Hey Clete,
I can go along with your concept of justice: receiving punishment/reward according to one's actions.
However, your thoughts on love seem to differ from the scriptures a bit. To love, in the biblical sense, is to act for the sake of another. Furthermore, the greater the personal sacrifice involved in such an act, the greater the act of love is.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
I didn't suggest otherwise.
The point isn't that there is no personal cost, the point is the cost paid is not without reward. Love is not causeless (i.e. arbitrary).
Furthermore, love can and does contradict justice.
It is not your intent but this comment is blasphemy.
Which is God not, love or justice?
You'd, no doubt, say that He is both and yet you suggest that they can contradict eachother. The direct implication being the God can contradict Himself.
This is clearly false.
Not in purpose, mind, but in what one requires versus the other. For love would have us forgive one who repents of their sin. There is no forgiveness, however, with justice.
This is just simply not so. The only reason any forgiveness is possible is because God's death at Calvary paid the just price for the offense. When we forgive our neighbor who repents, we are simply affording him the same grace that God afforded us. We are merely obeying Him who bought us with a price. Vengence belongs to God and He will see justice done, one way or the other. Our forgiveness is merely trusting God to take care of it.
Justice demands you pay your debt, but love instructs us to forget what was owed. While God certainly has expectations of us as Christians, it is impossible for us to earn the reconciliation given to us by the grace of God through Christ.
The only reason it can be justly forgotten is because God paid the debt with His own life's blood. God cannot be arbitrary in the manner you are suggesting. If He could be and remain just, Calvary was an unecessary act of needless barbarism.
However, properly understood, justice and forgiveness do serve the same purpose. Both seek to resolve conflict in society and restore peace and order, to reconcile us back to one another. Love & forgiveness are superior to justice, for the in the prior individuals reconcile between themselves, truly. People care for one another, and out of this concern naturally arrive at a peaceful and harmonious solution. In the latter, a form of reconciliation is enforced through courts that attempt to determine a fair punishment for misdeeds. The latter is necessary, for the prior is dependent upon the good will of the parties in question. Nevertheless, hope you find yourself on judged with mercy by God rather than by what you truly deserve:
The governing official is directed to enact justice without mercy and is not afforded the right to forgive any crime for any reason. Our forgivenss of our repentant neighbor has nothing to do with criminal justice but with our relationship both with that neighbor and with God.
And as for my being judged by God, the only judgment left for me has to do with reqards I'll receive (or the lack thereof). My sin has already been judged, having been imputed to Christ, Who was executed for them on my behalf.
James 2:12-13 Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, 13 because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
This verse was written to Jews who where both saved and lived under the Law. Your application of it is therefore inappropriate. For those under the Law, grace is imputed to those who both believe God and obey the Law. That is a topic for another thread, however.
Suffice it to say that it is still the same shed blood of Christ that balances the scales of justice, regardless of how or why God's forgiveness is granted.
Resting in Him,
Clete
