GOD IS FAIR

Have you heard a question like this before, “How can you say that God is fair when He sends Hitler to hell but also sends someone who has done a lot less to hell as well?” Maybe you have heard some other form of the question regarding God’s fairness. I was recently asked a question similar to the one about by a member of our Sunday School. He was not asking the question about himself, but of someone he knew. This was someone who struggled with the God’s fairness, among other issues. As I briefly thought about it for a moment, I formed a short response to the fairness of God. God is indeed fair, and here is how.

STANDARD OF HOLINESS

God is the one who establishes the standard of holiness for all of mankind. Regardless of race, sex, or geography, it is God’s holy standard that all are and will be judged by. He holds everyone to the same exact standard – perfect obedience. More over God states that standard. He has plainly published it. Not only has He given it in the Law and the Scriptures, but He has written it on the heart. Paul speaks of that in the opening chapter of his epistle to the Romans.

Romans 1:18-20 (ESV)

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. [19] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [20] For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Everyone has a sense of right and wrong, and everyone has the evidence that God is real and true. But man suppresses that truth. They think they are without blame. They are actually without excuse.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

God is also fair because He states the problem as well. He has declared in His word the consequences of violating His holy standard.

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

For the wages of sin is death,

One might we say that this warning does not go out to everyone, but only to those who heard His word. That is correct. But the same passage from Paul in Romans points out not only that each person has a sense of God’s standard, but also a sense of guilt. They may suppress it, but it still remains deep down.

SOLVES THE PROBLEM

Here is where the fairness of God comes into play in a big way. When people say that God is unfair to punish, they are not looking so much at God’s right to execute justice, but His cruelty in doing so. The charge that God is not fair is that charge that God is cruel, mean, and uncaring. This would be a fair charge IF God did not actually provide a solution to the sin problem.

John 3:16 (ESV)

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

God solves the problem. God in His infinite wisdom, knowledge, and sovereignty knows that all “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23). He Himself became the solution. If you want fair, fair would be for God to leave us in our sin and guilt. That is fair. When people say they want God to be fair, what they usually want is not fairness, but for God to look the other way. They want God to be “cool” about it. They want God to not take sin so seriously. They want God to lighten up. That is unfair of anyone who demands of God to go against His character and His established standards. Yet still God maintains His fairness, not by doing away with the righteous requirements of the Law, but by fulfilling them in and of Himself. He took the sentence of death and separation from Him, that we rightly deserve upon Himself. God takes sin seriously.

To me, that is beyond fair.