BALANCE OF JUSTICE
![[A picture of a pair of balance scales should be here. Sorry if it is missing.]](scales.jpg)
Above the Old Bailey law courts in London is a statue.
A lady stands with outstretched arms. In one hand she holds a pair of scales. In the other she grasps an upright sword.
The scales indicate that in that building justice is assessed.The sword, that justice will be administered there.
We live in an unfair world. Too often good people suffer and evil people prosper. A day is coming when the Creator will stop the world. Everyone who has ever lived will be called to account for everything they have done and justice will be administered. That includes you and me. Justice will be administered without prejudice. There will be nowhere to hide and excuses will sound very hollow.
God has guaranteed this by raising from the dead the man he has chosen to judge us.
If you read our pamphlet "Yashua the Joiner", you will know who the man is. If you read "No Corpse !", you will have learned that he rose from the dead. The evidence is in the collection of documents known as the Bible and the documents are well authenticated.
THE BALANCEMany sincerely religious people think that God has allocated to each person two angels. One records the good deeds we do and the other the bad. They mistakenly believe that on the day of judgement the good deeds are put in one scale pan and the bad deeds in the other. If the good deeds outweigh the bad, the odds are that they will go to an eternal place of bliss called Paradise. If not they will go to a place of indescribable torment called Hell. At first this might seem to be reasonable, but is it?
Shopkeepers used to use scales with two pans. In one pan they put the weights, in the other the goods. The weights were the standard against which the goods were balanced. The goods in one pan had to equal the weights in the other.
When a judge weighs evidence, he does not put all the accused's good deeds in one pan and all his bad deeds in the other. The accused is not acquitted if his good deeds outweigh the bad. The evidence is put in one pan and the law is put in the other. The law is the standard against which the accused is judged and found guilty or not guilty.
The purpose of the balance is not to find out if the accused has more non-crimes to his credit than crimes. It is to assess whether he is GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY !
God has set the standard. Each deed we have ever done will be weighed against the standard. ARE WE GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY ?
If we have never done anything bad and have always done good, then we have only done what God intended us to do in the first place. You say that it is impossible always to be good and never to do one solitary thing wrong. Jesus demonstrated that it is possible. Now lets have no lame excuses, are we guilty or not guilty? The Bible says "everyone has sinned and falls short of God's glory". What is the standard by which we are judged? God's glory is the standard. What is God's glory?
God loves us so much that he sent the Messiah to turn us from our evil ways and to die for us. And the Messiah never swerved from that purpose. Also He did it when we were still enemies. He carried our sins in His body on the tree. The Messiah is God in our shoes, in our situation, facing all the problems of life. When you see the Lord Jesus dying in anguish for you, you see His glory, God's glory. Are you that good? Shame! How we have fallen short of His glory. How often we have failed. We are GUILTY!
He gave His life for us. That is how much He cares for us, how much He does not want us to go to Hell and how much He wants us with Him in Heaven. God will forgive us for His sake, if we repent, bury our past in the waters of baptism*, just as He gave up His life and was buried in a tomb. Then - as the Lord Jesus rose from the tomb and is alive for evermore, we come up out of the water to live a new life with the assurance of eternal life. This is what the Bible calls being born again of water and of the Spirit. We are not born Christians. We have to be "born again" to be Christians, burying our old attitudes in the waters of baptism and then with prayer, persevere to be as good as the Lord Jesus. Oh to be like Him! What an ambition for life!
Do you say it is not your scene? You can't be bothered with all that. Even though He loves you so much that He sacrificed His life for you? He the innocent one, undergoing the anguish and pain, for you the guilty one!
Please read "Yashua the Joiner" again. Do not reject His love and mercy. Make no mistake disbelievers will be damned eternally. However by God's good grace there is eternal life for the faithful, those who trust Him implicitly.
All the evidence is in the documents.
* baptism is an anglicised Greek word meaning immersion.