To be Fair: Agreeing with what is thought to be right or acceptable. :Treating people in a way that does not favor some over others. :Not to harsh or critical.

This is the second in a series exploring the fairness of God. If you missed the first part of this series I recommend your read it before continuing. You can find it at: Is God Not Fair? Part 1: Why Me? Why Them? Why This?

He’s alone.

Alone in a sea of nothing and everything.

He is Himself, and His very vastness is enough to be everything.

Himself, He is not alone for He is not limited to oneness.

Yet He is still alone.

So He creates.

He makes Beings with consciousness of self. Like Himself. He makes a place for these Beings to exist. He gives them instructions and warns them away from the thing that could separate them. The thing that brings death.

He is more than a parent. A parent only knows a limited amount of what is best for their child through the experience of life. He is more. He knows what can hurt what He Himself created. But He also knows that to keep them from the ability to choose such would be wrong. He can only hope they would choose Him.

They turn away, they choose death, sin enters the world.

Death enters the world.

Disease enters the world.

Suffering enters the world.

Time goes by and He lays down instructions for His people. Trying to show them what is right even though He knows they have lost the ability to turn completely away from the thing that brings death.

Death is it’s due consequence.

The whole of creation demands this justice.

So He must do more then lay down instructions.

He must take on death Himself so they do not have to.

And He does.

~

We’re talking about the fairness of God. And in the first part of this discussion we are talking about what is right according to God. This post has gone through revision after revision as I explored God’s laws. But I finally realized that the point of God’s laws and what is RIGHT isn’t about all the wrongs. I’ve debated and argued because I know that the world’s idea of what is wrong is a shifting target that rejects God’s steadfast view. But His view isn’t centered on what is, or is not, wrong as ours is. His view is centered on what is RIGHT.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. Romans 13:8-10

God’s view can’t be centered on what is wrong because nothing of wrong is in Him. God is Love!

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

At first I started writing this with the ten commandments, and then went on to Jesus’s teachings of being perfect. Painting the picture of God’s standards and showing us just how far beneath them we are. But I’ve realized that isn’t what the point needs to be in this post.

The point is not our deprivation. We are familiar with it.

The point is His Holiness. That is something of a mystery.

Because God is perfect. God is Holy. God is Love.

God is fair.

Ok I know that that isn’t very analytical reasoning, trust me, I’ve already gone that route and it was draining, though accurate. We can spend all day justifying ourselves and I knew that such a response is what I’d get if I tackled the question of all the “rules.” We look at these rules and we see them as unfair because we think it is keeping a sweet experience or treasure from us. We think that God is keeping us penned in, when in actually all He wants is our freedom.

God is God. He created us! He knows what is for our good so much more then just a parent would.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Matt 7:9-12

Can’t you see that God’s standard of “right” is for OUR good? In wishing us good, how can He not be fair?

But His standards are Perfect! And we cannot attain perfection. Is that fair?

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matt 5:48

You are right. If God asked us to attain perfection with no way to do so, knowing we couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fair. But He made a way for us. A gift to us. That gift is Christ.

And because He is fair He doesn’t force us to take this gift. Like in the Garden we have a choice.

So we can sit here, and we can debate over classifications of wrong. We can call one lie wrong and another “white,” we can call one hate unjust and another justified. Or we can let go and understand that it isn’t about justifying our sin. It is about understanding that sin is a cancer that brings death! Ok maybe you have a “just” reason to hate that person, but is it worth your own self-destruction? And don’t talk to me about God being unfair for allowing death in the world when it is OUR actions and choices that brings it, not His!

“But why doesn’t He DO something about it!” you ask, “Why does He allow us the choice if we are going to continually harm ourselves and others?”

Because He is fair.

Controlling you, taking away your will to choose, would not be.

Oh friend! When looking at what is right God is so far beyond just fair. He blows our idea of “fair” out of the water! He is Perfect! Of course He is Fair! But we? We betray ourselves in our inability to love each other perfectly. The world is unfair, and we are unfair.

But God is Love.

We can trust in that Love. If we just make that leap of faith. Understanding that this world will harm us because it really isn’t a fair place. Understanding that people will harm us because people are incapable of being completely fair. Understanding that even so, God can take all of that “unfair” and use it. Because He is Love. Because He is God. Because He is Himself, and we are His.

Be sure to join me in the next part of this series! Is God Fair? Part 3: The Justice of God

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: Hubble Captures Spectacular “Landscape” in the Carina Nebula by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (CC BY 2.0)    

Photo Credit: God is Love by Charles Clegg(CC BY-SA 2.0)

Photo Credit: I am grateful by Sean and Lauren  (CC BY 2.0)