To demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He
might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:26
Many years ago, my family lived in a small Quichua village in Ecuador, South America. Our house was separated from a Christian school by a short path that ran about 500 feet through the jungle. I’d make the trip from home to school several times a day, and even our two year old son, Stephen, would often go back and forth.
Once as I was studying in my office, I heard my son give off a horrifying scream. I instantly knew what was happening. Ants!!
I ran as fast as I could and saw him standing in a swarm of army ants. I picked him up and immediately started ripping off his clothes as I ran back to the house. As soon as I touched my son, the ants started biting me too, but that didn’t matter. Those ants could kill a toddler, but I planned on hurting them more than they hurt me. We bathed my boy in cold water, and then he cried himself to sleep. That was good; he was safe.
The next day, I went out with a five-gallon can of gasoline and poured the liquid down every ant hill I could find around our house. When I lit one hill, I could hear the flames moving back and forth under the ground and then a plume of flame would shoot up from another entrance. I could hear the fire working its destruction under my feet. I know that I killed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ants that day, but I felt no remorse and no pity. Those ants had attacked and could have killed my son! They tried to hurt me! They were not going to hurt my family again. What I did was just.
My justice protected my loved ones, but nearly wiped out the offending creatures. If I had love for the ants and could speak their language, maybe I could have warned them of the fiery judgment that was coming. If I could have saved them from their destruction, I would have been their justifier because I would have given them a way to escape. Of course, that part didn’t happen, but that doesn’t mean that what I did wasn’t just.
The Lord Jesus Christ is both Just and the Justifier of the believers. He not only has judged sin, but has also taken that judgment on Himself, so that His people can escape the wrath of God to come.
January 31
