#STRask - How Do I Reconcile the Image of God as Judge with His Love, Grace, and Kindness?

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Questions about how to reconcile the image of God as a judge with his love, grace, and kindness, why our sins are considered to be sins against God, and whether the idea that our debt was paid by Christ means we escape the penalty for our sins by right, not grace.   For most of my life, God has been portrayed to me primarily as a judge—watching closely, ready to point out where I fall short. But I’m learning there’s more to him than that. How do I begin to reconcile that image with the reality of his love, grace, and kindness? If I commit a sin against someone but then make amends and ask for forgiveness, how is it that I’ve also sinned against God, and why would God still need to punish me? If Christ was literally punished for our sins and our debt was paid, then how can it be said we are “forgiven”? Wouldn’t we escape the penalty by right, not grace?

This is Amy Hall. I'm here with Greg Kokel, and you are listening to the hashtag STR-ask podcast. Hello, Greg. I never know if you're going to say hi or what. Hi. Okay. All right, we're going to start with a question from Brianna. All right.

This is a really important one, Greg. For most of my life, God has been portrayed to me primarily as a judge, watching closely, ready to point out where I fall short. But I'm learning there's more to him than that. How do I begin to reconcile that image with the reality of his love, grace, and kindness? Well, I think that, Brianna, there are a lot of people that are in your same place. And I had a struggle with this myself to some degree. And there were two influences, one was raised Roman Catholic. And so, I mean, there is a strong emphasis on the law.

There are so many ways that even the Mosaic law has been radically expanded and religious traditions that have become incumbent upon you to observe with the threat of hell hanging over you. So among the so-called mortal sins was not going to church on Sunday or missing what they called a holy day of obligation, I think there were six of those. So you had 52 Sundays plus six. And Christmas and New Year's were both holy days of obligation. Eating meat on Friday when I was a kid, that was a fast day.

You're not supposed to eat meat on Friday. That was also a mortal sin. So that environment was very, I was really feeling the weight of the law from that. And then I had a very demanding and in many kinds harsh father. who became a Christian about a year before he died, and it was the real thing, a radical change. I was really happy for that, obviously. But nevertheless, so my picture of a father was like that. And there were two things that began to change it for me.

One was when I was taken under the wing of a very good man named Craig, who was a discipller for me for more formally for about two and a half years. We were together virtually every day, and we played tennis together, we took vacations together, we went fishing, and then more loosely for the next few years. And what Craig showed me was what a godly father was like, who loved me, it was so obvious, even though he corrected me on lots of things because there was a lot to correct. So he was a dad to me in both senses, but it was easy to be corrected by him because I was so convinced of his love. So that was one of the corrective elements. And the other, now I guess I should say three. So that's one experiential. Then I had very early on magnificent teaching on the grace of God.

And I'll mention who gave the teaching. It might surprise some people, but it was Hal Lindsay. the second coming guy who passed away at what, 92 or 93 last year. But I was in a community that was a regular part of. I was in his home many times and babysat his children. But he was an excellent Bible teacher. And when he taught the doctrine of the cross, and he wrote a book called The Liberation of Planet Earth,

but he taught to us that we're in that Christian community, the doctrine of the cross. I mean, students would be leaving that, that it sessions weeping. It was so touching and magnificent. And I think that understanding the grace of God theologically and then having it modeled for me by Craig and other people in that Christian community,

but especially by Craig, that really rescued me from this concern that Brianna is expressing. The final thing is probably, gosh, I guess it's been maybe 10 years ago now, I listened to a series by Tim Keller on God the Father. And it has made it so easy for me as I incorporate or internalized that and began to praying to the Father, not that we're obliged to, but Jesus did say that. He should be the central focus of our prayers.

And that was that teaching that made me feel comfortable with the concept of God as Father. And now I'm very comfortable with that. And in fact, I have to sometimes apologize to Jesus because I feel like I love the Father more than I love the Son because I'm more engaged with him in day-to-day prayer and moment-to-moment prayer praying to the Father. But that had a huge impact on me. So I had these two things in my past that were slowing me down, and this is not unusual. Lots of people have maybe both of those things. It doesn't have to be Catholic.

It could be Protestant. It could be LDS. I mean, there's all kinds. All of these systems of works that get you saved are going to be, or they can be implicit. They're not explicit in the teaching, but implicit in the way the teaching is communicated and practiced, okay? and then having a discipler that modeled a good fatherhood to me, having amazing and great teaching on the grace of God, and then having this Tim Keller material that really warmed me up to the fatherhood of God and really helped change my prayer life. Those were the things that, at least in my life, accomplished a significant change in this issue of Brianna's facing.

I have so many things to say about this. Amy's bursting here. Where to start? First of all, Hebrew says that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. So I would start, yes, so I would start by reading the Gospels, read them over and over, read them in one or two settings, spend a lot of time there. I mean, think about, think about all the things that. Jesus did. There's a passage that says, Jesus, knowing that he came from the Father and he was going back to the Father. So knowing his very position and his power, he washed the feet of his disciples.

John 13, right. Jesus came as a servant not to be served. He came to save us. He gave up his glorious location position with the Father. And he took on. a human nature and came to suffer and die for us. And he's the exact representation of the father. So if you want to know really concrete form, I mean, you certainly see God's grace in the past also, but because God was also introducing morality and through his law, then you see more of the judge there. That's already established by the time Jesus comes. And just to support that, at first, John chapter one, it says in the word became flesh, dwelt among us, no one has seen God at any time, but the only, the one and only God, Jesus here,

he has revealed him, the father. My second recommendation is that you read Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves, because I think that book, because you were talking about God being a father, I think he explores that whole idea and talks about the love of God in a very powerful way, and I think that's helpful. But I think the most, I get excited about this, because this is actually my favorite passage in the Bible. If you're trying to reconcile the image of God as a judge with the reality of his love, grace, and kindness, that is exactly where you should be struggling to reconcile. Because when you think about it, this is where Christianity differs from every other religion.

Either you have a religion where you have a judge or you have some kind of a force that's unyielding, something like karma, where you, there's no hope for you because you're a sinner. You can never be good enough. There's no grace. You have to pay for every sin yourself no matter what. So either they go that direction. It's unrelenting cause-effect relationship. That's what that amounts to, karma.

Or you have a situation where somebody believes. believes in a God that doesn't care about justice. And now you don't have a good God. So that God says, oh, you're all the same. And now evil is not punished and there's no justice. And we all know that in order for a judge to be good, evil has to be punished. We all know that. So how do you reconcile a perfectly good judge who hates evil, rightly hates evil, with a desire for grace and love? And God figured that out. I mean, this is what's so brilliant. It's the cross.

Because the cross shows both. It shows the justice of God. If God didn't care about justice, then Jesus would not have died on the cross. And that's even noted by Paul. If it wasn't necessary, it wouldn't have happened. Christ died needlessly then. Right. But we know that he had to die.

Why? Because God is just. but we also see on the cross God's grace. Jesus took our punishment for us. So God found a way to give us grace without compromising justice. That is where you reconcile justice and grace on the cross. So as much as you can think about what the cross reveals about who God is, about his power, about his sovereignty, about his love, all of those things are revealed on the cross. And so I would spend a lot of time thinking about that.

What's your verse? Are you going to come to it? You did say, I thought you said. Oh, I don't know. What did I? My favorite verse, I thought you said. Oh, okay, right. So the place that, thank you, Greg. That will zero in on this.

Thank you, Greg. I'm waiting with bated breath here. It's in Romans 3, 21 through 26 that talks about how because of the cross, God is just and the justifier. that's what was accomplished on the cross and that's how we reconcile both and no other worldview or religion that I know of has a way to reconcile both those things and I just want to read this this little this part from Ephesians 3 it's towards the end where Paul is is praising God and he's he's praying this is what he prays he prays that that God would grant you

according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you being rooted and grounded in love, and he's talking about the love that Jesus showed. He's already gone through three chapters talking about everything Jesus did for us on the cross. So he prays that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. So what you might want to do is memorize Ephesians 1 through 3 because first Paul goes through what exactly Jesus did for us and why. And it's all to the praise of the glory of his

grace. So you read through all of that and then you find out that he's praying that we would know his love so that we can be filled to the fullness of God. Because it's that love that was characterized on the cross. And Infusions actually says it was God's eternal purpose to have Christ die in the cross. And I think it was to reveal this love and this desire to save enemies because we were all his enemies. And this is who Jesus died for. That's the kind of love God has. And that's where we see the kind of love God has in light of his justice. So, So, that's all I... Excellent, Emily.

I just, I just, again, I really do recommend you memorize Ephesians 1 through 3, because to think about all those things over and over as you're memorizing, I think will really help you to understand the love of God. All right. Let's see here. Are you going to have all three? I could say more, but I want to go on to the next one. Okay, here's a question from Steve.

even. Hi, if I commit a sin against someone, say theft, but then I return the stolen item and apologize genuinely for it and ask for their forgiveness. Number one, how is it that I've also committed a sin against God? And number two, why does God need to still punish me, presuming I'm not yet a Christian for that sin? Well, this is an interesting question. And I don't know if I've ever quite faced it or not like this, but it has to do with a kind of perspective. It has to do with an understanding that, well, I'll just start with the first line. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, all right? Now, I argue in the story of reality that there's almost like theme line of the rest of the book, because we learn, first of all, that the story is

about God. That's why it starts with God. And secondly, what God does is he is a king who creates a domain or a kingdom. And that's why we see the word kingdom showing up in different places, especially in the earlier parts of the Gospels, you know, proclaiming the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the rulership of God. So what God does is he establishes laws for, our behavior in his kingdom. Now, I can't go into a lot of depth here, but I'm just going to say these laws are not arbitrary. They are reflections of his character, and they are tied to the idea or the notion of human flourishing. In other words, if we do these things or don't do the things he tells us not to do, we're going to fare better because of the way he made the world.

Okay. And so maybe this is one way of looking at it. There are laws in our land. So, Amy, I have an obligation not to harm you in particular ways before the law. If I do harm you, that is a harm to you. But it isn't like you just get to extract punishment because I harmed you. I also broke fealty with the agency, if you will, government that is over us all. And this is why I haven't heard this a long time, but when I was a kid, people would say, yeah, he committed this crime, but he went to prison and he paid his debt to society. You ever hear that phrase before? Yeah. It sounds kind of quaint, but that's that reflected and understanding that we not only owed, um, behavior, virtuous behavior to each other, but we also owed virtuous behavior to the state insofar as they properly. We're regulating that. Okay. And when we violated a law, we didn't just violate the individual that might be subject to that crime, but we also violated something about the state.

Now we are beholden to the state and we have to pay back our debt. All right. If we steal a thousand dollars and we give the $1,000 back, we still have a debt to the state for the theft. It's a larceny. Okay, that's over and above just the mere exchange of money. Okay. Now, I just use that as an analog, and sometimes we have to kind of draw on other concepts to help us to kind of get a feel for what's going on here with God. David commits his sin against Bathsheba. Now, he committed adultery against Bathsheba, and then to cover up with Bathsheba, I guess I could say, but I would considered a sin against her, but even so, he covered it up by arranging for her husband to be killed in battle, put him at the front line, so he's taken down in battle. And that happened,

and he thought he'd covered everything up, you know, and then he gets caught. Nathan the prophet nails him famously. And then he writes a couple of Psalms reflecting on his anguish at what he'd done, his repentance, and Psalm 51 is one of those Psalms. And right at the beginning, he says, against you, and you only have I sinned and done what was evil in your sight. So you're justified when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, when you, and justified and blameless when you judge, essentially. And so, now, he wasn't claiming he had sinned against the person, Bathsheba,

or certainly against Jariah, her husband, who he arranged to have killed, so that was a murder, certainly had, but he was, it was comparative. My sin is really against God. And you see, Joseph makes the same claim when he's tempted by Potipher's wife, and he says, I cannot do this. I'm under charge with your husband, and I'm not going to sin against God by doing this. And so we are just like the analog here is the government, and we're under the government, and we owe obedience to the government, and if not, we incur a kind of debt.

That's just a picture of the larger government we're under, which is God's government. He's the king of his kingdom. And when we do wrong, there are earthly ways we can repair the long, and that was just a described by Stephen in his question, but that doesn't change the fact that we have still wronged, we have, I'm trying to think of the right way to put it, we have done wronged before God, all right, and that is the chief concern, and that's what will be judged regarding our deeds and the harms or the wrongs that we've done before God, and these will often entail other people, but not always. That's why some people say, well, I can do whatever I want

as long as I'm not hurting someone else. Well, wait a me, you may be hurting yourself, for one, and you also, even so, even if you're hurting somebody else directly, you are still breaking God's holy law, which ought to be obeyed because God is God. Yeah, I think that that's really helpful. I think we do see that in our human laws and our human government, and that is analogous to that. Now, I'm forgetting what I was going to say. What's the question again? Oh, I know what I was going to say.

No matter... It's rubbing off here, Amy. I'm sorry I'm doing this to you. No matter how you make things right with a... Like, if you took something from them and you return it, you have still rebelled against God. And it doesn't... Even if you just think of it as another sin. I don't know that I would necessarily say it was a completely separate sin, but the rebellion

against the authority of the universe has not been paid for just because you pay back $1,000 or whatever it is you took. All right. I want to throw one more in here, Greg, since it's related. This one comes from Niggle. If Christ literally was punished for our sins, then how can it be said we are forgiven? If the debt is paid by another, one is not forgiven. forgiven it, but the obligation itself has been discharged by that other person.

We escape the penalty as of right, not grace. Okay, well, this is a little bit of a kind of a, there's a little complexity here, okay? And what was the last line about right and grace? We escaped the penalty as of right, not grace. And right, because the sin is, because the, because the sin is, because the, The debt has been paid, and we know it's no longer a debt, and so it can't be held against us. But it was paid by somebody who, through an act of unmerited favor, paid it. You can't separate the right now that you have in standing before God in virtue of forgiveness,

which I would agree with that if I'm understanding him correctly. But the reason that we're in this place is because of what Jesus did according to the grace of God. Now, I think Romans 5, the first verse or so, captures this. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God. We have peace with God. That's not the peace of God. Philippians talks about that. We're not talking about that.

We're talking about there's no longer war between two parties. It's an objective peace, you know. We sued for peace, so to speak. We have peace with God. In other words, God has not mad at us anymore because of these. through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we've received this introduction in the grace in which we stand and we exult in the hope and the glory of God. So you see both elements that are there in that passage.

You see the forensic element where the debt has been paid, and so therefore there's peace between the warring parties. Our debt has been paid, and so therefore God's not angry at us anymore, and that would be by right, But we only stand there by right because of an act of unmerited favor or grace that was given to us by the Father through Jesus. They're both involved with this. All three of them are actually involved with it, you know. So there's a false dichotomy going on here, all right. It seems to me if I understood the question why, I see you have this quizzical look on your face. Oh, no, I'm just listening to what you're saying.

Okay. So could you just read it again the question one more time. I'm from Niggle. I want to make sure that I've covered the basis here. If Christ literally was punished for our sins, then how can it be said we are forgiven? If the debt is paid by another, one is not forgiven it, but the obligation itself has been discharged by that other person. We escape the penalty as of right, not grace. Yeah, okay. So this is, Nagle is niggling on the word forgiven here a little bit. No, we are forgiven. We are released. Forgiveness is to release from the debt. Now, in this case, the

release of the debt. That's why forgive us our sins, forgive us our debts. Sometimes it's translated that way, the Lord's Prayer, as we forgive the debts of others, right? So there's a kinship there, and it's forensic, like, it's legal language, is what I'm saying. And so we are, the forgiveness is, and therefore the release of the debt is in virtue of the grace of God. It is forgiveness because Jesus, as how Lindsay used to say, took the wrap for our sins, you know, I think it's a clever way of putting it. He paid for our crimes. He paid for us, substitutionary atonement, to use the theological term. So I don't, I guess I just don't see the problem. Also, we have to be in Christ in order for him to represent us,

and that is purely by grace. So if, if Jesus takes the sin, our sin on himself, and he pays the penalty, then I guess he is forgiven by right for our sins in a way, but we have to be in him in order for him to be our representative, if that makes sense. And all of that, like you said, Greg, that's not something God owed us by right. He doesn't owe us any sort of pardon or payment provided for us. I guess I would say that Jesus was forgiven. I would say that Jesus took the punishment. It's kind of like if you, if I had a ticket.

Yeah, I don't think I said that well. Well, that's okay. Well, we just clarify. That's why I'm here. No, usually you say it better than I do. But so if I, if I, if I, if you have a parking ticket and I take the ticket and pay for it, I am not getting forgiven. You are being released yourself because the debt is. been paid for that kind of thing. So Jesus took the punishment on himself to pay the debt.

He is not being forgiven. Right, right. The language is sometimes, you know, unusual because it's a hard thing to talk about because it's ineffable. It's hard to explain. It's beyond us. And so he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God and Him. This is not ontological language. Jesus didn't turn into a lump of sin, you know, And now, we're a lump of righteousness. It's forensic. It's a trade, a legal trade. He took our blame, and therefore the punishment, do the blame, and we get his righteousness.

He takes our bad stuff. We get his good stuff. Okay. And so that's why I'm saying he wasn't forgiven. He was just the one who adequately paid the price so that we wouldn't have to, and that's forgiveness. Yes. Thank you for clarifying. my bad expression of it there. But in your analogy where you said if you pay someone else's

penalty, you don't have to pay their penalty. So the fact that you do pay the penalty and then you're not obliged to you. So that's where the grace is. So I think even if you just look at it in another context, so many times if you just try to understand the government of God by looking at our own government, we can see the principles of how things work. And I think that does help to explain. Well, I think that's on purpose. One of the things that God has given us are human magistrates government to mitigate the impact of evil in the world. It's a way of organizing us so that we survive in a fallen world. And family and churches are two other things that God has given. And so you should be surprised that human government in some ways is analogous, parallel to God's own government.

I think it's a good way of talking about it. Well, Romans 13 talks about how he created the institution of government to act in his place to bring about justice here. Punishment of evil doers and the praise of those who do right. All right. We are over time. But thank you so much, Brianna and Stephen and Niggle. And if you have a question, send it to us on X with the hashtag STR Ask, or you can always go to our website at STR.org. We need your questions, always, because your questions make our show.

So we'd love to hear from you. If there's something you've been thinking about, go ahead and send that question in. All right, well, we thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason. Thank you.