Looking through this week’s lesson reminded me of a conversation I had with some former students during a Bible study. One of them was on the verge of expulsion, and, as an act of seeming desperation, he had reached out to me for studies. His girlfriend wanted to come too, so I eagerly jumped at the opportunity.
As we studied the great controversy and the origin of evil, we eventually arrived at Adam and Eve’s fall. The ramifications of their decision being carried over to us came up during our discussion. The girlfriend remarked, “That’s not fair. I wasn’t there, so why should I have to pay for what someone else did?”
An unfair inheritance?
It’s a great question. I think deep down, we all have wrestled with this idea in some form or another. Why am I reaping the consequences of someone else’s decision—someone I don’t even know? I wasn’t there!
And while that’s true in one sense, it’s not entirely true in another. I wasn’t there physically, but the name Adam means “mankind.” He was the representative of mankind. This is where the idea of corporate solidarity comes in—the interconnectedness of us all and the principle of representation.
At first glance, this feels unfair or, as the lesson puts it, unjust. However, when viewed from a broader perspective, it becomes clear that this representation serves a greater purpose. We have access to a different Adam. Paul elaborates on this in Romans 5:12–21, where he presents two lines of representation. The first Adam sinned as our original representative, leading to condemnation. The second Adam, Jesus, became a man, lived a faithful life in our flesh, and succeeded where the first Adam failed. Romans 8:3–4 further explains that Jesus lived this life for our direct benefit—to empower us to live the life of the second Adam instead of the first and to receive His rewards rather than the consequences of the first Adam’s choices.
God is the greatest advocate for justice, and He’s also the greatest victim of injustice.
Now, we can choose which moral lineage we will claim. That was the direction I took the study. Because the idea that we bear the consequences of someone else’s decisions and that it feels “unfair” or “unjust” pales in comparison to what comes next.
If we want to talk about justice and fairness, we must examine the life and death of Jesus. Jesus became a man, born through divine providence and human means. He was raised as a child, faced all of life’s challenges as we do, and endured being singled out by Satan. He was rejected, maligned, and misunderstood at every step. Yet, He continually chose to give and to bless, even when cursed and disrespected.
Despite all this, He lived a sinless life and was crucified for it. Not only did He endure an unjust physical death, but He also bore the ultimate spiritual burden—paying the price for all our sins. He died because of our decisions and faults, not His own. When you think about justice and fairness, this stands out as the ultimate injustice.
The ultimate injustice
You could see the realization sink in when I shared this perspective with the two young people in that Bible study. They fell silent. They understood. It was a gracious but necessary exercise in logic that brought about a profound perspective shift.
This is an important point to highlight when discussing justice. People often question whether God is love because of their personal experience with injustices in this world. Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17 remind us that God is unchanging and the giver of every good gift. Every good thing comes from Him. Whether the receiver knows this or not doesn’t change this reality. All of us benefit from God’s goodness, even in a world rife with injustice.
The irony behind the debate over God’s justice is this: Many times, God’s justice looks unjust to those who reject it. Those who reject His love and seek to challenge His character of love often use arguments that imply that He is capricious or an absentee parent. Usually, these responses are birthed out of their experience of pain and encounters with injustice. But blaming the most just Being in the universe for the presence of injustice, I believe, misses the point.
Justice and love go hand in hand, which means that God’s justice, like His love, fully respects the importance of free will. Those who decry God’s seeming injustice are actually benefiting from God’s goodness. Every good gift they have ever received came from Him, including the ability to reason and to have a sense of moral awareness.
C.S. Lewis addresses this idea in his book Mere Christianity. “When you are arguing against Him you are arguing against the very power that makes you able to argue at all: it is like cutting off the very branch you are sitting on.”[1]
The very people who argue that God is unjust benefit from His provision of good things, not just for their ability to reason or to have a sense of morals but also by receiving the gift of life itself. A friend of mine puts it this way, “The very fact that you have breath in your lungs is evidence that God does not desire to hold your sins against you.”
Every breath, a gift of grace
Romans 5:18 further emphasizes this truth: “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.”
What Paul is saying here is that Jesus’ death justifies your ability to be alive at all. Romans 3:23 says that “all have sinned and,” in the Greek, “continue to fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 6:23 adds that “the wages of that sin is death.” The truth is that none of us deserve to be here. It’s not “fair” for any of us to be allowed to live.
This is where God’s character of love shines through. One could argue that it’s the most unfair for unbelievers and those who reject God’s love to continue receiving the gift of life because they technically are not even agreeing to the terms of eternal life—submitting themselves to Jesus. There’s no sense of gratitude to the One who is keeping them alive through the grace of the cross. Yet, they are still alive! It is because a God of love and justice desires for them to live, and He wants to save them. He is giving them probationary time, through His grace, to be alive so that they can encounter the gospel, have the option to be saved, and receive eternal life. He does all of this and takes the risk of that gift not being appreciated because He’s not willing that any should perish, but that all can live.
So, as one studies the justice and love of God in Scripture, one will find a profound answer to the cry of all of our hearts in the face of injustice: God is the greatest advocate for justice, and He’s also the greatest victim of injustice. He values love and justice so much that He will continue to give good gifts to those who don’t appreciate them. He will give His life for them and still give them the freedom to say no to Him. Love and justice hurt Him the most, but to Him, you and I are absolutely worth it.
[1] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Harper San Francisco; Revised & Enlarged edition, 2001), 48.
