Isaiah Chapter 5

Isaiah Chapter 5 v 16

“But the LORD Almighty will be exalted by his justice, and the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness”

What qualities come to mind as making God stand out as different?

He is passionate about justice and righteousness. In these things he is completely out of our league. (“As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways” Isaiah 55 v 9).

In reality, God gets a lot of bad press about justice. We struggle with how he can allow the innocent to suffer and why he doesn’t intervene more often. Yet when he destroys an evil system (eg Sodom & Gomorrah Gen 19) we struggle with that too.
So how is the LORD Almighty exalted by his justice?

I did jury service many years ago. There was a difficult case of a young man who in a rash moment had overtaken on an unsighted road and killed another driver. It was impossible not to feel overwhelming sadness for everyone concerned yet the emotion that remains strongest for me from that day was a deep satisfaction of the fairness of the judge. I felt admiration for him, he was exalted by his justice.

If we want to make a difference in a society where tolerance and compromise prevail, perhaps we should take a careful look at our own standards of justice and righteousness.

“But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” Amos 5 v 24

Helen Hubert