samuel, 20:57 and he cried out to the Lord all night." 21:00 >>John: Okay, so I want us to notice something that might not 21:02 be immediately obvious on the surface of the English language. 21:05 This phrase, "I greatly regret," it's from the exact same 21:10 Hebrew term that we just read about in Numbers 23, 21:14 it's the Hebrew verb is "nacham," okay? 21:16 And it can mean to "repent" or "relent"; it can mean 21:19 to "become sorrowful"; it can mean to "change direction." 21:22 And in this case, God is expressing His sorrow over 21:25 what Saul's kingship had become, and He says, "I regret this," 21:31 because of what has happened, 21:32 which is not what He actually wants to take place. 21:36 Saul has gone completely off the rails, 21:38 he has become a wicked king in ways 21:41 that is affecting the nation, and so He's sorrowful over this. 21:45 And so, we see on one hand, "God is not a man, 21:47 that He should repent," and yet we have texts like this 21:49 in 1 Samuel 15 where He actually does repent. 21:53 Is this a contradiction? 21:55 Well, I don't believe the Bible contradicts itself, 21:57 and we can see in 1 Samuel 15 itself that obviously the author 22:01 of 1 Samuel also didn't think this was a contradiction 22:04 because if you drop down to verse 29 of 1 Samuel 15, 22:08 you'll see right in the same chapter-- 22:11 we just read verse 11, about God's sorrow over Saul, 22:15 and then he says in verse 29, it says, 22:18 "Also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. 22:22 For He is not a man, that He should relent." 22:26 And this is almost the same thing we saw 22:28 in Numbers already, right? This is a statement 22:30 of God's constancy of character, 22:32 that if He says something, He's going to follow through. 22:34 This is in relation to what God has decreed as a judgment. 22:37 And if you drop down just a few more verses, 22:39 in 1 Samuel 15, verse 35, it says this: "And Samuel 22:42 "went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. 22:45 "Nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul, 22:47 and the Lord regretted that He had made Saul king over Israel." 22:51 So, three times in the same chapter, 22:53 you have the same language of relenting, "nacham." 22:56 The first and the last time is God's "nacham," or His sorrow 23:00 or His regret, over what Saul's kingship has become, 23:03 and in between those, you have the same statement, 23:05 "I'm not a man, that I should repent." 23:07 And so it should be obvious already that there is 23:10 a way in which God can relent or repent that is appropriate 23:14 to Him, which is not the way that humans do. 23:17 First of all, God never repents of wrongdoing 23:19 because He never does anything wrong. 23:21 When we use the language of repentance, we're typically 23:24 thinking of repenting from sin, but God never sins, 23:27 so this is never going to be appropriate to Him, 23:29 but he does change His course of action. 23:31 He can be sorrowful over wrongs that are done. 23:34 And so--and He will relent in response to human repentance. 23:39 We see that in many places; I'll just mention a couple of them. 23:41 In Exodus, chapter 32, going back to this golden calf 23:45 rebellion, you have God going to Moses, and He says to Moses, 23:49 "Let me alone, that I can consume this people 23:52 and then create another nation." 23:54 Now, clearly from the context, God has no intention of actually 23:59 destroying this people; this is not what He wants. 24:02 He's actually going to Moses because He's trying to elicit 24:04 intercession from Moses to give Him some moral or legal grounds 24:08 to intervene and rescue them and save them without being unjust. 24:12 And you can see that, like, there's no point for Him to say, 24:14 "Leave me alone." Moses couldn't do anything to Him; 24:16 he couldn't stop Him. 24:18 And Moses does intervene, and he pleads, and in verse 14, 24:21 it says, "The Lord relented from the [disaster]" 24:24 that He had said He would bring--same Hebrew term. 24:27 Then in Jeremiah 18, verses 7 through 10, 24:29 you have this same term again. 24:33 God says, "The instant I speak concerning a nation 24:36 "and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, 24:39 "and to destroy it, if that nation against whom 24:42 "I have spoken turns from its evil, 24:44 "I will relent of the disaster that I thought to bring upon it. 24:47 "And the instant I speak concerning a nation 24:49 "and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, 24:52 "if it does evil in my sight 24:54 "so that it does not obey my voice, then I will 24:56 relent concerning the good with which I said I would benefit"-- 25:00 so you can see, in both cases, if a nation turns and does evil, 25:06 then God's course will change accordingly, right? 25:08 This is actually flowing from His unchanging character. 25:10 The same thing, if somebody, a nation who's doing evil 25:13 repents, then God will relent and turn towards restoring them 25:18 and blessing them. And this kind of relenting actually just flows 25:21 from God's character of goodness and justice. 25:24 >>Eric: So, we don't have a lot of time left, 25:26 but I do want to touch on something. 25:28 Over in the book of Matthew, 25:30 Matthew, chapter 5, verses 43 through 48, let me read this 25:34 through very quickly and give you a chance to respond to it. 25:36 Verse 43, Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 25:39 "'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 25:41 "But I say to you, love your enemies, 25:43 "bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, 25:46 "and pray for those who spitefully use you 25:48 "and persecute you, 25:50 "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; 25:52 "for He makes [the] sun rise on the evil and on the good, 25:56 "and sends [the] rain on the just and on the unjust. 25:59 "For if you love those who love you, what reward [do you have]? 26:02 "Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 26:04 "And if you greet your brethren only, 26:06 "what do you do more than others? 26:08 "Do not even the tax collectors do so? 26:10 "Therefore you shall be perfect, 26:12 just as your Father in heaven is perfect." 26:16 So, when we look at this text, 26:18 what does God's perfect love look like in practice? 26:22 >>John: Yeah, this is a wonderful example 26:24 of God's perfect love. 26:26 And the very last statement, "You shall be perfect, 26:28 even as your Father in heaven is perfect," many people ask, 26:31 "What does perfection look like?" 26:32 And in the passage, it's being perfect in love. 26:35 Another translation for the Greek term 26:36 "perfect," "teleios," is "complete," right? 26:39 And here we have God being complete in love. 26:42 We tend to love those who love us, we tend to love those who 26:45 are in some kind of relationship already, but God says, 26:47 "No, no, no, my love goes beyond that; it's complete love 26:50 "because it's love also even for those who hate me, 26:53 even for enemies." This is called enemy love, 26:56 and so it's not just this love 26:58 inside relationship already, it's love even for those 27:01 who hate, it's complete, it's perfect, and it's this kind 27:04 of perfection that God calls us to, 27:06 to be ambassadors of His love to everyone. 27:09 >>Eric: You can imagine how much better the world would be 27:11 if we all embraced this idea. >>John: Yeah, amen, amen. 27:15 >>Eric: Well, we trust that today has been 27:16 a blessing to you, helping you to understand the relationship 27:19 between a God of love and a God of justice. 27:22 He is, of course, both, a God of love and a God of justice, 27:27 and today He's given us a clear insight into His character. 27:31 We look forward to seeing you again next week 27:32 as we continue our study of a God of love and justice. 27:38 We are only about halfway through, 27:40 we still have a good ways to go, 27:41 and we look forward to seeing you again next week here 27:44 on "Sabbath School," brought to you by It Is Written. 27:47 [uplifting music] 28:22 [uplifting music] 28:24 [Captions provided by Aberdeen Captioning www.abercap.com] |
Revised 2025-01-30