Is God Fair?

We are in no position to judge God, but He is our judge and we have no right to question His fairness, for what's fair is what He decrees as fair by its very nature and definition. One recalls the parable of the Prodigal Son whereby the elder brother is dispirited at the grace shown the younger one and thinks it's unfair. He should've celebrated the fact that he had always been the son and never suffered estrangement.

Too many Christians think that it is unfair that criminals who make deathbed conversions can get saved when they lived their whole life for Christ. They should've noted that they get to live for Christ, not had to live for Him. It is a privilege to live for Christ and one should be thankful for all the opportunities and be stewards of them. He has become the recipient of greater reward, as God rewards according to our deeds whether we are in Christ a short time or long time. We don't have to be Christians, we get to be Christians! Many who are first shall be last, according to Christ, and the last, first. The classic example of deathbed conversion is the famed thief or malefactor on the cross on the right side of Christ and to whom He said, "Today, thou shalt be with me in paradise."

In the final analysis, life may not always be fair because some people's portion is in this life and others have to learn the hard way--but God will make it all fair in the end at the judgment and He is just in all His ways. And so, who's to say that inequity defines unfairness? God is the moral center of the universe, thank God! 

Jacob was paranoid: "All these things are against me" (Gen. 42:36). Job had his time of being appalled at his circumstances and sudden disaster: "My worst fears have come upon me." But Paul said of his sufferings: "But none of these things move me" (Acts 20:24). We must never give up the faith that "If God can be for us, who can be against us?" They must come because the same hammer breaks the glass, forges the steal, the same sun melts the butter, hardens the clay--we either become bitter or better through the crucible of suffering or the school of hard knocks because God never promised us a bed of roses. Hardship or Reality 101 is part of the divine curriculum.

But don't break faith or lose heart--God loves us as His children and discipline means we belong to Him ("Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep thy Word," says Psalm 119:67). God's grace is not only necessary but sufficient for us ("My grace is sufficient for thee," says 2 Cor. 9:8). Believers have always inquired, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" [There are no good people!] Let's see why the Bible says, "...Can anyone say to Him, 'What hast Thou done?'" (Dan. 4:35).

Life is unfair, just look at what happened to Jesus. But don't jump to the conclusion that God is ergo unfair. It doesn't necessarily follow, as I intend to show. The question should not be, "Is God fair?" but are you fair? Who do you think you are? Do you trust yourself and your standards enough to judge the whole earth? God is fair is a given and a no-brainer to any person of faith--but we have a struggle when the trial, tribulation, suffering, adversity or temptation happens to us personally, don't we? Like when Job's comforters reprimanded him that he had preached to others, and now trouble comes to him and he can't take it (cf. Job 4:3ff "See how you have instructed many...but now trouble comes to you and you are discouraged....").

God sees the big picture and we only see our own little world! Who has the advantage? To get specific, is it fair that Jesus had to die? Even the objective onlooker realizes he suffered a great injustice at the hand of Rome, yet God is fair and decreed that this should this; He does not tolerate sin but remains holy, and untouched by sin, We tend to put God in a box, like saying, "I like to think of God as a ...." Luther said to Erasmus: "Your thoughts of God are too human." There is always more to God than we can apprehend! "The finite cannot grasp the infinite", the Greeks said.

Job was told, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" There is no "higher law" that God must obey: He is a law unto Himself--autonomous! Only He can set aside His laws. God wants to see if we will trust Him through thick and thin when the chips are down. Let the chips fall where they may, God is in control! He does what is right, He never does what is wrong, because all wrongdoing is a sin.

"How can God be just, and the Justifier?" The Bible says God's ways are unfathomable and inscrutable and no one can discern His ways, "as the heavens are higher than the earth" (cf. Isaiah 55:9; Rom. 11:33). ("How unsearchable his judgments and His paths beyond tracing out.") We sometimes cry out for justice, but do we really want to get what we deserve? Or do we want mercy and grace? Some will receive justice from God, and others mercy and grace (mercy is not getting what you deserve--judgment; grace is getting what you don't deserve--eternal life), but no one will receive injustice.

Grace and mercy are a form of non-justice, but not injustice--there is a nuance of meaning that you must realize here. Karma is disproved by Christ's sufferings--He certainly didn't deserve what He got at the hand of Rome. God tempers His justice with mercy and only give the evil-doer his due or just dessert, and not beyond what strict justice would demand--God is not cruel. Remember, God is not obligated to be merciful, just because He was merciful to one and we have no claim on His mercy and cannot demand it, but can only accept it as a gift by grace through faith in Christ.

People instinctively think that when something goes wrong that God is unfair. They don't think they could possibly be reaping what they have sown. Even Job didn't accuse God of wrong-doing and accepted evil at the hand of God as well as a blessing. What is fair is the question, not is God fair. For Abraham said, "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" We don't judge God, he judges us! We don't have some standard of right and wrong and see if God measures up!

What God does is fair by definition because God is fair, period, no if's, and's, or but's. Today they say that art is what an artist says is art! It is similar with God. We say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder too. But God said all creation was good after He created it and we are not to object to His standards. R. C. Sproul says, "God is therefore never arbitrary, whimsical, or capricious, He always does what is right." Amen! Amen! He never acts out of character but is always true to Himself.

Because there is no immediate retribution, we tend to think we have gotten away with something--But God is only giving us space to repent and judge He will--either in Christ or at the Great White Throne Judgment at the Last Day. We want revenge sometimes but must not take the law into our own hands but trust God and His using the government to get the job done. "Vengeance is mine, saith the LORD." No one gets away with anything. What seems like God being unfair is often just suffering the consequences for our own foolishness or sin! 

Either they are disciplined by God as believers and their sins are judged on the cross, or they pay for their own sins in the final judgment for all eternity. The point is this: Something is fair because God says so--to have some other standard other than this self-attesting one would be to appeal to some standard higher than God. For instance, if I said, common sense should be the standard, because that's just common sense. (This is circular reasoning when we appeal to the source we are using as proof itself.)

Now in Psalm 73 Asaph bemoans the prosperity of the wicked--a common complaint against God. But Psalm 17:14 says that some people's reward is in this life ("...whose portion is in this life") and the rule still applies that they sow the wind and reap the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7). We tend to think that if someone gets something, that we also deserve it. If God saves one person, for instance, He is not obligated to save another--He could have elected to save no one! Remember and keep faith in the goodness of God and the profundity or incomprehensibility of God--we cannot figure Him out and never will!

In the economy of God, it pays to trust God and it is more blessed to give than to receive, but also the laws of reaping what you sow and the promised rewards to people who are industrious and work hard are in effect despite being a believer or not. God blesses some people in all ways, but all in some ways, because of common grace given to all--"God is good to all, and His compassion is over all creation" (Psa. 145:9). God doesn't know how to be anything but good. The proof of the pudding is in the eating--"Taste and see that the Lord is good," says Psalm 34:8. God is good all the time! (Neh. 1:7).  Soli Deo Gloria! 

Being Down On Religion...

Being Down On Religion...

"Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5).

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Romans 3:28).

Many people mistakenly think that the Golden Rule is the essence of Christianity, au contraire, which would make it a performance-based religion. You can take Buddha out of Buddhism, and Mohammad out of Islam, and you basically have the religions still intact, but you cannot do so with Christianity--Christianity IS Christ! (You must know Him!)


You must, first of all, be right about Him and His work: i.e., He is the incarnation of God or God in the flesh and He paid the price for our redemption from sin, by dying on the cross to do this and show His love for us, and rose from the dead as ultimate proof of the Father's acceptance to give us hope and reason for believing in life after death--a resurrection. Believing Christ lived and died is history, believing He did it for you is salvation!

It is a proven fact of psychology that religious people are happier than those who profess none. Paul complimented the philosophers of Athens on Mars Hill for being "very religious" meaning they were open to speculation and accepting of religious ideas, giving him the open door to preach. But Julian Huxley wrote Religion Without Revelation, in which he said you don't need God to know right from wrong--this is where Secular Humanism leads us. John Dewey wrote A Common Faith to say that you can be religious without a religion (Secular Humanism is a religion without God!). True religion is to walk in the Spirit of God and be led by Him as you live in faith and are faithful to your calling in life--in other words knowing Jesus and having a relationship with Him.

To say someone got religion is an insult to a Christian: " I tried religion," the pastor said, "and it didn't work." His friend asked him, "What then, you're a pastor?" He replied: "Then I tried Christ and a relationship with Him and it worked!"" As they say: The proof of the pudding is in the eating! I've heard of people saying that if that's what Christ can do for someone they want Him too--this is the power of one's testimony and witness for Christ to make Him known.


Many people today don't really hold anything against Christ, but against religion, especially organized religion and the church, as an institution. Jesus plainly said that eternal life is "knowing" Him, and this means more than knowing about Him. It is some kind of fellowship of the heart and love affair that no religion can match.

Religion has historically believed in making "sacrifices" to appease" or mollify and humor the gods who may be angry and cause bad luck, as it were. Still, in religion, it is always the individual or society making the sacrifice (such as their children or a lamb). In Christianity,y it is God Himself who makes the sacrifice because He can pay a debt we couldn't. We owed to Him for offending Him in our sin and rebellion, and His sacrifice is infinite. It cannot be measured, and therefore capable of saving mankind if they accept His work on their behalf--that is precisely what Christ did by paying the price of His blood shed for us so we wouldn't have to pay it in hell, and this is a free gift of salvation offered to all if they only exercise faith in Him.

Religion is defined as doing something "religious" or displaying "religiosity." Secular Humanists believe you can be religious without having religion and they are gaining ascendancy with their ethical religion without God. It's a faith to live by and has a creed to believe. That is precisely what evil is: Being good without God or getting along without Him in the equation. Man's problem today is whether he can get along without the God he has left out of the picture, according to Will Durant. You can be a Christian without being religious, in fact, this is the normal Christian way of life--a walk of faith. The righteous shall live by faith according to Romans 1:17. "[W]e walk by faith, and not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7, ESV).

Knowing about God will not satisfy the needs of the heart of man, but having a relationship with the personal God and knowing His will. Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, said there is a "God-shaped vacuum" in our hearts that only God can fill. St. Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. We are made to worship God and if we don't we will worship something or someone else. Christ promised a more abundant and fulfilling life in knowing Him, which is rewarding and worth it. "... [I] came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10b, ESV).

Man strives to please God by his merits and works of the flesh (morality, philosophy, good deeds, ritual, etc.). Religion is also man's attempt to reach out to God, while God has taken the initiative and reached down in condescending to man--we are incapable of finding God through the doorway of religion! Man is incurably addicted to doing something for his salvation and the Jews asked Jesus what they could do: He replied that the "work of God" is believing in Him whom God sent. Salvation is a free gift of grace that cannot be earned or paid back and is not deserved or merited. Christianity is not a list of dos and don'ts, but following Christ in fellowship and love.

Christ paid the price of a debt we couldn't pay and owed for our sins to the Holy Father. It was an infinite price that only God could pay with His blood--He suffered to the max on our behalf. The crucifixion is the measure of His love because He didn't have to die, He volunteered and willingly went to the cross. Religion lays down what man is obliged to do, while the gospel reveals to us what God has done for us. There are a plethora of religions based on human achievement; however, Christianity is based on divine accomplishment, not human achievement or work.

Religion is a do-it-yourself proposition of lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps and trying to earn your way in, hoping your good deeds outweigh your bad ones at the Judgment. Christians don't do good because they have to, but because they want to. Works are a "therefore" not an "in order to" you might say. We don't have to, we get to! Viva la difference! Religion is performance-based and doesn't solve the problem of guilt that we all incur by our sins.


In Christianity, salvation is a done deal and complete, while in religion the key word is "do" and is never done--all you can do is hope and you will never be assured of heaven or salvation. You just can't ever know in a work religion. When you say that works bring salvation, that is pure religion, and when you mix works and faith that is legalism. "[H]e saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5, ESV).

Christianity says that faith alone saves and works just naturally follow out of gratitude and a changed life (the Reformers said we are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone--no fruit means no faith). You don't come to God with a changed life or a resolution to improve but come to God for a changed life. He doesn't put a new suit on the man, but a new man in the suit.


Millions of lives have been transformed and renewed by Christ, and this is not the case with other religions, because the problem we have is sin, not ignorance and Jesus came to save us from our sins. There is no other Savior in the world and no one else by whom we are commanded to call for salvation by a leap of faith to believe in our regenerated and renewed hearts.

Good works do have a place in Christianity, but they give us no merit before God. We are saved "unto good works," which means that we are not saved by them, but so we can do them--only believers have the power to do good works in God's eyes. Good deeds give us purpose and meaning in life as we cheerfully serve our Savior out of gratitude. The works we do are actually ordained or predetermined for us to "walk in them" (cf. Eph. 2:10). Note that Christ didn't die to make bad men good, but to make dead people alive! He came to bring life and life more abundantly (cf. John 10:10).

If we have no good works our faith is dead and dead faith cannot save! Without the evidence of good works, our faith is suspect because the true believer wants to do them. Sin doesn't show our freedom, but our slavery, and Christ came to save us from our sins, which are the issues and problems we have. Religion is the best man can do, it has been said, but Christianity is the best God can do.


This means we don't earn salvation, we receive it! The purpose of good deeds in perspective is vital to know: James says, "I'll show you my faith by my good works;" and Paul would say, "I'll show you my good works by my faith." They go hand in hand and you can only distinguish them, but not separate them--they are no substitute for faith, but only evidence that it is real.

RELIGION EQUALS KNOWING OR CONFESSING A CODE OR CREED; CHRISTIANITY MEANS KNOWING A PERSON AND HAVING LIFE WITH HIM, PERIOD. SOLI DEO GLORIA

The Concept Of Biblical Fairness...

"I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten...You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied"  (Joel 2:25,26).  [E.g., God making it up to Israel and attempting to even the score.]

"... No one can stay His hand or say to Him, 'What hast thou done?'" (Dan. 4:35).  

There are three possibilities for defining fairness:  the people's subjective opinion, the dictionary, or God Himself.  Who or what defines it becomes the highest standard and is in effect deified. There are no laboratory conditions to test the concept: all things being equal is a hard test and there are multiple variables and givens that can't be measured, but may be relative--only God sees and knows the whole story.

There is no doctrine of fairness in the Bible, but corresponding and related words might be goodness, righteousness, and justice.  The Doctrine of Fairness was a network TV policy for political ads in the 70s.  Actually the word "fair" is not biblical  (it should be pointed out that our very concept of fair play came from God Himself and is often cited as one proof that He exists!) and we all have our own idea of what it means (usually a concept we picked up at age 7) and often the first complaint in life we have is that something isn't fair.

God defines what fairness is (He defines what everything is because He is autonomous or a law unto Himself subject to no higher laws), not us. The word is highly subjective and everyone has their own idea of what it means like the concept of beauty being in the eye of the beholder.  The Bible doesn't mention the word but comes close in referring to being right, just, and good. 

Note that God is not righteous, good, or just because He obeys some outside law, but He is intrinsically that way by nature.  We must be careful not to call good evil, or evil good (Isa. 5:20).

If God is required to be gracious, it is no longer grace--a form of nonjustice (passing by of justice for whatever reason and offering grace or mercy), which is not injustice (doing something evil or wrong).  Case in point:  If a parent disciplines a more mature son, and withholds discipline or punishment from the younger one (having a reason and not being arbitrary), is the parent unfair?  Or does he have the right to reserve to punish or not to punish?  "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and harden whom I will harden."

 God cannot be accused of evil, though He can use vessels of dishonor to accomplish His ultimate will.   God can be charged with no wrongdoing (N.B. recalls that "in all these things Job did not accuse God of wrongdoing").  God is holy and never does what is wrong, but always what is right.  Abraham said, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"  He is our judge and not we his.  Looking the word up in the dictionary, it says that fair means showing no favoritism or prejudice and also playing according to the rules.

God is certainly "no respecter of persons."  Under these definitions, God is not unfair in saving us, nor in making Jesus our Substitute or Vicar, who did it voluntarily and joyfully.  We have no claim on His favor, mercy, or grace.  God didn't save the angels who sinned and didn't have to save us to maintain His deity.  When we say that God is unfair we are holding Him up to our standards of right and wrong and making ourselves the moral center of the universe.  

If God does something, it is fair; it is not that he does something because it is fair.  God always acts according to His nature and cannot be God in contradiction to Himself.  "Who can say to God, 'What hast thou done?'" (Dan. 4:35).

One important concept we all misinterpret is that we believe fairness equals being equitable--parents are accused of not treating their children the same.  Is the parent unfair because he wasn't equal?  They would always feel under condemnation because that is an impossible goal. God decides what fairness is, not us.  What can be construed as unfairness is being arbitrary, whimsical, or capricious?  

God always has a reason for what He does, and His ultimate glory is the end result--"Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever," says The Westminster Shorter Catechism.  God thought this was more important than going according to our rules and subjecting Himself to our standards.

God is our judge and we cannot judge Him.  No one has a case against God or "can say unto Him, 'What hast thou done?'" This is the mystery of salvation:  God is both just, and the justifier of the ungodly.  God found a way to preserve His divine nature and to forgive and justify us.  

God knows what He is doing with His universe and His thoughts are higher than ours, "as the heavens are higher than the earth" (Isa. 55:9).  Life seems unfair but basically, we reap what we sow-- there is no karma as many believe, because we often get what we don't deserve, and don't get what we do deserve.

Don't envy the wicked who "receive their portion in this life" (Psalm 17:14) Some people die and leave their reward behind, others die to go to their reward in heaven! God is good to all: to the elect unto salvation (special grace), to some in all ways, to some in some ways, but to all in some way (common grace).  But God's goodness is an attribute we can be assured of:  "God is good to all, and He has compassion over all that He has made" (Psalm 145:9).  

As they say, "God is good all the time; all the time God is good!  Learn this and find out for yourself!   Even if we pay the ultimate price in martyrdom, God will reward it to us and make it up in all eternity--He sees the Big Picture!  When the psalmist saw their "latter end" he was assured of God's justice.

God is just and that is a legitimate doctrine. He is unjust to no one and only withholds justice from His elect--that is not a form of injustice but of nonjustice.  Jesus willingly paid the price of His own volition and wasn't forced to go to the cross to die on our behalf.  One cannot say it was unfair that he suffered for us: He said, "Weep not for Me but for yourselves."  

We don't have a claim against God and God owes us nothing.  We have no case against God and that very thought is near blasphemy.  Jesus said that Satan "has nothing against [Him]."  John Milton wrote Paradise Lost, his epic and classical poem, to "justify the ways of God to man."  We stand trial and not God--just think about how God didn't answer any of Job's questions, but only revealed Himself to Him.

When we open the door to questioning God's attributes or character it ultimately leads to heresy and then can lead to apostasy and a falling away. When we say that it is unfair that Jesus went to the cross we are saying that God was arbitrary, or showed favoritism and/or prejudice, not karma. Jesus went of His own volition and volunteered for the mission--He did it with the joy set before Him!

To say that it is unfair that we get saved when we deserve to go to hell is to malign the justice of God and impugn His nature--there is no injustice with the Almighty.  Grace is a form of non-justice, or of withholding justice, but it is not injustice per se.  We were not elected unto salvation and faith because of our virtue or merit, but because "of His own purpose and grace" (not according to our works of righteousness which we have done" i.e., He did not save us out of favoritism nor whim, but His own glory.)  We do indeed deserve to go to hell and God is withholding justice from us, but that is not a definition of being unfair.

God tempers His justice with mercy (cf. Hab. 3:2) and  Aristotle said that justice itself is strictly just giving one what is his due dessert (reward or punishment) for what he has done and is culpable or responsible for.  God "has mercy on whom He will have mercy" (Rom. 9:16) and it is God's prerogative to decide who will get mercy, not us. He reserves the right to demonstrate grace, or it wouldn't be grace it would be justice.  God is not obligated to be merciful or gracious just because He is to someone else or not anyone! God doesn't owe us anything and we have no right to demand justice or mercy.

According to Wayne Grudem, a famous Reformed theologian,  "God's righteousness means that God always acts under what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right." (If there is a standard higher than God then He is not God.) We all have an inner sense of "oughtness" and being unfair is one of those.  Moses says, "All his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and right is he" (Deut. 32:4).  God Himself says, "I the LORD speak the truth, I declare what is right" (Isa. 45:19).

"Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (cf. Gen. 18:25).  God is the final standard of what conforms to His nature, which is what is right.  In Job, it says, "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty?... Will you even put me in the wrong?  Will you condemn me that you may be justified?"  (Job 40:20,8).  

We, as creatures, cannot judge our Creator:  the clay cannot say to the Potter, "Why have you made me thus?" God isn't accountable to us and is too deep to explain Himself to our finite minds. We are on the hot seat, as it were, not God.  There can be no standard higher than God, or that standard would be God.   Soli Deo Gloria!