NOVEMBER 10, 2026 – JUSTICE

READ: Ps. 101:1-8: … I will behave wisely … I hate the work of those who fall away … the one who acts wickedly I will not know …

This is a Psalm of David, the theocratic king, who desires to govern God’s people with lovingkindness and righteousness. In his rule, he shows how God Himself governs His people. Lovingkindness and justice are not opposing things. Lovingkindness is the covenant word in which love, faithfulness, and mercy come together.

But showing this must be accompanied by what is right in God’s eyes. Sinful deeds, which cannot stand before the LORD, must be identified and confessed and, where necessary, punished. God is gracious but also holy. His covenant of grace therefore has requirements.

God makes His warning especially heard in the second and third commandments. The gospel, too, with its glorious promises, includes the requirement to accept it and to live according to it. Heb. 12:28ff. says: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” This also includes a warning: “For our God is a consuming fire.”

This is how it must also be in the church today, where office-bearers, as well as providing comfort, also have the important task of teaching and admonishing and, when required, exercising church discipline. This also includes the call: “resist evil at its beginning” (Form for the Excommunication from the Congregation of Christ).

In our postmodern age, it is important for office-bearers to see what the Lord requires in His holiness and righteousness, rather than primarily considering how we feel about it. Love and peace in the church cannot exist in this sinful world without the exercising of justice and the maintaining of the truth (see also Ps. 122:5,6). The point is that God rules in His house and thereby also protects the whole congregation against the spread of sin.

1 Cor. 5 is particularly applicable to this Psalm. “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with … the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth … Put away from yourselves the evil person.”

Do we experience God as a consuming fire?

Sing: Ps. 101:1,3,4