If God Is Just...How Can He Be so Harsh?

Now, Contending for the Faith. In this regular feature, Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.

Here’s this week’s question: “Dear Dave and Tom, Please help me reconcile these two verses. First, Deuteronomy:32:4He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
See All..., ‘He is the rock, his work is perfect. For all his ways are judgment. A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.’ And Joshua:7:24-25 [24] And Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. [25] And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? the LORD shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.
See All..., ‘And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver and the garment, and the wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen and his asses and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had: and they brought them into the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with stones and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones.’”

What takes place doesn’t seem like something a “just” God would do.

Dave: Well, Tom, I’ll let you answer this one.

Tom: Well, we’re looking for fairness. We’ve talked about programs in the past. Hey, God is fair and just. We’ve talked about how the God of Calvinism doesn’t seem to be reconciled to a fair and just God. He damns billions to hell without even giving them a chance. So it’s a tough issue here. But there was sin. But Dave, do the family members, which is the implication here, ought they to come under the same judgment as the man who sinned, Achan?

Dave: Well, Tom, I’ll fall back on the scripture, “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?”

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: And there must have been things about this that are not told to us in detail. God knew what He was doing.

Tom: And how many of these people knew and participated in it? It doesn’t say.

Dave: We don’t know that, but we certainly are being given a picture of the seriousness of sin. And you could raise the same question about Adam and Eve. Well what did Eve do? All she did, she took some fruit off of a tree and brought this on the human race? Death and disease and suffering and the horror? Well that shows you what sin will do. And it shows you the seriousness of simply disobeying God.

See Tom, I don’t think we take sin seriously. What did she do? Just took some fruit. No, she disobeyed God. She, you could say, thumbed her nose at God. She turned her back on God and she was going to do her own thing. And that’s what this whole world is all about.

And you remember we talked about DNA? We know that DNA, there’s the instructions in there for the operation of this cell. What is cancer? It’s a cell is that isn’t following the operating instructions anymore. It’s in rebellion against the Creator you could say. And that’s what man is on this earth. It’s a very, very serious thing.

Tom: Dave, I think there’s another point here that maybe we could bring out. Unless I’m dead wrong (laughing). We want people to check us out, but you can correct me on this.

It seems when God starts something new, like the church for example—you have Ananias and Sapphira. I mean come on, they gave some money. They just didn’t give all the money. They lied, as Peter said, to the Holy Spirit. But the scripture says that their death was a deterrent. As you said, what do we think about sin today? I don’t think we think enough about it. But what do we think about a holy God?

Adam and Eve, that was the beginning of something else and God demands—I mean He has a standard that’s so far above ours. But at the same time He is merciful and I think if He applied the same standard that He did to Ananias and Sapphira, to Achan, to Adam and Eve, we’d all be dead. We wouldn’t have anybody else to….

Dave: Yeah, Tom, it’s a good point. You know, I’m afraid that we live in a world—I remember when I grew up, the saying, “A man’s word is his bond.” You didn’t even have to sign. You shook hands and that was it. In my high school I think there were maybe 1,500 people. Of course, I didn’t know them all. But I only knew—I think I knew one or two people whose parents had been divorced, and that was shocking. Even among non-Christians.

Today, it’s nothing. Tom, how many times does a person stand before witnesses and swear their undying troth, till death do us part? And then they part. And then they do it again. And then they do it again. It’s like words don’t mean anything. And how many high school students, how many grammar school students, college students cheat? You can look up the statistics on, that on their exams. It’s become a way of life.

Now what’s going on here? Because we don’t honor truth. We don’t honor commitment. We do not keep our word. We minimize the consequences and we think, Well okay…shrug your shoulders, Well so what? Yeah, well, I made a mistake. I mean, I know some people who have taken bankruptcy three or four times. How often do you do that? And then they give you credit again. You start all over. The record doesn’t seem to matter.

Tom: Dave, none of this would be Christians you’re talking about? Certainly not divorce and bankruptcy and so on?

Dave: Yeah, you’re being facetious now. Of course, sadly.

So Tom, all I’m saying is I cannot reconcile these two verses apart from the fact that I know that God does what is right. He knew something that caused him to do this. Furthermore, it certainly is a powerful illustration. It gets the point across. Sin is very serious. Sin is very serious. You just don’t play fast and loose with the Word of God, but we have people rewriting the Bible. It’s an indication we’re in the last days.

Tom: Dave, it also makes me think about God’s character. We’re going to have to take God’s character in full here. On the one hand, as you said, He is just and fair. “Shall not the judge of this world do right?”

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: But He also sent His Son to die for us. He backs His judgment up with love. Which we can’t fathom.