Why the Justice of God Is Our Comfort and Consolation

“Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.” — St. Augustine

“We ought to speak, shout out against injustices, with confidence and without fear. We proclaim the principles of the Church, the reign of love, without forgetting that it is also a reign of justice.” — Blessed Miguel Pro

It is understandable why we may fear God’s justice. We have all sinned and fallen short of His holiness. If God should count all our evil deeds, who could possibly stand?

Perhaps this is the reason why we have focused more on His mercy. We want to be reminded that God forgives and that He is a loving Father who would welcome us back with open arms.

God is indeed infinitely merciful. But God is also infinitely just.

When we forget His justice, we also forget a part of His goodness. We fail to have a true picture of His love.

Instead of a God who is compassionate, we picture a God who is merely tolerant. In the end, we find a God who is so lenient He doesn’t care at all whether evil triumphs or justice is denied. We find a God who cannot be counted upon to uphold the truth, defend the innocent and rebuke all those who abuse and harm their neighbor.

A tolerant God could never bring us true consolation. In a world full of chaos and every evil deed, we need a God who is truly merciful because He is just.

Some people say that there is no God because there is so much suffering and evil in the world. But if there is no God, whom could we count upon to be the final champion of goodness and vanquisher of evil?

It is because God is just that we are comforted even if we see so much evil in the world today.

We are comforted because we can trust that evil shall never have the final say. One day, goodness shall triumph. One blessed day, truth will be upheld and all darkness will be cast away.

We are comforted, too, in knowing that all who have done evil will realize the wrong things they have done. There will come a time when God Himself shall illuminate our hearts and we’d see ourselves as God sees us. We’d know the sufferings our evil deeds have done to our neighbors. We’d account for every word spoken out of malice for another.

It is not that we should cease being instruments of justice in this life. If our God is just, then we should also seek and render justice where we could.

But in knowing His Justice, we do not despair. We do not lose heart even if we encounter various obstacles along the way.

There will still be many who would attempt to deprive us of the justice we seek. We’d still hear of news about people who exploit and abuse others, and that would break our hearts into pieces.

But at the end of the day, we have comfort in knowing that God never sleeps and He sees everything, even the smallest offenses against His children. One day, He shall bring to light what has been hidden in darkness. One day, truth shall reign in the world, and only He who is infinitely merciful and infinitely just shall rule the world in peace.

“Then those who feared the LORD spoke one with another; and the LORD listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared the LORD and who honoured his name. They shall be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him… “For behold, the day comes, burning like a furnace, when all the proud and all who work wickedness will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up,” says the LORD of Armies, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings.”– Malachi 3–4, WEBBE